The Greatest Lost 60s Group

I first became aware of It's A Beautiful Day when I saw them referred to as "godawful hippie mindlessness", and thought, "g.h.m. 90s style = bad, g.h.m. 60s style = could be interesting". However, I didn't think about them until later on when I lived in (of all places) San Francisco, where some tie-dyed scene vets raved about this incredible song called "White Bird" and this lost genius violinist David LaFlamme. These people were in their 50s and still took acid every weekend, but when I first heard "White Bird", I was mesmerized. I know, the title sounds like an Ali G sketch, but this track was different to other Summer of Love shit - a violin/organ-led drone that sounded rather like Roxy Music circa "Mother of Pearl", discreet descant chick vox, and a lead singer who sounded like Scott Walker with a long beard and patchouli oil, or Midge Ure after a bongful. The sound was also really full and lush, unlike the Airplane's or the Dead's washboard scratchings, and the rhythm was an assured laid-back kind of motorik. (The Delgados also came to mind while listening recently.) So, 'hippie', most assuredly - 'mindless', I prefer to say 'addled', 'innocent', or 'acid, man' - 'godawful', definitely not!
That's on their first album, which also includes an instrumental "Bombay Calling", and we all know Brit sesh axes were thieves like J. Page so if Ritchie Blackmore didn't steal EVERY NOTE of this for "Child in Time" (just listen it's the SAME FUCKING SONG) then I'm a...hippie, I guess. (Well, DG seems to think I have long hair, but he's mistaken!) The album is pretty good, similar "Bird"-y lush production, Leary-esque 'profundity' ("Time! Is! Too fast for those that FEEL!"), and one guitar-freakout with the thickest electroshock fuzz-tone that wasn't on "21st Century Schizoid Man" or 'Locust Abortion Technician'. (Of course, the lyrics mainly consist of repeating "I'm so wasted"). For fans of sixties 'pop masterpieces', this should be in your collection next to 'Forever Changes' and 'Ogden's Nut Gone Flake', if not 'Pet Sounds' or 'Revolver'. True, the "Time" song (Late, unlamented 60s trope - constantly BITCHING ABOUT STUFF NOBODY CAN DO ANYTHING ABOUT! "Time", "rain", "seasons", "my head", "the Man" etc., no wonder everybody hates hippies!) ends with a drum solo - but the drums are compressed and flanged so it sounds more nu-wave and plasticky, not like QMS or somebody, and poetry/Flaming Lips fans can ponder "There's a girl with no eyes, who's staring at..." (left blank). Cosmic or what?
The second album, however, is where things get interesting! Called 'Marrying Maiden', (ironically as LaFlamme's wife left the band after the debut, but they got Pablo Cruise's future bass player so it's an ill wind etc.), it was either a)a brave-but-failed attempt to create a new acid-pop with even lusher production and even freakier guitar eruptions, or b)an LSD-soaked mess by an already-confused band losing any sense of direction. Either way, they'd definitely left behind the 'Boycott Syndicate Acid' Haight St. musically (there's ELEVEN tracks, which is about eight more than most innerspace voyageurs stuck on albums in those days), and now occupied a space with the 60s awkward squad - Silver Apples, the ESP mob, Skip Spence, Van Dyke Parks, United States of America etc., except with that lush Roxy/"Cybele's Reverie"-esque sound, along with a few electric bluegrasses that link the Dead with the Meat Puppets. The only thing that fixes this to the era from whence it came is the lyrics - and if you want 'hippie', Christ, here's the first stop. This stuff makes John Power sound like Johny Rotten! Track 2 is called "Dolphins", in which La Flamme pours scorn on all the suits who are ruining the world, while he'd rather "look for dolphins", and "think about Saturday's child" (like Jonathan King? I hope not, but it sounds uncomfortably like those bearded guys who drive around in old schoolbuses painted purple who put on 'spontaneous music workshops' with bongos etc., and inevitably get arrested on morals charges years later.) The ending has the vocal reverbed to shit like on "Space Oddity", with Ziggy vibrato and Zappa sneering ("Go ahead and drink your wine, everything's fine!" That's sticking it to the Man!) Track 3, "Essence of Now", is sung in a really hilarious Mark Hollis impersonation. In fact, if you were to play this record in Hollis' presence, he'd have no choice but to kill you, it's that broad a caricature. (What does it mean when every song on an album is sung in a different voice by the same singer?)
"Waiting for the Song" is a cappella, and you can hear individual voices wavering in and out of tune - the effect is very close to early Eno, or Portsmouth Sinfonia, very nice. After that comes a bossa-nova Bacharach-style pop concoction with weird electro-bleeps placed randomly, topped with the ultimate oily swinger's spiel ("I let that woman flow, with her own natural rhythm"!) and broken up with flamenco interludes sung in Spanish. Track 8 - well, here we have a cultural artifact, one that encapsulated another age, that began in dreams of utopia and psychedelic illumination, and ended in a 'Scanner Darkly' (PKD - have you read this? Most frightening sci-fi drug novel ever, written 1975, the absolute low point of sixties fallout - every character dead or insane after tripping into oblivion - I actually pledged to give up drugs after reading it, which lasted for about a week, but still, it was pretty disturbing) nightmare of ruined bodies and souls - this track is the exact chronological/spiritual point between "Rainy Day Women #12 & 35" (Ha ha, aren't naughty drug references fun, hee hee) and "Perfect Day" ("This...is...not..a...drug...song...[vomits, scratches ass]). Wide-eyed and happy like the rabbit entranced by the lysergic truck about to squash it, it's a ridiculously upbeat John Denver-style cod-country, with lyrics like "What is this feeling deep inside of me, that makes me smile at everyone I see! I want to write down everything we say!" Of course, the 'feeling' is ascribed to the 'sunshine', so those 'in the know' can snicker about it REALLY being 'California Sunshine'. I wonder if they ever had giant insects crawling all over them? I've never heard such an uncritical, unambiguous paean to Mr. Owsley's magic shoppe - and for that era, you know that's got to be pretty extreme! The album winds down with some droning spoken-word pieces alternating with SERIOUSLY noisy fuzz-guitar, more Spanish/Mexican touches, organ drones, electronically processed drums, and about 950 types of reverb, but as previously stated, it's all compressed to sound pristine, which makes all the difference, making woeful garage revivalists like Spacemen 3 sound like the curators they were. In fact, I listened to this album repeatedly trying to get a handle on it, but everything changed so radically and unexpectedly that I was reduced to writing notes every time I was reminded of something. Here's what I came up with during the last TWO tracks: "Smog, Pavement. Definite Butthole Surfers during the spoken-word/guitar duets. Godspeed You Black Emperor? Kid A. Sigur Ros maybe."
In fact, having to resort to such a lazy and terrible critical method is the mark of a great album, for me. I had NO idea how to react to this record. And as a result, I can listen to it all the time and hear something else that jars, or otherwise makes me drop the joint I'm making and say "WTF???"
Sixties-pop fans - sixties-pop-influenced fans - check this out!