Over this site’s 10 year history — 10! — Brown Acid, Permanent Records’ and RidingEasy Records’ ongoing collaborative proto-metal and pre-stoner rock compilations from the 1960s and 1970s have become a regularly occurring biannual feature. Now, as you may recall, each individual edition of the series is based around RidingEasy Records’ founder Daniel Hall’s and Permanent Records co-owner Lance Barresi’s extensive, painstaking research and curation with Hall and Barresi spending a great deal of time tracking down songs’ creators. Most often, those bands haven’t written, played or recorded together in more than 30 years — but they encourage the bands to take part in the compilation process. “All of (these songs) could’ve been hits given the right circumstances. But for one reason or another most of these songs fell flat and were forgotten,” Lance Barresi explained in press notes for the previous editions of the compilation. “However, time has been kind in my opinion and I think these songs are as good now or better than they ever were.”
Of course, having the original artists participate as much as possible in the compilation process can give the artists and their songs a real second chance at the attention they missed all of those years ago. And for critics and fans, the songs on the Brown Acid compilation series can often fill in the gaps within the larger picture of what was going on in and around both regional and national underground scenes at the time. Unfortunately, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the release of Brown Acid: The Tenth Trip had to be rescheduled to its new release date of June 26, 2020.
Much like its predecessors, the tenth edition finds the duo of Barresi and Hall digging even deeper into the well of material sadly reduced to obscurity. Earlier this year, I wrote about “Mr. Sun,” a song by a band that was previously featured on Brown Acid: The Third Trip — the Central Texas-based act First State Bank. Led by Randy Nunnally (vocals, guitar), First State Bank only released three singles during their six year history — 1970-1976 — with “Mr. Sun,” being a lysergic, power chord-driven, boogie woogie synthesis of Jimi Hendrix, Grand Funk Railroad and T. Rex.
Interestingly, not much is known about The Brood — or their grimy psych blues ode to broke-ass weed consumption “The Roach.” Originally released on the It’s A Lemon imprint, the track is centered around wailing guitar solos, screeching and arpeggiated organ blasts, howled vocals and enormous hook. And yeah, it’ll remind you of a weird little synthesis of the Rolling Stones and Steppenwolf — but with a raw, rock ‘n’ roll dirtiness that’s sorely missed.