San Jose Suite: The Harbinger Complex - Time To Kill

Our final day of the San Jose Suite has us crossing the city line into neighboring town, Fremont, California. Cheating, I know. But we're talking about the world's shortest drive on the 880.

The Harbinger Complex were made up of Jim Hockstaff, Ron Rotarius, Robert Hoyle, Jim Redding, and Gary Clarke. The band put out two singles on local labels and two more songs on a bay area compilation called A Pot of Flowers. Today's song, A Time To Kill, which already received a link from us in an excellent Chesterfield Kings article written by Jack Hayden for this site, was on that compilation. It's a funky little song with a palpable Byrds influence.

The very understated Time To Kill, written by Hosckstaff and Hoyle, allegedly touches on some of the thoughts Hoyle experienced upon his return from Vietnam.

Enjoy our final day's salute to San Jose (and just slightly beyond) bands.

Original Song Project: Jeff Stovall - Revolution And Insomnia and Down Around

You might recall a previous installment of this project featuring a song by The Dirt Floor entitled San Joaquin.  The author of that song, Jeff Stovall, is our featured singer songwriter today. In between milking goats and pruning old ornery apple trees on his property in Willits, California, Jeff has been putting together some demos for a solo project. Today we have a couple of the demos written and performed by Jeff and presented here for your listening pleasure.  Us flipsiders are diggin' it!

Enjoy and, as always, feel free to comment.

Revolution and Insomnia

Down Around

You may listen to other OSP posts by clicking on the link at the Jump Station at right.  If you have some original material you think might be a good fit for Flip-side, just forward your recording to flip west or flip central and we'll get on back to you.

Vinyl Frontier

Song of the Week: The Merry-Go-Round -- Listen Listen/Missing You

 

The Merry-Go-Round were fronted be teen prodigy, Emitt Rhodes. The band released six solid singles on the A&M Records label before Rhodes embarked on a solo career. None of their singles is better than this two sided gem which we present to you today.

The plug side is Listen, Listen and it was written by Rhodes. It's a bit of an anomaly for The Merry-Go-Round as it is a bonafide rocker. Not their usual forte. The Flip-Side was written by songwriter and Scooby Doo theme singer, Larry Marks. Larry Marks also did duty as the producer. Missing You remains perhaps my favorite Merry-Go-Round song of all time. Rhodes's vocals are spot on. Enjoy today's double sided gem. 

Vinyl Frontier