Whaddayouknow?!?! It’s Lowell George‘s first band, The Factory. After a Townsperson posted a link to an the appearance on F Troop by a garage band including a young George, I was curious to hear if he’d ever recorded anything in that vein. Turns out that band on F Troop was The Factory.
A single produced by Frank Zappa, “Lightning-Rod Man”, fit the bill, and years later an entire album’s worth of groovy ’60s music with The Factory was released. The band also included future Little Feat drummer Richie Hayward and a guy named Martin Kibbee, who would later cowrite some of Little Feat’s more characteristic songs with George. (I’ve never been a big Feat fan, so maybe he’s a household name in your little shoe of a house.)
First, a couple more tracks in the psych-pop vein of our Mystery Date.
Lowell George & The Factory, “Candy Cane Madness”
Lowell George & The Factory, “No Place I’d Rather Be”
Next, a couple of tracks more like what you’d expect from a proto-founding menber of Little Feat. In fact, each of these songs would be re-recorded by Little Fear over their first two albums.
Lowell George & The Factory, “Teenage Nervous Breakdown”
Lowell George & The Factory, “Crack in Your Door”
I found this album on eMusic. Don’t forget our free introductory offer to sample eMusic, as linked on the right margin of The Main Stage! There’s more good stuff where these tracks were downloaded.
I just went back and checked, it was Townsman Telewacker who first turned us onto that F Troop clip. Bravo, Telewacker!
The track Lightning Rod Man is very Beefheartesque, and traces of that sound linger on the first eponymous Little Feat album, though after that there’s very little of that influence.
The other three (non-Lowell) members of The Factory went on to form The Fraternity of Man with Elliot Ingber, who was in several middle-period versions of the Magic Band as Winged Eel Fingerling. Ingber also appears on a few tracks on this Factory compilation, as well as a few Little Feat albums.