CAVERNS OF YOUR BRAIN

My main interest in this band came when I first learned about them and realized they were a symphonic-leaning progressive group from the American South (New Orleans Louisiana) in the early seventies. Do the math real quick on those facts and it seems inconceivable to me that these guys weren’t at least passingly familiar with one or more of the early Kansas lineups from the same period. Pre-Kansas White Clover played the New Orleans Pop Festival in 1969, and one of the first lineups to bear the name Kansas opened for the Doors at the Warehouse in 1970. It would not be a stretch to assume these guys were in attendance at one or both of these shows. Kansas also recorded ‘Masque’ and ‘Leftoverture’ in Louisiana in 1975 and 1976; and both bands relocated to Atlanta in the mid-seventies. Both bands centered their music on strong Hammond B3 keyboardists, free-form blues- rock guitar riffs, and spacey lyrics with ‘meaning of life’ themes as opposed to tales of fantasy worlds or mystic creatures like so many of their European contemporaries were doing at the time. Kansas has a violinist; the Lift had a flautist. Both bands were clearly inspired by the British masters of the day like Yes, ELP, and Genesis, but both produced music in a more aggressive, bluesy and earthy vein that so characterized the American progressive movement of the earlier seventies.

So it was inevitable I would like these guys even before I heard them. And after hearing this album I’m kind of saddened that they remained mostly a deep South phenomenon and never achieved any widespread exposure back then. Too bad, because this is an excellent album, and a great example of quintessential mid-seventies American symphonic rock.

This album was never officially released after Sony commissioned it in 1975, but a bootlegged version was released on vinyl with a different cover and made from a set of backup tapes from the studio sessions. The band re-recorded the first and fourth tracks a couple years later in Philadelphia, but it wouldn’t be until Syn-phonic got hold of the master tapes in the nineties that this would finally be officially released.

The album consists of only four tracks, but three of them are extended progressive works with plenty of keyboard tangents, grooving bass, and liberal sprinklings of electric, acoustic, and even some slide guitar. “Caverns” and “Buttercup Boogie” also include noticeable mellotron passages, although this is not one of those seventies “Mellotron-laden” symphonic albums. The Hammond features much more prominently.

“Simplicity” opens the album and this ten-minute, mostly instrumental work opens like an ELP composition but quickly settles into a much more fast-paced, dynamic tempo than most of that band’s work. Bassist Cody Kelleher is playing a Moog (Taurus) bass pedal here, and the sound gets pretty muddled at times. That also serves to date this as one of the later versions of the song, since to the best of my knowledge that pedal wasn’t released when the band first recorded this song for Sony. The complex keyboard passages and sporadically shifting tempos sound very familiar and comfortable to my ears, but I have to say that I really don’t hear any strong parroting or lifting of any other prog band’s sound. The vocals are closer to bands like Ambrosia than to the European bands of that period, and the guitar work borders on Wishbone Ash, but could just as easily be compared to Allman Brothers (just one guitar though, so without the twin-attack both of those bands were famous for). The theme is appealing enough, especially considering the time in which it was written:

“men, they travel out toward the stars, seeking to find the unknown; I just want to stay here on Earth and seek some peace of my own”,

Sure, okay. The bookend for this song is the second track “Caverns” whose theme is about tranquility, so more of the same. This track appears to be from the earlier Sony sessions in New Orleans, as the band’s is a bit less polished, there is some mellotron wafting in from the background (along with electric piano), and the bass pedal is missing. This sound an awful lot like the back half of the first Klaatu album, as well as a couple tracks off the Proto-Kaw ‘Early Recordings’ collection – slightly folkish, slow, rolling drums, and flute garnishing a rather stark piano and some fat blues-guitar. Very nicely done, and a real pleasure to enjoy. This would have been a great live piece, and I’m sure the band featured it in most or all their concerts.

“Buttercup Boogie” is apparently the Lift’s equivalent of Kansas tunes like “Down the Road”, “Bringing it Back”, “The Devil Game”, or “It Takes a Woman’s Love (To Make a Man)”. That is, southern boogie-driven jamming with a progressive, slightly symphonic finish on it. There are a couple of great extended keyboard sections here, and I can barely hear what I’m pretty sure is a mellotron in the background. This is another track that I assume is from the first recording session for this album.

Finally the longest and most interesting track is the closing “Trippin' Over The Rainbow”, a nearly twelve-minute mini-epic that opens a lot like a Kansas tune with majestic, stilting keyboards and giving way to harmonized vocals and an entire music-story told mostly by keyboards and lots of excellent guitar work. Near as I can tell this is about the singer getting stoned with his old lady. No problem, it was the seventies, and the long instrumental passages make this well worth a listen.

This is truly a lost gem of seventies symphonic prog. Along with bands like Sindelfingen, the Load, Leviathan, Providence, and many others, these guys just didn’t quite get the breaks that some of their more successful brethren did. But that doesn’t mean their music wasn’t just as good. Four stars, almost five, and very highly recommended.

peace