Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Sinking with Sylvia (and Sometimes Todd) on Little Radio


Sinking with Sylvia (and Sometimes Todd) is a radio program that airs on internet radio station, Little Radio, from 11:00AM - 1:00PM Thursday morning. They've been kind enough to do a You Set the Scene pick each week. I originally wanted to use my pick as an excuse to write about a band I wouldn't normally have an excuse to write about. Of course, I never have enough time to write about everything I'd like to write about, so it hasn't worked right yet. Anyway, on 7/26 they played my first weekly pick. That first pick was Euphoria's "Through a Window."

I picked up a reissue of Euphoria's A Gift from Euphoria about a decade ago after reading about it in Mojo. It was originally released by Capitol Records in 1969 but went out of print soon thereafter. It's just an awesomely weird album that swings wildly from baroque, string-heavy songs to bluegrass jams to psychedelic-era Beatles-inspired tunes. The maudlin lyrics are drug influenced and frequently invoke suicide "world you've let me down again" and "take my hand, take my life" just to quote a couple. The album's got one of my favorite song titles ever, "Suicide on the Hillside, Sunday Morning, After Tea." Most of these albums hyped as lost treasures don't even come to close to living up to the hype, but this one does. Thanks to Rev-Ola it's pretty easy to find (you can order it at Insound and I'd bet that Amoeba has it). I replaced my CD version with a vinyl reissue a couple of years ago (picked up at Rockaway in Silver Lake). If you're a fan of late 60's baroque/psych/country rock then you need this record. Check out Allmusic's entry.

Be sure to tune in Thursday morning as Earlimart will be the special guests. Usually there's an interview and the artists pick a bunch of songs that are important to them. At some point, they'll play my selection which Todd will inevitably say sucks.

Download Sinking's podcast from 7/26/07 when I picked Euphoria

Make friends with Sinking on Myspace.

1 comment:

Unknown said...

I adore this record, but hadn't even thought about it in ages. Thanks for prompting me to dig it out and give it another listen!