Billy_nicholls

Avatar is a 3CD/1 CD-ROM box set by Pete Townshend that combines three of the albums he did away from The Who in the 1970's, all of which honor Meher Baba, the man who was the main influence of The Who's "Baba O'Riley". The box set also features an enhanced CD. This was released on Townshend's own Eel Pie label.

This extravagant six-CD set documents the astonishing life span of the first pop independent label in the U.K., Immediate Records. Founded in 1965, Immediate flipped, flopped, and staggered its own way, competing against unhip American labels like EMI and Decca until late 1969. The label, and the documentary CD set, showcases in particular the Small Faces, who enjoyed a brief U.K. number one hit, Ogden's Nut Gone Flake. More familiar to American listeners will no doubt be the three-chord sock-hop favorite "Hang on Sloopy" by the McCoys, and a number of covers of familiar American folk-rock hits are present as well. The esoteric collector will appreciate inclusions by such café balladeers as the Poets and Les Fleurs-de-Lis, also signed by Immediate before the advent of the swinging London sound, marked by the Rolling Stones revolution and other mod developers influencing the pants off the tiniest studio cover bands. Immediate also helped sculpt the success of anguished bellower Chris Farlowe, soon to be joined by the similarly throaty vibrato of PP Arnold and, of course, manager/producer Andrew Oldham's best toss of the dice, the Small Faces, whom he ripped away from Decca. By the fourth disc, you are, in fact, in the throes of swinging London, featuring Farlowe's heart-stopping "Yesterday's Papers" and Arnold's "The First Cut Is the Deepest," written by the much-in-demand Cat Stevens. Most of the music is minimal and often out of tune, production at an early-time low, replete with tinny echoes and accidental outtake moments.

Flower Powered Trippers From The British Psychedelic Subculture Brand New and Sealed Deluxe 3CD Box Set, with over 70 tracks! Full-colour 36 page, booklet with detailed liner notes and rare images One of the more elusive and illuminating compilation series to have emerged in the early 1990s. Originally released over 3 separate, extremely limited vinyl pressings, Justafixation s brief appearance served up a sublime collection of rare lysergic pleasures from the 1960s British landscape. Particles has unearthed this ultra-rare series and lovingly restored it to its former glory. Replete with additional and informative liners, rare memorabilia and professionally re-mastered original sound recordings, Justafixation takes you on a journey to the colourful underbelly of the British Empire s 3rd nipple.

When Paul McCartney - who arguably kick-started the whole baroque pop genre when he recorded the likes of 'Yesterday' and 'Eleanor Rigby' with pivotal strings arrangements - made his oft-quoted remark that pop was the classical music of the 20th Century, perhaps he meant it in a more literal sense than anyone realised at the time. In the immediate wake of ground-breaking albums like Rubber Soul, Revolver and Pet Sounds, the British and American music scenes became increasingly ambitious and cerebral. As the major recording studios becoming ever more sophisticated, a new generation of musicians and producers sought to emulate the backroom auteur status of Brian Wilson or the symbiotic relationship between George Martin and The Beatles.

“Nothing Is Real” è una storia della musica psichedelica inglese divisa in due parti. La prima segue cronologicamente le fasi salienti che hanno dato vita a una tendenza musicale influenzata da quelle che il poeta Allen Ginsberg chiama Droghe Benevole, in quanto non danno assuefazione (hashish, marijuana ma, soprattutto, Lsd) e si rivelano strumenti di conoscenza dell’Io Profondo o mezzi per accedere to the other side. A partire dal biennio 1966-1967, infatti, la psichedelia inglese, a differenza di quella americana, più politicizzata e legata alla stretta attualità (la dirty war del Vietnam), tende a evadere dal presente per rifugiarsi in un idillico yesterday nel quale convivono la fiaba e il ritorno all’infanzia, l’Età Vittoriana di Sgt. Pepper e il Paese delle Meraviglie di Lewis Carroll..

The Iron Man: The Musical by Pete Townshend, released in 1989, is an adaptation of Ted Hughes' story The Iron Man, produced and largely composed and performed by Pete Townshend of The Who. It also stars Roger Daltrey, Deborah Conway, John Lee Hooker, and Nina Simone. The three then-surviving members of The Who (Daltrey, John Entwistle, and Townshend) performed as a group in two songs, "Dig" and "Fire", although the latter was not penned by Townshend. A stage version was mounted at the Young Vic theatre in London in 1993. On the strength of this, Warner Bros. optioned the story for a movie which, with a very different adaptation of the story, became The Iron Giant; Townshend received an Executive Producer credit.

"Who Came First" is the debut solo record by Pete Townshend, first released in 1972. The album collected together tracks from Pete's private pressings of his tributes to Meher Baba, Happy Birthday and I Am, as well as demos from the unrealized concept album Lifehouse, part of which became The Who's classic Who's Next album.