Plastic Magic podcast #275 june 30, 2013

Hey Hey everybody out there in radio land! Here is what we listened to on the night of June 30th as Plastic Magic was broadcast over KXUA and WBCQ: SILVER METRE (1970), PEOPLE! (1968), THE SPEAKERS (1968), IRON BUTTERFLY (1969), STRAY DOG (1973), JERRY GARCIA (1974), MAHOGANY RUSH (1975), TRAFFIC (1970), URIAH HEEP (1971), THE PEANUT BUTTER CONSPIRACY (1968), THE SONS (1969), SPIRIT (1968) and much more! dOwNLoaD it HEAR: podcast #275

Plastic Magic podcast #274 June 23, 2013

The supermoon sounds: SUGARLOAF (1970), THE BLUES PROJECT (1967), THE HUMAN BEINZ (1968), FRANK ZAPPA (1970), SEATRAIN (1973) THE BYRDS (1973), JAMES GANG (1973), MORLEY GREY (1972), TRAPEZE (1970), BLOOD, SWEAT &TEARS (1968), BUCKWHEAT (1971), THE MUSIC MACHINE (1966), MORNING DEW (1971), and more. DOWnLoAD hEAr: podcast #274

Plastic Magic podcast #273 June, 16th, 2013 Father's Day

Hey Happy Father's Day! Well, it's not father's day anymore....but....here is what we listened to for the father's day show which was broadcast live over WBCQ 5110KHz and KXUA 88.3FM: DADDY COOL (1972), SIR DOUGLAS QUINTET (1969), THE CITY (1968), MICAH (1971), BADGER (1972) BLACK OAK ARKANSAS (1973), ELMER GANTRY'S VELVET OPERA (1967), THE ILLUSION (1969), THE CONTENTS ARE (1967), JACK BRUCE (1971), ZZ TOP (1975) and much more including an interview I recorded with Cinci, OH group The BUFFALO KILLERS at The Wakarusa Festival a couple of weeks ago. Hear it all right here: podcast 273

Mary Butterworth (1969) review

(printed below is my first published record review. see more at It's Psychedelic Baby Magazine)

Mary Butterworth - Mary Butterworth (1969) review

Mary Butterworth  “Mary Butterworth” (Custom Fidelity, 1969)

A few years ago, probably 6 years or so, I was at a flea market in Alma, AR hunting thru records in a box. What a remarkable story this is sounding like, huh? Record collectors live a dangerous life not many folks would believe. On your hands and knees looking thru old boxes in sometimes moldy wet back corners of places. Risking getting bit by spiders. But it is thrilling in a way that is hard to describe to someone who doesn't care. Someone who just doesn't understand. But for those of us who do it as a lifestyle. There is the thrill of the unknown when you walk into some junk shop in a little place off the highway between somewhere and somewhere else and you ask the person at the counter if there are any records for sale and they lead you somewhere down the isle and point to a few boxes. This sometimes a drag when you start to go thru it and it's shit like Bing Crosby's Christmas album or Wham's Greatest Hits or...well, you get it. But when I walk up to that big box or two in that place you've never been before and the one showing is something like Deep Purple or The Pentangle, there is an excited feeling. Hope! Because you just don't know what you may find! I've spent my whole life doing this and it's still thrilling. One of the coolest things in this is that a lot of times you can get some great treasures for a dollar or two each. I'm not a cheapskate but I'm saying it's just part of it. I am at the point now where the records I'm looking for are quite pricey, re-issue or otherwise. But still sometimes the "my new favorite" album is some band I find in one of these boxes that I have never heard of. I do things a lot of the time I refer to as "label shopping". Meaning if it's on Viva records or Double Shot or Impulse! or something like that it most likely WILL be worth buying. Or you recognize names of players or sometimes it was simply recorded in the 60's or early 70's and the cats on the cover look like they know there way around a joint.  And man oh man I have gotten lucky a few times!

Ok so where were we? Oh yeah, Alma, Arkansas, and I have told this story many times on my radio show. But I was at this little place in Alma, I forgot what it was called (that's what I say when I don't want to give up secrets) but I'm looking thru this box of Lps and come across a record called Mary Butterworth, which by the way, is possibly a very misleading name. I might add that in this box the other items were of no interest at all, at least not to me, and nothing even close to what Mary Butterworth is. The other records in the box were things like Tom T. Hall and George Strait, maybe Mel Tillis, but no other rock and roll. At the time I had never heard of Mary Butterworth at all but in the categories I mentioned above, it was obviously recorded in the 60's and the cats looked like they knew their way around a joint. The cover looks like it is homemade. It is all hand drawn in black and white with a big monster looking guy, a spider with an eyeball on it's back, a caterpillar crawling on a curtain rod. On the back It has pictures of the guys in the group which are Michael Hunt (drums, vocal), Michael Lachus (Hammond), Michael Ayling (bass, flute, vocal) and Jim Giordano (guitar) and hand drawn calligraphy written like maybe in Latin (?) says: "To raise vp ye hellish shade of Ag, whom ye scribe rendereth as ye Toad's bvtler, invoke 1st ye IIVII daemons" and then goes on to list names I guess thanking people.

Well, I bought it for $.75 and when I got home I looked it up in my Goldmine book and it is worth $75.00 in VG, $150.00 in VG plus and $300.00 NM. I am proud to say my copy is in very very good shape cover and all. I have heard rumours of this album selling for over a $1000 a copy though! And I guess I should mention, that it is well known now, one of the songs on this Lp was used in Sofia Coppola's film Lost In Translation which surely helps to add to the popularity (and say's something about Sofia too)

Custom Fidelity is a label that, as I understand it,  was in the business of making a record for people that came in the door wanting to record a record and pay these people to help them accomplish that. Meaning they are not a "Warner Brothers" or "Electra". No talent scouts looking for the next big teenage group to sell a million copies. If you had the money they would record it and press it for you. As I understand it, there may have been only 350 originals pressed. I could be wrong about that.  And this, friends, is what makes this a private press album. They had no distribution thru record shops and only sold copies to friends and at gigs. This is why I had to make this story about Alma too. Alma? How the hell did it make it there?!

The band is from southern California. They formed in the spring of 1968 and recorded this album in 1969. The record has a very warm beautiful pro sound. This is the kind of record that was made to play thru vacuum tubes and horn-loaded Klipsch speakers. It is very organ heavy with the sickest echo-y drum sound you could ever hope to hear. Actually, there are echo-y, little spacey flourishes in the production all over this. The lyrics are mostly about girls (hey, what's wrong with that?). To my ears there is not a bad song on the whole record. Very psychedelic, a little blues, the songs are well arranged, played well and beautiful. Well worth it's great reputation as one of the sought after private press psych classics of the 60's. It's only 6 songs and probably not much more that 30 minutes. This is their only Lp but I think they have one 45 also.

Review made by Phillip R. Eubanks (of Plastic Magic)/2013

© Copyright http://psychedelicbaby.blogspot.com/2013

Plastic Magic Podcast # 272 June 9th, 2013

Folks, let the good times roll! Add this to your summertime list: HAMPTON GREASE BAND (1971), THE HASSLES (1968), STATUS QUO (1972), ATHANOR (1976), DEEP PURPLE (1974), AYERS ROCK (1974), SANTANA (1971), MANFRED MANN (1969), THE AMBOY DUKES (1969), THEE OH SEES (2013), RAIN (1969), JONI MITCHELL (1969), SOUND FOUNDATION (1971) and more! DowNLoAD iT hEAR: podcast #272

The Story of Rubber Dubber Records

This last weekend a friend of mine and fellow record collector, Orlis, who owned and operated The Record Exchange in various downtown locations around Dickson St in Fayetteville thru the 70's - 90's, loaned me a stack of Lp's for the show. The dude has  the biggest Hendrix collection you could ever hope to see. When going thru those I found a few in just plain white covers with the basic info stamped on them. When I ask which ones he recommended, his response was something like "some of the Rubber Dubbers" are real good". I asked "what is Rubber Dubbers"? And he pulled some of these with the plain white covers. He said you could buy them at "head shops" in the 70's. When I got them home, I was curious about this "label". I did a google search and came up with this story from: Texas Chain Saw Massacre . Here it is:

Rubber Dubber Records
By Jerry Rigged
For those of you not old enough to remember, Rubber Dubber records were live concert bootleg recordings that were first marketed in plain white double jackets with the Rubber Dubber logo stamped on them. I first got involved with Rubber Dubber Records in the summer of ’70.  Living the hippie life wasn’t feeding my dog or me.  That forced me to find a day gig.  I wasn’t playing music in bands at the time, so when I was offered a job in the print shop of a record pressing plant in Grand Prarie, Texas, I took it.  I found myself printing the record labels for Jimi Hendrix, Led Zeppelin, Crosby, Stills, Nash& Young, etc., never realizing that these were bootleg recordings.  But soon after my arrival, the “suites” who owned the plant began to think about the longhaired kid in the print shop as a possible salesman who could sell a few records on the side in the numerous “head shops” that were sprouting up in the Dallas/Fort Worth area.  They realized that they would never even get into the door of those places.  The owner offered to front me a few albums and promised me half the profit on sales.  I didn’t know much about artists’ royalties at the time and figured the artists were getting paid.  I sold a ton of those albums in the local area.  I had such great success with the local sales that the “suites” decided they would finance me to take a load up through the mid-west and hit every head shop I could find.  I would send money to them through the mail and they would ship me albums.  I was making about $2,000 a month for myself.  I have no idea where the money went as I shared my newfound wealth with friends and strangers. My younger brother Chuck and I traveled through Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Missouri, all the way to Illinois.  I had to have Thorazine administered to me because of a bad trip in Kansas and we were raided in a motel room in St. Louis because some poor soul overdosed in the next room.  We managed to escape every time we were hasseled by law enforcement agencies by playing “hick Texas hippie kids” until we landed in Chicago in October. The police stopped us in “Old Town” because of my old “59 GMC panel truck plastered with hippie bumper stickers that was loaded on the back axel.  Those old albums weighed a ton, but they assumed it was a load of weed from Mexico because of the Texas tags.  Besides that, they were still up tight from the ’68 SDS riots at the Democratic Convention.  The police threw everything we had, including my guitar and Chuck’s bongos out onto the streets of Chicago.  They ruined my guitar.  We had just consumed our last roach and weren’t even “holding,” so they couldn’t bust us on drugs.  Finally, they confiscated 
Chuck’s rather long pocketknife and my 22 cal. starter pistol (basically a cap gun) and charged us with the possession of illegal weapons.  They allowed Chuck to drive the truck to the station, but I rode in the back seat  of the patrol car, with my hands handcuffed behind my back. All this time, we put on our best southern manners.  That caused them to chill out somewhat and to not consider us dangerous, but they held us in a large precinct station for about five hours.  While we were in the interrogation room with the detectives, officers brought in a couple of girls about our age and literally threw them “up against the wall,” as the old saying goes.  We later learned that the girls were really “dudes” in drag.  We had never encountered such a thing in Texas at the time, but soon began to feel sorry for the dudes because of the treatment they were getting from what we considered as “the pigs.”  Those perverts made the dudes strip down to their bras and panties for their mug shots.  Later they passed the mug shots around the station boisterously laughing and slapping one another on the back.  They even tried to amuse us with the shots.  Their behavior was disgusting and that made us nervous for ourselves.  We continued to “yes sir and no sir” for most of the time.  They were waiting for the arresting officer to arrive and book us, but he never showed up.  Finally our “manners” got to them.  They decided to keep our “weapons” and only charge me with a cracked windshield on the truck which was perfectly legal (and still is) in Texas.  The bond was $25, which I promptly paid.  Then they told us we had 24 hours to get out of Chicago or they would arrest us again.  I think it took us two of those 24 to get out.  To this day I have never met anyone else who was ever kicked out of Chicago like my brother and I were.  But we kept the records and the money and continued for a few more weeks through the Dakotas, Colorado, and New Mexico before returning to Texas. Later after another trip with my older brother Randy, when we arrived at Rodent Ranch (our old shack in the country south of Arlington), I was surprised to see a Lincoln Continental in the driveway.  I walked in and the first person I saw was the secretary from The Record Plant and a big burly and tall hippie looking character who introduced himself as Chuck Kane (I never knew if that was his real name).  The girl told me he was one of the founders of Rubber Dubber and that we had been selling their products without authorization from them.  He explained the Rubber Dubber concept of giving the artists the royalties from these bootleg recordings.  This impressed me because I considered myself an emerging artist at the time and I didn’t want any bad “karma” to come back on me.  They weren’t angry with me because of my sales, in fact it was quite the opposite.  They were so impressed with me that they invited me to be a part of Rubber Dubber and move to L.A.  Heck, he was even taking the secretary back to L.A.  I later moved her for him, but that is part of another story.  Rubber Dubber cancelled their contract with The Record Plant, and pulled out all the remaining stock.  The poor “suites” didn’t know what to do and eventually were out of business. L.A. was one big party.  I hadn’t been to California since ’68 and it had changed a lot.  I met the other partners of Rubber Dubber.  They were living high on the hog off the profits.  I learned much later that the artists never received a dime in royalties from any of the recordings.  We rented a warehouse in East L.A. and ran the operation from there.  We decided to use the contacts we had gathered (my mid-west sales had doubled their database) and use the telephone instead of travel.  We had our own shrink-wrap machine in the warehouse and had employees to do the shipping.  The warehouse doubled as a big party/jam room and we had some parties.  It was during this time I bought an electric piano and got serious again about piano along with guitar. We would buy tickets to concerts well in advance.  Chuck would take the recorder in on a backpack.  On two occasions, I crippled in with a shotgun microphone stuck down my britches.  I recorded a back-to-back piano duet concert by Elton John and Leon Russell.  I also recorded Neil Young.  We knew that it was illegal, but I believed that the fans wanted it and that the artists would get paid from it.

 The partying lasted until the day the U.S. Marshals showed up with an injunction and a cease and desist order.  I was reading recently that there were some private detectives with them, but I was there,  and I know that there were only two marshals.  We managed to lure them into an office that I shared with Chuck.  He started smooth talking the marshals while I left the room, locking the door behind me.  They were locked up inside the office with Chuck and didn’t even know it.  I think that was Chuck’s idea.  He was a good con artist. Meanwhile, the rest of us loaded incriminating evidence into boxes and into the trunks of several cars, including my truck.  After dispatching the rest of the gang, I unlocked the door and left.  Later when Chuck came out, all the evidence was gone and they were they mad.  They ran him out and placed a notice on the door and left.  Several people were named on subpoenas, but I wasn’t named at all.  I wasn’t one of the “big cheeses.”  We later regrouped in Malibu and operated out of there for a while. but I decided to move to Oregon where I had heard about a hippie haven.  I wanted to distance myself from the situation.  In Oregon, I did some telephone business from up there, but Rubber Dubber soon died.  I never learned what happened to the rest of the gang.  I hate to mention names in a matter like this.  I mentioned Chuck because I don’t think that was his real name.  We did do a few other things that were unsavory in the eyes of the law that benefited us.  I refuse to elaborate on the grounds of the Fifth Amendment.  These events, combined with the large amounts of acid I was consuming at the time, contributed to my spiritual awakening which would happen later in Oregon. I found these three jacket covers on the Internet recently.  I lost my personal collection somewhere in my travels.  If anyone out there has a copy and could scan it and send it to me, I will gladly put them up on the site just for kicks.  It is a part of Rock and Roll history. (Links anyone?).  Rubber Dubber was  written about in Rolling Stone, Time Magazine, as well as L.A. newspapers and God knows where else.

Plastic Magic podcast #271 June 2, 2013

Hey everybody out there in podcast land!! Sorry I'm so late in posting this one but here it is: JD BLACKFOOT (1970), THE BEAU BRUMMELS (1965), THE FUGS (1968), SPOOKY TOOTH (1970), THE OHIO PLAYERS (1973), FLO AND EDDIE (1972), HP LOVECRAFT (1968), STEPHEN AND THE FARM BAND (1973), THE TURTLES (1969), MARY BUTTERWORTH (1969) It's Psychedelic Baby,

SUTHERLAND BROTHERS AND QUIVER (1975), CLEAR LIGHT (1967), ZACKERY THAKS (1968), SHINDING SHOP (1993), BLUE BOY ORLIS AND THE STOMPERS (1992).This show was originally broadcast over KXUA 88.3FM and WBCQ 5110KHz and now avail to you thru free podcast download here: podcast #271