Feb 262010
_bDYk2kB4DU]
Years ago a friend tried to turn me onto the underground psych-pop band, The United States of America. I could not get into them, but today I stumbled on this track, “I Won’t Leave My Wooden Wife for You, Sugar,” as well as some other cuts on YouTube, and I’m thinking I may have to reconsider this band. I can now appreciate the whimsy and subtle use of electronics like never before. Are there other prime cuts from their debut or other releases that I should revisit? Did the band members go on to do anything else of note? Thanks.
Reconsider. They’re a pretty interesting sounding band, very psychedelic but with a different vibe and sound because they came from some extent from an experimental classical background. The first song on the record, “The American Metaphysical Circus”, starts with a layering of different musical pieces really similar to some Charles Ives pieces. It straightens out into a baroque, psychedelic chamber rock, probably the most accurate description of the musical genre for the album in general, but their constant use of ring modulators, a most unmusical-musical effect and one of my sounds, makes it work for me. No doubt, however, it is dated. No possibility that it would be from any other era.
They broke up pretty quick and the leader went on to put out another album, Joseph Byrd & the Field Hippies. Great name, huh? That one is hard to come by but I pulled a copy from the net. Very similar and, possibly, a cut above the United States of America.
That should’ve been “favorite sounds.”
I also wanted to add that the 1st track on that album is also the blueprint for the band Broadcast, particularly their 1st album The Noise Made by People. I like both it and the United States of America album quite a bit.
I bought the USA and Joe Byrd records when they were reissued on vinyl. One thing I really like is Byrd’s conceptual vision: rather than setting up individual songs, they all sort of flow into one another. Some pretty clever pastiches/cut ups of love songs and other “pop” moments that Byrd clearly intends as a criticism of the way music was marketed at the time.
Definitely “head” music (lots of references to “coming down”): there are moments that really grab me, where the music is executed with crystalline precision.