PAPER GARDEN '69 ORIGINAL RARE acid psych LP NMINT HEAR

$

109

ORIGINAL RARE 1969 pressing of the Paper Garden’s self-titled LP on the Musicor label, with glorious color wheel gatefold cover.  I still remember the first time I heard this album – it blew me away then, and still does today.  If the cover art doesn’t tip you off – sorta like a child’s version of Sergeant Pepper meets Where’s Waldo – the Paper Garden are highly influenced by the Beatles – George and John, in particular.  This is one TRIPPY magic carpet ride of pop, but at its heart, the Paper Garden are basically a great pop band, capable of coming up with killer melodies that any Beatles fan would love, then piling on the sitars, studio FX and lysergic atmosphere that makes their lone album such a wonderful trip to take on headphones.  In that way, it reminds me a lot of the Fallen Angels great second album – another one with an eye-catching sleeve, incidentally. 

The beautiful “Way Up High” starts out with just voice and piano, and sounds as good as anything off the first two Bee Gees albums.  But then the chorus comes in and lifts the song into the heavens.  As the band sings “way up hi-i-i-gh”, a shivering violin actually helps them achieve their goal, lifting the melody skyward, and for a second you actually believe there might not be any double entendres in the song title.  Not so for the mystical Middle Eastern headphone zones of “Man Do You”, a total and complete immersion into the hookah pipes and street fairs of Bombay and Casablanca.  If this album is indeed their Sergeant Pepper, then “Man Do You” must SURELY be their “Within You, Without You” – all sitars and ouds, finger cymbals and mystical snake charmer melody that floats by because it’s not anchored by anything as solid as a steady drumbeat.  You can even hear the George Harrison similarities in the lyrics:  “Everyone was put here to die, it’s true…Life beginning over again is nigh.”  And just in case you STILL don’t get it, some Penny Lane horns and George Martin strings pop in very late in the game. 

The bouncy “Lady’s Man” has a heart that’s all “Hey Bulldog” or “Penny Lane” but does its best to hide it behind a wall of psychedelic trickery – and that includes baroque harpsichord flourishes, some waspy fuzz guitar licks, some more Indian snake charmer melodies – even a sly reference to the Beatles’ “Girl” in the background vocals.  “Raining” brings us back into the world of Indian mysticism – beginning with some trippy sitar, only now the vocals are heavily distorted as if they were coming from somewhere beyond the Looking Glass.  This one’s a total Electric Sitar Head Swirler if there ever was one.  Floating gently down the stream of unconsciousness, pausing only to pick a few poppies out of your cerebral cortex. 

But as trippy as THAT sounds, it’s still fairly grounded compared to what follows – the completely ALIEN sounding “A Day”.  If ever a song sounded like it was recorded in another dimension and only exists here because it “leaked” through, then “A Day” is that song.  Vocals are faroff and distant, blocked by a thick layer of purple haze, while the melody itself is carried by the most otherworldly moaning background vocals – at least I THINK they’re vocals – flying continuously from speaker to speaker.  Thing is, you can’t really even make out what the singer’s saying through all the echo, not to mention the crowd cheers and the marching band which inexplicably elbow their way into the song midway.  And when this trans-dimensional message finally drifts back into the ether, we end with the cheesy sound of a spectral clock ticking…and ticking…and ticking…like the Devil’s metronome itself.  The only people I know who might consider this the soundtrack of THEIR “day” are clawing at padded walls and talking one-on-one with Moses. 

Of course, as you may have already noticed, calling your final song “A Day” even further cements the Beatles “Sergeant Pepper” connections, doesn’t it?  But in the end, if the Paper Garden’s masterpiece was REALLY inspired by the Fab Four’s masterpiece, it only goes to show you just how much better the original could’ve been with THREE Georges and a John.  And lots more of those “funny” brownies.

Original 1969 gatefold pressing on the Musicor label.  Beautiful gatefold is in EXCELLENT shape!  Vinyl looks unplayed, plays NEAR MINT with no surface noise present!  BEAUTIFUL!

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