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Thursday, February 3, 2011

P. F. Flyer, USA



P. F. Flyer - Play Gianchetta Jazz. 1970 AVG.

As promised yesterday, we have a big time rarity to feature today. Heavyrock was the first to mention this title to me a couple of months ago. This then began the world wide search, and once again The Alaskan Connection comes through.

A short album, not even topping 26 minutes, P.F. Flyer produced this one instrumental psych blues LP. Loads of fuzz guitar and Hammond organ dominate. The AC says about one song: "The track "Rocks Off" in particular would probably make those hipster DJ crate-digger types' heads explode, with the heavy open drum breaks and wild Hendrix-style fuzz/wah guitar." Overall, the AC notes that the music can best be described as accidental library psych.

To explain further the accidental adjective, the AC explains: "They were apparently students at a San Francisco dance studio run by an aspiring choreographer named Anthony Gianchetta, circa '69-'70. He had some ideas about using "hip" rock music for his dance routines, so somehow a group of his pupils got a band together and took up the task. The problem is that they were stoner hippy kids and decided to basically ignore his instructions and jam out this mostly undanceable instrumental psych excursion instead! It seems that everyone was pretty upset with this, but they basically had no choice but to release it as is at that point. It must have been a tiny micro pressing, with most of them probably ending up destroyed or discarded. In any case, it apparently wasn't too big a career setback for Gianchetta, as he seems to still be quite active as a stage choreographer in California to this day, as you will see if you Google his name."

As for the rarity of the album, the AC adds: "It seems like this album has been on almost every collector's want list, but hardly anyone has heard it. Well, there's good reason for that, as there are no more than 10 or 12 copies known to exist. A handful of copies were initially discovered by a local Bay Area record dealer years back, but no others have ever turned up since then."

Priority: 3

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