GOLLUM Prayer of Despair 1974 KIDERIAN PROG PSYCH FUZZ 45 MC5 on acid LISTEN

$

35

GOLLUM "Prayer of Despair" b/w "Desert Heat"

Original 1974 45 on the US KIDERIAN label

Vinyl plays EXCELLENT

I like that these guys use a J.R.R. Tolkein reference for a name.  But to be brutally honest, I don’t think Gollum is a good name for these guys.  Gollum was more of a frail, sneaky, weasely creature – with the racket these guys summon up, they couldn’t sneak up on a partially deaf rhinoceros.  So technically, if you had to use a Tolkein reference, these longhaired heavy psych freaks have much more in common with those gigantic tree beasts.  But hey, even I have to admit ENT is a crappy name for a band.  So Gollum it is.  Deal with it.

Like Gollum, this little single is strange.  First of all, one side plays at 45 rpm, the other 33 rpm.  Due in part, I’m sure, to the fact that the 33 rpm song is nearly 7 minutes long.  Just make sure you adjust your turntable accordingly, or don’t be surprised if you suddenly hear the death march of David Seville’s Chipmunks.  Secondly, this was released by the tiny and mysterious Kiderian label out of Chicago, who were around for 8 years, from 1967 to 1975, but have less than 25 releases total.  For example, Kiderian 45115 was a 1968 single by the Mourning Dayze (great name!), while Kiderian release 45120 is this single by Gollum, released in 1974!   That’s a recording schedule even less productive than Tom Scholz and Boston’s!

Make no mistake, however, despite their release date, Gollum have both spiked leather boots firmly planted in the late 60’s heavy acid rock sound.  True, there are some prog rock elements here – the 6:50 “Prayer of Despair” opens exactly like Yes’s “Gates of Delirium” (released the same year) – but for the most part, think of these guys as the Doors if they had feasted on the flesh of newborn babies.  This is deep, dark and disturbing stuff - intensely brooding one minute, a hellish primal scream therapy session the next.  It’s like Jim Morrison if he really were the killer on the road.

And like Jimmy the Lizard King, the lead singer of Gollum has a little thing for self-pity too.  I mean, let’s face it - a seven-minute song with the title “Prayer of Despair” simply can’t be the feel-good hit of the summer, now can it?  Singing in those same Morrison-like deep vocals, Gollum explains how he’s tried to do the right thing for years and years, but it’s only filled him with despair instead.  As he gets more and more worked up and the customers in the biker bar gradually start finding their way out of the exits, the tempo starts picking up to a brisk gallop, propelled by a groovy wah wah guitar, lots of bendy notes, and the blood of the innocent.  Soon we’re racing headlong down the sides of the bottomless despair pit, while a furious acid guitar solo rips new canyons in the earth, and the whooping and diving basslines conjure up images of a brimstone-spewing John Entwistle with skull rings on each finger.  Soon the singer’s completely lost it, shrieking in the kind of pain that can only come from a lifetime of eternal despair and misery or one hour of Dance War: Bruno Versus Carrie Anne.  And it sounds like this:

“I loved you, I NEED you!  God, won’t you help me now?

I reached up so damned long…

Tried to talk to you but I couldn’t get through…

Running out of time…

HELP ME!  HELP ME, LORD!”

And they call this a “prayer of despair?”  Try Final Desperate Rantings of a Postal Worker About to Go On a Shooting Spree, more like it.  Or William Shatner playing Mommie Dearest.  Seriously, if you do make it through the entire 7 minutes of “Prayer of Despair” – and God help you too if you do – you’ve probably also witnessed the exact moment the human mind snaps.  It’s right there on vinyl.  This single is more voyeuristic than YouTube.

The flipside - the one you play at 45 rpm unless you really want to hear James Earl Jones backed by Blue Cheer – is the slightly less emotionally-draining “Desert Heat” – and at 4 quick minutes, it’s practically a ditty for this band.  But that’s still four solid, punishing, brutal acid rock minutes.  With more of those suicidal Jim Morrison vocals that now only occasionally break into a snarl or a sneer, but never quite reach the desperate heights of those Dr. Arthur Janov sessions with Sam Kinison you heard on “Prayer of Despair.”  Still, if the lead singer’s playing it cool, that just leaves room for the backing band to take up the slack, which they do by unleashing a great big tsunami of biker rock noise behind him.  Big rumbling bass notes designed to help implode old sports arenas…thunderous drums that somehow make Carl Palmer sound subtle…and great big slashes of speaker-shredding fuzz guitar that serve to fill in the gaps where the decibel level occasionally falls below “life-threatening.”  It’s like Jim Morrison fronting 1973 Led Zeppelin for a Black Sabbath tribute concert.  Only Robert Plant knew how to name a rock band, and also seemed to know his J.R.R. Tolkein a little better.  These guys, on the other hand, are clearly no Gollum.  They need to regroup and come up with a better Lord of the Rings reference that adequately reflects how monstrous, how heavy and how gigantic they sound.  How about Peter Jackson’s Breakfast?

HEAR IT!

UPDATE: SORRY, I NO LONGER SHIP TO ITALY DUE TO A CORRUPT POSTAL SYSTEM (THERE, NOT HERE).

(THE LESS EXCITING STUFF...)

First class shipping is $4.00 in the US, with each additional record only $1 additional shipping.  Delivery confirmation included in the shipping costs.  Air mail shipping to Canada starts at $6 US, each additional record $2 shipping.  Air mail shipping everywhere else in the world starts at $8 US, with each additional record only $3 shipping.  

I try to grade as best as I can, and I list as many blemishes/imperfections I can find (writing, ringwear, scuff marks, etc.) – Also, please note that I DO listen to these albums – I may not listen to every track, but my grades are based on LISTENING, not just looking at it, since chances are you’ll be listening to the record you buy, not just looking at it.  Most of the albums I sell are the ones I’ve enjoyed for years – and I treat my records with kid gloves.  But sounds speak louder than words, so check out the sound clips below – they’re from the actual record you’re bidding on. 

SHIPPING AND PACKAGING

Listen, I buy a bunch of records too (when I’m not getting outbid at the last second, which is more often than not) – and I know what it’s like to get a rare, one-of-a-kind album packaged dangerously in a flimsy bubblewrap package.  I hate that too.  So rest assured, I ALWAYS package albums with stiff cardboard reinforcements, same for 45s.  And yes, the records are removed from the sleeves (for albums).  I ship out once a week, every Friday, because I have a regular day job.  But I’d be willing to give that up if you’d all be so kind as to bid my items up to stupidly high amounts. 

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN…

I will always leave positive feedback for successful transactions, and would appreciate the same in return.  All I ask of you is the following – please pay for your items within 14 days of the close of auction.  Compared to other sellers, that’s a generous amount of time, so if you don’t pay within 2 weeks, then I have to assume something’s wrong.  You’ll get an Ebay payment reminder at that point, and possibly a decapitated horse head in your bed.  If, after 30 days, you still haven’t forked up the cash, I’ll relist the item and yell at you if I ever see you in town.