Curt Boettcher

It would be all too easy to simply write this off as a mere exploitation knock-off designed to catch naive hippies. It certainly is that, but it also has the hand (and voice) of Curt Boettcher all over it, and it features Mike Deasy, heavy L.A. session cat and sometime-member of Phil Spector's Wrecking Crew on guitar, musical arrangements and producing. Consisting of about half covers and half originals, the album could hardly be considered truly psychedelic (mostly thanks to the Boettcher vocals) but it is quite interesting in its own way. Deasy's arrangements are strange and wonderful with some hot guitar playing and liberal use of the echoplex. He gives "Louie Louie," the quintessential simple rock & roll tune, a wildly elaborate arrangement, virtually re-creating the tune entirely…

It took over 30 years to shake loose The Moses Lake Recordings, yet another Curt Boettcher-Keith Olsen production, from the befuddled chaos of 1960s rock. The album is obscure even by the producers' normal standards. It is also atypical of almost everything else for which the pair was responsible. The main reason for the anomaly is, of course, the Bards, a band not only drastically different from any other combo out of the Pacific Northwest but staggeringly unique in the genre. Boettcher and Olsen, in turn, responded with an equally idiosyncratic production, experimenting with buoyant horn charts and early synthesizer washes. Their characteristic touch is most evident in the harmony arrangements, but the music is considerably more aggressive than any of their other work…

The s in "Sessions" is important here. Contrary to certain claims, the Lost Sessions CD does not represent that Holy Grail of '60s aficionados and collectors: the elusive "lost album." What it is, though, should be plenty good enough for most fans of the era's music. The compilation pulls together recordings made during several trips to the recording studio by Eternity's Children between 1966 and 1972, and if the sum of the album doesn't necessarily trump its individual parts, The Lost Sessions is nevertheless a fascinating hodgepodge encompassing a couple different lineups of the group and at least twice as many interesting shifts in musical style. Roughly the first half of the album was recorded by the first, six-piece incarnation of the band, led by singer and keyboardist Bruce Blackman…