list of Sixties bands from St Paul as compiled by Zip Caplan of THE LITTER

Zip Caplan, lead guitarist and leader of legendary garage psychedelic monsters The Litter, is an affable guy who shows up at just about every Minnesota Record Show. He grew up in St Paul like me, so I recently posed a question to him that I’ve always wanted answered: there are lots of great sixties bands from Minnesota, but which of them were from St Paul specifically? For the price of a lunchtime hot dog, Zip wrote down a list of bands in pen for me, off the top of his head. Thanx Zip for satisfying my curiosity. (ed. note: One of the guys in The Deacons added Sir Lawrence and The Crescents to the list.)

The Uniques
The Escapades
The Continentals
The Rhythm Kings
Tim & The Galaxies
The Blackhawks
The Deacons
Keith Zeller and The Starliners
Alison Briston
Augie Garcia
The Tabs
The Corvettes

Sir Lawrence and The Crescents

Jim Wallin’s Electric Spew- two cassettes from 1992

Jim was part of the crew from Harding High School who had a staggeringly huge impact on me. The half-dozen Class of ’78-ers that became musicians and introduced punk rock to the East Side of St Paul are the ones who blew up my musical ground zero.  Jimmy played bass for The Reactors and Willful Neglect- legendary East Side bands.

Here are three songs Jim gave to me on two different cassettes when he heard that I was playing psychedelic music on Fresh Air Radio KFAI 90.3 FM in the early 1990s. Jimmy liked Jimi Hendrix, The Red Hot Chili Peppers, & Steve Vai a bunch back then. I played these on the radio; “Green Echo Dream” was played dozens of times. It sounds like (Willful Neglect singer) Wade “Calhoon” Johnson is singing on these tracks. Jim has since become a really good blues guitarist.

Thanks to Jim for giving me the go-ahead to put these here.

Green Echo Dream

Track 1

Track 2

BONUS TRACK: Jimmy gave me this for my birthday today, 11-5-12, GREAT NEW STUFF.

Jimmy was the kid from the ‘hood that would pull out a handgun and start randomly shooting into space, anytime he damn well felt like it. The most ‘Detroit’ of us all  back then- a bad ass. This song makes even more sense knowing all that. Here’s to you, Jim!

The Red Headed Step Child

MORE BONUS: May 8 2013, sounds like Ron Asheton is back from the dead!

From First to Last

The Sedgwicks ‘The Sedgwickian Master’ cassette, three songs from the late 1980s

Great guitar pop stuff, Jay Hurley shows off great vocals and David Beckey plays some perfect lead guitar.Thanks to David for lending me this tape & giving me the go-ahead to post some songs here.

.

.

.

.

Reconciled

Things Have Changed (I Won’t Go Back)

Six Weeks Gone

“The Sedgwicks play perfectly poetic non-plagiaristic pop! -Burl Gilyard, The Minnesota Daily, 1989

A cassette of Jay Hurley post-Sedgwicks is here

Here’s a Sedgwicks cassette that I found from April 1989

The Dead Dave Band- late 80s cassette from the Minneapolis suburbs

This cassette definitely has a West Coast- San Francisco guitar-workout vibe going on here, some nice violin and flute is thrown in too. The Dead Dave band performed and recorded during the late 1980s & 1990s. Paul Carlbom, guitarist of The Dead Dave band, claims they were “like Jethro Tull- we’d change the band’s name from time to time”. Their fantastic lead guitarist Dave has since passed on- hence the name here. Members were from Hopkins (Dave), St Louis Park (Paul), and even from Western Wisconsin. I have no song titles to post here- hopefully we can identify the songs with names. Thanks to Stuart Held for providing the tape, and to Paul for the green light to post these songs.

PLEASE TURN UP THE VOLUME

Track 1

Track 2

Track 3

Track 4

Track 5

Track 6

Track 7

Track 8

Track 9

Track 10

Track 11

Track 12

Track 13

The Rubber Band “The Cream Songbook” LP

Great homage to Eric Clapton, Ginger Baker, and Jack Bruce. Dig those instrumental string arrangements.

Deserted Cities of The Heart

White Room

Toad

Those Were the Days

We’re Going Wrong

Sunshine of Your Love

Dance the Night Away

Sweet Wine

Strange Brew

The Point of Departure three-song cassette demo

Great British pop-psych pastiche from Stuart Farnden (please contact us!). Cassette demo from the early 1990s.

Update: Stuart contacted us May 7, 2013! Here’s what he’s doing now:

The Sons on tumblr

Stuart on twitter

Walk Me Out into the Morning

Saturday

Really Need to Shine