3.07.2009
Music is Love
Alright Family Band Music is Love LP (AFB, 1980)
Tracking the career of psych legend Sky Saxon is too mammoth of a task for this modest man. Luckily others have done it for me. And from the folks at Lysergia I know that the Saxon nugget I'm laying on you tonight was recorded no less than four times. I'd heard one version of "Starry Ride" prior to this one. It was the first version of it, recorded by the Stars New Seeds. That one is a terrific psych punker, but I don't have it here on vinyl otherwise I'd post it, too. The version by the Alright Family Band has a cool laid back + new wave feel to it. Given the time and place it was made and that Sky was involved, it is easy to imagine why.
The Alright Family Band were from Maui, a Maui that was just becoming a tourist mecca and still had a stoney vibe (which is still there, though muted by the commercialism and development). One source says that the band was made up of ex-culties, former members of the Source Family, the cult that formed around Father Yod and made some astounding records til their leader took a the long walk (actually the long glide. He was killed in a handgliding accident. So much for the god-like power of flight). The Alright Family Band made one album and it is pretty much hippie rock, so-so at best. Sky is listed as a band member but his contribution is limited to "Starry Ride", the one good song on the record. Warning: It isn't the Seeds. Though you can certainly hear the Sky Saxon in it and that hypnotic repetition of a basic riff that marks classic Seeds songs, this years and brain cells removed from "Pushin Too Hard". To me, this version of "Starry Ride" is to the Seeds, what "Wild Honey" is to "classic" Beach Boys. So here ya go, the Alright Family Band version of "Starry Ride". Enjoy.
# posted by Scott Soriano : 19:42
