The Leathercoated Minds – A Trip Down The Sunset Strip

This was one of the first records we had, before we'd have many, and it's been so long I wasn't aware it had one famous name or talent attached to it until just now thinking of it and looking it up online; the American Breed was another groaner we got from somewhere, but much worse than this one which probably isn't all that bad; I haven't listened to it since but it took music farther than anything else we had that I knew; Devo or Pink Floyd we knew nothing of yet; we had an assortment of studio stuff someone got from somewhere growing-up, this back when one 45 could keep a kid entertained for hours. We thought we were really edgy with this disc, of course, too young to know it was remotely culturally relevant, or what was going on in the real world, but in a family of squares like ours I had a feeling all the same that I was missing out on something--real fun--we weren't ever going to the Van Halen concert nearby and sure weren't going to have some kicks out in L.A. anytime soon either aw

In the year 1967, everything and everyone was attempting to be over the top, brighter than a strobing neon sign, and part of what was perceived to be happening. And with a name like Leathercoated Minds, these folks were certainly attempting to capture a bit of the absurd and a bit of the surreal, though why they couldn’t have chosen a more flowery moniker to embrace this bit of performance art, such The Static Electric Marshmallow Raincoats, is beyond me.

Featured on the album’s cover are Roger Tillson and Sunset Strip it-girl Terrye Newkirk, a folk rock duo from Hollywood who released a 45 under the name The Gypsy Trips in 1965. Their single, “Ain’t It Hard” was one of the more straight ahead dives into the adventures of lysergic, singing ”And your brother’s in the bathroom with acid in his head, And there’s no place to go cause the town’s all dead.” While certainly not some of the best lyrics, they did glimmer that kids where tired of towns that rolled up the sidewalks and blanketed the neighborhood at 10 PM. It’s worth noting that The Electric Prunes released this song as their first single in May of 1966.

It’s been said that The Sunset Strip was synonymous with action and excitement, and had become a focal flash point of all West Coast trends. The Strip was the hub of all things creative for the hip and those who wished to be perceived as, complete with avant garde styles of both dress and behavior, where unkept hair, flowing beads and brightly patterned clothing were the norm. On weekends the traffic was often backed up for miles with cars filled with both the hip and the tourists who gawked open mouthed at the unbelievably dressed people, and on every corner, folks were discussing music, politics, and the latest trends.

While Terrye Newkirk did not perform on this album Tillson did, along with the album’s arranger and producer John J. Cale [JJ Cale], along with a grouping of musicians who’s identities have been lost to the ages. JJ Cale is credited with writing and playing on the instrumental tracks, while most of the other songs were covers of numbers that were current hits. There are many versions of the nature and reason for this production, and I assure you, these are the facts. The album, as I said, complete with cover versions, was a bit of performance art, in that what it intended to do was to walk the listener down the Sunset Strip, complete with crowd noises that would fade in and out as attention became centered and then moved on … where at a head shop perhaps “Eight Miles High” was filtering from an open door, and from a club “Psychotic Reaction” might be blasting, then the listener gets lost in the crowd again before the song “Sunshine Superman” is heard from the open door of a bar, or “Mr. Tambourine Man” can be heard from a car waiting at a stoplight … it was all too much, but then with numbers like “Over Under Sideways Down,” who’s to say one way or the other.

Of course, hearing all this and being fifteen or sixteen years old at the time, and living anywhere in America other than the West Coast, this all made perfect sense, and like moths to a flame, thousands more were drawn to the City of Angels, where they could feed their heads, and experience first hand the glitter, the glamor, and the excitement of this singular point in history.

Please, listen to this with a knowing smile, laugh out loud if you will, but this release was a genuine artifact from the middle of the psychedelic storm, one who’s high water mark can still be seen across the landscape of America.

Review by Jenell Kesler

Buy it if you find it, sell it and you're a fool.