Love Machine, an unexceptional folk rock tune recorded by by US west coast band The Roosters, didn't chart in Australia. It probably didn't even get any air play. However, a bunch of musicians in Sydney and Melbourne noticed it in 1968 and thought they could do a better job.
(The Small Faces had just released Itchycoo Park, Cream had The White Room; and The Legend of Xanadu, Pictures of Matchstick Men and Lazy Sunday Afternoon were the psychedelic soundtracks to my Grade Six life at St John Bosco's where I sat at my desk virtually levitating.)
So the musicians who thought they could do a better job of Love Machine did. The result, co-produced by Geoffrey Edelsten, was a swirling symphony of psychedelia complete with synth, keyboards, feedback, phase, reverb, swell, mind-altering drugs and the kind of harmonies the Twilights took to the outer limits with their later incarnations of Axiom and the Little River Band among other projects. The song was recorded under the anonymous studio name of Pastoral Symphony, which was subsequently registered - stolen - by rival musicians.
(The Small Faces had just released Itchycoo Park, Cream had The White Room; and The Legend of Xanadu, Pictures of Matchstick Men and Lazy Sunday Afternoon were the psychedelic soundtracks to my Grade Six life at St John Bosco's where I sat at my desk virtually levitating.)
So the musicians who thought they could do a better job of Love Machine did. The result, co-produced by Geoffrey Edelsten, was a swirling symphony of psychedelia complete with synth, keyboards, feedback, phase, reverb, swell, mind-altering drugs and the kind of harmonies the Twilights took to the outer limits with their later incarnations of Axiom and the Little River Band among other projects. The song was recorded under the anonymous studio name of Pastoral Symphony, which was subsequently registered - stolen - by rival musicians.
I listened to both of them, there's a stunning difference.
ReplyDeleteI think the song is even better technically than the generally accepted Australian psychedelic era standard The Real Thing (whose own B-side Part Three Into Paper Walls eclipsed the A-side in my opinion).
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