Psychedelic Pop

1. Tomorrow's World, When It's All Over (Era)
A California unknown. Its vocal arrangements are reminiscent of those of Curt Boettcher - the influential studio whiz behind West Coast pop productions by the Association, Sagittarius, and the Millennium. And the dense harmonies lead me to think this a group of L.A. folkies. Laboring under the producer's strict policy of enforced "grooviness," no doubt. Anyway, as with a lot of the West Coast variety of sunshine pop, there's echo. Tons of it. Everything here is covered in a thick, syrupy layer of it. It sounds like the producer marched them to the bowels of Anaconda Mine to record this dreamy nugget.

2. Fargo, Sunny Day Blue (Capitol)
More California sunshine herewith, and another mystery group. "Sunny Day Blue" evokes a particularly fey variety of hippie obliviousness that I identify so strongly with the late 1960s. It was not the sort to concern itself with inconsequential minutiae like race riots. Rather, it spent its weekends lazing about and dreaming up that precise kind of prismatic blue to describe one's love.

I’d guess 1968 on this keen bit of jangle.

3. The Network, The Boys and the Girls (Spar)
Soaring, dreamy pop from the late '60s, and one of the slowest 45s ever. You could drive a school bus across those harmonies - and all of that celestial organ, too. Without being overtly psychedelic, this gem just settles everything down on a mellow sunshine cloud, man.

This personal favorite came from Memphis. 1968.

"Take Five" & derivations

“Take Five”: recorded by the Dave Brubeck quartet in 1959 (and composed by that group’s saxophonist, Paul Desmond), it’s today known both as the largest-selling jazz single of all time, and for its near-ubiquity in TV commercials for luxury sedans. More importantly, it’s in 5/4 time, which, though that means little to me, is easy enough to spot. Simply look for musicians hunkered awkwardly over their instruments, grimacing and gritting their teeth. That’s 5/4 time.

And, without further ado, “Take Five” is my inaugural theme for Office Naps.

1. Billy Patt Quintett, Passion (An Act of Love) (Sabra)
Never mind that it’s actually a quartet heard here. Patt and Co., who iced down heads all over town with this smooth 5/4 cocktail, couldn’t be bothered with technical minutiae like that. Notice also that, if you listen carefully enough, you can hear their matching double-breasted charcoal gray wool jackets, which leads one to speculate that the un-credited member was actually their tailor. Otherwise, no word on who Billy Patt was, or what his brand of Scotch might have been.

Sabra was Lelan Rogers' (brother of Kenny!) record label which, for various reasons, means that Billy Patt and co. likely hailed from either Houston or Los Angeles.

2. Saturday’s Children, Deck Five (Dunwich)
A classy Chicago group who wore dark Beatles suits, posed with umbrellas, and generally pursued their Anglophilia to obsessive lengths. They had a few high-quality British Invasion-styled singles on the hip Dunwich label. This, however, was their strangest release. It’s seasonal fare. Seasonal fare that also happens to be an highly listenable mutation of, yes, "Take 5” - this time with "Deck the Halls" vocals forcibly whipped into it like some sort of unholy Christmas frappe.

3. Hank Levine, Swingin’ Village (Dolton)
This jazzy concoction steers wildly between insistent “Take 5”-style chording and a jumble of melodic references to “Summertime” (another jazz hipster’s anthem). It also begs the question, “What isn’t improved by adding vibes and Latin percussion?” The answer is, of course, nothing.

Hank Levine mostly stayed behind the scenes as a freelance Los Angeles studio producer & arranger in the '50s and '60s, but he did issue at least a few other great 45s ("Image" and "Portrait of a Blonde," most notably) under his own name.

4. France Gall, Pense a Moi (Just Think of Me) (Philips)
France Gall - blonde, bright, blindingly French - sings her little seventeen year old heart out over what is probably the moddest version of "Take Five.”

“Pense a Moi” was from 1964, and, sadly, it was one of only a few Gall records to be released domestically. It seems that Gall, while wildly popular in her own country, was, like so many of her countrymen, ultimately just too French to ever make much of a splash anywhere else.