Uther Pendragon's San Francisco Earthquake

If you were in the San Francisco Bay Area around the Summer of Love or the decade following you probably have heard of these psychedelic rockers. If not, you probably haven't, because although the band recorded a significant amount of material (enough to fill two CDs here) from 1966 to 1975, none of it ever got released until now. And that's not because of weak material; with a sound that's often not too far off from very early (pre Grace Slick) Jefferson Airplane, the four-piece has got the acid-dropping soundtrack down perfectly. Maybe in the band's lifetime the fact that they still sounded like '67 in '75 was a turn-off to some but today bands go to great lengths to find this sound, and here you have the real thing playing out in mind-expanding numbers like "Magical Door," the slow-burning peyote trip that is instrumental cut "Spanish Fly" and the carefree innocence of "Peter Pan Blowup," a tune that Syd Barrett certainly could have related to. Some cuts here lean more towards garage rock and they are not as memorable; never mind though there's plenty of freak-out on hand to make this compilation well worth seeking out. Get it here.

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