Autosalvage - Autosalvage (1968/2001 Remastered Edition)
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Album: Autosalvage - Autosalvage (Remastered Edition)
Released: 1968 (2001)
Genre: Psych-, Proto-Prog
Gnosis Rating: 9.58
Acadia - ACA 8011
Official CD reissue of the sole album by this great late '60's US psychedelic band who made this one album in 1968. Quirky fuzz guitars, odd lyrics and multi-layered harmonies create a strange brew that leans towards a West Coast sound rather than hinting at the bands East Coast origins. Classic '60's psych cover art. - Freak Emporium
Originally released in '68 and now available for the first time on CD legally. Formed in ‘66 and discovered by FRANK ZAPPA, who reputedly had a hand in this one and only album by the band. Hailing from New York's AUTOSALVAGE merged rock lyrics with avant-garde music to great effect using Medieval instruments. This album is a great addition to collectors of 60's psychedelia. - Record Heaven
Originally released in 1968, this is the only album this New York band ever released. The band's members included Skip Boone, brother of Lovin' Spoonful's Steve Boone. - Evangeline Records
The most misunderstood of all the so-called "psych" bands of the late 1960s, the only LP by Autosalvage is the first and best US psych-into-prog record of them all. Recorded in 1967, ahead of its time, this record took a Byrds/Airplane-inspired acid-folk-rock mixture and crafted songs unique, catchy, raucous, and truly flipped in an early Zappa-like way (who had a hand in getting them signed, apparently). Autosalvage stays heavily focused on music rather than zaniness, but the song titles indicate that there's plenty of gimlet-eyed humor as well: "Rampant Generalities," "Glimpses of the Next World's World," "The Great Brain Robbery," plus a jaw-dropping rendition of Leadbelly's "Good Morning Blues." Full-on lead guitars, nasally vocals (the worst feature for some, but I find them punkish), and extended yet carefully arranged 6-minute acid/jam/extrapolations are artfully wrapped in hummable tunes. Folks, it doesn't get any better. - Will Jackson, Gnosis
This group was started in the middle of 1966 by Thomas Danaher, who was a folk and bluegrass freak, and Darius LaNoue Davenport, who came from a musical family. Lead guitarist Rick Turner, son of a poet and a painter, had worked with Ian and Sylvia and then a long line of rock groups. Bassist Skip Boone is the brother of Steve Boone, the bassist for the Lovin' Spoonful.
Originally discovered by The Mothers Of Invention, the group broke up when they saw it wasn't enough to be good: you also had to sell a lot of records to make the sort of money that made the whole hassle worthwhile. Their only album, released in 1968, is full of quiet flashes of brilliance, and there are people about still weeping at the demise of a group called Autosalvage - even if there is a fine album left to remember it by." - Lillian Roxon, "Rock Encyclopedia"
Here's one that's grown increasingly in-demand over the last few years. That demand's probably partially the result of the fact there hasn't been a decent CD reissue. A bootleg CD released in the late-'80s sounded like it was recorded in a subway tunnel and managed to get the track listing hosed up. Yeah bootleggers !!!
Formed in 1966 by bluegrass fanatic Thomas Donaher and multi-instrumentalist Darius Davenport, Autosalvage was one of the mid-'60s more impressive jug band lineups. Boasting an exceptionally talented line up, including ex-Ian and Sylvia sideman Rick Turner and bassist Skip Boone (brother of the Lovin' Spoonful's Steve Boone), the band's sound melded authentic jug band moves with rock instrumentation, a sense of enthusiasm and a willingness to expanded into progressive and out of the ordinary directions.
Reportedly dscovered by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention while on a visit to New York, with Zappa's support the group was signed by RCA Victor. Released in 1968, "Autosalvage" offered up one of the year's odder musical hybrids. Exemplified by original material such as "Land of Their Dreams," "Burglar Song" and "Rampant Generalities" the collection featured a weird mixture of Byrds-styled country rock ("Rampart Generalities"), blues-rock ("Good Morning Blues") psychedelia ("Auto Salvage") and outright pretense. What made the set truly maddening was the fact that while all four members were undeniably talented, they seldom brought those talents together. Among the few tracks worth hearing more than once were the nifty title effort and the single "Parahighway" b/w "Rampart Generalities." Not to sound too damning, the band's willingness to try new things makes it oddly endearing, if not particularly commercial, or memorable. Unfortunately, it all came to little avail since the band called it quits shortly thereafter. - Bad Cat Records
The Mothers of Invention [they were that!] first came to New York City -- it must have been in '67 or '68 -- to play two memorable gigs: At Andy Warhol's Balloon Farm in the East Village, and then at a small transformed movie theater beside The cafe A-Go-Go on Bleeker Street. To give you a flavor of the times: Muddy Waters followed the Mothers at the Balloon farm, while across town was Cream, in their first American gig at the Go-Go. Jimi Hendrix was also on the scene, possibly with beginning ideas for his recording studio on West 8th St., "Electric Ladyland."
Newly formed Autosalvage, myself included of course, first met the Mothers in opening for them at the Balloon Farm -- in reality an old Ukrainian Hall completely festooned in silver mylar. We then played the Go-Go for a few weeks, and were further able to hear and get to know Frank and the rest of the Mothers. We loved their freaky exuberance, backed up and expressed with fantastic chops -- a liberating experience for any musician. But Autosalvage, gaining by osmosis, was the extent of our musical connection.
One otherwise unknown fact for you: Frank had a particular liking for our signature song, "Auto Salvage," and at the time we were searching for a name for the band. Frank said that he would choose our "Auto Salvage" ... and so we did, but with a different meaning implied than junkyard for cars - Tom Donaher
There are obscure psychedelic groups from the '60s and there are obscure psychedelic groups from the '60s. With most of them, once you finally track down an album and listen to it, a lingering disappointment is all you get. Autosalvage is a little different. They were the right band in the wrong place at the right time. Fortunately, they got to do this one album, and we are left to wonder what if..?
Guitarist Rick Turner remembers how it all started. "I came up through the Boston/Cambridge folkie scene, with the Jim Kweskin, Jug Band Taj Mahal, Tom Rush, and Richard and Mimi Farina. That's when I met Tom Danaher. He and his girlfriend had found some stash of incredible musical instruments in a store that was going out of business so I got to know him. Then I wound up on the road with Ian & Sylvia in '65 with Felix Pappalardi on bass. When my gig was over, I started splitting my time between Cambridge and New York. I ran into Tom on Bleecker Street, and he said, casually, 'I'm putting a band together, you ought to check it out.' It seemed happening and strange and weird, so I moved full time to NY and we became a band."
Joining the two folkies were Darius LaNoue Davenport, son of LaNoue Davenport of the pioneering old music group the New York Pro Musica on drums, and Skip Boone, brother of the Lovin' Spoonful's Steve Boone, on bass. The band practiced in the basement of the famous/notorious Albert Hotel at first. "We had boards over pools of water to get to our instruments," Turner remembers. "Then, the Spoonful rented a rehearsal space on 7th Avenue, and we got the basement and their castoff equipment. They didn't know fuz-ztones had batteries, so when they stopped working they gave them to us. Harry Smith also crashed in that rehearsal pad with his boyfriend. I forget what we were originally called, but when we opened for Zappa at his first gig at the Balloon Farm, he heard us and liked us and decided we should call ourselves Autosalvage, after our epic tune. He was going to produce us, but he wound up going to Europe and we got impatient and got a deal with RCA and went with that."
Sparing no expense, RCA booked them into their Studio B, one of New York's first 8-track recording facilities. Turner had already helped record Ian and Sylvia's Play One More album there, but, as he says "We were the loudest thing they'd ever had there, and they weren't sure how to record us. Of course, we just loved playing with the machines, and if Skip wanted more bass, he'd just go up to the bass fader and push it up. Our producer, Bob Cullen, had no idea what we were up to; he'd produced a Youngbloods album or two, and realized the best thing to do was sit back and smile and let us do whatever we were gonna do. The sessions were kind of fun and interesting. There was one session where Kate Smith, of 'God Bless America' fame, was recording next door and came in to see what we were doing. Nice lady."
One thing the 8-track allowed them to do was to play a variety of instruments, and drummer Davenport even hauled his dad in to play cornets and sackbuts, overdubbing a very unusual horn section as a result. The elder Davenport took it in stride, being a sort of proto-hippie former jazzman who lived in an "intentional community" in Stony Point, New York, with the likes of dancer Merce Cunningham. In fact, one of the things which makes the album so fascinating is its assured and varied shifting of textures, which is due to the band playing with this new technology.
The album was released in March, 1968, and RCA had the inspired idea of lumping it together with its other spring rock releases in an ad campaign and show at the Fillmore East called Groupquake! "I think they thought we were going to be New York's answer to the Jefferson Airplane," Turner says wryly. Instead, the album just sat there in the stores, despite a very favorable review in Crawdaddy!, the day's "serious" rock mag. It got a little airplay on the tiny number of "underground" FM stations, one of which was in San Francisco, where KSAN's Voco urged the band to move out there, saying he could get them gigs at the Avalon Ballroom and Fillmore Auditorium.
Instead, the band stayed in New York, playing what gigs they could get. One regular venue was the Cafe au Go Go, where they opened a lot for a young Richard Pryor, and they also played the wedding reception for filmmaker Shirley Clarke's daughter on top of the Chelsea Hotel, a gig that was shut down by the police.
"In the year and a half we were together we probably played only 30 gigs" Turner says today. "We were not the Young Rascals, not doing pop or blues. Unless you were a neo Chicago blues band or a pop rock band, there wasn't any work. We were just on the wrong coast."
Turner had known Jesse Colin Young in Boston, and after the Youngbloods - Autosalvage's RCA labelmates - relocated to the West Coast, they invited him to check the scene out. "I made the exploratory leap and the rest of the band didn't." The rhythm section played on an album called Greetings, Children of Paradise, by Bear, which was another New York folk-rock band actually called Children of Paradise, and featured Happy and Artie Traum and Eric Kaz. After that, there is silence.
Rick Turner became involved with Alembic, a company which produced electronic equipment and instruments for the Grateful Dead and other San Francisco bands, and today is one of
the West Coast's most respected luthiers, his guitars and basses praised by many top players. Tom Danaher is a PhD. candidate in experimental psychology. Darius Davenport is working in rehabilitation therapy in California, and Skip Boone is a carpenter and contractor on Long Island, playing in a succession of bar bands by night.
"We were less jammy and more structured than a lot of the West Coast bands of the time," Turner sums up, "and it would have been interesting if we'd all made the move and seen if we could have integrated what we were doing with what people out here were doing." Instead, they left behind one tantalizing album, a taste of what could have been. - Ed Ward
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