Serpent Power

Serpent Power | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (December 5, 1993)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Label: Vanguard Records
• ASIN: B000000EJI
• Also Available in: Audio CD  |  Audio Cassette
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #506,956 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. Don't You Listen to Her

2. Gently, Gently

3. Open House

4. Flying Away

5. Nobody Blues

6. Up and Down

7. Sky Baby

8. Forget

9. Dope Again

10. Endless Tunnel

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars excellent, May 12, 2010

By 

Bill Your 'Free Form FM Handi Cyber Print DJ ... (Mahwah, NJ USA) - See all my reviews
(TOP 1000 REVIEWER)   

This review is from: Serpent Power (Audio CD)

Two elements are at work on Serpent Power's only album from 1967. The first is being different than your contemporaries was the same of the game in the competitive 60s underground. The second is, during the very early days of psychedelia, no one quite knew what psychedelia was supposed to sound like.

Serpent Power were unique in that they used a electric banjo. And though its true their label Vanguard had a yen for folk and very unprocessed psych--listen to either Circus Maximus or Country Joe and the Fish, Electric Music for the Mind and Body and the ideas may be progressive, but the recordings are raw-Serpent Power is no country, folk or bluegrass album.

Most of the tracks on Serpent Power are open jams, and some shimmering psychedelia like the elegant "Gently Gently." This and a lot of other tracks used instruments in a way rock had not before--the open field of that was then called "the new music" when there was not even a rock FM station in New York yet.

"Endless Tunnel" was an infant progressive radio airwave favorate once the mics opened--one of those early mainstays that seemed never to have existed after December 31, 1969. This is a long poem--set to an almost Coltranian mode--featuring a great banjo solo.

So, the narrator of "Endless Tunnel" buys a "ticket" and gets on the train for a "trip" and starts to talk to "Mr. Conductor." After ten minutes of poetry he asks the conductor were the boxcars were heading and the conductor says "I don't know. I'm just following the tracks.

It was early 1967. Spe(L)l thi(S) out for you? I (D)on't think I have to.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars From the Examiner.com review: Ten Rock Classics From The Summer of Love, July 28, 2010

By 

the anti-critic (Boston, MA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Serpent Power (Audio CD)

The Serpent Power, The Serpent Power - Another excellent example of the fertile creative ground in SF during the sixties, beat poet David Meltzer assembled his wife and a few musician buddies and released this overlooked gem under the moniker The Serpent Power. Absorbing influences ranging from The Great Society to The Grateful Dead, the band does a remarkable job of setting Meltzer's words to a groovy, psychedelic vibe. Highlights include the trenchant "Nobody Blues", the poppish "Up and Down" (their lone 45,) the Jerry Garcia-fied "Open House" and the Eastern-flavored closer, "Endless Tunnel", where Meltzer's stream-of-consciousness upstages Jim Morrison's soliloquy on "The End."
[...]

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Better Than Average, Short of Great, March 29, 2011

By 

S. Mayer "Music Lover" (Blazin' Hot Southwest) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Serpent Power (Audio CD)

The Serpent Power's sole album is worth hearing and buying- at a reasonable price- but it isn't a classic. Completists for this era and style of music will want to pick it up but there are dozens (if not hundreds) of albums to hear first.