YAMA & THE KARMA DUSTERS "Up From The Sewer" Vinyl LP 1st PRESS Manhole label

$

34

 YAMA & THE KARMA DUSTERS

"Up From The Sewers"

Manhole   No. 1A / 1B    (only 500 copies of this first press in 1971 were available)

VG+ / VG

1971

This is a CLASSIC private pressing from 1971.  National distribution was non-existent.  I found this in a Salvation Army in Big Spring, Texas (flat desert small town in Texas on the highway between Dallas and El Paso) about 30 years after it was released.  If I had to guess, I'd say a US soldier from a nearby military base probably donated it before going home to Gary, Indiana.  Just a thought. Never mind.

Here is what the (excellent) web site "Psychedelicized" has to say:  There is very little known about Yama & The Karma Dusters. This Chicago-based band only ever released one album. Up From The Sewers, released in 1971, is a politically charged album, featuring some excellent folk-rock/psychedelic rhythms. Yama & The Karma Dusters were Howard Berkman (vocals, guitar, mandolin), Marion L. Favors (percussion), Jerry Field (violin), Alan Goldberg (drums), Dick Larson (piano), Karen Manter (keyboards), Neal Pollack (bass), and Jack Sullivan (bass).  Up From The Sewers was put together as a response to the Kent State massacre in Ohio. The album is extremely radical, and left a sense of bitterness within the listener.

This is NOT the vinyl reissue with the rose coming out of the manhole, but THE ORIGINAL.  It is vinyl of course and it exactly as the band wanted people to hear it, not the digitalized CD reissue which does not sound like the original.

Here's what popsike.com has to say: 

Custom, hand drawn cover!  Rare psych rock classic.

Any copy of the first private pressing of this LP is rare, as the run was only 500 copies to begin with. However, according to Howard Berkman, previously of the garage band The Knaves and one of the leaders of the group, for the “first couple dozen copies,” the band members got together and created covers by hand. The rest of the first run has a block print of the title and a picture of a fist rising from a sewer.  NOTE:  This copy is a first pressing but it has the "block print" (see directly above).

The band was known for being involved in “radical activities” at the time.

In researching this record, I found front man Howard Berkman’s own, wonderful website. Follow this link to his memories of Yama and the Karma Dusters: http://www.howardberkman.com/newhoward/blimworks.html   I also sent him an email asking if he could shed any light on who “Liz Voss” was, as her name is written on the back cover and both labels, in the same marker as the front cover. He could not remember, but he suggested I contact Al Goldberg a co-founder of the group, and he included his phone number. I’ve never done anything like it before, but I couldn’t resist, and I called Al immediately!

My conversation with Al was fantastic! In fact, to show how rare this custom cover really is, Al told me that he has been “looking for a copy for years!” We were real hippies,” he said, “and we were just having a lot of fun with it all.” Here’s what he told me in an email about these specific custom covers: “What I remember is that when we produced this, we got the records pressed by an independent pressing plant.  We found a deal on these blank red, textured jackets.  The plan was that Howard was making a linoleum block print to do the covers with.  After the block print was ready, we made the remaining albums (total 500) with the fist cover and glued on liner notes.  When we ran out, we pressed another 500, this time a different cover (a rose coming out of a sewer being struck by lightening) was done by silk screen by the Womens Liberation Graphics Collective.”

This is an insanely rare and COOL LP release.  A perfect example of urban hippie radical US politics and the anti-war movement of the late 1960's and early 1970's when the Vietnam War was raging.  There were only a handful of this type of radicalized bands.  If they did exist, they rarely recorded. A CLASSIC. 

JUST FYI:  There is a copy of a first press right now for $300 on eBay and a copy of the reissue for $40. I'm not going into triple digit price territory on this vinyl 1st press, but I truly believe it's worth a good deal more than the $29.99 I am asking as the opening bid.  Hope you agree.    If you collect radical left wing politics-recordings / hippie folk rock bands, / 60's/70's revolution music or populist bands, this one is for you.  That's a fact!