Regular edition - 10" + CD / Special edition - 10" + CD + CDR
*Special Edition includes a CD-R of a interview program with the producers of "Beam Penetration" in 1970. At the end of the program, the Flower Travellin' Band appeared with motorcycles and performed in the studio. Also includes insert with English translation of the interview.
Awesome archival work from EM in unearthing this one-time performance by the legendary Flower Travellin' Band recorded in Osaka for the Expo 70 event designed to showcase the best of newly-reimagined post-WWII Japan to the rest of the world. Originally scheduled to play a series of events, it seems the programmers didn't quite share the same vision as the Flower crew, and canned their involvement after just one performance, deeming it a little too radical. Well, you see, that's the thing about being radical, it's not really gonna work if it's not a bit too much... Listening back now, it must have been quite the spectacle, the band full on psych-rocking while 50 motorbikes hit the rev-o-meters like the most grievous of hell's angels. And what of the carbon-monoxide poisoning! Rock 'n' roll suicide in more ways than one. What's most incredible about the whole endeavour is how it manages to both capture the Easy Rider romanticism of counter-culture outsiderdom while pushing forth into the avant garde, to present rock, once again, as transgressive act (not forgetting this was one one year and a good few thousand miles removed from Altamont). And i can't think of too many equivalents, save something like the Flaming Lips boombox experiments and Zaireeka albums or Neubaten attempting to destroy the ICA with power tools, where the recorded element is secondary to the momentary performance. Of course, all we have is this recorded element (the one i'm selling: the only one available), so you'll have to make do and think about all the radical fun you missed. Super limited 10" and CD set, with photos and liner notes and what not.
