HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLOTHERE!!!
special introductory
paragraph!
If You Only Had The Time 7"
John Brown's Body 7"
Nova 1
The Nova Local were a local Chapel Hill band back when my father was a student at the University of North Carolina-Crapple Hill. He met the drummer a few times and told him, "Hay, I bet my second son, who will be born seven years from now, will totally dig your single so I'll buy it." Then he bought it, his second son was George P. Bush, and out came Mark Prindle. And love it? Shit man! Ass yeah I did/do! Years later I learned they had an album too, but I bought it and it wasn't as good. Maybe some day, if the lighting's right, I'll review both of them on my web site. That's assuming I ever start doing a record review web site though; I'm not sure how well they'd fit into my current web site, www.cnn.com/hilariousanecdotesaboutmypenis.html.
.
Not only is this the greatest single I own; it's also (objectively speaking) the greatest single ever released. Featuring two songs written and sung by Mr. Randy Winburn (no relation to my father Mr. Randy Prindle even though most people with the same first name are brothers, like me and charismatic Olympic swimmer Mark Spitz), this short blast of melodic '60s hard rockin' garage bubblegum is all the proof I've ever needed that radio success and musical quality have nothing at all to do with each other. Not only were these two songs not hits -- nobody I know has ever even heard of them! Except Richie Unterberger, who has "Games" on one of those '60s rarities compilations named after a rock formation. But of course Richie Unterberger would have heard of them -- he's an author! Authors know things!
Regardless of authors and their many faults, man oh MAN are these great songs! Straight from that '66-'67 era of compact, powerful pop rock songwriting for singles -- Monkees, Paul Revere & The Raiders, Electric Prunes, that kind of thing -- both of these songs are constantly running through my head, day after night after day, and not only because I suffer from the crippling, debilitating effects of obsessive-compulsive disorder but because they're so fuckin' CATCHY! And UPTEMPO! And SMART! And CREATIVE! And they ROCK! And they're EMOTIONAL! Now then, let's describe them.
They're CATCHY! And UPTEMPO! And SMs adfsa
"If You Only Had The Time" is the a-side. It begins with a strange, slightly comical descending riff played on an instrument (or combination of instruments) I STILL can't place to this day. I THINK it's an odd organ tone doubled with a horn of some sort, but I honestly have never heard an instrument that sounds like this in any other song, so for all I know it's a guy playing a triangle with his ass through a wah-wah pedal. It then shifts abruptly into a beautiful chiming set of electric guitar harmonics, which welcomes the rest of the band aboard Good Ship Beautiful Pop Song. As the guitarist continues playing his three-note harmonics melody throughout verse one, the rhythm guitarist strums a noisy electric chord, the drummer hard-hits an uptempo 4/4 beat, the bassist contributes a winningly counterintuitive ascending riff, and the quite likeable vocalist uses his idiosyncratic accent and rough-around-the-edges tunefulness to bring the song's adorable stop-and-smell-the-roses message to life: "See tha flow-wuhz! See the pritty, pritty flow-wuhz! Yu cuhd pik thim heyah fo' hou-wuhz -- if you only had the time!" Then the entire BAND comes in to sing with him -- all in different harmonious keys together like a spring day, "Hear the laughter - hear the merry, merry laughter - you could see what they are after - if you only had the time!" Actually that might not be the second verse; I get the order confused in my head. It might actually be the one about the little little children and how you could pay attention to them if you only had the time, or perchance the one about the lovely lovely singing and how you could hear ice cream bells ringing if you only had the time. Whichever line it is, one thing's for certain: it RULES!!!!!! As melodic and happy as it sounds, this is NOT, in fact, a happy-go-lucky bubblegum song. It's got a dark undercurrent both musically and lyrically, as it points out how much of our lives we waste on our jobs, stress and worries. Then it goes into a little segue - "Waste your life away-ee-yay, and one day you'll find -- you're missing things! Missing things all the time!" Then comes the big blasting jangling group-sung chorus to kick you out of your seat and into my car - "Is it much too much to ask? Not to hide behind a mask? Blocking things out of your mind?" and the next rhyme is so humiliating I'm not going to write it here, but the point is that the song is everything it needs to be and more. That classic bass line, the peppy drums, the wonderfully buzzing, crowdening group vocals, and that great intro that is repeated halfway through the song with additional horn and/or organs pipping around it before returning one last time in the greatest fade-out vocal in history: a slightly reverbed "Doo doo - ohhh... Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-na-na-na-nah! Ba-ba-ba-ba-na-na-na (into DRONE)." Every aspect, every second of this song is perfect to my ears. It starts, it goes, it changes, it builds, it blisses, it fades, it ends, and it never leaves your head again. My wife even sings it all the time! And she usually only listens to black people! (Bill Cosby, Nipsy Russell, others). This should have been a hit single, darnmit. And it should not have been remixed for the album. But we'll get to that shortly.
Side B is just as strong, and it didn't even MAKE the album! It's not quite as perfectly arranged as the A-side but it's a real ass-kicker. "Games" it's called. Darker than the at least on-the-surfacely warm A-side, "Games" is a throbbing, accusatory, pained and angry expression of youthful "Stop Fucking Me Around, You Damned Girl!"ness. Again, every instrumental element is built upon the others in an unobvious yet brilliant way - the opening bass line thumps with pissedoffness, the guitar joins in playing an entirely different (yet perfectly corresponding) chord sequence in a different key, then Randy comes in singing in yet a DIFFERENT key! Or maybe I don't really know what "key" means. What I mean is that, say there's a scale of 1 through 10 or so, you know, of musical notes somehow, from like low to high notes. In this song, the bass plays a riff in the 2s and 3s, then the guitar pops in with a riff hovering around 9 and 8, then the singer chooses to sing in the middle - around 5. Yes! That's an excellent description! So anyway, I can't quite make out every word of the first verse, but if you pretend that the second verse is actually the first verse, it's all like "Don't crah! 'Cuz you have no tea-ahs. So why botha try-eeeyin? It jus' maht take yeee-ahs." Then the guitar, bass and vocalist finally agree on a single key for what you THINK is the chorus, see you THINK it's the chorus because it's different and it includes the song title ("Out there, you fit so well! What's there, you cannot tell! Your games just don't make sense, when you play them at my expense! Yeah, when you play them at my expeeeeeeeeeense!") but no! It's simply a bridge! And the chorus, built upon an excruciatingly heartbreaking vocal melody of emotional breakdown -- echoed by a DIFFERENT vocal melody of the same words recited by the backup vocalists -- is so farfergnugin' cathartic, don't be surprised if you end up with male sexual fluid squirting all over the inside of your skullplate (mine - I've masturbated into your nose). "Baby! Open your eyes, look around you! Is it real? Baby! I CAN SEE, I CAN THINK, I CAN FEEL!!!" Then a disillusioned, quieter, "I can feel..." and back into that dark, headbanging bass line of sin and depravation. Then verse two, which I've already recited here because I can't make out all the words in verse one, then the bridge again, then the one part of this two-sided single that isn't quite perfect: an awkward leap to a higher key for a stinging, unpleasant guitar solo. It's short though, and then you get to an even more emphatic and soul-bleeding version of the chorus, ending the song with every manchild in attendance wailing in desperation at the stereo speakers, "I CAN SEE, I CAN THINK, I CAN FEEL!!!! I CAN SEE, I CAN THINK, I CAN FEEL!!! I CAN SEE, I CAN THINK, I CAN FEEL!!!!!!!" Guitar chord speedily strums to a close like Pete Townshend, fade....
I feel it's worth noting to you, the reader, that I can't listen to "Games" only one time. I always have to play it twice because I'm so busy singing along with every lyric the first time through (faking a couple of words in verse one, of course) that I completely drown out the song! B-side? More like "AA-battery," if you ask emetic!
My copy goes "kihhhh!" because I've listened to it too many times. Maybe look on ebay? I've definitely seen it on ebay before. If you search online, be aware that the version of "If You Only Had The Time" you find might be the album remix, which isn't as powerful (though it is still really catchy!). Also, the son of one of the guys in the band re-recorded the A-side in the past few years so you can find that online as well, though I wouldn't recommend it. It's a cover - of course it's not anywhere near as good as the original! (If you already know the song, look for this version though. It's nice!)
So why wasn't this a hit single outside of the Chapel Hill scene? Why wasn't Chapel Hill hyped as "the next Seattle," with The Nova Local destined to be "The Next Kingsmen"? Because there were too many great bands in the 60s for all the good ones to get their crack at stardom? Heck, I don't know. I'd ask my Dad but he smoked so much crack in the '60s, he can't even REMEMBER those days, let alone opine upon them. I guess we'll just have to do like Colin Powell and resign (ourselves to the fact that The Nova Local will never get the recognition they deserve). Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to do like Condoleeza Rice and gargle nine miles of whitey's cock ( ).
Strange that this excellent slice of pure psychadelic pop wasn't a hit, yet, some songs that you wouldn't expect to be hits at all in fact WERE in that year ("They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha Ha!" and "Snoopy Vs The Red Baron" for example, though highly catchy and enjoyable). Nonetheless, it's excellent to uncover gems like this, including songs that were indeed big hits that faded into obscurity over the years. I'm glad that you've spread the word on your site about bands like this that have some great songs but are not known to many people!
My father met my mother in Chapel Hill, NC where I was born and at the time my mother met him at 19...he was the front man for his own Beatle's cover band...hence the British influence and love of the Beatles and their rockin' Beatle's haircuts! :)
Many people feel that The Nova Local's name is a take-off on William Burroughs' Nova Express. These people may have a point. Let's not write these people off so quickly. For example, have you heard their second single, "John Knight's Body"? Until a couple of days ago, I hadn't. But now that I have, I'm almost certain it's not about the murder of Chicago policeman John Knight by James Scott in 1999. Nevertheless. it's an exciting epic of a tale, with the narrator being (wrongly?) arrested for the murder due to his name being on a piece of paper in Mr. Knight's pocket. I'm not exactly sure why that would be enough to convict a man, but then I don't really understand what in God's Hell the song is talking about. Unirregardlessly, it's an AWESOME song. Awesome and weird. It starts with a really cool, evil bit of clicky-clicky bass/guitar interplay and develops into an emotional plea from the condemned: "I Wanna Get Out!" Along the way, the song starts and stops and herks and changes and jerks nervously/not smoothly at all before ending with the clinks of a jailhouse door lock. The strangest aspect of this eerie, sorrowful and (at only 2:16) FAR too short epic is nearly buried in the background, but listen closely and you'll hear it: a jovial, bouncy barroom piano playing a goodtime happy little jigaroo! I had the delightful fortune to interview original Nova Local guitarist and attorney Phil Lambeth on this strange dramatic/carefree musical dichotomy and he explained, "They brought in a session pianist and he just played whatever and I guess they left it in." EXACTLY how Sgt. Peppers happened!!!!!!!
Side B is a little more disheartening, being the first non-awesome Nova Local song on record. It's still pretty good, sure. Fun, at any rate -- but certainly no "If You Only Had John Knight's Games"! Instead, "Other Girls" is a hearty, happy Neil Diamond/Young Rascals-style '60s twist dance number mostly driven by a super-loud organ. It's better than "Mony Mony," but it's sure no "Louie Louie." I'd say it's right around "Cherry Cherry."
But lest you think I don't have amazing contacts in the music business, let me go on to tell you about four other songs. "Four other songs?" (is what you'd be thinking if you actually gave a shit about a band you've never heard of) "WHEREFORE are you talking about four other songs? WHERE did you find them? FORE, I'm hitting a golf ball!" Well, I found them on a CD-R mysteriously placed into my mailbox by a strange man in a blue suit pushing a big bag full of packages down the street. And this CD-R contained four long-thought-lost-forever demo tracks recorded by the original Nova Local line-up just before Mr. Lambeth quit the band to go sue people for a living. And now I HAVE THEM!!!! ME ME I!!! Here, let me describe each one, so you can cry and wish you had them too:
"And I Remember" - This actually wound up on the album, but in a far different formulation. This original version is a buzzy acid fuzz psych-pop-rock song that just screams Nuggets - terrific rhythm chords and lead "Psychotic Reaction"-style riff. I like it! And although Phil Lambeth had nothing to do with the revamp for the album, I bet that his reaction upon first hearing it was admiring praise rather than wounded offense. Joe (whoever the hell that is) DID provide some good licks for the cut. Still, I bet Phil prefers this original version. I certainly do! (Though I love the album version for different reasons)
"We'll Never Go" - This is a very pretty midtempo ballad marred only by a drumbeat stolen from Phil Collins' "Tomorrow Never Knows" and Randy Wishburn's loudest, highest and least appealing vocal of all time. Although I've never met Phil Lambeth and have my doubts about whether he actually exists, I bet you a dollar that he'd say this one deserves its place in the dust bin of recording history. To him, it's probably mildly reminiscent of a couple of Beatles tunes (the 12-string intro smacks of "If I Needed Someone" to him probably, though it doesn't to me, and he'd probably say that the bass riff hearkens "Tomorrow Never Comes," but the hilarious thing is that the song is actually called "Tomorrow Never Knows" and it's the DRUMBEAT that sounds like it, so if Phil Lambeth DID think these things, he'd be so wrong it'd be hilarious!), and judging from his guitar playing on these two singles, I have to surmise that he would conclude that the only redeeming quality in it is the cascading "We'll Never Go" vocal lines. Also, if one were to approach Mr. Lambeth on the street and say, "But Phil, this is a very pretty song," chances are good that he would respond, "I guess it always riled me that the first 'We' was expelled like someone was ramming a corn cob up Randy's rear." See, in the '60s they didn't have effects processors like they do today, so they had to use natural methods of encouraging interesting vocal deliveries.
"Things We've Said Today" - Beatles song. Not even a very good Beatles song.
"Middle Road" - A damned fine protest song about people who refuse to take a stand for what they believe in. Really nice chord changes and wonderfully catchy harmony vocals in the chorus. I should totally say more, but it's 1:07 in the morning and I have to post Faces Of Death and I Like The Girls Who Do on eBay. (Buy them!!! And bid a LOT!!!!) I'll just finish up by saying this: the fact that this track and "We'll Never Go" were left off the album -- the TWENTY-SEVEN MINUTE LONG album -- offends and pisses my off off to no end.
So there you have it! A single you can't find anywhere and four songs that were never released. I'm a helpful record critic to which all the young people turn!
Hands down the biggest disappointment in American history. Not since Fatty Arbuckle iced a woman in the vaginer has a nation been more let down by one or several of its beloved screen icons. And no, the record doesn't "suckity suck," and in fact includes several enjoyable little numbers, but mandarin orange is it a farting little balloon compared to the monstrous juggernaut pop-garage sensation of the single.
The main issues appear to be as follows: (1) They clearly did not have enough original material for an entire album. But this was a regular problem for bands in the '60s, who were often pushed by their record companies to get the hell in the studio and shit out a long-player while crowd enthusiasm is at its height. (2) The day of the tasty pop masterpiece was fading fast by '67, giving way to self-important psychedelic exploration and pot-smoking blues jams. Presumably not wanting to appear irrelevant right from the get-go, the Local altered their style to fit in. (3) They lost their original guitarist Phil Lambeth. Although I'm pretty sure that Randy (my father) wrote most of the band's material, Phil's loss seems to have had a clear impact on the sound of the band -- evidenced by the fact that four of these tracks were recorded before he left, and they're the BEST SONGS ON THE DAMN ALBUM!!!!
Much like a pimple filled with fourteen gallons of pus, these three issues came to a head when the time came for a Nova Local LP, and the result was a 29-minute hedgehog comprised of five or six tight, wonderful pop songs hidden among a morass of embarrassing soul-blues-metal nonsense and pointless psychedelic dicktwiddling. More specifically, there is no way that anybody on God's Favorite Planet (erth) ever submitted a request for an oozing 6 1/2-minute extrapolation loosely based on the musical themes of classic garage stomper "Tobacco Road." Nor most likely would anyone have seen a clear reason for turning that awesome old r'n'b track "Hitch Hike" into a big-haired Blue Cheer funk-metal freakout (sung by the DRUMMER!?!). And if you're a collector of LSD-driven bad ideas, check no further than the sub-minute free jazz snippet "Yascha Knew Deli Intimately" and backwards guitar solo "Dear Jimi" (I think he means Jimi Mitchell, that female folk singer from the '70s). For that matter, also feel free to enjoy the back cover, which credits the record to "The Nova Local Featuring The Cateroeternally Live Sound*," with a footnote at the bottom explaining that the asterisk refers to "(how else can the artist survive)." FrEaK oUt! My MiNd Is BeInG bLoWn!!!!
No hang on, that's not my mind. Who invited the Bush twins in here?
Now for the GOOD news! Actually no, here's a little more bad news. They left "Games" off the album, even though it's better than every song on the album. And they remixed "If You Only Had The Time" into stereo, which is fine and dandy except that they also dumped the intro, made the lead vocals FAR too loud, turned the bass and drums way way down, and had the GALL to delete those fade-out vocals I so love so very love so much a lot! Why? WHY!? Did it kick too much ass to fit on the album? Now it sounds all wussy and folksy and soft! Oh well. Still catchy as all heck at any rate.
And NOW the good news! The pop rockers on here are not only catchy -- they also include lots of interesting "progressive" touches not heard on the "If You Only Grabbed My Butt" single. String sections, bongos, Eastern-tinged wiggly lead guitar, above-neck string-plucking, lots of dark organ drones, intriguing drum stylings -- even a sitar! By name, a new version of "John Knight's Body" is as anthemic as the single but replaces the hilarious piano with an overdramatic string section, "And I Remember" replaces Lambeth's psych riff with some fun as hell loose rock/blues/folk guitar goofery, and "$5 A Ticket" is as psych-buzzo-blasty-dumbly-good as anything the Electric Prunes ever did. Plus, there's also a tremendous pop epic called "Morning Dew" (may or may not be a cover - I'm not positive since the album features no songwriting credits of any sort) and an "Eleanor Rigby"-style violin ballad about a "Forgotten Man" that will have your heart pouring tears all over the shoulder of the highway at the end of your neck of the woods. That's several damn fine tunes! So fast forward through the crappy folk jig "A Visit From It, The King" and get going while the getting's great. Good work, Jim Opton, Cam Schinhan and Joe Mendyk -- you've outdid yourselves!
Except you wasted more than 12 minutes of the album on timefiller bullshit instead of giving us the 25-minute techno remix of "Games" we asked for for Christmas. As the towelheaded black man on 92nd St. yelled at me a few weeks ago after I let my dog piss all over his apartment building, "Eatshitanddie!"
And as for that intro for Pretty Flowers... As I recall, we had some dorky Union musicians in the studio who our producer had called in to help us out. I'm pretty sure one of them had a fluegel horn (which is probably why you couldn't place it), they started clowning around, and all of a sudden we had our intro. That was me doing the harmonics (which was the way the song originally started) on our producer Elliot Mazer's beat-up (I'm talking rat's ass quality here) acoustic 12-string guitar, and that humming at the end was everyone in the studio (at least 20 of us) buzzing in on that tonic note that never seemed to die out, because we were all breathing at different times. Brings back some nice memories.
I bought the LP in 1975 in a shop in Manchester (UK) for about 20p. It was one of those warehouse places that sold loads of cleared out American stuff from the 60's. Needless to say, it's the only copy I've ever seen but is still one of my favorite LP's. I never found any other stuff by the band and eventually gave up looking (apart from today. I'm bored and sorting out insurance for my business).
'Morning Dew' was also done by the Nashville Teens (of Tobacco Road fame - my wife prefers the NT's, I prefer Nova) the Grateful Dead, Nazareth and Devo. Apparently it was written by Tim Rose and Bonnie Dobson, whoever they are.
That same day I also bought one of my favorite singles - 'Paralyzed' by The Legendary Stardust Cowboy. I made quite a profit on that one - singles were 10p each and I later bought 50 copies that I sold for 50P each at Wigan Technical College.
Nice to know someone else has heard my favorite stuff.
The story of such gems is ripe for NCMusichistory.com to feature (a
great blog, full of cool history-- the Uncle Remus of NC music.)
Look forward to discovering more such treasure!
Just FYI, from the average 17-year-old record-buyer in 1967.
As an avid obsessive 60's pop-culture/music fanatic, especially the year 1966 which is my favorite year of all time (as well as the next year, 1967) i had to give a listen to this. I can't find the B-side as of this writing, and i'm not even sure if i have the remixed version you're talking about, but it definitely shines in all its 60's pop glory and i wholeheartedly agree that it should have been a hit.
Here's some good news on "Games" by The Nova Local. It was played a few
weeks back on the Teenage Wasteland radio show and I am featuring it on our
web site ww.GarageRockRadio.com. I've created a whole page on it, similar
to what you have done. I have an MP3 of the song on there and the lyrics
are posted, at least as I hear them! I also have links about the single and
the album and a link to Rand Winburn's site and a link to yours! I'd
appreciate it if you could mention this on your site. People may want to
hear the song after reading so many good things about it! The link to our
page about the song is right near the top of our site in the LATEST GARAGE
NEWS section.
Randy Winburn is my father and I totally agree with you that this song absolutely rocks and I'm sure that as a 20 year old kid he probably didn't have the right label/support behind their band, but I do know that he was incredibly prolific and has many many more songs that he has copies of that he would like to make a compliation cd of. My father also created a pilot presentation of a musical tv show with some great songs a la " The Point" which was one of his favorite albums when I was a little girl. Born in 1966 nothing is better than listening to his music , the many vocal tracks harmonizing ...you should hear "17 fifth avenue"...one of my favorites...He's always been creative and wish that his dream of taking this music public had come true earlier but, better late than never! Thank you for appreciating his music.
I'm not sure if you're aware, but I believe a clip from Nova Local's song, "If You Only Had The Time", is featured on a collaboration between MF Doom and DJ Danger Mouse. It's a ten-second pindrop in the begining of "The Mask (featuring Ghost Face)", (the clip contains the lyrics, "Is it much too much to ask, not to hide behind the mask..."). The moment I heard it I had to go searching for the band, and your site was the first I came across.
I heard 'Games' through a link on one of your reader comments, and it RULES! I'll probably nab Nova 1 here shortly, since you can't find any of this material easily. I wish it had 'Games' on it, though! I can't find the 7" that you reviewed with it on it. You know of any places now-a-days? I couldn't find it on eBay.
Hey hey hey Mark,
About a month ago, I bought a garage comp CD called "Die Today." I'd never heard of any of the songs on it, but what the heck. I stuck it in my car's CD player and it's been there ever since.
There were a few good things on the comp, but one song just fucking howled out of the speakers. It was "Games" by The Nova Local. Why that song did not fly up the charts like it had an Atlas booster rocket up its ass is a mystery. It is almost unbearably good.
Also, thanks for putting up the Nova Local page. Usually when I hear one of these neglected singles and try to find out something about the band, there' is zip to be found. It was nice to get some background on the band.
And furthermore than that, I've never heard of "Tomorrow Never Comes," although I do have some recollection of an aging, balding rock star named Phil Collins who was very much after my time. I was spot on all the time with "Tomorrow Never Knows," courtesy of the Beatles, album Revolver from 1966. And it was the bass line and not the drum line. Now I'm curious to hear what this "Tomorrow Never Comes" sounds like. If the statute of limitations hasn't run, I might have a good lawsuit against the latter if it sounds at all like the former, whereas and wherefore.
where is Randy Winburn now? He's got a re-issue: Yellow Pills: prefill of Somebody Else's Girl and Sunshine usa/I helped him with it.
I'm the original guitarist you described with such glowing words, and I appreciated them. Stumbled across your review doing a Google search of my name, and I had no idea anyone still alive knew about these recordings dating back to 1967. Makes me want to go dig out my old copies (if I can find them) and see what the fuss is all about. Thanks for your kind words. Makes me wish I'd hung in there trying to be a rock star idol instead of coming back to law school. But rock stars and lawyers have a lot in common. They both steal money for a living, although in different ways.
Saw the string re Nova Local. I was the original bass player when the group formed (as the Shadows) in Chapel Hill. I left the group and went back to law school at Syracuse University, but came down to the recording session for If "You Only Had the Time" that Phil describes and was part of that vocal drone at the end of the song. A good time had by all!
Hi,
Thanks for being a resource for more info on Randy Winburn/Nova
Local. Having been an afficianado of North Carolina music since I
was a wee tot, I have been blown away by "Sunshine U.S.A." and
"Somebody Else's Girl" (first through Pandora, then through Yellow
Pills). Who knew that in the ranks of the dB's, Arrogance, Dixon,
Easter, et. al there would be such forebears? How blind I have been!
I may have been the only person in New Jersey to have bought the Nova
Local's album. Still have it somewhere. Heard a cut on some FM station
in 1967, when I guess I wasn't listening too carefully, and thought it
was brilliant. Can't remember the song -- I think it was a psychedelic
cover of something like Tobacco Road. I thought I'd made this great
discovery of a new, unknown band -- my friends and I were always
trying to be the ones to discover the next cool group. But when I got
it home from Sam Goody's and sat down to listen, I was really
disappointed. Just mediocre, by-the-numbers psychedelic pop. Even
boring. So, I'd say, that's why they never made it. Not good enough --
or at least, the record wasn't. I don't think I ever played it again.
Click here to purchase Nova 1 on CD!