valis

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Member Since: 12/28/2001
Total Mixes: 71
Total Feedback: 5080

Other Mixes By valis

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PPP,V3: Hampton Bishop and the Fowey River

Side A
Artist Song
Nick Nicely  Hilly Fields 1892 
Electric Prunes  I Had Too Much To Dream Last Night 
Tomorrow  My White Bicycle 
DoS  25 O'Clock 
Pink Floyd  Bike 
the Move  I Can Hear the Grass Grow 
DoS  Bike Ride To the Moon 
the Yardbirds  Over, Under, Sideways, Down 
DoS  My Love Explodes 
Manfred Mann  Semi-Detached Suburban Mr. James 
Zager & Evans  In the Year 2525 
DoS  What In the World?? 
the Smoke  My Friend Jack 
the Rolling Stones  She's a Rainbow 
the Hollies  Stop, Stop, Stop 
DoS  Your Gold Dress 
the Beatles  I Am the Walrus 
the Moles  We Are the Moles 
DoS  The Mole From the Ministry 
   
   
   
Side B
ArtistSongBuy
the Hollies  King Midas In Reverse 
DoS  Vanishing Girl 
Pink Floyd  Arnold Layne 
DoS  Have You Seen Jackie? 
Steve Miller Band  Song For Our Ancestors 
DoS  Little Lighthouse 
the Kinks  Sunny Afternoon 
the Small Faces  the Universal 
DoS  You're a Good Man Albert Brown (Curse You Red Barrel) 
the Move  Blackberry Way 
DoS  Collideascope 
the Byrds  Eight Miles High 
DoS  You're My Drug 
the Beatles  I'm Only Sleeping 
DoS  Shiny Cage 
the Beatles  Penny Lane 
DoS  Brainiac's Daughter 
the Beatles  A Day In the Life 
DoS  The Affiliated 
the Beach Boys  Caroline, No 
DoS  Pale and Precious 
***Mystery   Track*** 

Comment:

the Psychedelic Psavant Pseries, V3: Hampton Bishop and the Fowey River
Being a double-disc inquiry into the antecedents of the Dukes of Stratosphear
A band who could claim a history going back to 1975, had they not chosen another, "less psychedelic", name.

The players:
Sir John Johns
the Red Curtain
Lord Cornelius Plum
E.I.E.I. Owen

Conceived largely from the mind of Sir Johns, who is quoted as stating: "I loved British psychedelic music from '67/'68...we'd all listen to 'See Emily Play' and 'Arnold Layne' and 'My White Bicycle' and think, When I grow up I want to be in a band like that." "It was different for Americans. It was more hard drugs and avoiding Vietnam. For England it was garden parties and Edward Lear and school uniforms in boating lakes which turn to jelly. The Dukes were the ghost of every band in 1967 smashed into one."1
Lord Cornelius Plum: "When (Sir John Johns) first suggested the idea to me in 1978, I was driving a van for a living, so I said, 'Okay. I'll put a new battery in my fuzz pedal,' but in the age of punk I couldn't think of anything more stupid to try and do. Then we heard Nick Nicely's 'Hilly Fields 1892' and thought we'd better get on and do it."1
The gambit: "all tracks were to sound like something from 1967/68 with suitable psychedelic credentials and nothing was allowed more than two takes."1 The first ep, 25 O'Clock, consisted of six tracks(Side A above-v)and was completed in two weeks. It was, appropriately enough, released on April 1, 1985. Claiming more than modest success, the Dukes sailed up the Fowey River to record a full length LP-Psonic Psunspots(Side B above-v), which was completed in three weeks and released in 1987. Ultimately both the ep and LP were combined on a cd release called Chips From the Chocolate Fireball, also in 1987.
This exercise began due to my interest in hearing the Dukes tracks within the framework of setting them next to the songs which had inspired them in the first place. The band has given numerous insights into what the original sources of inspiration had informed each homage;I've spent the last three days compiling notes upon my notes, going back and forth between the various sources and found "time may change viewpoints" as songs were being mentioned for two or more tracks whilst others changed completely. Time considerations was the ultimate arbiter, in the end, of the resultant tracklist you see now.(Note: having listened to this tracklist twice now, I appreciate moreso what every artist herein accomplished. I hope you will too...v)
Sources:
1 Song Stories
The Real Influences
Nick Nicely & Hilly Fields 1892
image for mix

Feedback:

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g.a.b. l@bs
Date: 2/5/2004
heh...Burns is not 1st (and Burns is not valis !); a cOoL addition to the project indeed, v...more later:
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p the swede
Date: 2/5/2004
trippy, enjoy your package a lot, would love this the next time
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Adam Bristor
Date: 2/5/2004
Wow, there is a bunch of great stuff on here. Nicely done.
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g.a.b. l@bs
Date: 2/5/2004
...masterful cover, too
p l u m...umm, um (link)
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French Connection
Date: 2/5/2004
I sit here in awe! What a fab mix; The notes are much appreciated too.
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Media Vixen: Radio Sally
Date: 2/5/2004
All in, beyond brilliant. My regards!
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Sean Lally
Date: 2/5/2004
OH WOW - What a great tribute! That first DoS ep hit me hard - plus, I bought it the same day I bought the "Great British Psychedelic Trip" lp. TOtally life-changing - really hipped me to super cool sounds. And look at me now. This is a real labor (labour) of love, V. I totally dig it.
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G-Sphere
Date: 2/5/2004
Wonderful tribute to a great concept. This looks like an awesome listen.
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Muzag
Date: 2/5/2004
Not really aware of DoS myself but I like the company they keep here. Great concept for a mix, Valis. Makes me want to know more.
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stripey357
Date: 2/5/2004
This looks great!
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Mo Twang!
Date: 2/5/2004
Fantastic! Now I have to check out the Dukes of Stratosphear.
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CASETTA
Date: 2/5/2004
Great mix with all the right source material. I remember getting the DoS EP and playing dissect the song. Dave Gregory recently informed me that The Dukes did have a reunion and a new track called "Open A Can (Of Human Beans)" is on the compilation Wish List. Here is some info about it.

http://www.mssociety.org.uk/50th_anniversary/50th_news/wish.html
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Moe
Date: 2/5/2004
Wow Valis! You've created another masterful mix. The DoS CD is a great 'spot the influence" album, and I see you've spotted most of them. Great cover too. I gotta hear the track that Casetta refers to.
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lo-fi jr.
Date: 2/5/2004
I love the Dukes more than anything that other "less psychedelic" band has done in the last decade. Lots of geeky fun to spot the influences. Some nice work here professor V.
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SMoss
Date: 2/5/2004
Looks like excellent research, and a very satisfying finish. I agree with what somebody said below: The roots are wonderful, so I would imagine that the plant is quite fragrant. Very well executed, complete with interesting notes and great cover.
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Curtis_Burns
Date: 2/5/2004
I love the Dukes meself, and this is well, jeez, I bow before you Valis, and this totemic testament to your greatness. Trade perhaps?...damn that labber, beat me by a bunch this time; yeah, this time...
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Slack-a-gogo
Date: 2/5/2004
Well played my good man. Obviously I'm going to bite at anything with even a slight XTC connection, but this is a whole 'nother ball of wax. I love the Duke records in their own right as solid songs, but there's quite a bit of fun to be had in finding the reference points, influences, and out right rip-offs. Every few years I suddenly find a new batch of references as my music history experience grows. This is damn great and I feel a little shame that I never thought of this concept myself - you are in the zone! And any disc that has "King Midas In Reverse", one of the most majestic sounding songs ever is OK by me. And the cover is very cool and totally appropriate.
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Thomas_Mohr
Date: 2/6/2004
Sometime the simplest pleasures in life (i. e. mix ideas) are the best. So this week's award goes to . . .?
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greaseball1
Date: 2/6/2004
Yeah, Great stuff. Very trippy excursion my psychedelic friend.
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McDonald12
Date: 2/6/2004
So that's where you've been,(fake French accent a la French Taunter in "Holy Grail") you naughty person. As ever, the copious notes are a work of art (as is the cover). The music speaks for itself. Haven't seen that moles song in an age, and the rest of the mix makes this listener want to hear much more XTC. Can't get enough of this synapse-cracklin' era, and the bands influenced by it
thereafter.
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p the swede
Date: 2/6/2004
congrats valis, it never happened to me ;(
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joey de vivre
Date: 2/6/2004
awesome . . . I don't believe I've ever heard the Dukes but this convinces me that I should -- as soon as possible . . .
(So, o vast & active one, is this available for trading?)
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g.a.b. l@bs
Date: 2/6/2004
It appears that Congratulatory Tidings are due this psavvy & psuburb pselection of
Psychic Psorcery. "Well done" [vast & active] all knowing one. Would that "vast" signifies your cranial capacity (and not thy girth).
Thou shalt be busy, v replicating & enumerating copies of this aural tome for some time to come...
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sport1
Date: 2/6/2004
Congrats...one of the best mix of the week submissions I've seen!
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Mike Pike Set
Date: 2/6/2004
Congrats Valis!!!!!!! Lovely cover, really;) Trippy mix from a trippy guy;)
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Dom1
Date: 2/6/2004
This looks special although I've never heard of DOS!
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buglady
Date: 2/6/2004
Super mix, Valis!! I love the Dukes, though I haven't pulled the LPs out in a while. This looks absolutely mesmerizing...we'd better get a trade going soon!
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greaseball1
Date: 2/6/2004
hey, hey! congratulations. a very worthy mix o the week.
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bufo alvarius
Date: 2/6/2004
Big-time congratulations, my friend. A richly deserved MOTW, for sure.
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agnamaracs
Date: 2/6/2004
you are my hero. i will listen to every single one of these songs and find out what from the dukes' songs belongs to each of them.

however, i must know what the "mystery track" is. the only thing i can guess is that radio broadcast of "go f--- yourself with your atom bomb," from which the sample at the end of "my love explodes" comes. but that's probably not right.
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Lancelot Link IV1
Date: 2/7/2004
There are two kinds of great mixes I keep seeing on this site: those that are chock full of songs you have never heard of but interspersed with a few that you love (so you know you have new, probably wonderful things to listen to). And ones like this, that pull together songs already in your collection but in a very special way. This is very, very, very, very well done.
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Curtis_Burns
Date: 2/7/2004
Hip, hip, hooray! Damn straight this is MotW. Congrats and a tip o' the cap to the benevolent judge, Gerry.
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Sean Lally was the one who turned me onto "Bike Ride to the Moon" and I bought the EP/LP release after that. Great stuff.
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squire of the subterrain
Date: 2/8/2004
Valis,
these are like my favorite songs!!!!
nice!
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Muzag
Date: 2/8/2004
Hey, hey, MotW congrats Valis. :~)
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Moe
Date: 2/8/2004
Congratulations on the MoTW crown. May you wear it well.
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erik1966lutig
Date: 2/9/2004
Congrats on Mix of the Week!
I have always loved XTC and their offshoots. Great mix.
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EL DAVO
Date: 2/10/2004
I would LOVE to have this mix...
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12vman
Date: 2/11/2004
Not only is this mix terrific, this is a very cool concept, executed flawlessly. The pinnacle of the mix; for what we all should strive.
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krautfreak
Date: 2/12/2004
i concur w/the lot of 'em! you've crammed this thing silly with the cream of the brit psych pscene. just got xtc's first album last night, coincidentally, but have yet to hear DoS despite repeated entreaties from friends... hint, hint, hint...
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2FFs
Date: 2/16/2004
Utterly superlative: the Dukes' work transcends "nostalgia" with absurd ease, and putting those tracks next to their antecedents is a brilliant idea. Of course, there are probably even more tracks out there that have their moments of contribution...
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A.D. 69
Date: 2/20/2004
Wow! Awesome. This looks like a great great mix.
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chumchudchug
Date: 3/9/2004
Man, was just thinking about doing something with the Dukes...fantastic stuff here, brother!
Weird...just listened to Chips from the Chocolate Fireball today...can now see why the feedback on this is a mile long...fantastic eats!
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Dnxdaxt
Date: 3/11/2004
NICE.
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Jenergy
Date: 1/28/2005
I've just listened to both disks twice, over a couple of pints of dry stout. What a wonderful experience and a great education. Thanks, Valis, for putting this together.
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valis
Date: 2/17/2005