Long before the British domination of all things progressive, progress was being made in the post-San Francisco underground scene in many US cities, among them Boston. The fact that producer Alan Lorber tried to capitalize on this scene, taking three bands in particular - Ultimate Spinach, Orpheus, and The Beacon Street Union - into his 'bosstown' marketing scheme and cutting a big deal with MGM Records (which generated a lot of media attention but ultimately flopped), doesn't change the fact that some of these bands had a lot of interesting music to offer. Ultimate Spinach began in mid '67 as the brainchild of bandleader/keyboardist Ian Bruce-Douglas, who wrote all of the band's material on both their first and second album, as well as bringing in odd instrumentation like recorders, sitar, vibes, and theremin. The first album is a mixture of styles, from typical anti-war rock and naive social commentary, to more adventurous and unconventional tunes like the instrumental "Sacrifice of The Moon" - four short vignettes combining folk, classical, and baroque elements, the Bach inspired "Pamela", the multi-part Satie influenced "Baroque #1", and the lengthy "Ballad of the Hip Death Goddess" with eerie vocals by singer/second guitarist Barbara Hudson. Their hippy-trippy flower-power lyrics, laughable by today's standards, were clearly a product of the times, as evidenced by the opening lines of "Your Head Is Reeling": "Collapsed laughter running falling tripping across the minefields of your thoughts dissolved wondering who am I why should I be alone?" and other such sophomoric profundity. While the album's strengths lie in the writing and instrumental elements, its greatest weaknesses lie in the lyrics and its lack of focus. Fortunately, by the time of the second album Behold & See, the writing had evolved to a new level, gaining a better focus, and fusing elements of jazz and psychedelic rock into the instrumental style they had already developed. The material is split between a couple short song-oriented pieces featuring guest vocalist Carol Lee-Britt, and several longer instrumentally oriented tracks. Two of these, "Suite: Genesis of Beauty" and "Fifth Horseman of The Apocalypse", are lengthy multi-part suites that stretch the confines of the pop/rock idiom. "Mind Flowers" is pure electric psychedelia with multi-distorted guitars swirling with effects, while the raga-influenced "Fragmentary March of Green" attempts some pointed social commentary, but ends up being quite naive and silly. While the vocal section of "Jazz Thing" is rather pedestrian (Douglas' perfectly enunciated lyrics indeed grow a bit tiring, especially on this track and "Visions of Your Reality"), the arrangements driven by vibraphone and electric piano, as well as an expanded instrumental section with solos for recorder, are quite innovative. Call it proto-prog, proto-goth, or whatever you will, the fact is that it bears many similarities to what would later be called prog. Mysteriously, Ian Bruce-Douglas disbanded the group and bailed before the second album was even released, leaving a three-album contract unfulfilled. It was up to producer Lorber to reassemble a group of musicians to do a third Ultimate Spinach record. Only Barbara Hudson and drummer Russ Levine remained from the second album, while ex-Chamaeleon Church members Ted Myers and Tony Scheuren were brought in as chief writer/vocalist/guitarist and keyboardist respectively. Mike Levine became the bassist, and guitarist Jeff Baxter was enlisted (who would later go on to greater success with Steely Dan and The Doobie Brothers). With new leadership, the band's focus changed from longer instrumentally-oriented pieces to a shorter song format. Indeed, the lyrics and songwriting here are probably far superior to either of the earlier albums, but they are also a lot less explorative and progressive musically. In addition, the inclusion of a cover of "Just Like Romeo & Juliet", Baxter's absolutely banal rocker "Daisy", and a hyper-extended, group blues jam titled "Eddie's Rush" do little for the overall cohesiveness of the album. The Myers/Scheuren-penned tracks, if taken on their own constitute an excellent body of work, with "Happiness, Child" and "Strange Life Tragicomedy" being especially worthy of note. "Reasons" is an excellent folkish piece showcasing Hudson's voice, and some great steel guitar playing by Baxter, and tracks like "Some Days You Just Can't Win" and "The World has Just Begun" show a stronger sense of lyrical purpose than was evident on most of the rambling pseudo-hippie chaff on either of the first two albums. In short, these three can be recommended conditionally upon the understanding that this is indeed music of an earlier era. Given that caveat, "Behold & See" is probably the one that would be of greatest interest to prog fans. Now there are two sets of CD reissues available that a prospective buyer should be aware of. The first came out around 1996 on Big Beat records, under the heavy hand of original producer Alan Lorber, who decided to take history into his own hands. The first album was left pretty much intact, but the butchering began on the second album: one track, "Visions of Your Reality", was completely eliminated, while "Mind Flowers" and "Fragmentary March of Green" were shortened (the entire "I am Falling..." section of "Mind Flowers" was eliminated), and the remaining tracks were changed from their original order on the LP. Likewise on the third album, one track "Sincere" was outright dropped for no apparent reason. In 2000, a box set of all three was relaesed on Akarma, correcting all of the problems of the first reissues, and adding a couple bonus tracks on the first two albums as well (mono versions of "Your Head is Reeling", "Hip Death Goddess", "Mind Flowers", and "Fragmentary March of Green"). All three discs are packaged in mini-LP gatefold sleeves, and it comes with a lengthy booklet detailing the history of the band.
(Originally published in Exposé #12, p. 67, Edited for Gnosis 2/11/01)
