This is the post where Doomie talks about Curt Boettcher

Also, are you familiar w/ Misty Mirage? I was just saying the other day that it might have some of the best Boettcher stuff I've heard...

Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp was a live-action children's program that aired on ABC television from September 12, 1970 to September 2, 1972. Created with the intention of cashing in on two proven successful television formulas, spy shows (Get Smart) and pop music (the Monkees and the Banana Splits). It was the Mr. Ed formula taken to the ultimate extreme. Lancelot Link featured actual live chimps with offscreen actors dubbing their goofy voices. It was actually funnier than it sounds. The half-hour series would follow a Get Smart-type plot involving the forces of good A.P.E. (Agency to Prevent Evil) against evil C.H.U.M.P. (Criminal Headquarters for Underworld Master Plan). The main characters besides Lancelot included Mata Hairi (Lancelot's girlfriend), Darwin, CHUMP the Baron, Creto Dragon Woman, and Dr. Strangemind. At the conclusion of each episode, a new song from the Evolution Revolution would be introduced. The Evolution Revolution consisted of several chimps dressed up in psychedelic threads situated around instruments with freaky outtasight camera angles perfected for the Saturday morning crowd. An album was released on the ABC label, but failed to make an impact on the charts. While the original album has become a prized collector's item, the track "Sha-La Love You" appears on the Varese compilation Bubblegum Classics, Vol. 3. In the '90s, Lancelot Link reruns were shown for a short period on the cable network Nickelodeon and TV Land.

Aside from one acoustic take on Saggitarrius's "Another Time," I wouldn't say that. It's just piecemeal, but holds together really well. It also has a few more overtly cosmic productions (and pretty dense ones at that) than even The Millennium stuff -- the cover of "Tumbling Tumbleweeds" that opens the disc is particularly phased-out. But the thing that seals it for me is the moments that sort of hit a troubadour-esque, Tim Buckley-singing-into-the-soft-pop-abyss thing. They're totally unique in his catalog -- as far as I know...

i've got an unreleased cd by an artist 'tasha lee' which features a pretty rad joey stec production. like the millennium, choral harmonies and some sparse electronics.

am listening to the ballroom. it's funny but do you think that curt could have progressed beyond begin?

Re. disco period, California Music seemed so-so, but I've always been a fan of the Boettcher-Johnston "Here Comes the Night."

but 'the island' and some other tracks were placed straight on begin almost untouched. he was a boy genius. ill have to check out here comes the night.

(off topic - have you heard the canterbury music festival ... am reviewing it, it's very rough curt worship happening on that disc).

YES YES YES CURT WAS PROTO-PROG PUNK ROCK.

can i make a current recommendation - pick up 'alfie - do you imagine things' - had a long talk with lee gorton and told me he was influenced by begin and IT SHOWS ... could possibly be answer album to begin.

going to dj lance linkalot/the left banke - lazy day/the ballroom baby please dont go and the millennium ...

have you read anything about URANTIA. my friend knows the surviving millenniums members. IT WAS A CULT. bizarre.

So what's the peeps' take on Millennium-related stuff: Sandy Salisbury, Gary Usher's "Beyond A Shadow of a Doubt," Lee Mallory?

salisbury - child-like wonder with nursery rhyme soul. can be unforgivably twee but i love him for it. joe knows him. nice guy who writes childrens books under a different name. the only one in the millennium who never touched on lsd tablet.

mallory - brough the buffalo springfield soul to the group - his album is twangy, hard, jangly, donovan .... (of course combined salisbury and mallory are brilliant ...)

not heard any usher beyond this easy listening 'add some music to your day' which i adore. i like symphonic versions of famous songs and add usher to the mix? PHROAWR.

alfie - it's the new one, the other ones didnt do it for me that mention but the new one is over-the-top and proper prog.

Salisbury: "Sandy" or "Falling To Pieces"?

that music helped see me through a rough spot - and much of the time I find even just the voice of Curt Boettcher electrifying - sounds silly I know - but seeming to channel a healing love-of-life, ups & downs: the wonder.

I must have found out about Sagittarius Present Tense thru Barney Hoskyn's Waiting For The Sun book about L.A. music, then gone on from there - amazing what one small link can do!

it isn't already?

And wasn't it the Association record that sent Brian Wilson into a drug crazed spiralling hell?

have you heard the chad and jeremy album that usher was working on around then? purdy sweet.

OK, as a side point, the moment I heard "I still can see your face" on "The Blue Marble" I knew I'd heard it before - has this song been covered by anyone?

I don't have any of them, but I know that's always been the rap on him. I must say, though, that I'm fond of "Lonely Girl," which is a bonus track on the first Sagittarious album -- not just bubblegum, more pure pop. Great chorus, too.

Nice review in PFM of Pieces the other day, btw, Dom...

-- Naive Teen Idol (matthewjweine...),

Think it was Lee Mallory's "That's The Way It's Gonna Be"

I've just been sent an MP3 of Curt & Tandyn Almer demo-ing "Along Comes Mary". That's kind of interesting.
"Begin" is marvellous, one of my favourite records ever, primarly due to Curt's pillow-of-sound production. But the market is truly saturated with this stuff now. I think every Millennium-related demo (including Lee & Sandy's solo stuff) has now been released at least three times (Dreamsville Japan, Poptones/Revola, Sony, & Joey's current issues on Sonic Past). I'm wary of buying any more of this product in case I've already bought it twice before.

I've said this before, but one of the best examples of this sound wasn't produced by Curt at all, but by Dick Glasser. I'm talking about the Thomas & Richard Frost LP "Visualise", finally issued last year on Revola. Utter perfection.

But I bet that mp3 is really interesting. Tandyn Almer, genius, unsung composer and purveyor of the Tandyn Slave-Master water bong.

Has anyone heard the Gary Usher "Beyond A Shadow Of A Doubt" album? The one trac on Stec's website is really excellent. Or that Michelle album for that matter...

i haven't heard it, what year is this from. how much does it differ from the sacramento single from 65 (which is amazing!)

i have the michelle lp. its ok, i like the version of magic frog, more than the version on the sagittarius album

One of the leading, if not THE, cult figure in the am1_azingly popular Softpop field, Curt Boettcher seemed to lose his way somewhat musically after the demise of his Together Records label. His attempts at singer songwriter and even Disco material were very good, but somehow lacked the spark of his earlier work. We had heard rumours of an unfinished album, and even heard rough mixes of two songs, but it was not until recently that we located the masters for this, Boettcher's lost and last masterpiece!

Grasping hold of a new acoustic format as firmly as he had the baroque softpop of his earlier work, Boettcher was on the verge of finishing the album when Elektra pulled the plug, sticking him with a hefty studio bill! Now here are all the finished tracks, the work-in-progress mixes, and as a bonus, Curt's original demos of "It's A Sad World", and his very first hit with The Association, "Along Comes Mary"... you want more? How about a completely unreleased and forgotten full band demo from his Ballroom/Millennium period? Thought you might like it!

I Call You My Rainbow / It's A Sad Old World / Believe You / Louise / Out Of The Dark / Astral Cowboy / Rest In Peace / Sunrise Mango / Sunsets Falling / We're Dying / Along Comes Mary

Also, how's it going, Doomie?

Shall we revive this?

Really, we should.

How about now?

The Usher Beyond the Shadow of a Doubt record is as good as I'd hoped.

for a second i thought this thread title meant you were doomie. but you weren't doomie. where did doomie go?

I have no idea. Doomie and I posted on this thread furiously for a bit. Then he invited me to come to England – to celebrate soft pop or something, I can't remember.

Then I never heard from him again.

Did he work for Rev-Ola or something? I seem to recall he was wired in to this scene in some way.

it's all a blur...

Also, this is a pretty nice piece on Beyond a Shadow of a Doubt by the guy who collaborated on these tracks (very elaborate demos, really) with Usher:

http://www.scrammagazine.com/beyond-a-shadow-of-usher

dang, I thought I'd never see footage of Curt Boettcher, but here you go:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfPROGveElU

(from the 1965 folk boom cash-in flick Once Upon a Coffeehouse. there's another cliphere and there's a live Goldebriars performance here)

the first Goldebriars album is standard coffeehouse/summercamp folk with obvious debts to Bob Gibson and Peter Paul Paul & Mary, but Curt's vocal arrangements were pretty advanced even at that early stage -- cuts like Railroad Boy and Voyager's Lament anticipate The Mamas & The Papas and The Free Design more than anything else I've heard from 1964, though I'm not sure how many people actually heard the record at the time. their second album is more of a folk-pop effort, but it pales in comparison to the similarly styled Ballroom material on the Magic Time box set. iirc Curt claimed that The Goldebriars were the first ever folk-rock band, but that was probably just puffery. has anyone heard their archival third album?