Allmen Joy 1967-12-xx Denver,CO Family Dog [VERY FINE uncirculated 2nd gen. stereo SBD (NOT pre-Allmans band) SUPER HEAVY Haight Ashbury ACID PSYCH GUARANTEED to bLoW yR MiNd ~Shades of Blue Cheer, CJ Fish, Big Brother a.o.~ HAPPY 2014 DIME!] CoolSonics


This recording demands some real volume so hang out the freak flag & hope the neighbors are on vacation. A missing link in the 60s Bay Area music puzzle & undoubtably one of the finest uploads I have offered so far on DIME. Not sure what might crawl out of the cave in the future, but this should shiver some timbers & shake some angel dust outta yr trees. Here's one from the depths of 1967 Hashbury, where & when the love children were playing on the street* & dancing in the park with rainbows in their eyes, flowers in their hair & the Allmen Joy filling their ears on many a night. (*tho' by the time I wandered there in the 70s they were huffing glue). Must be some of you DIMERs out there who remember seeing the Allmen Joy band. Here's your chance to re-live those precious days of yesterday.

Don't forget these samples are just lousy 256 MP3's, the real quality is in the flac folders...

Sample One ::: Track 01 ::: "Walk With Me"


I hope this one takes the cake & goes down a storm as they say & some folks take notice AND listen. It's like a mega audio fireworks display all on its own, a MELTDOWN of the first order. If you do like it, do feedback, as it does motivate one for future mastering attempts on other recordings. VERY cool to think the SF bands were paying attention to the 13th Floor Elevators as what Roky & crew were doing was off in another galaxy altogether - but just as fabulous in its own way. Come back & tell me/us how this altered your mind after you have listened thru. It should leave your synapses toasted like a night after seeing one of Owsley's ghosts. What better late xmas gift for you than an ELEVEN minute San Francisco acid rock style version of...

Sample Two ::: Track 04 ::: "You're Gonna Miss Me" (little taste of the guitar shredding...)


WHAT IF....
Allmen Joy had released an album circa December '67 like so many other SF bands - the bells woulda rung them into a big new year in '68 & by '69 they sure woulda have been a household name, or in every freak's record collection & all the commune music libraries at any rate & YOU mighta rolled some numbers inside one of their gatefold album covers, or passed the bong round your dorm room while listening to one of their latest waxings, or taken a drive in the country early in the morning in the VW van, lookin' for pastures & things that grew on cowpies while grooving to an 8-track of Fist, Rog, Ken, Funky & Rod, who, of course, woulda been household names like Janis, Jim & Jimi, & your blacklight poster woulda been hangin' on the wall with that long-haired Allmen Joy lead singer, Fist, lookin' good - something to have aspired to while you played frenzied air guitar to one of their 10 minute workouts, & you woulda fought with your parents over growing your hair out 'cause you wanted it "as long as Fist's", & one of those issues of CREEM magazine you bought coulda had an Allmen Joy cover article written by your fave rock writer, Lester Bangs, & you woulda been orderin' those funny live albums with the paste-on covers of Allmen Joy shows for $2 each from Pied Piper Records along with the Jethro Tull ones, & your parents woulda been screamin' at you to "TURN IT DOWN!" when you cranked up the volume on said LPs (even though that purple shag rug you hung on the wall to mute the sound shoulda helped, dammit), & one of your most loved rock t-shirts that your girlfriend had embroidered flowers on mighta had a trippy photo of the Joy instead of Zep, & the local bands playin' at your school dances woulda been playin' Allmen Joy covers along with "Whippin' Post", & you mighta given your girlfriend acid, incense & balloons & the new Allmen Joy picture sleeve 45 for her birthday & the tonearm coulda been set on repeat while you made out & hoped her parents didn't come upstairs, & you woulda raved about Rog Saunders' rippin' guitar lead on that new song & argued with your best friend about whether he was better than Barry Melton, and, of course, you woulda sent in your two dollars & 50 cents (plus pre-stamped envelope) to join the Allmen Joy fan club, whereupon your LIFETIME! membership woulda entitled you to a free button, Allmen Joy headband, a post postcard with a signed photo of each bandmember, a free copy of their next single AND a guaranteed bonifide(!) certificate of ownership for 1 square inch of land at the Allmen Joy commune out in Marin County (just like the one you got when you joined that Black Oak Arkansas fan club), where the band would (of course!) resettled in the great move to the countryside circa '69, & the band would have spawned a legion of loyal followers & (even more) groupies & eventually a horde of fanatical tape collectors who freaked every time a "new" Allmen's show came around & debated ad nauseum about which shows were more legendary or important, & one of your claims to fame coulda been the fact that you bought their first album when it came out, when you were in junior high, before they were famous, & you woulda been a fan LONG before they SOLD OUT (something that woulda been a huge bone of contention between you & a number of friends) when the band allowed their hit, "She Digs My Bar" to be used in an Almond Joy candy commercial on the radio, & when they played the Allmen Joy anthem "Peace Brother" at your HIGH school graduation you & your friends cried tears of joy, & when your first girlfriend broke up with you she woulda torn down that Allmen Joy signed picture she gave you & stolen all your first pressings of their albums, including the super rare limited edition one with the alternate back cover shot of Fist & Rod & that groupie in the hotel which got the cover banned & withdrawn on the day it was released, which of course woulda been headline news in Rolling Stone, & you woulda tracked her down & demanded the LPs back - but let her keep the first ('cause she'd had that life changing trip she called "The Ten" while listening to that one), & it woulda taken you years to finally forgive your parents for not letting you go see the Allmen Joy when they played your town for the 1st time in '68 because it was a school night (NO, you are 57 & still pissed at them, I can tell), & you woulda woken up every morning in college & gone straight to the stereo & played "You're Gonna Miss Me" by the Joy 'cause it went so well with coffee & a joint & that hash butter you loved so much on your toast, & one of the most mystical experiences you ever had in your youth woulda been when you & your friends were up at the lake that time, four sheets to the wind, & that stoner friend of yours had brought his new portable stero cassette player & you were all listening to the new Allmen's concept album & it started to storm & the rain that came down was rainbow colored(!), & "better living through chemistry with Allmen Joy" mighta been tattooed on your best friend's arm, & you would worn that REALLY cool patch for years - the one sewn on your bell bottoms that you got for FREE at the Digger's store on Haight Street just around the corner from the Allmen Joy's pad after hanging out there for 6 hours on Fist's birthday one time in hopes he might come out, & some of your guitar playin' friends woulda learned Rog's leads to their classic song "The Merry Tripster" note for note, & it REALLY woulda been totally boring for you when they spent so much of their time arguing about which guitar Rog had played at the Joy's first Matrix Coffeehouse show, though you wouldn't have been so bored when they came around to discussing - as they almost always did after a couple of tokes of the rad Lebanese you carried around in that little silver box you stole from your grandmother's jewelry drawer - the insane quadrophonic sound system they had toured with in '72, cause man, you woulda BEEN there & the light show was TOTALLY far out, & the only really bad trip you ever had would been when you saw the Allmens at that outdoor festival up in Oregon & Wavy Gravy had personally given you a few of those "laughers" (only 70 mics each) BUT you'd just had the news that the band was going to break up & it was their last show & you TOTALLY freaked out, screaming & laughing & talking in rhyme, & they had to take you to the first aid tent where they gave you Thorazine to try to bring you down, but it didn't work & then that pretty Merry Prankster chick (tho' you later learned NEVER to use that word for a woman when you were off in college with all those radical feminists) & she hugged you for hours til you came down, & then one of the most far out things that EVER happened to you was when you got to shake Fist's hand after that show at the Family Dog (though you had to wait outside in the rain at the back door for 3 hours after the gig in order to for that to happen), & someone you know ACTUALLY HAD one of Ken Zeidel's hairs in a bottle in his memorabilia stash box (just like the one a friend of yours took offa Jerry Garcia's microphone after a gig & put on his mantlepiece), & then in college when the first girlfriend you ever lived with slept with your best friend & dumped you like it was NO BIG DEAL, the ONLY thing that kept you going was listening to the Allmen Joy's 3rd album 5 or 6 times a day on headphones (because your roommate was born again & into classical music & thought the Joy made devil's music), & then you kept your 4-way Mr Natural blotter sheets hidden inside the cover of Fist's solo album (which had hit the cutout bins the first week it was released - the orchestra idea was REALLY not a good idea, Fist!) & you figured the album was so bad no one would ever pull it off the shelf & play it, & then there was that time you were doing orange sunshine in People's Park at a free Allmen Joy concert & there was a riot on Telegraph Avenue & that memory would remind you of all those demonstrations against the Viet Nam war when the "Fist" power salute had a whole different meaning to you & your friends, & NO one on the planet would have more pissed than you when the band reformed in '75 because they'd gotten offered a big EMI record deal & they all had haircuts & perms & it seemed like Funky" Parker had taken bass lessons at a disco school & they released their comeback single which went to #1 the first week, & your one of your friends STILL hates the band because she tried to get in free at one of their shows one time & one of the Allmen's roadies told her, "no head, no back stage pass", & one time you would have hitchhiked all over the Southwest to follow the band around on tour, & the Allmen Joy woulda been part of the tapestry of your life, & perhaps, most important of all, NO COOL PERSON would EVER have dreamed of mixing up the band with The Allman Joys, as the Allmen Joy would certainly have rivaled the Allman Brothers Band for popularity.

Woulda, coulda, mighta, but MAN, you are totally IN LUCK - it's not too late with DIME TRAVEL! Here are the ALLMEN JOY.

(p.s. Notice the alterations between fantasy & reality above? Maybe it all really DID happen? Are you sure? Just one more toke. Sh*t man, these dreams are hEaVy, I'm so tired, turn up the volume & listen to....)

Sample Three ::: Track 05 ::: "Need Your Love"


As I said in my notes the 'funky' numbers come on a little strong for me but they more than have their moments, including rather stupendous extended guitar freakout sessions that' would raise the roof of almost any head shop on the planet, not to mention a few treehouses & teepees like some friends of mine lived in back in college days (or how about those yurts?). So, backtrackin' in the recording a bit to give you a taste of a "Funky Broadway" axe moment that musta had the mice eatin' the traps & some folks in the audience wishin' they'd eaten one less tab & that they weren't sailin' off somewhere in blotterland surrounded by drooling longhairs shakin' it on down amidst a forest of roach clips.

Sample Four ::: Track 03 ::: "Funky Broadway" (a guitar frenzy segment)