Take your mind back to a simpler time when the weather was warm, the sun was shining and the music was loud. Now, envision yourself floating down the streets of the Bay Area, surrounded by friends dressed in colorful clothing, flowers in your hair, listening to the Warlocks play live on stage before they became known as the legendary Grateful Dead, and you have Nugget’s latest collection of music ‘Love is the Song We Sing.’
In the latter half of the 1960’s, San Francisco was the center for simultaneous experimentation of drugs and music. Music lovers traveled from all over the country to be a part of the counterculture revolution that was sweeping the nation.
The Bay Area, the Monetary Pop Festival and the Human Be-In gave the world of rock some of the greatest artists in musical history including Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin and Santana.
‘Love is the Song We Sing’ is Alec Palao’s gift to 60’s enthusiasts. This four-disc collection, released in late September, contains a wide range of music from garage rock to psychedelic to folk-indie, giving you a kaleidoscope glimpse into another dimension.
Although only a handful of songs were cut in Bay Area, two of the tracks on the list that have gone unreleased for decades, Mystery Trend’s ‘Carl Street’ and Charlatans indie-blues arrangement of ‘Alabama Bound,’ have now been released and appear on the album.
Unlike most greatest hits collections, this assortment of music is loaded with hidden songs that hippies living in San Francisco’s Bay Area may not even remember, whether stoned or not.’
Songs like, ‘Glue’ by The Ace Of Cups or ‘Red The Sign Post’ by Fifty Foot Hose, produced by bands who were part of the Bay Area scene but never made it into the pop-culture world, give listeners an exciting new sound to explore.
For Beatles and Dylan fanatics, disc one, ‘Seismic Rumbles’, is complied of bands brave enough to veer away from the happy-go-lucky pop style of the early 1960’s to the more complex riffs of rock and roll. The disc features ‘Can’t Come Down’ from the Warlocks before they became the Grateful Dead, demo for Quicksilver Messenger Service’s ‘Who Do You Love,’ and an Airplane vintage single ‘It’s No Secret.’
Disc two, ‘Suburbia,’ is jam packed with garage and folk-rock tunes that were somehow left behind in the swirling fury of love that consumed the sixties. Highlights from this track listing include, Teddy & His Patches’ ‘Suzy Creamcheese,’ and The Chocolate Watchband’s ‘No Way Out’.
The real psychedelic experience however, begins with the third and fourth discs, ‘Summer of Love’ and ‘The Man Can’t Bust Our Music,’ respectively.
Both of these discs really capture the essence of music that defined the flower child generation. Featured on this album are Jefferson Airplanes pivotal Alice in Wonderland reference ‘White Rabbit,’ The Great! Society’s ‘Somebody to Love,’ Steve Miller Band’s ‘Roll With It,’ Santana’s ‘Evil Ways’ and the single version of the Dead’s ‘Dark Star.’
The carefree manifestation of the late 1960’s lives on through the bands and songs featured on ‘Love is the Song We Sing.’ Whether a Dead head, Janis Joplin lover or a Jefferson Airplane loyalist, this disc set, equipped with vibrant illustrations and four hours of music, is all you need for an out of body experience.
