Psychedelic Dreams

Original Released on LP Reprise RS 6248 

(US, April 1967)

The story of the Electric Prunes is the classic tale of a group plucked from obscurity. A group of friends from Taft High School in Los Angeles were practicing in a garage one day, when a passing real estate agent heard them and was inspired to introduce the group to her friend, RCA studio engineer Dave Hassinger. Hassinger believed the group had talent, but lacked songwriting ability, and so brought in professional songwritters Annette Tucker and Nancie Mantz. This pair had originally penned the LP’s title track as a slow piano ballad, but the group’s interpretation, inspired by the hippy scene of the day, was a fuzz-and reverb-soaked trip into the fantastical. Double-tracked vocals and echoes added to its soaring sound and led to the track’s release as a single (it reached Nº 11 in the U.S. charts). This swiftly led to the recording of an album (mostly of Mantz/Tucker material) with the Reprise label. Their follow-up single “Get Me To The World On Time” was a similarly lush psychedelic affair, but failed to re-create the commercial success of their debut. The album sold well on both sides of the Atlantic, certainly equaling sales of contemporaries such as Jefferson Airplane and so, at least at the start, the Prunes were viewed as the frontrunners of the burgeoning West Coast psychedelic scene. Years later, the large number of copies of their album that became cheaply available in second-hand markets in the States led to them becoming a huge influence on garage punk bands of the 1970s such as the MC5 and The Stooges (Craig Reece on “1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die”).

ELECTRIC PRUNES: "Mass In F Minor"

Original released on LP Reprise RS 6275

(US, January 1968)

For fans of the Electric Prunes, the 1968 Reprise album "Mass in F Minor" is a disaster, but for aficionados of failed and bizarre concept records of the late '60s, it's definitely worth investigating. The six tracks on this religious-based rock opera (with lyrics sung in Latin!) were written, arranged, and conducted by classical composer David Axelrod and spurred on by then-Prunes manager Lenny Poncher and record producer Dave Hassinger. Evidently, all parties involved, including the band, agreed that this project would propel the Electric Prunes from minor-league garage rockers into a finely tuned psychedelic ensemble to be taken seriously as musicians and artists. Unfortunately, the Prunes were not prepared to tackle Axelrod's complex and involved arrangements without a major struggle. In order to keep the sessions from going into costly overtime, Hassinger brought in studio musicians to finish the project. The results were completely unlike the group's previous two releases, with the majority of the tracks being performed by ad hoc Prunes. Shortly after the album's release, the original lineup faded into obscurity, taking "Mass in F Minor" with them. However, an eerie version of "Kyrie Eleison" received fleeting attention when it was featured in the film "Easy Rider". (Al Campbell in AllMusic)

THE ELECTRIC PRUNES: "Underground"

Original released on LP Reprise RS-6262

(US, September 1967)

According to Electric Prunes members Jim Lowe and Mark Tulin, producer Dave Hassinger enjoyed enough success as a result of the group's early hit singles and their subsequent debut album that he was too busy to spend much time with them as they were recording the follow up, and that was arguably a good thing for the band. While "Underground" didn't feature any hit singles along the lines of "I Had to Much to Dream (Last Night)," it's a significantly more consistent work than the debut, and this time out the group was allowed to write five of the disc's twelve songs, allowing their musical voice to be heard with greater clarity. As on their first LP, the Electric Prunes' strongest asset was the guitar interplay of Jim Lowe, Ken Williams and James "Weasel" Spagnola, and while they became a bit more restrained in their use of fuzztone, wah-wah and tremolo effects, there's a unity in their attack on "Underground" that's impressive, and the waves of sound on "Antique Doll," "Big City" and " "Children of Rain" reveal a new level creative maturity (though they could make with a wicked, rattling fuzz on "Dr. Do-Good"). If "Underground" ultimately isn't as memorable as the Electric Prunes' first album, it's a matter of material - while the outside material that dominated the debut was sometimes ill-fitting, it also gave them some stone classic tunes like "I Had Too Much to Dream" and "Get Me to the World on Time," and the band themselves didn't have quite that level of songwriting chops, while the hired hands didn't deliver the same sort of material for "Underground". Still, the album shows that the Electric Prunes had the talent to grow into something more mature and imaginative than their reputation suggested, and it's all the more unfortunate that the group's identity would be stripped from them for the next album released under their name, "Mass in F Minor". (Mark Deming in AllMusic)