Anywhere

Traveling out to the land of the rising sun for today's post. Yes time for some Japanese Heavy Psych. Better know as some early 70's Psychedelic Rock. Japan probably isn't the first place you think of for psych music. But there's quite a bit that's come out of there. Perhaps it explains Godzilla, I'm not sure. Anyways, Flower Travellin' Band were formed in the late 60's and specialized in their unique brand of psych music. 'Anywhere' is the band debut album and while 4 of the 6 songs are covers (Black Sabbath, Muddy Waters, The Animals and King Crimson) the album is a trip. If you can get past the Engrish lyrics at points, i.e. House Of The Rising Sun, there's a lot of trippyness going on here. Worth checking out even if it's for a cheap laugh.

I recently got into this band after finding their album 'Satori' on a now defunct blog. The tag line the author used was 'best listened to with a loaded gun at your head'. I mean hell I'm not passing this one up. Sure enough much like this album it's a trip. Definitely one of those lets take a sheet of acid and trip balls records. Psychedelic Rock has always intrigued me. It's like Garage Rock on acid. It's simple yet complex. And sometimes it's fun just to zone out with the headphones on and get lost. The band came together after the lead singer came back from London to see his friend John Lennon, who actually turned him on to psych rock. The Beatles are more influential than anyone will ever realize. The band only release a few more albums before calling it quits in the mid 70s. They did reform shortly before lead singer Joe Yamanaka died on cancer in 06. The band is well known amongst the psych rock circle as a pioneer of the Japanese Heavy Psych sound.

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