LIVE IN SAN FRANCISCO

This album can be treated as a surprise. Who really could expect a new sign of life of this band in 2003? FIFTY FOOT HOSE is known as an innovative project hailing from the 1960s with Cork Marcheschi as the main head behind whose passion was to construct self-made instruments. Released in 1967 their debut 'Cauldron' is characterized by an experimental approach which (later) influenced a lot of bands. Proto-psych elements in the vein of Jefferson Airplane were blended with his uncanny electronic sounds to a cocktail which was ahead of time.

After that Marcheschi disappeared from the music stage and decided to work as an art school teacher and sculptor. But here and there he reformed the group for some live performances with a new set of musicians. Even a new studio output came out in 1996. Now this album is a collection of live recordings from March 2003 in San Francisco. Marcheschi is the only original founding member here but the line-up basically consists of the same musicians he also had brought together in the 90s - Reid Johnston (guitar) and Walter Funk (electronics), drummer Dean Cook, Lenny Bove (bass) and Elizabeth Perry caring for the female vocals.

'Live in San Francisco' reflects the band's experimental avantgarde approach quite good. The first song The Ring is just a free-form electronic experience offered by Steven Baker who completes the line-up for this performance. If Not This Time follows as the first excerpt of 'Cauldron'. The band alternates between wellknown studio album outtakes and electronic excursions furthermore. I Flew At The Speed Of Smell for example derives from the 1996 'Sing Like Scaffold' album release. This song diverges from a psychedelic orientation - a dark mooded gripping one where Reid Johnston uses an aluminum tube strung resonator which sounds like a tuba.

For someone who wants to smell the spirit of the experimental 1960s 'Live in San Francisco' is an interesting unique find released by Anthology Recordings in 2009. What makes it rough though is the sound mix - not that professional, way too flat in my opinion. This album is surely off the beaten path - something for very special open-minded moments.