Artist	Song
Jimi Hendrix	Eargoggles
from Loose Ends (1970) Short little excerpt where Hendrix says: "Turn up the drums through the eargoggles."
Blue Cheer	Fruit & Iceburgs
from New! Improved! (1969) Great psychedelic rock from guitar "god" Randy Holden, and Blue Cheer. At about the 4:54 point, someone says, very softly: "I definitely think that dress costs way too much money". Heh?
Jimi Hendrix	Voodoo Child
from Electric Ladyland (1968) Classic, swirling, panning back and forth from left channel to right.
Rare Bird	Flight (New Yorker - Central Park)
from As Your Mind Flies By (1970) Quixotic two keyboard (no guitars!) progressive rock band from the UK. This, from their second album. This track opens with really interesting special effects from the organ - the sound swirls around your head in a circle. Really cool.
Julie Driscoll, Brian Auger & The Trinity	Light My Fire
from Street Noise (1969) With the "Jose Feliciano" employed arrangement, this inspired version of The Doors hit, reduced me to tears at two places in this track. The first, near the 2:30 mark, when, if you really listen closely, you can hear Julie Driscoll humming very softly (mostly left channel) along with Brian Auger's organ solo. Wow. Then, at about 3:40, when Driscoll glisses down from her upper range to lower in this extraordinarily sensual slide. I get chills from just describing it. What a tremendous recording.
Elvis Costello	Watch Your Step
from Trust (1981) The first time I heard this track, I was awestruck by the actual sound of the vocal. It felt like Elvis was sitting right on my shoulder singing in my ear. All the sounds of his mouth opening closing, his breathing, incredibly intimate.
Edgar Froese	NGC891
from Aqua (1974) Froese, a founding member of Tangerine Dream, recorded this in 1974, and utilized what is called an "Artificial Head System" (a replica of a human head fitted with condenser microphones, built by AKG and Sennheiser) for recording noises, especially those of airplanes approaching the Berlin airport. This provides a unique three-dimensional audio effect. Listen as the airplane flies from the left channel to the right - and then out the window. Unfortunately the resulting three-dimensional effect could be reproduced adequately only with headphones but not through two speakers. That's why I've included it here.
Cream	Politician
from Wheels of Fire (1968) One of the most unusual examples of left channel to right channel panning. In Clapton's guitar solo, there are multiple overdubbed guitars, and if you listen closely and concentrate, the guitar soloing in the left channel sweeps slowly from left to right, while the guitar in the right channel sweeps right to left. The two guitars then meet in the center and then gracefully continue to pan left to right, and right to left respectively, and begin their slow laguid journey again. The solo begins around the two minute mark.
Blue Cheer	Gypsy Ball
from OutsideInside (1968) A crazy, out of control, mad circular swirl around your brain. Sit back and trip out.
Ozric Tentacles	Pyramidion
from Pyramidion (2001) The spatial expansion, and head room, and the space itself, of this tune is extraordinary. As you listen, picture a huge wide plain, a pyramid in the middle, the drums, synths are streamers of bright colors circling the bottom of the pyramid, and at the 1:30 point, the guitar explodes from the top of the pyramid. Then, at 2:50, the bass drops a bomb, with more guitar, and there's an awesome mad rush. This track will make your head feel like football.
Klaatu	Sub-Rosa Subway
from Klaatu (1976) A really fun record with a great story. Released in 1976, it was accompanied with a rumor concocted by a music reviewer for the Providence Journal that this album was an anonymous project by The Beatles. Since there were no musician credits on the album, and it was released on Capitol Records, and the album featured a quite pronounced Magical Mystery Tour-era Beatle-ish quality it caused quite a stir. Particularly, this tune, has a dead- ringer-for-McCartney vocal. Adding to the intrigue, is starting at the 2:50 point, in the left channel, Morse code can be clearly heard beeping a *secret* message.
The Orb	Toxygene
from Orblivion (1997) Lots of panning at the beginning, then more electronics. Then, at 1:53, all hell breaks loose. Do not listen to this in your car, even without eargoggles. You might find yourself up a tree. I know I almost did - more than once.
Soft Machine	Why Are We Sleeping?
from Soft Machine (1968) Wonderfully trippy, tongue in cheek track with, at the time, some of the most talented musicians on the planet; Kevin Ayers, Mike Ratledge and Robert Wyatt. Listen at 4:19, where we are admonished by Kevin Ayers to "take those bells off your neck, they're too small".
Righteous Brothers	Unchained Melody
from Just Once In My Life (1965) An amazing record with a vocal performance to match. Bill Medley, the other "brother" in the group, is quoted as saying that "Bobby [Hatfield] just nailed it". What's also little known is that this tune was released as the B-side of "Hung On You", and was produced by Bill Medley, not Phil Spector. Many DJs started to play "Unchained Melody" instead of the A-side, and it quickly became a huge hit. The revealing moment in this track is just that; barely longer than a second and it comes at the 3:05 mark, where at the climax of the tune on the line "Ahhh...I need your love", echo is flipped on and off very quickly. But, in that barest moment, the song takes off like a rocket.

Comment:

This mix is called Eargoggles. It's called that because it's meant to be listened to with eargoggles - that is, a big honkin' pair of high end, very expensive headphones. Why is that? Because this mix contains those recordings that over the years I've enjoyed MOST listening to with eargoggles. Simply put, there are little, sometimes amusing, sometimes bordering on cosmic, things that can only be heard with eargoggles on these recordings. These things range from crazy panning from channel to channel, to spoken asides, to huge spatial expansions, to cosmic bits expressed in Morse code, to vocals that have you believing that the singer is sitting on your shoulder. In the following description of tracks, the timing of a particular event, if given, is approximate. It is also
advisable to watch the CD timing so you don't miss these pithy moments.

Feedback: