Fifty Foot Hose: Larry Evans (vocals, guitar); Nancy Blossom (vocals); David Blossom (guitar, piano); Terry Hansley (bass); Kim Kimsey (drums); Cork Marcheschi (electronic effects).
Personnel: Larry Evans (vocals, guitar); Nancy Blossom (vocals); David Blossom (electric guitar, electric piano); Terry Hansley (electric bass); Kim Kimsey (drums, percussion); Cork Marcheschi (sound effects).
Liner Note Author: Cork Marcheschi.
Recording information: Columbus Recording, San Francisco, CA.
Photographer: Cork Marcheschi.
In the annals of '60s psychedelia, Fifty Foot Hose is a name that's seldom mentioned. However, the group's lone '60s release CAULDRON, is one of the most visionary slabs of weirdness to emerge from the West Coast during the peace-and-love era. The sound is roughly equivalent to early Jefferson Airplane with Karlheinz Stockhausen sitting in on electronics. Cork Marcheschi operated a sea of homemade electronic instruments, and his background in "serious" electronic music sidesteps any feeling of gimmickry.
Instead, the electronics take the band's trippy, psychedelic rock to another level, often closer to avant garde art music than to the Bay Area sound. Nancy Blossom's strong vocal presence and husband David Blossom's freaky guitar style enliven songs that mix rock with '60s weirdness and pure electronic invention, making CAULDRON one of the most important "rock" albums of the late '60s.
Fifty Foot Hose's Cauldron is erratic but fascinating. When married to routine blues-rock, the electronic squiggles seem to be covering up the inadequacy of the basic material, and the occasional bleats of pure electronic passages will bore rock-oriented listeners. Yet when combined with lilting-but-disquieting jazz-psychedelic compositions, like the title track and "If Not This Time," it's genuinely original, similar in feel to the oscillation-toned rock of the United States of America (though the U.S.A.'s one-shot album was more consistent and smoothly produced). [The 1994 Weasel Disc reissue adds three bonus tracks, two of them demos and the other a previously released single.] ~ Richie Unterberger minimize