The Strawberry Alarm Clock - Strawberries Mean Love (1992) {CDWIKD 56}
Next to the Left Banke, the Strawberry Alarm Clock has to be the most underrated group in rock'n'roll history. Their music, sometimes dismissed as period fluff (by caustic critics who should have known better), was as invigorating and incisive as anything else produced during the psychedelic era, circa 1965-1971.
I recall purchasing "The Best Of The Strawberry Alarm Clock" on vinyl, over thirty years ago and was titillated by the way they could literally inject florid images into my mind with their lilting pop tone poems and more frenetic rock songs. It was a transforming rush, because their tone colour, often accented by Indian and Oriental incantations, made me feel that I was, for the moment, somewhere else. The Strawberry Alarm Clock accomplished this by exploiting the full potentiality of their instrumental and vocal arsenal, i.e., harpsichords conveyed rain, xylophones depicted fire, sung harmonies evoked speculation, etc. The themes of their tunes covered a munificent gamut, from the effects of LSD to the future of mankind. Many of their contemporaries tinkered, unsuccessfully, for years to euphoniously achieve that bewitching mood which was the Strawberry Alarm Clock's. After all, this is what psychedelic music, the genre inaugurated by the Byrds on "Eight Miles High," was all about: seeing sounds and hearing colours.
In the past few years I bought all of the Strawberry Alarm Clock compilations available on CD, including the album I am here reviewing, "Strawberries Mean Love," from 1992 (although I first got the vinyl version of same from 1987, in the late '80s, which had eight fewer works), as well as the "Anthology" and "Incense & Peppermints" hits package. "Strawberries Mean Love" is the most generous offering of the three. It features twenty-one cuts, three more than "Anthology" and containing every song on said, save for the lovely "Blues For A Young Girl Gone" and the introspective "Black Butter-Past" and "Black Butter-Future." It includes, as well, every piece but two--the "Good Morning Starshine" cover and the rousing "Starting Out The Day"--from the ten track "Incense & Peppermints" collection. Even owning all three of the aforementioned compilations, one is still deprived of the coquettish "Miss Attraction" and the pensive "Angry Young Man" from "The Best Of," the twelve song, vinyl release alluded to earlier. Four of the band's songs, recorded as A and B sides to singles, are also absent from any of the above ("Me and the Township," "Changes," "California Day" and "Girl from the City"). It seems as if no compilation is ever complete!
All of the group's songs have grown on me over the years, however, "Sea Shell" and "Pretty Song From 'Psych-Out'" (both on the album reviewed) have proven to be the most captivating. I therefore invite you to romantically awaken to "Strawberries Mean Love"--the sweet, rubicund pith of the Strawberry Alarm Clock.
The Strawberry Alarm Clock are in most quarters considered one-hit wonders having scaled the charts with the catchy bit of 1967 psychedelia "Incense and Peppermints." The hit became a kind of yoke around the neck of the band, pigeonholing them as psychedelic bubblegummers. "Strawberries Mean Love" goes a long way in disproving this argument. Big Beat Records has culled 21 tracks, 64 minutes, from the four lps the band released. Besides "Incense" and the top-25 hit "Tomorrow" this anthology contains several other tunes well known to fans of West Coast music of the late 1960s, namely "Sit With The Guru" and "Rainy Day Mushroom Pillow." The real treats of the set, however, are the 8:26 rendition of "The World's On Fire" which contains heady lead guitar work by future Lynyrd Skynyrd member Ed King, "Love Me Again" and the title track both once again fueled by King's guitar work, tastefully trippy keyboards, and lovely vocal harmonies. This collection does a wonderful job of encapsulating the career of one of the more underrated and overlooked West Coast psychedic bands of the 1960s. While they may not have been the most technically talented lot, they certainly could hold their own against other bands of the time, and their combination of tastefully swirling guitars and vocal harmonies makes them a pleasure to give a listen to some 30-odd years down the road.
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