Stockholm '67 [Live]

The Electric Prunes | Format: Audio CD

Product Details

• Audio CD (May 28, 2002)
• Number of Discs: 1
• Format: Live
• Label: Birdman
• ASIN: B000066SF3
• Also Available in: Audio CD
• Average Customer Review: 4.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #124,214 in Music (See Top 100 in Music)

Track Listings

1. You Never Had It Better

2. I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)

3. Try Me On For Size

4. I Happen To Love You

5. I Got My Mojo Workin'

6. Long Day's Flight (Til Tomorrow)

7. Smokestack Lightning

8. Get Me To The World On Time

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Way different from studio Prunes..., February 25, 2003

By 

Robert Schell (Townsville, Texas) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stockholm '67 (Audio CD)

The Electric Prunes' studio albums are pretty ethereal and arty, so you might be shocked at the Raw Power displayed on this aural document. Soundwise, it has more in common with The Who's Live at Leeds than any garage or psychedelic record you can think of from the '67 era. It's still very psychedelic, but seriously heavy. As the other reviewers noted, the sound quality is great -- what's amazing is that the band seemed to think that the recording didn't capture their full energy and power!

It starts off with a smokin' version of "You never had it better" with a wicked guitar solo. You also get strong versions of their better known songs, including the infamous "I had too much to dream last night," plus psychedelicized versions of blues standards "Smokestack lightning" and "I got my mojo working." It ends with a deliciously extended rave-up on "Get me to the world on time," wherein the Prunes raise up a massive "Sister Ray"-ish wall of speaker-melting feedback. Essential.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Timeless Rave-ups, December 9, 2006

By 

Katherine McCarthy "kath e. miller" (Forest Hills, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stockholm '67 (Audio CD)

First off, the Electric Prunes were cursed with a name that became a joke back in the '60's. Made sense at the time, but never made it thru the '70's with anything approaching dignity intact. 2) Mass in F Minor was a major mistake. Pompous, pretentious, over the top. But their first garage classics - "I Had Too Much Too Dream Last Night," and "Get Me To The World On Time" I played over & over until the 45 rpm singles' grooves went grey. Since then, they are now enshrined on the awesome and mighty Nuggets Anthology. I never saw them live until Little Steven resurrected them for his Underground Garage Festival in 2004. For their brief time onstage, they made the ground rumble. You could feel the fuzztone, feedback, and bass lines come up from the earth under your feet. I left the festival, and next day, went to their website where I discovered "Stockholm '67". In this I found the motherlode. Unbeknownst to me, the Electric Prunes were the best American rave-up psychedelic punk meisters to ever grace a stage. "Try Me On for Size," "Smokestack Lightning," "You Never Had It Better" will rip the joint. As for their own 1 1/2 hits - "I Had Too Much To Dream..." & "Get Me To The World..." they tear them apart & rebuild them from inside out. I can't help playing them at 11 and having the neighbors bang on the walls. Great stuff! Ferocious garage!

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Nearly a Danish, September 13, 2004

By 

Don Schmittdiel "running_man" (Clinton Twp., MI) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stockholm '67 (Audio CD)

The Electric Prunes' 'Stockholm 67' is touted in some circles, in particular on their own web site, as "perhaps the finest live recording of the psychedelic era". That must be notwithstanding works by artists such as Cream and Jimi Hendrix, but The Prunes certainly demonstrate on this December 1967 set that they possessed great, though unrealized potential beyond their two-trick pony facade.

The E.P.'s are best known for their November 1966 single, 'I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)', which by January of 1967 had progressed to a number 11 hit in North America. In April of the Summer of Love, they followed up their initial success with a minor hit, 'Get Me To the World On Time', which charted at number 27. The performance and recording of 'I Had Too Much..." is easily the best track on this disc. The opener, 'You Never Had It Better' possesses an addictive guitar riff that makes it the second best song on the CD. The band starts seriously cooking in their 'garage-punk' style with 'Try Me On For Size', takes a brief respite with the Gerry Goffin/Carole King compostion 'I Happen To Love You', originally written for The Monkees, and burn through the remainder of their set in blues-rock mode with four sizzlers, including Preston Foster's 'Got My Mojo Workin' and Chester Burnett's 'Smokestack Lightning'. The musicianship is surprisingly good here, simply because you expect so little from a relatively obscure, mid-1960's band with just 1 and 1/2 hits. Ken Williams' fuzz-tone guitar is turned up to maximum blast, and James Lowe provides consistantly strong vocals. Quint's drumming, Mark Tulin's bass, and Mike Gannon's second guitar form a hard-driving rhythm section that exudes confidence. Given that the year is late 1967, the recording is exceptionally well done, with only the vocals on a couple tracks seemingly in need of strengthening.

Credit for the high quality of this recording belongs primarily to the Swedish Broadcasting Corporation, who asked the band for permission to make the recording, and when they were turned down made it anyway. The band was wrapping up a long (and as it turned out, their only) overseas tour, and had abandoned much of their experimental psychedelia which had not been well received in Europe. The pseudo-psychedelic/blues-rock result is reminiscient of The Jefferson Airplane with a male lead singer. Portions of the complete show were broadcast over Swedish radio in 1968, probably accounting for the low-quality bootleg that has circulated for decades.

In 1997 the master tapes from the concert were uncovered and released on vinyl and CD, and again on CD in 2002. The track listings are different, with the 1997 disc featuring 'Are You Loving Me More (But Enjoying It Less)', while the 2002 disc replaces that track with 'Try Me On For Size'. One other track performed that evening, 'Dr. Do Good' appears on neither of the official releases.

You're going to like this if you're into a loud version of 1960's, distorted, semi-psychedelic guitar work, not unlike some of Neil Young's more impassioned work. If you shop around, a cardboard gatefold import version of the disc can be had for under seven dollars. It's every bit as heavy as Iron Butterfly ever wanted to be, and well worth at least a listen, if not a space on your CD shelf.