Punk Freud
This month’s aural obscurity: tough quasi-psych for the lawless unconscious.
Psychoanalytic reaction: The Id (from left) Glenn Kastner, Don Dexter, Rich Cliburn, Jerry Cole (front) and Norm Kastner go inward, 1967; (inset above) producer Paul Arnold.
The Paul Arnold Photo Archive
The Id The Inner Sounds Of The Id
RCA VICTOR, 1967
APPEARING ON such gnarly ’60s psych comps as Mayhem & Psychosis, Turds On A Bum Ride and Mind Blowers Volume 1, The Id’s oedipal berserker Boil The Kettle, Mother has sat for decades next to the acid-garage likes of The Chob, The Jelly Bean Bandits and The Lollipop Shoppe.
However. “When we started this project, there was no mention of ‘psychedelic,’” says no-nonsense bassist Glenn Kastner today. “Shit, we didn’t even know what ‘psychedelic’ was. We weren’t into drugs and all that kind of crap… we didn’t go in with the idea of recording a psychedelic album at all, we went in to record an album with a new beat!”
The key musicians in the group met in Green Bay, Wisconsin. Guitarist Jerry Cole, bassist Kastner and drummer Don Dexter played local club The Piccadilly as The Flam-ing Coals before moving to the West Coast in 1962. They went on to record surf, country and rock LPs for labels including bargain basement opportunity-takers Crown and Alshire. Cole also joined The Champs and led the house band on ABC’s rock’n’roll show Shindig!. Then, in spring ’66, one Paul Arnold c ontacted Cole with a proposition.