Firesign Theatre, “Dear Friends” (Columbia, 1972)Indescribly absurdist hippie-intellectual comedy quartet’s radio skits – bite-sized and ideal to leaven your show with something to fill tough transitions and leave your audience wondering if somebody spiked their drink.Try 2/ 3, 3/ 8, 4/27/11/18
The Five Royales, “The Five Royales” (King, 1978; original recordings 1950s)Classic pioneering rock-and-roll vocal group, distinguished by the addition of a (great) guitarist, Lowman Pauling. Pauling’s subtly explosive hollow-body interjections help give the singers a hard-hitting edge, and the rollicking rockers and heart-bearing ballads are among the period’s best.Try 1/ 1, 1/ 2, 1/ 5, […]
The Flipsides, “Clever One” (Pink & Black, 2002)Fast, crisp hard-driving rock and roll, touching on (Dickies/Buzzcocks’) pop-punk, power-pop, and garage, but its own thing. Yearning, sardonic sensibility and twisty, almost Costello-esque song structures. Excellent.Try ½, 1/ 5, 1/ 66/18/18
Flower, “Flower” (United Artists, 1977)A nice record, ‘70s soft-rock stylings with a slight disco undercurrent at times; Karen Carpenter as a swinging single?11/12/12
J C Flowers, “Driving Excitement And The Pleasure Of Ownership” (ATP, 2016)British guitar-psych-pop outfit, a lot more acid-damaged than anything the U.K. has come up with for a while. Gently sinister, Velvets-inflected strum that wafts languorously, then abruptly splits into discordant fragments of bubble. Cool stuff, like middle-schoolers sniffing magic markers in the art room […]
Flying Burrito Brothers, “Farther Along” (A & M, 1988; originally released 1969-early 1970s)On the first dozen-or-so cuts on this compilation, Gram Parsons single-handedly invented what would come to be known as “alt-country,” but from another angle this could be seen as the last great ‘60s pop record. The brightness and concision verge into an eerie, […]
Forest Fire, “Staring At The X” (FatCat, 2011)Minuses: The singer sounds like Julian Casablanca’s drunk lounge-lizard-wannabe cousin; the production is way too slick; the songwriting is kind of indistinct. Pluses: These guys have not one but several amazing guitar sounds at their disposal; the girl singer is a lot better than the due (but she […]
Kim Fowley, “King of the Creeps – Vol. 3” (Norton, 2012; original releases 1959-1969)Runaways-svengali (and “Alley Oop” composer!)’s wacky ‘60s oeuvre, from doo-wop to raging frat-punk to proto-Doors lounge-psych-rap; all good, some great, some really bizarre.Try 5, 7, 12, 101/14/13
Fresh And Only, “Grey-Eyed Girls” (Woodsist, 2009)One of the very best albums to come out of the neo-garage-punk scene of the late ‘00s, this catches the band’s melodically resonant, psych-inflected sound at its peak. The sweep and clang of the debut intact, but harnessed on this second effort into spectacularly concise songs delivered with ramrod […]
Fresh and Onlys, “Second One To Know” (Woodsist, 2010)This sounds like outtakes from “Grey-Eyed Girls,” but since that was one of the very best records released by anybody in the last few years, you know this is the shattering, ominous psych-garage-punk with doomily Doors-like vocal melodies that these guys do so well, at the peak […]