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Wednesday, September 14, 2016

Lumbee

As always, I maintain my soft spot/love of the hard/heavy-psych/metal of the period of approximately 1968-
73 or so......as I've said, and still maintain, the great overlooked music of this scene/era is VERY comparable to the "stoner rock" of the 2000's, ie, in that, as we are JUST NOW appreciating that great music of the early 70's, it will be a while before the greats of stoner rock are appreciated.

Anyway, I don't think I've ever posted "Overdose", the wonderfully dated and druggy sole album from Lumbee. I found this quite cool bio of the band, written by Stanton Swihart, and it sums them up better than I ever could......

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Their sole LP was originally accompanied by a board game that had, as its central objective, the establishment of a worldwide dealership, from which players started out selling marijuana before graduating, eventually, to acid. Unfortunately, that gimmick along with the group's atypical interracial makeup was really the most fascinating attribute of Lumbee's sole album, which was largely a collection of lumbering southern blues-based rock songs with only brief flashes of inventiveness.
Taking its name from a Native American tribe located near Lumberton, NC (their native state), Lumbee began as the wonderfully monikered Plant and See, which released a late-'60s album on the Turtles' record label, White Whale. The makeup of the band was a curious anomaly for the era: leader William French Lowery was of Native American ancestry; his wife and the group's singer Carol Fitzgeraldwas Scotch-Irish; drummer Forris Fulford was Black; and bassist Ronald Seiger was Hispanic. A single from the album was rising up the charts at the time White Whale folded, ending any chance of the national success it might have had and leaving the band without a record deal and, due to legal ramifications, its band name. With the loss of Seiger and the addition of rhythm guitarist Rick Vannoy and new bass player Bobby Paul, Plant and See regrouped under the name Lumbee in 1970. Soon thereafter they were in the studio cutting Overdose, so named as a tribute to three rock stars (Janis JoplinJimi Hendrix, andJim Morrison) who had recently succumbed to drugs. The album was quite controversial at the time due to its unique doper board game and its cover sleeve, which portrayed children playing said game. A single from the album, "Streets of Gold," rose to the top ofVARIOUS regional charts, and the band played with such well-known acts as the Allman Brothers Band. Shoddy management, however, soon led to disillusionment and eventual dissipation.
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So there ya go......it's not a GREAT album, but as a period piece/campy bit of rock "history", it's damn near unmatchable.....wish like FUCK I had a copy of the board game, but you can't have everything I guess.....anyway,  enjoy this, it's a "trip" so to speak,  and what in the world is wrong with some druggy rock from a bygone era? Hell, the early 70's were fucking paradise compared to.....well, never fucking mind. 

OVERDOSE-01 Tone Deaf/02 Veronica High/03 People Get Ready/04 You Gotta Be Stoned/05 Tone Deaf Jam/06 Streets of Gold/07 Whole World's Down On Me

2 comments:

  1. http://www44.zippyshare.com/v/4a8lxWaz/file.html

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  2. I've Bin Stone Before

    Gentlemen: attention!

    I've been stoned before
    In Saint John's Wood crematorium
    I fell down with boredom
    Knee deep in the snow

    I've been stoned before
    In Prague... in the Hague
    Or was it a morgue?
    O! Why am I so vague?
    Because I've been stoned before

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