With 26 tracks from 1966 and 1967, this CD acts as a comprehensive supplement to
the Peanut Butter Conspiracy's more widely circulated recordings for
Columbia and
Challenge. While seven of these recordings found official release in 1966 and 1967 on the
Vault label, the rest were previously unissued. Too, it has seven cuts (both released and unreleased) by
the Ashes, the group from which
the Peanut Butter Conspiracy evolved, though most of this material was done in the early days of the era in which they were going under
the Peanut Butter Conspiracy billing. Because a lot of this was done in the group's formative days, much of it's a little (and sometimes a lot) more
folk-rock-oriented than the more
psychedelic output on their
Columbia albums. That's particularly true of the sides done by
the Ashes, with
Spencer Dryden (just before his
Jefferson Airplane days) on drums. Like
the Peanut Butter Conspiracy's more widely known work, however, the music here is a second-division (though not downright second-rate) and sometimes derivative mixture of
folk-rock,
psychedelia, and California
pop/rock, though often a bit rawer than their more familiar stuff. There are some nice tunes here, like the 1966
Ashes single
"Is There Anything I Can Do," a lost
folk-rock gem co-written by
Jackie DeShannon;
"Dark On You Now," another moody
Ashes folk-rocker that the band would remake on the first
Peanut Butter Conspiracy album; and
"Free," which like some of their other more bittersweet tunes is a little reminiscent of the very early
Jefferson Airplane with a heavier
pop flavor. The 20-page booklet has
Alec Palao's usual ace detective work on filling in the obscure history of the band, with lots of quotes from interviews with some of the members. ~ Richie Unterberger
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