God Bless the Red Krayola and All Who Sail with It - The Red Krayola (1968)

Ideated from: The Eights. going back ten years each day

There are so many 1968 albums I could have picked that anyone would know from classic rock hits or replica T-shirts at Target. I wanted something a little different. I… sure got it.

It’s kind of wild how experimental and out-there this album is. There were plenty of unusual acts in the 60s, from Zappa and Beefheart to stuff like Firesign Theater. But a lot of that picked up on things that already existed like jazz and blues. A lot of this record is genuinely something nobody was doing, and wouldn’t be doing for a decade.

Listening now, it doesn’t sound all that radical compared to Kosmische and no wave and a lot of other challenging sounds of the 70s and 80. But it 1968 it must have sounded like time travel. Or just weird.

Tracks I Liked

Save The House - fairly conventional beats, with duelling vocal lines.

Ravi Shankar: Parachutist - kind of a sing-along feel with an odd meter.

Dairymaid’s Lament - basically a punk track. badass