Zerfas – Zerfas
700 West – 730710 US 1973
Ultra rare and obscure psych lp a masterpiece by the Zerfas brothers.
Yet another band that put out only one album in the early 70s. Founded by Dave and Herman Zerfas after the breakup of their former band Jubal. This album was totally forgotten and obscure until it was resurrected after the song “I Need It Higher” appeared on the compilation “Love, Peace & Poetry: American Psychedelic Music” in 1997.
Although this is labeled as psychedelic rock, which some tracks are, most tunes to me sound more like well-written 60s psychedelic pop of the Beatles type and even at times like the sunshine pop of The Turtles with pyschedelic overtones. Many of the songs start out with really tripped out intros. Don't think this is just a blatant ripoff of those bands. This has a character all it's own.
I can't tell if this is the first neopsych group or the last american psyh pop outfit. This album is a bit weird in that it totally sounds like a late '60s psych pop outfit trying to find a new sound to go to, and they can't figure out if they want to go proto prog or rootsy. There are a lot of records recorded in 1969 that have this tendency, but this is 1973 and that division had completely disapeared. You were at that time either the eagles or ELP. Also, this is 1973 and thus the weird effects sound quite updated with synthezers and other gadgets. It kinda sounds like how i would imagine if Todd Rundgren reformed the association and decided to make another go and recreating the magic of 1968, but with synthesizers and other gizmos.
There are one or two moments of zaniness and a track that could best be described as burlesque but the rest of this album is of high quality. There are some lovely arrangements, nice vocal harmonies and the band had a real ear for melody. Rather hard to categorize stylistically, like a lot of bands in the late 60s and early 70s, they bridged the gap between late Psych and early Prog. However you look at it, they had talent and as with a lot of their contemporaries, a lack of marketing/publicity and some bad luck meant their music fell mostly on stony ground; promise they had in spades.
Line-up / Musicians Herman Zerfas - vocals, keyboards, bass, guitar David Zerfas - vocals, drums, percussion, guitar, producer Mark Tribby - bass, guitar, backing vocals Steve Newbold - guitar, bass Bill Rice - bass, backing vocals Tracks Listing 01.You Never Win 02.The Sweetest Part 03.I Don't Understand 04.I Need It Higher 05.Stoney Wellitz 06.Hope 07.Fool's Parade 08.The Piper
No comments:
Post a Comment