TEA COMPANY Come and Have '68 ORIG LP stoned psych GEM

$

42

When I started collecting psychedelic albums many moons ago, back when some cowboy was president, the Tea Company's 1968 album "Come and Have Some Tea With the Tea Company" was one of the first albums I bought.  I mean, who could resist that cover, with its wall of paisley and oh-so-subtle spilt tins of "tea" flakes?  It's the kind of cover that promises a mind trip, and the vinyl inside makes good on the offer.  Trouble was, I got spoiled early on.  I just figured ALL albums from the late 60's would be THIS far out, and while there's plenty of great music to be had from this era, very little of it outside the German krautrock scene really comes close to how FREEFORM and completely SURREALISTIC this album is.  Simply put, there was nothing else quite like it in 1968.  Other bands got trippy but still always retained a sense of song structure - the Tea Company frequently abandon structure in favor of creating a wall of lysergic sounds that are meant to unsettle.  It's like the nightmarish midsection of the Chamber Brother's "Time Has Come Today" over the course of an album.  That's not to say this album is completely without structure - many songs start out with a groove but abandon it, and there's at least one total psychedelic pop masterpiece, but as an aural acid trip, this one takes you where no others can.  It opens with "Come and Have Some Tea With Me", a nice enough offer, and starts off with the sound of a music box winding.  The trip is just beginning, just getting wound up.  We start out with the sound of trippy garage rock set to a metronomic percussion, faroff snakey fuzz leads, even further off echoed-out vocals barely heard through the wall of smoke the band creates.  Add to that the sound effects of water pouring, and the Tea Company have instantly set down the sound that is uniquely theirs.  The coda adds some deliriously delayed percussion (another Tea Company trademark), echoed out tympanis and a barrage of sound like the Koobas "Barricades".  "Flowers" is up next, and one look at the running time (10:09) gives you a good idea what you're in for - this is a drugged-up half-speed complete and total PSYCH OUT with those patented ultra-delayed drums - at least that's how it STARTS.  At 2 minutes, the song changes gears completely, and goes off on this long crescendo of echoed-out headphone effects - for the remaining EIGHT minutes, your ears are bombarded with such sounds you've never heard before (at least not sober) - moaning eerie voices, distant guitar feedback, rumbling cosmic bass, and some instrument that sounds like an approaching train.  It's like that creepy SFX portion of "Atom Heart Mother" with a murky underwater rhythm section added.  At over 10 minutes, it's the ULTIMATE psychedelic freak-out - and they had the nerve to call it "Flowers"???  The Tea Company's rendition of the Supremes "You Keep Me Hangin' On" is the sole cover on the LP, and it MAY have predated the Vanilla Fudge's version (they both came out in 1968 - at the very least, it's doubtful the Tea Company HEARD the Fudge's version since their own version was a regular crowd favorite in their live shows).  Still, it's pretty interesting to hear how closely the Tea Company's version parallels the Fudge's - both bands slow it down, trip it up and stretch it out to nearly 9 minutes - but the Tea Company emerge victorious.  Since it starts Side 2, it opens once again with the sounds of a music box winding up, but it's not long before we hear that great quivery guitar riff.  The Tea Company's version sounds like the Fudge's version underwater, and on mind-altering substances - all murky out-of-time percussion, echoed-out instruments, and lead vocals that go for a cosmic stoned vibe rather than the Fudge's blue-eyed white boy soul sound.  It's the sound of the Motor City enveloped in purple smoke.  And it's only fitting that, if you get through nearly two sides of this monumentally dense trippy mind excursion, the Tea Company, in suitably warped fashion, throw you a final closing pure pop masterpiece to reward your stamina and bring you back into the real, physical world.  "Make Love, Not War" is, for the Tea Company, a fairly straightforward pop song, which is to say that by any other band's definition it would still be pretty tripped-out.  But it's a popsike masterpiece - 2:36 of irresistible melody, clattering percussion and plenty of echo.  And don't miss the audacity of the lead guitarist - the guy literally plays ONE NOTE through the whole SONG and somehow gets away with it!   It's almost like the band's saying - you made it this far, through barrages and walls of sound coming at you from all directions, now here's a simple little pop song to bring you back.  Perhaps the Tea Company's philosophy is best described in their own liner notes - "Let your head become a flow-through sound bag" - a tea-bag sifter for the band's boiling kettle of bubbling sounds.  If you can approach this album with the image of your head as a giant tea bag, then not only will it be an infinitely rewarding sonic pleasure, but you also seriously need to see a therapist real quick.  Original 1968 stock red label STEREO pressing on the SMASH label.  Cover and vinyl both in EXCELLENT shape, real nice!   Winning bidder pays $3.00 media mail shipping in the US, $6 air mail to Canada, $12 air mail everywhere else.  Paypal, Bidpay, cash, checks and money orders accepted.  Please check out my other auctions for more pop, psych and garage obscurities.