This episode of Hippie Love Turbo, on KUCR 88.3 FM kept it international and trippy with some gritty garage towards the beginning and way-out psych towards the end. If you missed the show while it aired, be sure to listen catch it on the KUCR archive ASAP, because it won't be up for long!
We began this episode with The Leaves' Too Many People, which has an unusual mix of ultra warbled guitar and bluesy harmonica. The doubled vocals occasionally slip from timing, adding another strange effect which makes the song feels ahead of its time while also staying grounded in the garage rock tradition. The Leaves were from San Fernando Valley and are known as the first band to release a version of Hey Joe, a song that was famously recorded by The Jimi Hendrix Experience that same year in 1966. Hey Joe has a muddled history with a few people claiming writing credits while others believe the song is public domain. According to various sources, the song existed well before The Leaves recorded their version but, at least in a commercial sense, The Leaves appear to be the first band to release the song rather than just perform it live or record it for personal use. For a more in-depth article about Hey Joe, check out this article by Mayer Nissim for Gold Radio UK.
As the show continued, you heard Butch Engle and The Styx perform Going Home, which, like all of their songs, was written or co-written by The Beau Brummels' Ron Elliott. According to Engle, Sly Stone, who produced The Beau Brummels, and Ron Elliott allowed The Styx to record an array of songs that were essentially leftovers of The Beau Brummels. Although The Styx only released two singles during their time as a band, they had recorded a few other tracks which were eventually compiled on No Matter What You Say: The Best of Butch Engle & the Styx.
Towards the halfway point of the show, I played The Tempos' One Way Ticket and I spoke a little about how they were from LaSalle County, Illinois. Well, mostly I talked about how LaSalle County (Earlville to be particular) is also the birthplace of Gary K. Wolf, a writer whose most popular novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit? was adapted into the 1988 film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The two works are fairly different from each other and out of the two I believe the film is the better, mostly due to the ending of the novel feeling tacked on or rushed. There also exists a novelization of the film by Martin Noble (most likely a pen name) titled Who Framed Roger Rabbit: A Novel. On the episode named Golden Berry I wrote about a similar situation with the movie Moonraker which also was based on a book and later had a novel adaptation of the film. There's something fascinating to me about the way adaptations of adaptations exist. It almost feels like a commercial long-form version of a campfire story which is told again and again by different people, changing slightly each time.
And finally, towards the end of the show you heard Sugluk's Fall Away which I found
on the compilation Native North America, Vol. 1 which features songs from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation archives. Supposedly there's going to be a second volume featuring indigenous bands from the U.S. and Mexico but I haven't seen any updates since volume 1 was released in 2014. Hopefully it comes to fruition!
Alright folks, that's it for this episode's rundown! Thanks for reading the blog and be sure to listen over the air on KUCR 88.3FM on Saturdays at 9pm PST or listen to an archived version of the show here. You can also listen through KUCR.org, Radio Garden, or Tune-In.
Check out this week's playlist below:
