Day 0068 - Midnight Ride

Paul Revere and the Raiders "Midnight Ride" (1966)

According to the book this bad were somewhat reviled at the time, due to being a bit theatrical in their stage costumes and performance. They regularly featured on one of Dick Clark's tv shows, which did nothing to add to their 'cool'.

It's odd though that they were dismissed, because this is really good music! The album seems to veer between sounding unbelievably 60s and sounding totally fresh and like it could have just been released. One of the songs sounds vaguely like Ween, to my ears. At times it's garagey and punky, at other times it's perky and poppy... either way I would say it doesn't manage to be boring at all.

Day 0067 - If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears

The Mama's and Papa's "If You Can Believe Your Eyes and Ears" (1966)

Good solid pop album with hints of the folk backgrounds of the various band-members.

This album is as about as 1960s as a mop-topped JFK being assassinated by the moon landing. I prefer the folkier, mellower songs here, but the vaguely moddish pop on some of the other tracks works okay too.

Day 0066 - Face to Face

The Kinks "Face to Face" (1966) - got it

That was really good, I've never been hugely familiar with the Kinks outside of the 'hits' (though, as noted above, have since picked up a copy of this album).  This was great, a really nice mix of beautiful melodies and great vocal harmonies, but with a harder rock edge underpinning it. "Session man" is a bit of a throwaway track but 'Party Line', 'Too much on my mind', 'Rainy day in June', 'Sunny afternoon' and the raga-tastic 'Fancy' more than make up for it.

Day 0065 - Black Monk Time

The Monks "Black Monk Time" (1966) - got it

Brilliant album.  It somehow manages to sound haphazard, yet musically tight all at the same time.

The Monks manage to convey the frantic vibe of a world coping with the advent of the atomic bomb, perhaps combined with a touch of PTSD of these ex-GIs trying to make sense of the world around them (drawing on the influence of their time in service).

 Hailed by some as one of the first punk albums, and it would not surprise me if they were an influence on some of the bands generally credited with pioneering that movement.

Day 0064 - Blonde on Blonde

Bob Dylan "Blonde on Blonde" (1966)

Rock's first double-album... I would say that this is one of those double albums that just feels like it would have been better as a great single album.  "Rainy day woman..." is still one of my favourite Dylan songs, and an interesting way to start the album,  "I want you" is brilliant and "Sad eyed lady of the lowlands" is beautiful.. actually there were no songs that really grated on me here, it was just a bit much Dylan for my tastes all in all.  A single disc version of this album is a Bob Dylan album I would happily buy

Day 0063 - The Fifth Dimension

The Byrds "The Fifth Dimension" (1966)

Principal songwriter Gene Clark had left and much like Pink Floyd and Split Enz this meant that the remaining songwriters had to adapt to fill the void.

The result is a mixed bag... but not too mixed.  All of the tracks are at least listenable, and there are some straight-up pop gems in here, like the title track and the legitimately brilliant 'eight miles high'.  This latter track apparently got banned from radio simply because of the word 'high' featuring in the title. Some other tracks are pretty enough songs, but they mostly just feel like filler.  Their cover of 'hey Joe' is really nothing to write home about

Day 0062 - Fred Neil

Fred Neil "Fred Neil" (1966)

This was a really good album; I'd never heard of Fred Neil previously.  This album includes his original version of 'Everybody's talking' (slightly slower than the more famous Harry Nilsson version).  It's just a great all-round 'singer-songwriter' album with folk, country, blues and even some eastern flourishes in a song or two.

After listening to this album, I checked out some of Fred's other works and found this song, which is a rootsy blues track, so low and slow that it feels like it's barely crawling!