Pop historian Jon Savage knows his way not only around compelling books, but also around coherent compilations of the most varied sonic contexts. Now he excavates, once again, the musical spirit of an era that produced legendary things: Savage illuminates San Francisco’s subculture of the late 1960s and early 1970s, beyond the clichés of flower power. The picture Savage draws sounds scruffier, grainier, above all more faceted and more branched than the polished historiography would suggest.
»Alabama Bound«, originally a folk traditional, was interpreted around 1966 by The Charlatans – meaning the psychedelic rock band that also bore this name – in a rather dragging, almost trance-like manner. Even so, the song’s country roots show through, for instance in the form of the clattering honky-tonk piano.
Moby Grape’s emotional track »Rose Colored Eyes«, by contrast, brought meandering, melancholy songwriting together with opulent string and horn arrangements. Released on Wow, the band’s second album, the song stands for the move away from the energetic, straight-ahead rock of the debut. It was composed and sung by bassist Bob Mosley, who a year later, to the horror of his bandmates, joined the Marines, where he was diagnosed with schizophrenia. Things were going haywire in manifold ways in San Francisco during those years; the zeitgeist was changing rapidly – something the compilation gets across succinctly and entertainingly.
