Marvin Gardens - 1968

MARVIN GARDENS / 1968 - vinyl LP - A phenomonal anthology of rare demos, studio and live recordings from late-60s, second-wave, San Francisco, Electric-Folk, Garage-Psych pioneers Marvin Gardens. All live tracks recorded by Peter Abram (Velvet Underground The Matrix Tapes) at the legendary Matrix Club in San Francisco. - By the end of 1967, the major San Francisco rock bands - Jefferson Airplane, The Grateful Dead and Quicksilver Messenger Service - had all been signed to major labels and a "second wave" of bands were bubbling up in the clubs and ballrooms around the Bay Area. Marvin Gardens was one of those scrappy newcomers; in fact all but one of the members grew up in the city. The plume feather in their cap, was lead singer Carol Duke. She was a wisecracking lesbian from Lubbock, Texas, with a deep knowledge of folk music, the vocal power and conviction of Grace Slick and Janis Joplin, and a spine-tingling pop-melodic purity that rivaled Mama Cass and Carole King. Duke was a natural, with a large repertoire of material, including songs by Buffy Saint Marie, Odetta, Bob Dylan, Lead Belly, Hoagy Carmichael and an eclectic and seemingly-endless range of pre-war blues, country and folk numbers. The band jumped right on and into these tunes - often without ever hearing the originals - and intuitively crafted sonically adventurous and emotionally compelling versions that completely stand on their own. - As of 2012, Marvin Gardens was just a hazy memory. The band's former members and followers believed that all the glorious music they played from 1968-1969 had been completely forgotten. And they were right... almost. Thanks to some die-hard fans, archivists and true believers, one of the coolest bands you've never heard of is finally getting it's debut. High Moon Records has created the ultimate document of a group that should have been a bigger deal and still very much deserves to be heard.