Customer Reviews

Above Ground Sound of

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This album has the original erie acoustic version of 'Dazed & Confused', later done by The Yardbirds and Jimmy Page, before the Led Zepplin version came out. This is true late '60's psychadelica at its best. This entire album is full of deep bass riffs and broken guitar chords and Holmes' voice deliver lyrical perfection. A great forgotten singer/ songwriter lost in time.

Though often footnoted by Led Zeppelin apologists for "Dazed and Confused," Holmes' long out-of-print debut album for Columbia's Tower imprint contains much more than that pilfered song. It often blurs into the more speedy, acid-drenched songs of the Byrds, the warped balladry of early John Hartford, or the sort of folk orchestrations that would be toned down and delivered with greater refinement on Nick Drake's "Bryter Layter."

Holmes is to be lauded for his daring production risks, mixing Greenwich village folk with fleeting horns, strings, and quick-fingered jazz leads. The electric bass underpinning many of the arrangements is nimble and ever-so unpredictable. The album is indeed a lost psych-folk classic, albeit one the casually aware often slight with "if it's so good why haven't I heard it" dismissal. That said, Holmes does slip into some "poor me" lyrical missteps here and there.

Quality-wise, it sounds as if the CD were mastered off of vinyl (though the liner notes indicate that the original stereo masters are lost -- thus we have the mono mix, brought back into print in an affordable budget version by itsaboutmusic.com). Considering the difficulty of hearing this music at all, this is a small hurdle to adjust to, and even lends a sepia-toned nostalgia to an album that is far more than a curio.

Jake Holmes deserved so much more. Sure, he wasn't Dylan (or, for that matter, Lennon or Jagger), but he was good. Damn good. In fact, on some of these songs, he was utterly brilliant: "Did You Know" and "Too Long" are ethereal, haunting, and utterly gorgeous, full of sonorous, moaning guitars and pained longing. "Dazed And Confused" (which Led Zeppelin would later cover without crediting, heartlessly depriving Holmes at what may have been his best chance for success) is an apocalyptic psych-folk masterpiece, dripping with raw paranoia and emotional chaos. "Lonely" features a chaotic and acrobatic guitar run, with harrowed vocals exploding over caustic melodies. "She Belongs To Me" swings with humor and attitude, while "Penny's" is just plain engaging. In general, this album is both gorgeous and harrowing, full of surreal melodic constructions drifting through a dreamy haze of ringing guitars and haunted vocals. The music is hypnotic, the vocals motive, the ideas original and the overall tone often otherworldly. This is a mid 60s folk classic that belongs in the collection of anybody and everybody with even a passing interest in the decade.

One of the many singer-songwriters to come out of New York's Greenwich Village folk scene in the mid-1960s, San Francisco native Jake Holmes is remembered, if at all, for being the real author of "Dazed and Confused," one of the most recognizable and famous songs in British group Led Zeppelin's repertoire. But Page, Plant, Jones and Bonham, didn't do Holmes any favors. By Jimmy Page taking sole songwriting credit for it (i.e. stole it), Led Zeppelin literally made the song their own, making millions while poor Jake eventually had to pay his bills by writing jingles for radio and television commercials (he is the creator of the Army's "Be all that you can be!" slogan).

"Dazed and Confused" shares space with a selection of nine other autumnal acid-folk tracks on his 1967 debut, THE ABOVE GROUND SOUND Of JAKE HOLMES. Accompanied by only two guitars and bass, Holmes' stark and disembodied lyricism sets a mood that is tense and anguished, spooky. When listening to this uncompromising and --virtually-- unsalable album, it's bewildering to know that its lonely and brooding author would soon become a master at penning upbeat jingles in commercial advertising.

Recommended to fans of Tim Buckley and Nick Drake.

Jake Holmes looks like & sounds like a straight cat converted to a hipster! He seems like a talented Southern gent who ended up somewhere between the beatniks and the hippies. His music is crazy easy listening pop, but turned a little sideways to a 60's freakout vibe. A little swamp groove at times (pre-Creedence) folk rock thrown in as well. The undiscovered gem of this LP is Dazed & Confused-who knew Page stole this from Jake Holmes! Even though JP's rep as riff rip off artist (just ask Jeff Beck, Beck's Bolero or members of Spirit whose Taurus became Stairway To Heaven). It's easy to hear why Jake's ORIGINAL Dazed & Confused inspired Page! It sounds like a soundtrack to an LSD trip on TV show Dragnet! Dig this!

The 2 best tracks on this album are Lonely, and of course Dazed And Confused. To beat the fact to death, Holmes was seriously ripped off by Led Zeppelin. The songs are stupid and maudlin at times(Genuine Imitation Life). I have been listening to it on Rhapsody. I have read that the recording quality of this album is poor, especially the vocals. It may have been intentional. Anyway, do not download the [...] version of this because 2 of the tracks skip, the quality is truly horrible and the 2 bonus tracks are throwaways. Maybe the Amazon download is better but I couldn't tell for sure from the 30 second samples. Even though I had reservations because of overall song(not sonic) quality, I just ordered this on cd. I'm sure it will be impossible to find at a reasonable price on cd soon. If you want it I think this is the way to go and the time to buy it.

Goog pop- folk from USA.
Inside there's the original version of "Dazed and confused" that Led Zeppelin covered in their first classic LP.