I shall now digress, that is part of what I do.
I spent years getting my 80,000+ track music library into order. Meticulously tagging every album name, track numbers, artwork, genre, etc. It was an obsession of mine for quite awhile. During that process I discovered a shortcoming of Apple iTunes which does not allow files larger than 200 mb, (which is fine, except for audio books, which can easily exceed that if they have not been divided up into separate chapter files). I thought I had dealt with all of my larger files long ago, but the other day I found a whole folder from a podcast entitled Come To The Sunshine by Andrew Sandoval that were too big! I judiciously squoze them down, and in the process thought I should take a listen as I had never and the chance to do so.
Come to The Sunshine is a podcast that relies heavily on 1960’s innocent, pre-psychedelic music for its content. The show is curated by a well educated and enthusiastic host Andrew Sandoval who has written numerous books on this particular music genre as well as many liner notes for re-issues on albums from the same period. Well, he can introduce himself better than I can:
I listened to show on The Monkees, a special show on Davy Jones and then fell into a show about Herman’s Hermits. I vaguely remember my sister owning I think just one of the Hermits LP’s, I thought it had the British flag on it with the lads lined up vertically as many albums covers were in those days, alas I don’t to see any HH covers that meet that description. The only track I remember was “Henry The VIII, I am” because my name is Henry and well, it was sung to me many times. I came across an odd reference to this song from film director William Friedkin talking about working on location in Iowa while filming the documentary Mayhem on a Sunday Afternoon
Listening to the podcast made me aware of a number of noteworthy things. One was that there was an un-released Hermits covers album (I love covers) that has some gems on it. I was able to dig it up from a suitably named blog Albums That Should Exist Here is my favorite cut.
Next was a notion that the Hermits had a masterpiece album, might be a bit strong worded, but I have indeed added it to my personal collection and if you enjoy music from this period you probably already know about it, but if not, check it out. They even did a RSD (Record Store Day) vinyl reissue in 2015:
Lastly and the most outlandish of my findings was hearing about a Herman’s Hermits movie! The most crazy, mixed up, (think Hard Days Night meets Head meets Zardoz) kind of movie that you never got to see. Even after watching the trailer I find it hard to encapsulate what “Hold On†is about other than it involves “millions of girls”, space flight, international intrigue, a breach in our national defense, oh and so much more. Please feast you eyes on this trailer.
I have now listened to several episodes of Come to the Sunshine and it proves to be a great source for revisiting classic pop from the 60’s and 70’s as well as an opportunity to discover new (unknown to me) artists from that period.
Enjoy!