THE ELECTRIC PRUNES
 I
don't think I'll be making much of an overstatement once I mention that
the Electric Prunes' debut does not own much in the way of original
vision. (Take that, English language!). Well, you might have been
deceived by the lead-in single - which, by the way, also happens to be
the lead-in track on Nuggets (both the current box set and the
groundbreaking Lenny Kaye concoction). The lead-in single, which wasn't
even written by the band members, much like the absolute majority of the
material on here, was pretty damn mind-blowing. For a detailed account
of the song, see my Nuggets review; here I'll just add that, for all its
transparency, it really sounded like nothing else at the time.
Once
you get past that song, though, it's the usual picture of a one-hit
band, good enough to take a short sprint but whose muscles eventually
give way when it comes to follow it up with something more substantial.
None of the songs on the album reach that peak. On the other hand, the
Electric Prunes still have an advantage over a lot of their competitors.
We have the epoch to thank, of course, but it took talent and bravery to
follow the trends of that
epoch, and one can't deny that the Prunes had both, in early 1967, at
least. The record is brimming with all kinds of experiments - successful
or failed, mild or bold, laudable or questionable, you name it; no two
songs sound the same. At the very worst, you could claim that all these
experiments are failed - and in a certain way, they are, because for
every genre and style tackled here, I could name somebody who did it
much better; but then again, it's hardly possible for anybody to equally
despise all of the boys' results. And if you like at least a small bunch
of these tunes, enough to not be able to declare the record a
"monumental crash", you'll probably have to give them credit
for at least trying to do all the rest.
If
the song writing credits are of any indication, the band members
themselves were primarily fans of the Rolling Stones-style:
"dangerous"-sounding midterm blues-rock was their original
thing. The best track in that genre, singer Jim Lowe's 'Little Olive',
actually did not make it onto the original album; today, it is available
as a bonus track on the restored CD edition. The album has that
direction represented by the slightly more generic 'Luvin', produced in
such a closely mimicking way that it sounds like an outtake from a
Stones album of the Now! (early '65) period - same mysterious echoey
guitars, same scary echoey harmonica.
 They
did, however, take interest in expanding their format, and the one
"alien" track of their own writing that they did get the
chance to place on the album was 'Train For Tomorrow'. In the liner
notes, Richie Unterberger hints at the band's being used and exploited
in the studio, meaning that, while they did have a batch of original
compositions under their belt, only two were allowed on the record;
maybe that is why 'Train For Tomorrow' is actually a medley of two songs
in two different styles - first part is mild psycho-folk, possibly
influenced by the Jefferson Airplane, second part is instrumental jazz,
"inspired by Wes Montgomery" (to quote R.U.). Both parts sound
amateurish but authentic, and they even manage to make the instrumental
jazz section ring with true tension, unlike quite a few boring
noodlefests by far more professional performers I could name.
Outside
songwriter Annette Tucker is responsible for a whopping' eight
compositions on here (six in collaboration with Nancie Mantz, two with
Jill Jones). Considering that this includes both of the band's hit
singles (the second one is 'Get Me To The World On Time', also captured
on Nuggets and deservedly so), she truly should be considered the main
hero of the album, although credit still goes to the band members for
thinking up all the variegated arrangements. Granted, some of these
songs can't be saved by any amount of psychedelic overlays, which is
presumably why they don't even try on such fluff as 'Onie', a
sugar-sweet teenybopper ballad that tries to work along the same
atmospheric/melodic lines as the Velvet Underground's 'Sunday Morning',
but doesn't have neither the chimes nor the interesting lyrics nor the
sincere-sounding Lou Reed vocal delivery; in fact, I have a suspicion
rhythm guitarist Weasel, who takes lead vocals on here, isn't even
trying, because no sane person could feel any sympathy towards such
garbage. But you just had to have something for the pre-pubescent ones,
you know. In the same way, 'The King Is In The Counting House' is
probably targeted at an even younger audience. (There was this really
nasty tendency to "artsify" nursery rhymes in the mid-Sixties,
mostly indicative of bands that had a hard time writing some real
art-pop of their own).
On
the other hand, 'Sold To The Highest Bidder' with its pseudo-ukuleles is
good clean fun, and the resulting sound, mixing a bit of sadness with a
bit of ecstasy, is quite unique even for '67; a slightly similar effect,
although with radically different means (synthesizers - what a
surprise!), would only be achieved by Roy Wood seven years later with
'Everyday I Wonder'. 'Try Me On For Size' shows that Tucker wasn't
opposed to writing ballsy Stonesy rockers either, although the
similarity is somewhat weakened by the band entrusting most of the
melody to electric pianos (then again, once the marimbas start rolling
in, comparisons with 'Under My Thumb' become inevitable). And the
music-hall divertissement of 'The Toonerville Trolley' is a suitably
nice conclusion to the album.
You
know, when you actually read the liner notes and hear all those band
members complaining about how The Machine was sadistically stifling
their creative forces, as if they were one collective Orson Welles or
something, you'd think the end result should have been predictable - two
good single A-sides and ten pieces of worthless crap. But in thinking
so, you'd definitely underestimate the power of corporate song writing.
Tucker and Mantz presumably wrote 'I Had Too Much To Dream' just because
it was their job. They got good money for it, and they wrote it by
carefully capturing the "vibes" of the epoch, whether they
themselves were feeling these vibes in their souls or not (and I have
good reason to doubt they did). And yet the result was convincing enough
for the song to make it to Nuggets, together with the real
"authentic" garage-rock of the epoch, the one written by
scruffy teens out of (spiritual) inspiration and (sexual) maturation!
 Which
brings us, yet again, to the point that "commercial" and
"non-commercial" song writing were exceedingly hard to
separate in the mid-Sixties; with values such as
"experimentalism" and "spontaneity" getting as high
on the market as they'd never ever get again, somehow the goals of those
who wrote for money and of those who wrote for art became, if not
completely the same, at the very least so close to each other it took a
real pro to tell them apart. On I Had Too Much To Dream, it's mostly
lightweight fluff like 'Onie' or 'The King...' that hints at
"oppression" - but let's not forget that even creatively free
bands would often stoop to this kind of material, not being forced by
anybody, in order to attract larger audiences.
The
one truly deplorable effect it had on the Prunes, of course, is that the
Prunes eventually came to be regarded in the same ballpark as the
Monkees - i.e. a band where outside songwriters are everything and band
members are interchangeable nothings, which, of course, resulted in the
embarrassment of the "band’s "third" album in less than
a year. But then again, it has never been proven that something great
and timeless could come out of the original Prunes had they been given
completely free rein. Where is Jim Lowe today, I wonder?
DISCOGRAPHY
Albums
The Electric Prunes 1967 Underground 1967 Mass In F Minor 1968
Release of An Oath 1968 Just Good Old Rock and Roll 1969 Artifact 2002
California 2004 Feedback 2006
Singles
Ain't It Hard / Little Olive (Reprise 0473) 1966 I Had Too Much to
Dream (Last Night) / Luvin (Reprise 0532) 1966 US #11 - UK #49 Get Me to
the World on Time / Are You Lovin' Me More (Reprise 0564) 1966 US #27 -
UK #42 Vox Wah-Wah Ad(Thomas 08-000132-0) 1967 Dr Do-Good /
Hideaway(Reprise 0594) 1967 The Great Banana Hoax / Wind-up Toys
(Reprise 0607) 1967 Everybody Knows You're Not In Love / You Never Had
it Better (Reprise 0652) 1968 I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night / Get
Me To The World On Time (Reprise 0704 - Double A-side) 1968 Shadow
(Reprise PRO 287) 1968, one-sided single Sanctus / Credo (Reprise PRO
277) 1968 Help Us (Our Father, Our King) / The Adoration (Reprise PRO
305) 1968 Hey! Mr. President / Flowing Smoothly (Reprise 0756) 1969
Violent Rose / Sell (Reprise 0833) 1969 Love Grows / Finders, Keepers,
Losers, Weepers (Reprise 0858) 1969 Hollywood Halloween (Birdman Records
BMR1313) 2001, Peter Lewis (Moby Grape) backed by The Electric Prunes)
Get Me To The World On Time (Live) (Birdman Records BMR037) 2002
(recorded at Voxfest III in June 2001) Left in Blue (original by Azure
Halo)
I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) / Luvin (Reprise RS 20532) 1966
UK Get Me To The World On Time / Are You Lovin Me More (But Enjoying It
Less) (Reprise RS 20564) 1967 UK The Great Banana Hoax / Wind-Up Toys
(Reprise RS 20607) 1967 UK Long Days Flight / The King In His Counting
House (Reprise RS 23212) 1967 UK I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night) /
Luvin' / Little Olive / Ain't It Hard (Reprise RVEP 60098) 1967 French
Everybody Knows You're Not In Love / You Never Had It Better (Reprise RS
20652) 1968 UK Long Day's Flight / Dr Do Good / The Great Banana Hoax /
Captain Glory (Reprise RVEP 60110) 1968 French Everybody Knows You're
Not In Love / You Never Had It Better (Reprise RV 20149) 1968 French Hey
Mr President / Flowing Smoothly (Reprise RV 20198) 1969 French Had Too
Much To Dream (Last Night) / ("Lies" by the Knickerbockers)
(Elektra K 12102) 1973 (from the Nuggets compilation) UK I Had Too Much
To Dream (Last Night) / Luvin (Radar ADA 16 - picture sleeve reissue)
1979 UK
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