Customer Reviews

Underground

5 star:		(3)
4 star:		(7)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

The Electrc Prunes. What a great name for a band! "I had too much too dream last night" was a psychedelic masterpiece- short, crazy and unexpectable. It was a big hit and was taken from their debut album which was O.K. You could easily here the potential in great tunes such as "Bangles", but overall the album was not perfect.

Underground, the band's second offring is something completly different. The guys did their homework, wrote some classic songs and produced ,what would be, one of the greatest albums of the sixties. There is no one bad track on this underrated masterpiece. The production is fantastic- great fuzzy guitars, strange organs, beutiful vocals harmonies and some surprising string arrangments. The lyrics are mystical, sometimes childish ("Antique doll", "Wind up toys", "Children of rain"), Freaky( "Dr. Do- Good"), or sentimental ("Big city"). The melodies are Great! "The Great Banana Hoax" is simple but arranged as a one long trip. Others has some crazy chords changes (listen to "wind up toys").

UNDERGROUND is one of the best offrings of the late sixties. This great Pop album still sounds fantastic these days.

After reviewing Mass in F Minor, I happened upon the Collectors Choice reissue of Underground and sought to replace my old vinyl copy.

Listening to it again it is hard to understand how I let it out of my regular listening albums in the first place.

Psychedelia meets punk and what a combination. The album is drenched in guitar and organ effects, surreal lyrics and playing yet with a hard edge at times.

There are some great songs on this, a personal fasvourite being the weird, I, and a variety of styles.

Buy this album, listen to it on headphones, or if you have them those Sharper Image goggles. Play it LOUD, play it often, play it to your friends. Experience this album.

You will be glad you did.

Especially recommended to anyone interested in this era!

This is the sophomore effort from the Prunes. I feel this was unjustly panned by the critics as it shows the group growing up in thier sound. They would go from a teenage wet dream set to the tone of a fuzz guitar to a more tight sound, and more introspective songs. The liner notes were written by Barbara Harris. I'm not sure if she's the one who was in the domineering mother comedy "Oh Dad...Poor Dad" with Johnathan Winters, but she was a fox in that movie. Anyway the songs range with "The Great Banana Hoax" has a more soul sound to it, and there's some punkish tunes like "Children Of Rain", and then there's the stabs at psychedelia with "Antique Doll", "I", and "Hideaway". There's also a novelty song released as a single called "Dr. Do Good". Unfortunately the Prunes fell in the box with a bunch of other groups written off as "One Hit Wonders". The only other tunes that saw the light of day were "Everybody Knows You're Not In Love" off the "Release Of An Oath" album, and "Kyrie Elliason" which wasn't heard until the movie "Easy Rider". It was a fickle audience and managers that killed the band. "Underground" was definitely underrated.

The Electric Prunes grow up on their second LP release.

Most fans of the 60's psych/punk genre include these guys 1st LP ('I Had Too Much to Dream Last Night') as an essential example of this type of music, but take the 2 singles off that album ('I Had too Much to Dream' and 'Get Me to the World on Time') and you have a pretty mediocre record.

What we have with 'Underground' is that absolute rarity... a genuine 60's Psych/Punk LP that you can listen to without having to skip tracks. The only other bands of the genre who managed that were the '13th Floor Elevators', 'The Music Machine' and possibly 'The Shadows of Knight', 'The Chocolate Watchband' and 'The Seeds'.

Listen with headphones to pick up the subtleties of David Hassingers wonderful stereo mix.

Best Tracks: The weird 'Great Banana Hoax', the spooky 'Antique Dolls', the sinister nursery rhyme 'Wind Up Toys' and the fantastic vocals on 'I Happen to Love You'.

Forget 'Mass in F Minor' - that's a studio concoction that involved more session musicians than band members (psychedelia by numbers for the tourists). 'Underground' is the Prunes lasting contribution to rock, and with their recent reformation it may finally get the recognition it always deserved.

If you liked I had too much to dream, I would highly recommend this album. The songs have beautiful harp-like sounds and excellent vocals. This is a must have for anyone who collects 60s music.

Unlike their psychedelic contemporaries in San Francisco, the Electric Prunes retained their garage-punk sensibilities as they produced guitar-and-organ drenched psychedelia. This, their second LP, extends the variety of psych-pop heard on their debut, while honing a tighter and heavier sound. The album has great bass lines ("The Great Banana Hoax" and "Hideaway"), skewed country-blues ("It's Not Fair"), autoharp-stained sunshine pop ("Big City"), and plenty of the bluesy fuzz guitar and organ that marked the band's debut.

Additional highlights include a Seeds-like cover of the obscure Goffin & King tune, "I Happen to Love You," the lost-in-time "Antique Doll" (writ by the same pair of outside writers who penned "I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night),") and the Thirteenth Floor Elevators-like "Long Day's Flight." Sundazed's crisply remastered stereo reissue adds a pair of bonus tracks, the single "Everybody Knows You're Not in Love" and its flip "You Never Had It Better." The B-side is the more ferocious rocker, but really, it's the album's tracks that make this worth buying.

Originally released in late 1967,this was the band's follow-up to their debut 'I Had Too Much To Dream' of which 'Underground' is nearly as good.Nice reissue of a forgotten(by many)good psychedelic garage rock album.Tracks I was most drawn to were "Wind-Up Toys","Antique Dolls","Dr.Do-Good" and the two bonus cuts that Collector's Choice had tagged on,"Everybody Knows" and "You Never Had It Better".A couple of other Electric Prunes titles I could recommend to listeners would be the lp reissue that came after this one,'Mass In F Minor' and the later day archive release 'Stockholm '67'(see my reviews of both).

I must disagree with the reviewer who said you can find better garage psychedlia. This recording, along with the Prunes first album, contain some of the best of that genre, "The Great Banana Hoax", "Wind-Up Toys", "I Happen To Love You", "Long Days Flight" etc. The Prunes were ahead of their time and were derailed by the Mass In F Minor fiasco. I would suggest buying the Lost Dreams CD to the uninitiated, but that CD is missing a few of the essentials. So buy this and the first album instead and ignore the few weak tracks on both (i.e. "Toonerville Trolley", "It's Not Fair").

The Electric Prunes had two Top 40 hits on their first album, and the band is remembered as one of the best American psychedelic groups of the Sixties. In the group's sophomore effort, "Underground," there are more songs with a mellow, low-key feel than there were on its predecessor. This album enjoyed less commercial success than the group's first album did, but there are several fine numbers here, including "I Happen to Love You," "Dr. Do-Good," "Hideaway," and "Long Day's Flight." If you are a fan of Sixties psychedelic rock, you will likely enjoy this album.

I'm glad that I ran across this CD. I have the original issue of the album, which was not mixed right. The vocals are barly audiable. There is an appology on the back cover for the "under nourished sounds". This is a great album, especialy now that I can hear what their singing!