eMusic Review 0
Country Joe and the Fish's unabashedly LSD-inspired 1967 debut holds up remarkably well, considering the source. The classic San Francisco sound's ecstatic alchemy was more often than not the result of roots music gone cosmic; hence the choogling Chicago blues that provides the background to primary songwriter Country Joe McDonald's Hunter S. Thompson-esque story of benign stoner stupidity in the album's opener, "Flying High." But the band raises its stakes considerably in what follows. "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine" is a darkly comedic portrait of an enigmatic head fucker of a chick, with a bonus blues bridge added almost as an afterthought. In "Death Sound Blues," the Fish sound like the West Coast auxiliary of the Fugs. But New York's punkest hippies never had a guitarist like Barry Melton, whose plummy electric sound still distills the essence of SF acid-rock guitar after lo these many decades. "Happiness Is a Porpoise Mouth," the instrumental "Section 43," "Bass Strings" and "Grace" (as in Slick) all manifest different modalities of Marvel Comics-colored psychedelic experiences, often via David Cohen's deliriously individuated organ lines. The group would continue to exploit the tension between protest music and head-trips until the center no longer held; in other… read more »
