Monocled Alchemist

“Light Show” taken from the LP ‘Guitar Freakout’ | (Sundazed LP 5260) 2008

The Stone Canyon Rock Group | Light Show | (Sundazed) 1968 | The Animated Egg wasn’t really a band and those dashingly hip young people on the cover had nothing to do with anything. I still have Jerry’s message saved on my cell phone —

“What a joke! Let’s see now . . . the third guy from the left is someone I knew that couldn’t even carry a guitar case, the guy in the white jacket was a wannabe songwriter who couldn’t carry a tune, the guy with the tambourine could barely carry that either! I met those guys a couple of times and I think I’m gonna be sick! OK, call me later . . .

I’m not even gonna try to add anything to that in addition, the record jacket provided no credits or information other than song titles and the following: We can’t answer the age-old question of what came first, the chicken or the egg. But we do know the Animated Egg has arrived — here is a group of accomplished “NEW SOUND” musicians sending their message in exciting acid rock.

Budget labels

Er, uh, OK then. On the face of it, The Animated Egg appeared to be just another forgettable exploitation record from the era designed to lure in the hopelessly clue-less aisle shopper who wouldn’t know the difference between an Animated Egg and a Jefferson Airplane and didn’t care.

But those budget labels unapologetically sold a big-ass boatload of $1.98 vinyl and after all, why go to a record store when you can pick up chips, dip, beer and The Animated Egg all in one stop at the Piggly Wiggly?

But as they say, you can’t always judge a book by its cover. In this case they would have been so right. One can only imagine the unsuspecting shopper arriving back home, putting up the groceries and settling down in the easy chair with a Chesterfield and a Schlitz, anxiously waiting for the needle to land and hear something soothing and fresh like the Association or Spanky and Our Gang.

The Stone Canyon Rock Group | Light Show | (Sundazed) 1968

What came blasting out of the Curtis Mathes was some of the most demented and fuzzed out “acid rock” ever recorded and here it was in his living room and getting inside his brain. Oops! “Oh well, maybe I’ll give it to the grandkids and they will think I’m hip.”

Well, we can only hope those grandkids kept grandpa’s hip LP around because it has turned out to be one of the most collectible recordings, from the Sixties and is regarded as a psychedelic guitar masterpiece.

Unlike summer of ’68 contemporaries such as Iron Butterfly, whose tripped out tour de force “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” took the charts and airwaves by storm, The Animated Egg remained hidden and out of sight from those who might have actually liked to have their minds blown, nesting warm and safely between Silent Majority faves like Vicki Carr and Burt Kaempfert.

Because The Egg and most other budget label recordings were not counted on the Billboard charts, there is no way to know how many thousands of units were actually sold of any particular recording. What is clear is that there aren’t many of The Animated Egg records around now. If you do find one, be prepared to shell out fifty bucks or more.

Fortunately, Sundazed Music has rehatched and remastered The Animated Egg for our listening pleasure and that’s a very groovy thing.

The Stone Canyon Rock Group | Light Show | (Sundazed) 1968

When a record like The Animated Egg becomes a cult classic, a lot of lore goes along with it. In this case everything you’ve read is probably either totally wrong or just partially right. Although not related in time or purpose, there seems to be a lot of just plain misinformation regarding the connection between The Inner Sounds of the Id and The Animated Egg.

The ground breaking Id album was recorded for RCA Records, released in 1967 and featured Jerry Cole and his usual session band mates, bassist Glenn Cass, brother and guitarist Norm Cass and drummer Don Dexter.

Produced by classical violinist and avant-garde musician Paul Arnold, The Inner Sounds of the Id was a concept album filled with unusual instrumentation, dark moods and psychedelic attitude and was released around the same time as ‘Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band’.

Unfortunately for Jerry Cole and company, The Id never got the push from RCA it deserved and was soon forgotten. Too bad, The Id is regarded today as a hard to come by classic in its own right and is often compared to the Fab Four’s most famous recording.

It appears there was a writer/record collector who correctly deduced that Jerry Cole appeared on many more records than his name was listed on. He noted that a few of The Animated Egg and The Inner Sounds of the Id tracks appeared next to each other on various budget rack LPs released during this period.

These recordings were credited to non-existent bands with sophomoric names that included T. Swift & the Electric Bag, the Projection Company, the Stone Canyon Rock Group, the Generation Gap, Haircuts and the Impossibles and Young Sound ’68. (These LPs were all by Jerry Cole and some of the songs are included here as bonus tracks.)

The Stone Canyon Rock Group | Light Show | (Sundazed) 1968

The writer wrongly assumed that The Animated Egg tracks were outtakes from The Id sessions and exactly how those tracks found their way onto several different LPs remains somewhat of a low-budget noir mystery.

Although Jerry Cole hadn’t heard The Egg tracks since their initial recording, he agreed when interviewed by the writer that those tracks were probably from The Id sessions. Jerry and I finally sat down and listened to The Animated Egg several years after the interview and we both agreed that The Id and The Egg were not from the same sessions.

But it was too late. Just check the eBay or record guide listings and blogs on those LPs and you will inevitably see the connection being made between The Id and The Egg.

Of course the connection is actually Jerry Cole, but the albums might as well have been recorded on different planets by different life forms! If The Inner Sounds of the Id is a finely crafted avant-garde epic of exotic sounds and moods, The Animated Egg is a splash in time — raw, bleeding and swirling in two and three minute soundscapes.

the 101 Strings

Online music blog, PopMatters, described it as “an IV tube of adolescent euphoria!’ Well said, indeed. Bargain bin superstar and blue hair fave, The 101 Strings series was known for its alluring cover models and themes such as 101 Strings in Love, 101 Strings at the Movies and well, just about any theme you might dream up.

In fact, someone dreamed up a real doozy when they added 101 Strings to The Animated Egg tracks, set the phasers on eleven, retitled the tracks and claimed authorship!

Thus, Astro Sounds from Beyond the Year 2000 landed like a rock on drugstores and supermarkets in 1969, about the same time Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon.

To be fair, there are a couple of great tracks here, but the phasing effect on most of the songs makes you think about things you really shouldn’t think about.

Jerry was completely unaware of its release and when he heard the LP for the first time I thought he might kill someone and I was the only person in the room!

the session-men

As for who played on this session, it is a little unclear. Jerry wasn’t sure if it was Edgar Lamar on drums, Tommy Lee (any relation?) on bass, with Billy Joe Hastings and Jerry on guitars. Or was it his Id pals, Glenn Cass on bass, his brother Norm Cass on guitar and Don Dexter on drums?

He wasn’t sure about the organist either, but thought it was probably Billy Preston who may have also been the Mustang” as credited on the surprisingly cool Organ Freakout LP from the same period.

Jerry played on thousands recording sessions and it is understandable that he might not remember all the details of each and every one. However, he thought The Egg was recorded in one session with no overdubs using a Les Paul through a Fuzz Face.

I Said, She Said, Ah Cid” is sheer psychedelic abandonment at its most extreme and the similarity between the haunting “Sock It My Way” and Pink Floyd’s “Careful with That Axe, Eugene” is just uncanny.

Of course, in this case The Egg came first. “Sure Listic” and “Sippin’ and Trippin” feature some stunning 12-string artistry and “Inside Looking Out”‘s roots are planted firmly in the blues.

In typical Colesque fashion, “T”omorrow” proves that Jerry had no problem turning Spencer Davis’ “Gimme Some Lovin” into a blistering instrumental workout and making it his own.

Throughout his recording career he must have reinvented Lonnie Mack’s “Wham!” at least a dozen times. In the end, Jerry lets us down easy with “That’s How It Is,” a beautifully played composition that was inspired by his long time friend, Wes Montgomery.

So its time to shake a leg, uh, I mean an egg. The Animated Egg lives on!

The Bonus Tracks

Under a plethora of aliases and sometimes his own name, Jerry Cole recorded dozens of country, r&b, rock and roll, surf, go-go and psychedelic records for various budget labels in the Sixties.

Psychedelic Guitars, More Psychedelic Guitars and The Electric Firebirds were actually repressings of Jerry’s go-go LPs. (Check out these marvellous tracks on Jerry’s other Sundazed offerings.)

Guitars a Go-Go and A Go-Go Guitars were unashamedly repackaged as non-existent psychedelic bands with splashier covers and song titles placed in the same sequence.

Go-Go Guitars

Titles like “Curfew” morphed into “Flower Power” and so on. But the later LPs, including Give Me Some Lovin’ by the Projection Company, Are You Experienced? by T. Swift & the Electric Bag, Up, Up and Away by the Generation Gap and MacArthur Park credited to the Stone Canyon Rock Group featured new material with roughly half vocals and half instrumentals.

In typical fashion some of the songs appeared on more than one of the albums, some-times retitled and sometimes not. In addition to the alternate Animated Egg tracks, there also appeared a few alternate Inner Sounds of the Id tracks. “Boil the Kettle” first appeared as “Boss Hair” on A Go-Go Guitars and a slightly revamped version, “Ya, Ya, Ya” was featured on Guitars a Go-Go Vol. II

Jerry gassed it up and called it “Boil the Kettle, Mother” on The Id LP and then used the groove again as simply “Boil the Kettle” on the Projection Company album.

“Light Show” first appeared as “George Played” on A Go-Go Guitars but resurfaces here with a more complex arrangement and sophisticated playing and “Red Eyes” is a rework from Jerry’s days as a member of the Champs.

the alternatives

The alternate Animated Egg tracks featured here include “Tune Out of Place” and “Hard Times!’ A bit slinkier and more down in the groove than “That’s How It Is,” “Tune Out of Place” sounds like a band in a smoke-filled nightclub and the stripped-down “Hard Times” is a cool alternative to the brasher “I Said, She Said, Ah Cid.”

These tracks rate with the best guitar psychedelia from the era and are a testament to Jerry’s unique ability to take a genre and make it his own.

Never mind the alias or ridiculous band name — you know it’s Jerry Cole. — (Mike Vernon Austin, Texas 2008)