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The Electric Prunes - Release Of An Oath
The Electric Prunes - Just Good Old Rock and Roll
Collector's Choice
By the time of the original release of these albums (the
fourth and fifth of the band's five records) originally released
on Reprise and now re-issued by the fab folks at Collector's
Choice, The Electric Prunes best days were behind them. Their
garage-psyche classic "I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)"
from their first album had come and gone and their erratic but
still great second album was just a faint glimmer in the minds
of the music-loving public. Though the band's profile was
somewhat kept afloat by having a song from their third album
score a placement on the Easy Rider soundtrack, by the time
their last album Just Good Old Rock and Roll came out, they were
largely forgotten.
A major shift in focus will do that to you.
For a band who started out with an AM radio hit of the
magnitude of "I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)," the shift
they made for their third record Mass In F Minor was one of the
biggest experiments a band has ever taken. Eschewing the simple
yet trippy songs that garned them scads of fans, their next two
albums (Mass and Release of an Oath) were based on religious
texts. Sure, concept albums were almost de rigeur at the time,
but making an album based on a Mass (and sung in Latin)
augmented by horns and strings (Mass) and then an album (Release
Of An Oath) based on one of the most sacred of Jewish prayers,
the Kol Nidre - recited on the eve of Yom Kippur, was a whole
different thing. Needless to say these albums alienated the
band's audience.
By the time Release Of An Oath entered the marketplace,
the band was a shell of its' self. Composer/arranger David
Axelrod and producer David Hassinger had ursurped control of the
band circa Mass In F Minor and none of the members who made the
hit "I Had Too Much To Dream (Last Night)" were still in the
band. Also, in addition to the band who did make the album (a
Canadian band formerly called the Collectors who had also helped
on Mass due to having worked with Hassinger in the past) studio
heavy weights such as drummer Earl Palmer and bassist Carol Kaye
were brought in to augment the sound. An overlooked gem, the
ideas which led to the often tentative melding of classical
instrumentation with rock music on Mass In F Minor reach
fruition and a level of success thought unattainable in regards
to the mediocrity of the previous album. One definite minus is
the brevity of this stunning album, which clocks in at a shade
over a measley 24 minutes but that can be overlooked due to the
sheer expressive power and scope of this undertaking. Of course,
it wasn't the same Prunes at this point, but so what? A little
bit of trivia - this album almost wasn't credited to the Prunes.
Though the band's management owned the name and had to fulfill
the band's contract by putting an album out, the musicians were
offered a chance to pick another name at the last minute due to
the vastly different scope of the album and chose to stick with
the Electric Prunes. Another piece of trivia - future Eagle
Randy Meisner was offered a chance to play in the new version of
the band but turned it down to start Poco!
From the ominous and pandering "new and improved Electric
Prunes" on the cover, one can guess this album is not going to
be one of the best in anyone's catalog, not to mention the
Electric Prunes'. By this time Axelrod had done what the
original members of the band had done - jumped ship and got the
hell away from the band. Despite Release of An Oath's
ambitiousness and decent reviews from most critics and fans, the
album did not sell in great quantities and the band was once
again looking for direction. The band's producer Hassinger
remained on board as he had done for all their albums and came
up with a novel idea: take the band and get them to record
original songs. Even the band's first two albums with the
original members had featured mostly covers and the following
two religious-themed albums were composed entirely by Axelrod.
In Hassinger's eyes, the band would start from scratch and write
their own songs. There were more membership changes but the band
settled in and knocked out the songs. With the exception of
"Finder's Keepers, Loser's Weeper's" the whole album was written
by the band. Lacking a cohesive direction other than to play
their own songs, the album lacks focus and is really just
sub-par Jeff Beck/Yardbirds-influenced hard rock. The band could
have conceivably built from their new foundation but their
contract with Reprise was terminated and the group disbanded.
Fans of garage rock and the beginnings of what is now
known as heavy metal will love these albums, scattershot though
they are. Check them out, tune in and take off! - Scott Homewood
www.collectorschoice.com
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