Revisit for a good time: The Brown Acid series was another slab of stoned-out rock bliss
The fuzz-fried crypt-keepers behind the Brown Acid series – Permanent Records’ Lance Barresi and RidingEasy’s Daniel Hall – always delivered molten proto-metal and long-lost hard psych gold.
Today, we step back and revisit Brown Acid: The Fourteenth Trip, and if you’ve been riding this brown wave since the first volume dropped in 2015, you already know that it arrived as essential listening for anyone who likes their riffs Sabbath-thick, their vocals unhinged, and their liner notes soaked in bong water and beer.
This time around, though, it had an even gnarlier brew. Kicking things off, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s own The Legends deliver a tight-and-tough track with brothers Dan and Dave Hartman on board—yes, that Dan Hartman, who’d go on to play with the Edgar Winter Group. Before the disco gloss, he was just a teenager tearing through fuzz-heavy garage rock in his local scene. Their track ‘Fever Games’ sounds like a bar fight between Cream and Grand Funk Railroad, but with teenage hormones doing the punching.
Then things get weirder. Mijal & White drop ‘I’ve Been You’ – a Moog freak-out from some parallel universe where Tommy James took a bad acid trip with Silver Apples. This one’s got a galloping beat, synths shooting off like Roman candles, and vocals that sound like your high school janitor discovered Hawkwind. According to the original 45, the duo pressed a handful of copies in Detroit and probably gave most of them away to baffled cousins. But here, it slaps…hard.
San Francisco Trolley Co shows up next with what sounds like the 13th Floor Elevators hijacking a youth rally. ‘Signs’ is full of ragged psych yelps and blown-out amps, and if you don’t get flashbacks to Kick Out the Jams, you weren’t paying attention. The vocals are pure amphetamine gospel, and the production’s got that beautiful mono crunch that sounds like it was recorded on a Dictaphone in a church basement. It rules.
But the crown jewel might just be Blue Creed. They weren’t even a band – just a West Virginia coal miner named Bill Rexroad and a few hired guns cutting ‘You Need a Friend’ in a rented studio. Legend has it his guitar amp was stuck inside a metal oil drum, either by accident or divine inspiration. The result? A gloriously raw, lo-fi, riff-stuffed anthem that sounds like it was dug out of a mine shaft along with the master tape. There’s heart in every note—and a little dirt, too.
And then there’s Transfer. Their track ‘Play It Cool’ is basically the Velvet Underground with a meth problem and a Flamin’ Groovies poster on the wall. A sleazy, echo-drenched garage ode to smoking dope and not giving a damn, it’s the kind of tune you put on just before skipping work, ditching your girlfriend, and driving into the desert with a head full of reefer and bad ideas. Punk before punk was punk.
Released (when else?) on 4/20, Brown Acid: The Fourteenth Trip was another twisted triumph from two guys who make you wonder just how many rusty boxes of tapes still sit forgotten in Midwestern basements.
Just drop the needle and sink in. The brown acid isn’t bad, man. It’s just… heavy.