VINYL SHOW & TELL VOL 3 - THE CYRKLE...

The Cyrkle
"Turn Down Day / Red Rubber Ball" (1966, USA)

Waking up on days when you have absolutely nothing to do causes a gentle feeling of euphoria that settles in as you plan for hours of contented time wasting. I usually get very excited and go immediately back to sleep. The Cyrkle covers this with the simple dumb charm that only mid 60's pop psychedelia can provide.

"Turn Down Day" is one of the most perfect pop songs I've ever heard, no doubt one of the best from that era of cliche-saturated simplicity. You've heard every element in this song already (sitars, three-part vocal harmonies, the obligatory "groovy" and "dig"), yet you're sucked in and tapping your shit immediately. Just like a blues junkie, I never get sick of hearing a few basic elements of a certain genre being recombined over and over, because, like musical Darwinism, some tend to "survive" well and others are "selected" to die horrible deaths (usually in shoe boxes at junk shops). The tack-piano intro syncopates with the sitar and from there it becomes extremely tight rhythm-wise, snappy drums and pretty complex little bass runs squiggling in and out. "Nothing on my mind...and I dig it."

These guys could write their own songs, but not this pretty successful chart single by Blume & Keller. Dave Blume was a jazz guy who dabbled with folk music in the 50's and began publishing songs for money when his trio didn't take off. He was one of those guys from that time who were generally older than most of the hippie kids but was rooted in the beat/jazz/poetry culture that spawned them and therefore openly embraced the psychedelic revolution. He eventually became obsessed with synthesizers (good man) and played on a few of Hugo Montenegro's mid 70's albums. Blume's co-writing partner for this song was Jerry Keller, get this, the author of the theme song to the tv show Bewitched and several other pop hits. Apparently Brian Epstein, former manager of the Beatles, got the band their record deal and several opening spots for the fab four in 1966. There's even rumors that John Lennon coined their name the Cyrkle as a take off on the Byrds, who were doing very good on the charts. Furthernore, Paul Simon wrote their other big hit "Red Rubber Ball" (the B side here) as a throw away for them to have after a friend of his saw the group play a show. Pretty good connections for a little combo from Pennslyvania...

this one gets 8 out of 10 on the "Do you have two?" scale...