GLUE

Since 1965 the Peruvian band named The New Jugglers Sound had made a name in our country and wrote almost 100 songs, but it's not until 1968 when their sound takes a definitive form, first they change the name to "Laghonia", they recruit a North American guitar player and vocalist named David Levane and start to take seriously their career.

They release their first single called Glue (Due to a drug that Saul Cornejo had read about in Time Magazine) with a "B" side a single called Billy Morsa (Billy Walrus).

With this singles an some new material that included their first N° 1 hit "Bahia", most of it oriented towards Psychedelia they are ready to release their fist album in 1971 which takes the name of their first single "GLUE".

Don't let the date of release (1971) fool you, because all the material is from the 60's, but when you live in a third world country ruled by a dictator who hates Rock, it is hard to find any label ready to take the risk of promoting Peruvian Rock band who sings in English (Language hated by the same dictator).

The album starts with "Baby, Baby"; beautiful song especially because it's really naïve, this track is clearly influenced by early Beatles, for moments seems that you're listening a weird version of Love Me Do including the "oohs". But that simplicity is the key of its beauty, almost as a baby walking for the first time but holding the hand of an adult.

"I Must Go" starts as a Psychedelic version of Simon and Garfunkel, even the voices are similar, but the song is darker and less friendly, somehow derivative but very good.

It's time for Neighbor and time to get really Psychedelic with a clear Latin sound (Like a mixture of WAR and Grand Funk Railroad but written before any of this bands released their debut albums), the vocal work is very complex, all the members sing different lyrics like a conversation where everybody wants to say his part never caring for the rest. Rhythmic but chaotic, a very interesting experiment and the Hammond B2 sounds better than ever.

"The Sand Man" starts as a ballad with nothing special dreamy but very simple and apparently predictable, but suddenly the voices of the rest of the members join announcing an instrumental section where the repetitive piano creates a very nostalgic effect leaving a very aggressive guitar a la Hendrix to do the work and turns to a very complex and well elaborated track. The highest point of the album up to this point, it's clear that these guys can create 100% original and imaginative stuff.

"Billy Morsa" (Billy Walrus) had already been released in late 1968 as B side for the title song of this album and was well received by the public, rock oriented a bit mysterious and satirical, it's a sound about an ex-convict (Alias Billy Morsa) who appears dead in a garden.

I love the effect created by the vocalist (Who seems to be Dave Levane making it funnier being born in USA) who fakes a very strong Latin accent, that's part of the joke (Sounds like Mexican border English), because if you notice this is the only track with a name partially in Spanish and this guys have proved that their English was very good.

The song ends much more complex than it started, because all the instruments join to create a very pleasant sound, outstanding bass work.

When I believed this was already a very good debut album, comes "Trouble Child" to prove that this guys really had the chance to make excellent stuff. This song has everything, strong vocal work (Chorus), dramatic changes, a killer first guitar and very solid drums, a new peak of the album has been reached, very Progressive and extremely solid. Can they get better? We'll see in the next lines.

"My Love" starts like a Beatlesque ballad in the vein of the early works of the fabulous four, but there's something special, more advanced towards proto Prog with the excellent guitar and the wonderful organ.

It seems clear from the structure of the song that goes in crescendo and keeps adding new instruments that we should expect an explosion of sounds, but it never happens, only keeps getting more dreamy and psychedelic, but who cares, the song is still great.

"And I Saw her Walking" is a song oriented towards Motown, Dave Levane again in the vocals is great playing with a Harlem like accent, solid drumming and at the end an excellent guitar semi solo, interesting track that starts funky and ends clearly Psychedelic, another good one.

"Glue" as I said before was written by Saul Cornejo who was inspired by a drug he read about in Time Magazine and released as a single in 1968 - 1969 before taking the name for their first album

Wonderful song, 100% druggy Psychedelia, distorted guitar, dreamy organ and hallucinating lyrics, describes the genre was as a book, excellent that sounds like if Hendrix meets early Pink Floyd.

The album ends with "Bahia" a song that was inspired by a Brazilian calendar that the guys found and where impressed with the girl that represented the city of the same name. The song is another Psychedelic track but in this case with a touch of Tropical sound that clearly sends us to an imaginary voyage to Brazil.

If you want to know how music evolved from the British invasion to Proto Prog', you have to options, buy a book that describes this phenomenon or get this album that contains naïve songs inspired in early Beatles like "Baby, Baby", aggressive and druggy Psychedelic tracks as "Glue" and Proto Prog material like "Trouble Child" (Remember that the tracks have been written during a period of three years between 1967 to 1970 and recoded since 1969) so this album is almost as a biography of the early evolution of Laghonia and South American music.

Not as solid as their second release (Etcetera) but still worth 3.5 stars, so I'll rate it with four because it's a great effort for a Peruvian band that was clearly ahead of their time and IMO ahead most South America.

Comprising material that was put together in the late 1960s but not released until 1971 - due to the political situation in the country making it impossible to release the album! - Laghonia's glue must have seemed like kind of a throwback even when it first came out. Garage psych in a mid-1960s style, it sounds like these guys had managed to listen to some smuggled-in Hendrix or Love albums, since they deploy a similarly guitar-driven, chaotic sound, with just the lead singer's accent and a touch of traditional music here or there (like the backing singing on Bahia) to suggest that this is in fact a Peruvian band, not a second-string Haight-Ashbury group from the hippy era. It's all good enough fun, but it's not first-class stuff, or even especially innovative - then again, even being able to operate as a rock band during the years of a dictatorship was a fine achievement in itself.