Los Angeles’ The Electric Prunes came up with a great idea in “free-form garage music.” It makes you think of a collaboration between Sun Ra and The Kingsmen. Unfortunately, something went terribly, terribly wrong when they went into the studio (actually a pair of studios) in late 1966 to record their eponymous debut LP.
Actually, that something was several things, primarily producer Dave Hassinger and the songwriting team of Nancie Mantz and Annette Tucker, whom Hassinger tasked with writing the bulk of the songs for the LP. Forget the fact that The Electric Prunes had songs of their own, only two of which would make it onto 1967’s The Electric Prunes. Hassinger got what Hassinger wanted.
The Prunes were understandably unhappy about this. Said one of the band’s songwriters (Mark Tulin, bass guitar, piano, organ) later, “We had nothing resembling freedom, let alone total freedom, in the selection of our songs. Consequently, there are definitely songs that I do believe didn’t belong on the album…” (Not only that, but they had to fight Hassinger when it came to HOW the songs should be played.)
Tulin might have added that there are songs on the album that don’t belong on ANY album. Not even Blood, Sweat & Tears would have touched the likes of “The Toonerville Trolley.”
So how is it that The Electric Prunes came in at No. 29 on Brooklyn Vegan’s “The 50 Best Psychedelic Rock Albums of the Summer of Love”? Well, I can only assume it made the list because it includes two of the greatest freak-flag-fliers of the acid rock era, “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” and “Get Me to the World on Time,” along with a few other lesser lights that are far from embarrassments.
The first of the two aforementioned classics was written by Mantz and Tucker, the latter co-written by Tucker. The duo may have done the album inestimable harm, but ironically, they’re the reason it’s remembered in the first place.
As is the case with most misbegotten LPs, it’s best to begin in reverse with the worst of its tracks. Mantz and Tucker’s “The Toonerville Trolley” is abominable hokum, a quasi-novelty toon with an old-timey piano and a melody you may be able to jitterbug to (I haven’t tried).
The LP’s second-biggest loser, “The King Is in His Counting House” (also by Mantz/Tucker) has a quasi-Rolling Stones “Ruby Tuesday” vibe (thanks largely to lead singer James Lowe’s autoharp) but is risible, both because it has a nursery rhyme feel and Lowe sounds like he’s singing to a classroom of second-graders.
“About a Quarter to Nine” is a cover of a song from the 1935 movie musical Go into Your Dance, the same film that gave us “She’s a Latin from Manhattan.” It’s not TERRIBLE, mind you—it actually makes me think of some of The Doors’ quainter tracks. But it’s about as far from free-form garage rock as you can get without falling off a cliff into a huge glass of Lawrence Welk’s champagne bubbles.
Mantz/Tucker’s “Sold to the Highest Bidder” features a frenetic Zorba the Greek guitar and is zippy, zippity-do-da fast, but the song never transcends its Greco-frenetic vibe—that guitar IS the song, which, despite its tempo, has very little rock in it. And the only thing more annoying than Lowe singing the title is Lowe singing “Going, going, gone.” He sings both a lot.
The ballad “Onie” is pretty sunshine pop, and would make sense coming from the likes of the Fifth Dimension or Dionne Warwick, both of whom could have nailed it. I suppose The Electric Prunes come close to nailing it too, but it jars—albums needn’t be all of a piece, but continuity counts, and “Onie” and “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” make exceedingly strange bedfellows, and I mean Pat Nixon and one of the Furry Freak Brothers strange.
Meanwhile, “Bangles,” written by the little-known Johnny Walsh, is garage pop from a far too clean garage, but it has a cool groove, that is, until the Prunes shift gears and things slow down and get all sing-songy and trite. It’s half of a really groovy song, and why settle for half-groovy?
Things get better after that. Band original “Luvin’” may have an awful title, but it has a cool psychedelic vibe, a great reverberating guitar riff, and is full-groovy in a Doors meet The Turtles kind of way. The Prunes’ other original, “Train for Tomorrow,” has a hip drone going for it, and Lowe’s vocals have echo, echo, echo. Unfortunately, the Prunes lose the plot when they switch gears and go into this drum shuffle and guitar solo jam that takes the song out. If this is what they meant by free-form garage, maybe it’s not as great an idea as I thought it was.
I get the idea The Electric Prunes are collectively suffering from the delusion they’re a shoe on Jill Jones and Tucker’s “Try Me on for Size,” but take away the silly lyrical conceit and it’s grease-caked garage gold—Lowe’s vocals are gritty and menacing, and the band plays it R&B hard. A definite keeper.
Mantz and Tucker’s “Are You Lovin’ Me More (But Enjoying It Less)” boasts an unimpeachable title, a fast tempo, and is happening Day-Glo garage, complete with Morse code guitar, other guitars that go zoom, and lots of drum crash. I’m not crazy about the cheesy Tulin organ solo that takes it out, but like it or not, it comes with the song.
Which leaves us with the two classics. “Get Me to the World on Time” has a modified Bo Diddley beat (which the band had to fight for), and opens on a spooky note, the band got by having Hassinger groan through a mike into the tremolo of a Fender amp. Meanwhile, Lowe forgoes singing for snarling, the guitars are all peachy fuzz, and the gargantuan bottom drives the song at an unsafe speed.
It’s kinda like The Monkees gone mad—Lowe is Mickey Dolenz slathered in garage floor grease, and towards the end the guitar makes a frightening whistling noise, like it’s a V1 headed straight for your house. The band dubbed the ending the “spaceship,” and got that V1 sound by playing the high E note on guitar until the last fret while an oscillator matched the peak. It’s a truly great song, and everybody should own at least seven copies, one for each day of the week.
Everybody knows “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night),” but what everybody doesn’t know is that it was originally conceived as an orchestral piano ballad. But a funny thing happened along the way, and it ended up a psychedelic masterpiece with this freaky backward guitar opening. Here’s Lowe’s description of how it came about:
“Dave cued up a tape and didn’t hit ‘record,’ and the playback in the studio was way up: ear-shattering, vibrating jet guitar. Ken had been shaking his Bigsby wiggle stick with some fuzztone and tremolo at the end of the tape. Forward it was cool. Backward it was amazing. I ran into the control room and said, ‘What was that?’”
“That” was the beginning of an epochal song whose writers (Mantz and Tucker) acknowledged was the result of their listening to The Rolling Stones, and it has that semi-menacing, (too much to) dream-like vibe, with a slow beginning that kicks into gear, at which point Ken Williams lays fuzz over fuzz over more fuzz and occasionally plays this riff that is the epitome of exotic boutique LSD chic.
Overall, the vibe is dark—this isn’t flowers-in-your-hair psychedelia. More like welcome to the dark side of your subconscious, and Charles Manson can’t be too far behind.
Like so many other garage bands in the mid-sixties, The Electric Prunes got shafted by a producer who thought he knew better than they did. And to a degree, he was right—no Dave Hassinger would have meant no Mantz and Tucker, which would have meant no “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” or “Get Me to the World on Time.”
But the band was right to think many of the songs they got saddled with were subpar. Having to play “The Toonerville Trolley” (which sounds like The Kinks had Ray Davies been the Village Green Idiot) might have broken a lesser band.
The Electric Prunes is an exceedingly frustrating proposition. Even The Electric Prunes thought so. But they should count themselves lucky. Unlike, say, the Chocolate Watchband, at least they got to actually play everything on the album, and James Lowe didn’t have to worry about having his vocal tracks scrapped so some other joker could do the singing. But that’s a small consolation.
I’m tempted to say you’d be better off just seeking out the singles for “I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night)” and “Get Me to the World on Time.” Nobody should ever have to listen to “The King Is in the Counting House.” And that goes double for “The Toonerville Trolley.”
GRADED ON A CURVE:
C+
