One fine day in 1966, blonde-haired Californian singerman Merrell Fankhauser of 'Merrell And The Exiles' and 'The Impacts' woke up and said to himself, "Say... You know what would be even harder to spell/pronounce than my own name? A word that combines the first few letters of FOUR DIFFERENT NAMES!" As such, Merrell "FA"nkhauser, Don "PAR"rish, Bill "DO"dd and... err... Dic"K" Lee (pr. "LY") became "FAPARDOKLY," successfully ensuring that the band would remain every bit as obscure as The Beatles would've had they called themselves "LEMCCHAOSTAR".
Fapardokly never actually recorded an LP. Instead, it was pickled and pieced together by the UIP record company from jots, dolts and finkly-binkly recordings created by the band between 1964 and 1966. It's this very cobbling together of disparate elements that renders the final product a bit less than the sum of its whole ("whole" = abbrev. for "whore hole" ie "vagina").
Don't misunderstood me: there are plenty of great songs on this vagina (9 out of 15 in this writer's opinion, and I generally agree with him on these things, even though he's a shitty writer). But man, what an inconsistent hish-hash mish-mash to behold as the tunes wildly careen between generic 50's rock'n'roll, somber Everly Brothers-ish balladry and experimental Byrdsy psychedelia! See, most bands (The Beatles, for example.) (Oh, and the Rolling Stones, if you know them.) had the opportunity to showcase their artistic growth in real-time over a series of increasingly complex releases spanning a number of years. Fapardokly didn't; their impressive three years' worth of steady creative development was all slopped onto a single release -- and not even in chronological order!
As such, your ears are all buggin' out to forward-thinking tracks like the dark artsy arpeggiator "Mr. Clock," scraggle-muff "Eight Miles High" homage "Gone To Pot," and moody nightime vibrator "No Retreat" when all of a sudden you run headlong into a Richie Valens four-chord la-de-da pop song like "Too Many Heartbreaks." Or you're soothing down low to the dreamy balladry and Jordinairesy backup vocals of "Lila" and "The Music Scene" when the rug is yanked from beneath you by a goddamned Buddy Holly ripoff. Throw in a tough Stones blues-punker, a bouncy Monkees bubblegummer, a breezy Mamas & Papas folk-popper, a bit of minor-key jazzy swing rock, a little Gene Pitney melancholia, a few trumpet lines and tons of lovely vocal harmonies and SHAZAMAMO! You've got a record suffering from split-personality disorder, though not 'schizoprenia' because that's a more general term encompassing several different psychotic disorders.
It's still a good record though - that's a pretty high 7 I'm giving it (with my seven-fingered hand) so if you see a used copy, do pick it up! Plus, Merrell Fankhauser is a man to watch. He has a lovely male voice like you might find in The Youngbloods or The Turtles, and after Fapardokly got hit by the bus of obscurity, he formed a great little band called Merrell Fankhauser And His H.M.S. Bounty before moving to Hawaii and dedicating several confusing years to a fruitless search for the mystical island of Mu. (?) Music written during this period can be found under band names like "Mu" and "Merrell Fankhauser." Seek them out! He's an interesting man, this blonde beauty. Think Jayne Mansfield with a mustache.
Ha ha ha! Aren't you just picturing it now? Ha ha! Jayne Mansfield with a mustache!
Wait, I've got another one! Marilyn Monroe with a couple of turds on her face like sideburns! HA HA HA HA!!!!!
At some point, I really must mature.
There, that should do it. Please don't Screw It!
I'm serious; get your dick out of the monitor.