Psychedelic Rock, Garage Rock | Debut album by The Chocolate Watchband; released September 1967.
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“Keep the 18th Amendment”, says the figure’s forehead on the cover.
Just in case you were wondering, the 18th amendment in the U.S. constitution is the law banning liquor-sales and traffickin’, baby.
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“This album is a garage/punk/psych classic, essential in any 60’s collection.”
–RateYourMusic-user tymeshifter
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I guess the first thing to address when reviewing The Chocolate Watchband in-depth, is the constant comparison people make to (and clear inspiration there exists from) The Rolling Stones. The first thing to usually jump out at people from this extravagant Psychedelic ensemble’s most famous records (both of which are on this list) is that they sound like The Rolling Stones. And, to that, I say… okay. But is that like, the only point that somebody thinks of making when describing The Chocolate Watchband’s awesome liberated and creative, psychedelic soundscapes? Because if it is, then said somebody is likely missing out on a lot of good things about a good deal of the music they listen to in their lives.
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MAN this album takes very little time in attesting to just that point; it starts with the strongest riffage! Let’s Talk About Girls‘ guitar is so strong, so instantaneously infectious with tremendous gravitas. Truly a delight. Absolutely to cease to exist for.
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Tremendous gravitas then walks us into organs, giving way to In the Midnight Hour, which is… it deserves to be highlighted because it’s a good mini-encapsulation of this album’s diversity-properties. Diversity in tone, diversity in instrument-choices, giving a lot of character to a record in the two opening-tracks already, making this in some senses a field where the follow-up tracks have to complete with/live up to what’s been established thus far. Spoiler alert: obviously, I think it’ll all measure up, since I’m here reviewin’ it.
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No Way Out reminds me of my nephew’s stick-collection.
This is my nephew’s stick-collection, as photographed late in the spring of 2021 when snow was just melting from the ground. He’s 7. On his way home from school, he used to always pick up a stick or two from the ground, and eventually lay them all down by their front door. One day I had an idea when I was visiting them, walked by their feonrt-door and saw that the pile of sticks there had gotten huge. What if we made them into a showcase where we could artfully place them. He liked the idea, but didn’t want to do it in the rough dirt where there wasn’t any plans to grow anything this spring anyway.
He wanted to make it in the snow.
Gathering those sticks along his walks home…
It was just a thing he did, most likely for a comforting feeling, feeling like what he held in his hand, reminded him that he’s going home. To a place that’s good.
Or maybe not.
Maybe the sticks just looked like they could be little swords in his imagination, and that’s why it was important to him how he gets to showcase them.
Be his reasons what they may, the only thing making this pile of sticks, into a formation that attempts to make compositional sense… was an idea. Ever since making the abstract and slightly absurd connection in my mind, between this project and this project, I can’t help but think about this stick-showcase and The Chocolate Watchband’s debut album in the same breath. Albums this great and this creative, celebrate the existence of such ideas. Or the process of ’em. Whichever it is, really…
…It’s just like this album’s sleeve. Both the front- and back-covers. Look at all the ideas that went into drawing what is essentially just a package where this music comes in. There’s thoughts and flavor to every decision.
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The amazing flavor that’s been mounting up, leads the experience into Come On, the song… that a lot of people are gonna say is their least-favorite part of this. For such a ditty-nature’d thing it is rather tuneful, and I don’t find myself disliking it even if I can understand the POV’s of people that have heard all this advanced work of sound-effect and diverse instrumentation… only for the album to the (in their view) regress into “come on baby, I don’t mean maybe”.
It can take you out of it momentarily.
There is such a freedom and carelessness immediately evoked by the harmonica-accompaniment enjoyed by the simple pulse of the track. …I think it takes an acquired taste, or something like a specific mood to people that aren’t as big into Psych Rock as I am, to enjoy this kind of song without the novelty wearing out. I don’t think it’s about the novelty to me at all. I think it’s about well-placed instrumentation. This album ceremoniously marries each instrument’s provocative quality and technical potential, just the right way, without having the final thing be about either one thing. It’s about– well I already said what it’s about, didn’t I?
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Then comes The Dark Side of the Mushroom. This song is something like a masterpiece. That’s all that really needs to be said about it.
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Are You Gonna Be There is a really specific shade of that carelessness I talked about a couple notes ago. This track feels all-out psychedelic; free in that way that’s slurring words, dozing off and seeing mind-expanding things, probably writing down the abstract ideas they can remember for five seconds during their trip and spending most of said trip looking at the Dark Side of the Mushroom-poster on their college-dorm room’s wall.
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It’s there. This loose, relaxed but serious, young but recklessly channeled creativity, conducting whatever journey this collection of thoughts signifies to you, this time as you play it.
I understand this song’s gonna be the one where people are most gonna claim David Aguilar sounds like Mick Jagger but at the same time, there is the right amount of originality, their own thing here to call this distinctively, a Chocolate Watchband song.
It sounds like this, not like them.
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WHICH is strange, considering the second (the higher-ranking) Chocolate Watchband album that I did include in my Top 100 Albums of the 1960s… is barely gonna be half-comprised of material that is by the Chocolate Watchband. That’s gonna be a doozie and a half to review, but we’ll get there!
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Gone and Passes By was so spot-on to use sitars the way it did, for just every last bit of elevation the song could’ve used. Instinctively correct, I feel like describing the choice.
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The two instrumental pieces this album has, it’s pretty strange how they become almost like the deliberate highlights of the listening experience because of their sheer excellence in just, sound. Y’know, the more you are in it for the atmosphere when you listen to classic Psych Rock albums — which, I am — the pureness of these pieces’ un-bothered riffage just takes you along with it seamlessly. It’s a very vivid experience. Expo 2000 is like a variation of The Dark Side of the Mushroom‘s tonal ideation, but it’s noticeably darker in the way it makes one feel. It’s like our journey from those opening-moments to the back-end of the record right now, has left us with a stain our lens.
What is this all, but a series — a show — of trips around a wet rock in space?
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Additional notes
- “The Watch Band’s first two albums have it all. Stones-swagger snake-hips it’s way through cosmic significance with just a dusting of eye-opening psychedelic legerdemain to make your neck snap backwards in pure joy.”
—Tower Records’ website
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