Listen: “Jingle Bells.”
By now, regular visitors to this site know that it’s somewhat of a Christmas/New Year’s tradition: I try to dig out some interesting record from the collection to share, in the hopes that you can somehow find a way to slip, I don’t know, Paul Ngozi or Thomas East in between Bing Crosby and selections from John Denver and The Muppets’ A Christmas Together at your family’s get together. Well, it’s been four years since I first shared the amazing novelty of South Korean psych-rockers He 5’s Merry Christmas Psychedelic Sound. And, in that post, I mentioned their epic “Jingle Bells” cover – really, a chance for them to stretch out into a ten minute medley of “Inna Gadda Da Vida” and “Paint It Black.”
in 2012, when photographer Eilon Paz came around the house to photograph some of my records for his Dust & Grooves project, he asked about any oddballs that I could share. It doesn’t really get any weirder than this album, so I pulled it out – and managed to snag a photo of my oldest son, who seemed more interested in the pictures of the hepcat looking Hes pictured on the back than in destroying this rarity. Lucky for me!
So, this year, as we take a few days off to celebrate a year of good music, we’re sharing with you one of the top tracks to emanate from South Korea’s psychedelic scene. Merry Christmas – 2015 – Psychedelic Sound!