Zakary Thaks Passage To India - A Review for the Real Fan

I am proceeding under the assumption that you all know who this late, great, Corpus Christi, Texas Psychedelic band was. This review is about the sonic quality of this disc.

This is the Kiloh “Papa Doc” Smith review of the new CD by the Zakary Thaks - Passage to India. This disc is out on the Cicadelic Records label. This is a Tucson, Arizona label known for being a *sort of* clone of the dreadful Collectibles label (Contemptables to the fans in the know). This distinction is approximately twenty years old so… who knows? Maybe Cicadelic has turned over a new leaf?

Anyway, I brought the disc home and played it at a LOUD volume on my home stereo. I have included a video of this stereo in action below. I put this disc to the test. I mean, we already know the music is great but how is the sound?

Overall, I am pleased with this disc. I am sure that it has some compression on it but it’s not the hack-job that Charly Records perpetrated upon the 13th Floor Elevators catalog recently. I crank it up and the treble sounds clear. The bass end of the spectrum sounds a bit mashed together but acceptable. One can easily hear that the tracks are from different sources; a lot of time wasn’t spent on the mastering by the sound of it. Let’s face it, Cicadelic isn’t Sundazed. Cicadelic? Next time forget about the twenty page booklet and spend the energy on the mastering of the disc.

The bonus tracks are a hodge-podge from, obviiiiously, different sources. The tracks near the end are from nth generation taped sources and sound like shit. The sound is crapping out right and left. It sounds like these last three, or four, tracks were from taped sources with sonic issues and were just slapped onto the disc and cranked up to match the output of the other stuff; they sound like shit. The 'Thaks version of Levitation is particularly affected. The last song, I'm A Man, is unlistenable. I'd like to note that both of these songs were lifted from the legendary Zakary Thaks Tape that was first issued to the public by the Roky CD Club. This is a video recording, taken from a VHS copy of the master, ripped to CD. Cicadelic just took an audio rip from our video CD.

I have a word of advice for all of the Cicadelic, Contemptables & Charly-type labels of the reissue world: GET IN TOUCH WITH ME! I'll put you in touch with the Wizards of the Roky CD Club! We will show you how to properly master a CD from vintage (and different) recordings! Quit fucking things up!

Anyway, dear readers, your best bet is to find out if Cicadelic has a vinyl issue of this title and rip it to CD yourself. I love hearing that dynamic range with the touch of original tape hiss on the master. If you can’t do that, this disc will suffice but be warned of the issues with it.

Zakary Thaks Passage To India Track Listing:

1. Face To Face
2. Passage To India
3. Green Crystal Ties
4. My Door (mono)
5. Reality Is The Only Answer
6. Can You Hear Your Daddy’s Footsteps
7. Mirror Of Yesterday
8. Please
9. Bad Girl
10. I Need You
11. Won’t Come Back
12. Weekday Blues
13. Face To Face (alternate version)
14. Out Print
15. Everybody Wants To Be Somebody
16. I’ve Got Levitation
17. I’m A Man

This is the stereo that I reviewed the CD on:

The Lemon Fog

The Lemon Fog were a Houston-based garage band signed by Ray McGinnis to the Orbit Records label (along with the Nomads). They were one of the first bands to emerge from the Houston Psychedelic Scene along with the Dadaistic Red Crayola and the mighty Nomads. The Lemon Fog's sound was initially typical garage band-dance material but soon advanced into a (sort of) lysergic folk rock sound, like the Byrds or Beau Brummels, with the complexity of Moby Grape.

The Lemon Fog were pioneers of a sound that merged punk and psychedelia into a newly integrated mind-blowing potpourri of music. Their lyrics reflected youth's alienation and search for something other than the American dream; a search beyond the normal dimensions of logic and time into the realm of the unknown.

A key ingredient to the change in the Lemon Fog's sound was (now) Game Show Host, Ted Eubanks, who was a composer on Houston's Mod Scene at the time. Eubanks saw a show at St. Regis College for the Arts and approached them. The band liked his ideas, and Eubanks began putting original songs into the group's sets. He also changed their image from clean-cut, matching suits to psychedelic, including beads. The Lemon Fog quickly became recognized as one of the more formidable bands in Houston.

Only three singles were ever issued on the group by Orbit, although they recorded many hours' worth of demos under Eubanks' direction; he handled most of the songwriting, alternating with Duncan. The best of these was "The Living Eye Theme," also known as "The Lemon Fog," which reached number eight on the regional and local charts in the Houston area. The group was a major draw there and in the Houston area, and made many television appearances promoting their singles.

Personality conflicts eventually doomed the band, despite some extraordinary music to their credit. The pictures at the top are master tapes, a Larry Kane letter and Ted Eubanks letter.

Big Mama Thornton Vulcan Gas Company 3/21-22/69

Big Mama Thornton toured the South as a rhythm- and blues singer. In 1951 she moved to Houston and signed to Peacock Records. There she recorded "Hound Dog" with Johnny Otis. In 1954, Thornton witnessed the accidental self-inflicted gunshot death of blues singer Johnny Ace. In the early 1960s she left Houston and moved to the San Francisco Bay Area, where she mostly played local blues clubs.

In the late 1960s, Big Mama recorded several seminal albums for Chris Strachwitz, producer of Arhoolie Records, these included Big Mama Thornton: In Europe (1966), backed by Buddy Guy, Walter Horton, & Freddy Below; Big Mama Thornton with the Chicago Blues Band (1967), with Muddy Waters, Sam "Lightnin'" Hopkins, & Otis Spawn. Rock and Roll artists recorded many of these powerful recordings themselves. In fact, Ball & Chain became a signature song for Thornton's great admirer Janis Joplin, and in 09/1968 Thornton appeared at the Sky River Rock Festival with a lineup that included the Grateful Dead, James Cotton, and Santana.

A few months after the Sky River Festival Big Mama played the Vulcan Gas Company on 3/21-22/69 with New Atlantis. This beautiful handbill was created to promote that show. After the show, Jim Franklin took Big Mama out to breakfast. He has some precious stories about that.

13th Floor Elevators Never Another

13th Floor Elevators Never Another is one of the most psychedelic and demented songs ever done. Tommy Hall's jug sounds like a thousand birds chirping away while Roky Erickson is going, going... gone. Erickson's psychiatric problems are well-documented elsewhere so there is no need to visit them here. However, Never Another is the sound of Erickson going off the edge of the known universe.

Danny Thomas said in an interview that, by the end of 1968, the whole band was either:

1) In jail
2) In a mental hospital
3) On the run from the Texas Rangers

At the time that Never Another was recorded the band was working on their 3rd album called: Beauty And The Beast. Roky was beginning his trips to the mental hospital that would continue, off and on, for the next thirty years of his life.

Tommy Hall was losing it too. He began talking this nonsense that Houston was the "New Jerusalem" and Austin was Damascus or some such bullshit. He even tried to correlate this by comparing maps of Texas with the Middle East.

Suffice it to say that they were losing their minds after years of LSD use. The band was ready to fracture apart, never to reassemble as a cohesive unit, and Never Another was one of their last Statements with the Holy Trinity intact: Tommy, Roky, Stacy. Wow, it's a study in something...

The first video is the original version, from Bull Of The Woods, with the horns intact. In their infinite wisdom International Artists decided to overdub horns onto the music of the 13th Floor Elevators. The result is... demented.

The second video is a rougher, and different, take. There are no horns but listen to Roky, one can hear him "losing it"; he sounds positively lysergic. Roky is one of those guys like Syd Barrett; he can sound completely psychedelic even when just singing and playing an acoustic guitar.

Never Another Lyrics:

The story you are living from
The other Symphony,
Ensures such coolness inside my heart,
of Love in harmony

Your simplest gestures echoes out,
Your entire destiny,
Our fates combined, but have no fear,
Give your love to me

I groove on yours.. changing mind,
Its bright, it’s our thoughts combined
It’s not chance.. the way we view round,
Our thing happens right on time

They just see that our two backs,
together make one human
Freedom palace bares our souls,
and makes us all the new one

From oasis you can need me
It just summons me to wear

If I face it that would leave me,
Where your shore is just out there,
it’s only my love that was ended
like it’s only my love that got there

It’s only my love they would give you,
In the genius of all that we share

Never another like you
Never another like you

Do what’s good or
Do what’s good to you

13th Floor Elevators I Don't Ever Want to Come Down

One 13th Floor Elevators I Don't Ever Want to Come Down video by scrambledheadz and another by Mick.

This was a Gold Star acetate. There is a single existing copy of this 10" acetate. It was discovered at the former Gold Star Studios in the mid-1980's and was sold in a Goldmine magazine auction to a private collector in 1985. This acetate was the source of the previously lost/forgotten song I Don't Ever Want To Come Down which was first released on the Elevator Tracks LP in 1987.

13th Floor Elevators I Don't Ever Want to Come Down lyrics:

Well some they pledge allegiance while others treasure seek
And soul wisdom spoken back, each life will be unique
Some want only pleasure, you only want to please
Or bring as the highest life that prayer ever sees.

I don’t ever want to come down from your village and your big town

I won’t tell foreigners earth’s their home
Well armed by the life you’ve been making
And not crush powers not your own
Just stick to your own overtaking

I don’t ever want to come down from your village and your big town

Encouraging all men, I wish you would
To live in a fable, I wish you would
I can’t do no other with you and David’s Saint fable
I’m not even trying to or curious fair
Each unicorn makes it completely prepared

I don’t ever want to come down from your village and your big town

George Kinney Benefit - Saturday, February 5 · 4:00pm - 10:00pm at the Highball, 1142 South Lamar Blvd., Austin, Texas

The Texas Psych Blog is proud to announce the first, of what we hop will be many, George Kinney Benefit. This will be held on Saturday, February 5 · 4:00pm - 10:00pm at the Highball, 1142 South Lamar Blvd., Austin, Texas.

This event was put together by our friend JM Dobies who hosts the well known Mal Thursday's Texas Tyme Machine radio show.

Here's what it says about the event:

In the first of several benefits for Austin psychedelic music legend George Kinney, a series of special guests, including Haunt, Jesse Sublett, ST 37, and the Texreys grace the stage of South Austin's swankiest ballroom and bowling emporium, the Highball, to raise money to help pay Kinney's medical bills. George will play the headlining set, so look forward to possibly hearing "My Time" and other songs from the Golden Dawn's classic LP "Power Plant." Other special guests TBA... Donations greatly appreciated.

I caught up with Mr. Dobies and asked him some questions:

You do so much work for the Texas Psych Community, and more, how did you find the time for this effort?

Oh man, I totally don't have time for it! But I'm taking the time to make sure that the show is great, and hoping that people give generously for George, including whatever music store we can talk into providing a backline.

Are there other George Kinney benefits coming up?

Yes. We're doing a more garage-y one at Beerland, a more country/blues one at Uncle Billy's Lake Travis, and hopefully one at a larger venue with the Black Angels.

Any chance of seeing people like Roky, Fever Tree Rising, Black Angels performing at one of these benefits?

We're going to ask 'em, that's for sure. You got a number on Fever Tree? That would be epic. We could do that one in Houston or Austin.

I loved the Golden Dawn Texas Tyme Machine installment. Can you provide a link to download that?

The Golden Dawn Story will be featured on the podcast Mal Thursday's Texas Tyme Machine #5, which will be posted near the end of January. Here are the links for the first four episodes in the series:
#1: A Journey to Tyme:
http://garagepunk.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mal-thursdays-texas-tyme

#2: Ft. Worth Teen Scene, Pt. 1:
http://garagepunk.ning.com/profiles/blogs/mal-thursdays-texas-tyme-1

#3: The Skunks Story:
http://garagepunk.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-mal-thursday-show-30-texas

#4: Houston, Pt. 1: The Thursday's Children Story:
http://garagepunk.ning.com/profiles/blogs/the-mal-thursday-show-32-texas

Have you spoken to George recently? What does he have to say about all of this?

George is excited. He says that a paying gig is always a good excuse to get out of the house, and I'm sure he's touched by all the support he's gotten from people. These shows are really going to be a love-in. And hopefully we raise a bunch of money for him. Above is the rough version of the poster. We have 4 or 5 of the 25-minute sets left to fill. I'm saving the last two hours for George's set and other possible guest appearances.

Our friend George is suffering from cancer of the liver. Read more about that here and see instructions on how to donate:
http://www.texaspsychedelicrock.com/2011/01/contribute-to-george-kinney-medical.html

13th Floor Elevators "Brain" Handbill

Here's a rare one.

Contribute to George Kinney Medical Fund

George Kinney, of the late, great, Texas Psychedelic rock group – the Golden Dawn, has been diagnosed with liver cancer. The disease was caught in the early stages but George requires expensive treatments/medications. The George Kinney Medical Fund has been created to help with these expenses.

We would like to appeal to all fans of the Golden Dawn, Texas Psych, psychedelic music and the arts in general to make a donation to this fund. George has made some really beautiful music over the years and he’s a really cool guy; he’s one of us.

Right now, George is against the wall with this dreadful disease. He needs the help of music lovers and free thinkers everywhere.

Please make checks out to GEORGE KINNEY MEDICAL FUND and mail here:

George Kinney PO Box 51 Cedar Creek, Texas 78612 United States

You can Paypal the George Kinney Medical Fund here:
kinney777@gmail.com