Kaleidoscope (US)... Any love for?

They were magnificent, as Page and Plant could testify. I was lucky enough to catch one of David Lindley's Twango Bango concerts about 15 years ago.

 

I stumbled upon Kaleidoscope twenty years ago when I bought a bargain bin cassette tape titled "The Psychedelic Sounds of the Kaleidoscope Featuring David Lindley" from CBS. It included the incredible "Egyptian Gardens", plus "Keep Your Mind Open", rockers "Lie to Me" and "Elevator Man" and "You Don't Love Me", an awesome acid rock track "Lulu Arfin Nanny" (the remake, not the original), and the non-album single "Just a Taste" (you can find a stereo sync up at kaleidoscope just a taste - Mp3-PM ). Now I have the compilation CD "Egyptian Candy" from Legacy.

The combination of 60s psychedelic rock and Middle Eastern music was totally unique and brilliant. If you want to hear genuine middle eastern music, listen to "Taxim" on their second album ("recorded live in the studio without overdubs") or on "Pulsating Dream(s) - The Epic Recordings".

Their record label spared every expense in neglecting the group.

 

Release date?Who is involved in the campaign?

 

Can you (or anyone) clarify whether Just a Taste or Hello Trouble was the a-side for this single? I've seen both songs referred to as being the a-side, although Hello Trouble sounds the more commercial of the two to my ears.

 

From the promo label, I think it was 'Just A Taste':



Also, it's an original song, compared to 'Hello Trouble', which is a cover...

 

At 45cat.com, the A-side is listed as "Just a Taste". But the serial number on the "Hello Trouble" side is 135956, while the number on "Just a Taste" is 135957; wouldn't that indicate "Hello Trouble" is the A-side? Rateyourmusic.com has it both ways, with two listings for the single. Fuzz, Acid and Flowers lists "Hello Trouble" as the A-side!

Released in May 1968, five months after their second album "A Beacon from Mars".

As someone mentioned much earlier, any info on Jeff Kaplan would be appreciated (he OD'd in April 1972). He sang some of the songs on their fourth and final Epic album "Bernice".

 

Plus the two Zabriskie Point tracks. Any info on Jeff Kaplan would be interesting to read. I liked his vocals. But no one can replace Solomon.

 

Ah hadn't noticed the two serial numbers - good spot! I seem to remember the sleeve notes to the 3cd Pulsating Dream saying Just a Taste was the b-side, but I sold my copy and may have imagined it.

Although just looking at 45cat, Why Try has a higher serial number that Little Orphan Annie.... so maybe that doesn't answer things after all!

 

I'd read somewhere (think it was an interview with Chester Crill - there're a couple of excellent in-depth interviews with him and Chris Darrow on the Kaleidoscope years) that Solomon left before Bernice was completed and Kaplan was his replacement, but I imagine Solomon was still part of the inner circle in a similar way that Zal stayed in the Lovin' Spoonful's orbit after he was replaced by Jerry Yester.

But yeah, I'm curious about still curious about Jeff Kaplan - from what I can tell, he sings 'Brother Mary', 'To Know Is Not To Be' and the melodic bits of 'Sneakin' Through The Ghetto' but there's probably more and I'd be interested to hear about his origin story.

Kaleidoscope may also be one of the few 60s bands with a fully living original lineup - Paul Lagos has passed, but I think the others are still around (though John Vidican has disappeared from view for decades).

 

I am a fan too and have the three CD compilation on Acadia with the cover shown above. But I also have the Sundazed vinyl reissues of the first two albums and I wondered whether anyone had compared those with the Edsel versions. Could the Edsel issues be AAA and the Sundazed from digital?

I had some awareness of them in the late sixties but I think they didn't get marketed by their record company - possibly because they didn't fit easily in current categories. I am in the UK and I don't think either of the first two albums were even released here in the late sixties - Discogs seems to confirm that - so I didn't hear them at all until much later.

PS The new Mojo (March) has a feature (Buried Treasure) on Chris Darrow's solo album from 1973, which might be of interest.

 

Chester Crill on Paul Lagos's recruitment - Jim Keltner was nearly in Kaleidoscope!

"When Christopher left, it really made it necessary for Lindley to make [sure that] Vidican left. Because Christopher was a strong enough bass player to keep a lot of rhythm happening in the areas that it did. Quite honestly, what Vidican could not do was play multi-rhythms or Arabic or any of the really far-out things that we wanted to try. And as a live unit, we got a whole lot better, because we added Lagos, the drummer. Well, Lagos's credentials were...we had our choice of, we had open auditions. We had our choice. The two finalists were Jim Keltner and Paul Lagos, and we took Paul Lagos. Because he had a much broader range of drum styles than Keltner did. Keltner was great, hell of a drummer. But he only had two or three things he could do.

My favorite story is, driving down Sunset Boulevard in Solomon's truck, which just looked like some ****ing gypsy van. [We] came to a stop and Little Richard's running down the street in a pink jumpsuit. And he jumps on the dashboard of the car, and sticks his head in the window, and yells [falsetto shriek], "Paul Lagos! Come back to my band, Paul Lagos!" And Solomon doesn't know who Little Richard is from anybody on the planet. He's just about ready to take a baseball bat and knock him out and push him out. And Lagos is saying, "Richard, Richard, you sonofabitch. Stay away from me, you crazy ******!" It was one of the greatest scenes of my life. I have never had more respect than I had for Paul Lagos at that time. Because Little Richard always had two drummers. But when Paul Lagos played there, he had one."

 

Just found this - Crill, Lagos and Kaplan all play on Buffalo Springfield bass player Bruce Palmer's only solo album, the utterly crazy The Cycle Is Complete.

Bruce Palmer - The Cycle Is Complete

 

Other than what's mentioned in the liner notes of my CDs and some library books (Lillian Roxon) comes to memory, I know very little else about this band. Jimmy Page considers Kaleidoscope to be his ideal band.

 

It’s strange that Page cites this; there’s a tiny bit of musical crossover, but their primary appeal seems to be that they were leaderless (though Lindley was considered first among equals I guess), switched and played multiple instruments, and could play in any genre. I don’t think Page has ever tried that in his career…unless genre experiments like ‘Hot Dog’ or ‘Gallows Pole’ are his attempts at Kaleidoscope-style genre hopping?

 

Jimmy Page nixed his guitar violin bow from K-scope

I saw David Lindley do it 1 yr prior to Page & Yardbirds

Like its said, Imitation is the highest form of flattery

 

The bass player from The Nice used a bow on his bass guitar starting in 1968. I didn't know about this until recently so I always wondered were that weird sound came from. It was Lee Jackson's bass with a bow:

 

Utterly crazy and utterly stoned out delightful !
However only on the original vinyl.
The CD is a completely different beast substituting inferior and uninspired segments from the same sessions in many places and devastating the flow which is everything to an album like this.

 

The Creation - Making Time (1966)


Big Kaleidoscope fan here as well.

 

Roger Waters used a bow in 1966. You can hear it on Piper.

 

Is that the sound I hear on "Bike" after the clock noises end just before the duck quacks kick in towards the end of the song?

 

Lucifer Sam as I recall.

 

Thanks for the info Mark.

 

I hear the bow on Scarecrow as well towards the end of the song in the form of that droning sound.

 

Finally picked up a first edition of Incredible! Kaleidoscope. It's massive. A really good sounding record, and in tip-top shape too.

 

If anyone is interested... in 2018, digital-only expanded versions of the original 4 Kaleidoscope albums were issued by Legacy / Sony, adding the non-album single sides including "Nobody", plus the 3 originally unreleased tracks from Egyptian Candy. Amazon mp3 and YouTube both have them. Sound quality is clear and sharp, although the comprehensive collection Pulsating Dreams already sounded very good. The previously dense mix of "Lulu Arfin Nanny" from Bernice is noticeably clearer.