The Rainbow Press - There's A War On & Sunday Funnies (1968-1969) (2 albums on 1 CD) - 1997

The Rainbow Press - There's A War On Sunday Funnies

Жанр: Psychedelic Pop Rock
Страна: USA
Год издания: 1997
Аудиокодек: MP3
Тип рипа: tracks
Битрейт аудио: 320 kbps
Продолжительность: 01:12:00

There's A War On
01 - Step Aboard [00:03:15]
02 - A Simple Way [00:02:36]
03 - Cyclic Epic [00:04:14]
04 - Better Way [00:02:41]
05 - The Girl That Cannot Love [00:04:55]
06 - There's a War On [00:04:20]
07 - Lightning Streak [00:02:43]
08 - I've Found Someone [00:03:19]
09 - Our Country's Still O.K. [00:03:57]
10 - No-One Follows the Daytime [00:03:45]
Sunday Funnies
11 - Sightseeing [00:03:20]
12 - Great White Whale [00:02:41]
13 - The Lost Platoon [00:04:35]
14 - I'll Cry Instead [00:03:38]
15 - You Warmed Up My Life [00:03:49]
16 - As I went Out One Morning [00:03:47]
17 - Have You Ever [00:03:12]
18 - Sing Your Song [00:03:21]
19 - Definitions [00:04:06]
20 - Smitty's Rainfall [00:03:38]

About

There's A War On, the first LP (1968) by The Rainbow Press, has recently been reissued on CD by Radioactive Records. While not entirely a 'garage' or 'psych' LP, the album is a very solid '60's pop/rock artifact and a true representation of the era during which it was recorded. Comprised of college students from separate universities, The Rainbow Press evolved in to a studio-only group, and recorded a second LP, Sunday Funnies, also in '68. While we hope that Radioactive reissues it, too, in the near future, we sought out the story on the band from drummer Bill Yergin.
An Interview With Bill Yergin
60sgaragebands (60s): How did you first get interested in music?
Bill Yergin (BY): I remember always being interested in the music from when I was very young. Even before my parents had a record player that could play 45s, I listened to their 78s and LPs of big bands, Dixieland, show tunes and the like. But I really enjoyed music from AM Top 40 stations, specifically remembering Bobby Darin, Buddy Holly, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. The first 45 record I bought was Good Golly Miss Molly by Little Richard because my mother refused to allow me to buy Jerry Lee Lewis' Great Balls of Fire. I started playing the accordion (why, I could not say) by seven years old and took lessons on it for a number of years. When I was entering the fourth grade I signed up for the school band to play the drums and that is the instrument that I played in The Rainbow Press and still play today.
60s: Was the Rainbow Press your first band?
BY: The first band I was in was in high school and it was named The Specs. We stayed together until graduation from high school (Mamaroneck High School in the suburbs of New York City). One of the members was a future member of The Rainbow Press, guitarist Marc Ellis. We were called The Specs because we all wore glasses.
60s: When and where was The Rainbow Press formed?
BY: I was in college in Ohio in the fall of 1967 and Marc wrote me a letter (he was at Ithaca College in New York as a freshman, too) to tell me that he had met a fellow freshman who had an interest in putting a band together over the following summer (1968). His name was Dave Troup and he knew three other guys who he had done things with in their high school (Suffern High School in New York, north of the City). Marc told me they harmonized well and played various instruments. Marc asked if I was interested in being their drummer and, of course, I was. We decided to jam together over Christmas break to see how we sounded and got along. Of the six members of the band, five were at this session. As a result, we decided to get together to play in the summer break of 1968 (since we were all college students at various colleges). This was to be a summer 'job' of sorts.
60s: Who all comprised the band?
BY: Marc Ellis - electric (lead) and acoustic guitar, vocals; Dave Troup - electric bass guitar, vocals; Dave Groff - lead singer, percussion, oboe and recorder; Larry Milton - electric piano, acoustic guitar, vocals; Charlie Osborne - electric organ, vocals; and Bill Yergin - drums.
60s: How did you settle on the name, The Rainbow Press?
BY: The name Rainbow Press was a group effort, but I think I was the one who originally came up with the idea of something based on a newspaper, my first idea being The Front Page. But, since this was the '60s and in the era of psychedelics, something like 'rainbow' seemed to fit. Actually, our first name under which we started as a band was The Continental Divide, a very lounge act-sounding name. When we signed on with Mr. G Records we decided we had to change it into something more memorable and original, and I think we succeeded. Also, the cover of There's A War On we thought of when we came up with the name...the headline page with the rainbow colors underlying it.
60s: How did you become associated with the Mr. G label?
BY: Mr. G was the 'pop' label created by the label Audio Fidelity. They have been credited with the first commercial stereo LP released in the '50s. They were a very respected label that was known for high quality recordings. The Mr. G (presumably executive producer Herman Gimbel was their attempt at entering the pop/rock field. The label and Audio Fidelity no longer exist. The association with the label, I believe (although I am not certain), came through people that Marc's father, Ray Ellis, knew in the industry.
60s: Did the Rainbow Press have a manager?
BY: No, not in the traditional sense. We got our own band dates, but after going in to record, we took a bit of recording advice from Marc's father, who was much known as a recorded orchestra leader and arranger and who had worked with many singers: Lena Horne, Barbra Streisand, Billy Holliday, Tony Bennett and others.
60s: Both your singles and the two LPs were released on Mr. G. Where were the songs recorded?
BY: The singles came out of the sessions for the two LPs. The first LP, There's A War On, was recorded in a four-track studio that was above Radio City Music Hall in New York City. We actually went up the stage elevator with the Rockettes! We recorded at night because all of us had summer day jobs! The room we recorded in was huge, as I remember. All of the songs were actually produced by the band without any direction or influence from the record company. The only time the record producer, Herman Gimbel (The mysterious 'Mr. G') made us change something was when he stopped in at a vocal session over the song Cyclic Epic.
Larry, who wrote and sang this song, had a line about a 'colorful box' in it and Mr. Gimbel said that absolutely that word 'box' had to be changed due to possible sexual references and that no radio station would ever play it with that in it. We were all flabbergasted, but Larry agreed to change the word to 'top' and in that recording I can hear him pronounce that word with a kind of disgust in his voice. The funny thing was that the song Girl Who Cannot Love was all about sex, in fact the building noise and feedback in it was supposed to be orgasmic. But, Mr. Gimbel was not there for that song! The single, There's A War On, was released quickly from the first few songs that we got recorded because the record company wanted to get something out fast. It ran over four minutes long and did not fit into the 2-3 minute window that AM radio wanted at that time. After it was chosen and released, I always thought the song Lightning Streak which we recorded after There's A War On, was a much more commercial pop/rock AM radio song.
After the first single and LP were released at the end of the summer of 1968, we received album pick, sleeper pick of the single by Cash Box and Record World Magazines - record trade magazines. Apparently, the LP sold well enough that the record company asked us to go back quickly into the recording studio to cut another LP. So, again, since we were all college students, we got together over Christmas break and practiced and recorded ten more songs that comprised Sunday Funnies. This time, the company got us into a state-of-the art eight-track studio named A R Recording Studios in New York City.
The difference in facilities was amazing. We were able to use a Hammond B3 organ and were able to put the guitar through the Leslie amp of that organ for so