Electric Music for the Mind and Body

Electric Music for the Mind and Body

Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
Given their origins, both geographically (San Francisco) and stylistically (founder Joe McDonald and lead guitarist Barry Melton first hooked up in a jug band), it wasn't surprising that the ragtag Fish sounded like an acid-soaked, plugged-in folk band when they debuted in '67. Simultaneously the most political and funniest of all the Northern California bands, the Fish's yippie-hippie philosophy was reflected in songs like "Superbird" (about Lyndon Johnson), "Flying High" (about getting you-know-what), and the bluesy free love saga, "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine." That they could periodically wax serious as well (the wide-angled instrumental "Section Forty Three" and the moody "Bass Strings") only added more bite to their satiric pungency. --Billy Altman

Electric Music for the Mind and Body,Country Joe & the Fish,Vanguard Records,Folk & Traditional,Folk-Rock,Pop,Popular Music,Psychedelic,Rock,Rock/Pop

Average customer rating:

Whoah there.

A Masterpiece

Waiting for the remaster

Psychedelia's greatest moment was a miraculous fluke

One Thing To His Credit

Electric Music for the Mind and Body
Country Joe & the Fish
Manufacturer: Vanguard Records
ProductGroup: Music
Binding: Audio CD

General | Folk | Styles | Music
Traditional Folk | Folk | Styles | Music
Folk Rock | Rock | Styles | Music
General | Rock | Styles | Music
Psychedelic Rock | Classic Rock | Styles | Music
Pop Rock | Pop | Styles | Music
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ASIN: B000000EJE
Release Date: 1990-10-25

Tracks:

Flying High
Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine
Death Sound
Porpoise Mouth
Section 43
Super Bird
Sad And Lonely Times
Love
Bass Strings
The Masked Marauder
Grace

Amazon.com

Given their origins, both geographically (San Francisco) and stylistically (founder Joe McDonald and lead guitarist Barry Melton first hooked up in a jug band), it wasn't surprising that the ragtag Fish sounded like an acid-soaked, plugged-in folk band when they debuted in '67. Simultaneously the most political and funniest of all the Northern California bands, the Fish's yippie-hippie philosophy was reflected in songs like "Superbird" (about Lyndon Johnson), "Flying High" (about getting you-know-what), and the bluesy free love saga, "Not So Sweet Martha Lorraine." That they could periodically wax serious as well (the wide-angled instrumental "Section Forty Three" and the moody "Bass Strings") only added more bite to their satiric pungency. --Billy Altman

Customer Reviews:

Whoah there........2006-11-08

This is hands down, the best album of all time!!!! Sounds best on vinyl.

A Masterpiece.......2006-03-29

Wow! What to say about this highly entertaining and great piece of music. So, the Commie Pinko band can really rock! Everyone (conservative that is) back in the sixties thought of these guys as communists and agitators. Funny thing is they only had a few political songs. The rest make some of the greatest psychedelic music to come out of San Francisco.

I remember seeing this album in the record stores and always wanted to get it but just never did. I ended up getting Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die instead. Now that album is fantastic... but we are talking about this one.

Some 30 odd years later, I finally get a copy of the CD. Wow! The tunes are mostly blues based and Barry and David have incredible guitar chops. I particularly like their minor key runs and the fuzz guitar. This group of guys had some real chemistry and I don't know about the third album, but this one and the Fixin' album are just incredible. Favorites are Death Sound, Flying High, just to name a few. Death Sound is how psychedelic blues should be played! When I think back on it, I can hear a lot of Barry Melton and David Cohen influence in my guitar playing.

Highly recommended.

Waiting for the remaster.......2006-03-11

This album is an all time classic, as it is, but would be amazing if it were remastered. Come on Joe, get with it.
As a side note, I melted a hole in my first copy while trying to read the song titles on the album by the light of a lit stick of incense as the record was spinning around on the turntable.
Ahhhh, those were the days...........

Psychedelia's greatest moment was a miraculous fluke.......2004-11-16

Have you ever wondered why ELECTRIC MUSIC is a masterpiece and why all of their subsequent records are absolute crap? Yes, they obviously dried up too soon. But there's a big reason why they dried up too soon. Turns out The Boys lost their religion. Consider the following dialog:

From CJ FISH ON SATURDAY NIGHT [1968] by Richard Goldstein: "I asked him why his music had changed. He straightened up slowly and took off his hat. 'See, we're not what we thought we were.'/'How so?'/'Well, 2 years ago, we believed in music like a god. If you're gonna get into a heavy acid trip, you're gonna get religious. If you stop taking acid, you stop being religious.'/'Our audience knew we got stoned and we knew they got stoned and it all worked in a big circle', Barry added./'Yeah, but music's nothing to believe in. I mean, it's just sound.'/'Do you feel like quitting now?'/'No, I still dig playing. If it got really bad, I couldn't even get up on the stage. But today, the only emotion I associate with music is pleasure. There used to be all kinds of...well...connotations.'"

A lot of people use music to drown out the silence of God. I wish they'd realize that the silence of God is merely the space between the notes. As you can hear in this record's last track: GRACE. My favorite moment in GRACE is Joe's descending delivery of the phrase "every day colored gold". No--wait. I take that back. My favorite moment comes after that. When either Melton or Cohen (I can't remember which) plucks those 4 perfect eerie notes that accompany the phrase "gold our love".

Melton & Cohen are also responsible for my fave passage on the entire record. The guitar section in THE MASKED MARAUDER. Specifically, the churning first part of it. It's a lysergic shade of melancholia.

Profound sadness is also present in the final section of SECTION 43. You hear a hard-to-identify instrumental timbre that sounds like a faint radio signal from outer space. The signal strengthens and it turns out to be Joe's harmonica.

One Thing To His Credit.......2004-07-02

I say this as honest as I can this is one of the most annoying albums ever released. There's no real originality to it at all just alot of blues music. If you heard one blues artist you've heard them all. The only thing different is they have an annoying organ, or keyboard, but remind me never to buy the brand. It just cuts me to the core, and makes me feel so melancholy. To me this is just another San Francisco band that decided to record music played while stoned out of thier minds. If this is for the mind and body sorry my body's supposed to be a temple. Of course strike 2 is the blasted harmonica playing. Having an annoying organ is bad enough, but now you throw a harmonica into the mix you've gone too far. "Section 43" while annoying is rather creative in a macbre sense. I've pictured the little guitar interlude where I get the sensation of walking into a lovely garden, and following where my heart leads the sun is out, and I keep walking along, and spot a lovely girl, and pursue her, and I go further and further without a fear in the world as the sun's shining, but then I'm deep in the woods, and the dark clouds roll in; I rather not tread there again. Anyway I'll stick with the "Feel Like I'm Fixing To Die Rag". I love kazoos. Country Joe knew what he was talking about when writing that song after all he did do time in the navy. That would be one thing to his credit. Otherwise I'm left with the decision to see which was worse; this album, or his forgettable 1971 movie "Gasssss".

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