Derek's 45's Of The Week: Mother Tucker's Yellow Duck

With a name virtually guaranteed to squash a band's chance of success (what DJ would possibly run the  risk of an FCC fine and the chance of their boradcast license being taken away by accidentally saying a certain word that begins with "f" in place of Tucker's), this great group out of Vancouver, Canada did buck the odds by signing to Capitol records for two LP's (ahhhh the 60s, where virtually ANYTHING could happen to even the least commercial of art).

This group, like the Grateful Dead to the south, incorporated a rootsy country based sound into their music which was very obviously drug influenced (they blatantly sing about getting high in "I") and VERY psychedelic. The band even started out as more a hippie collective made up of Bostonian Kathy Kay (Mother Tucker), John Patrick Caldwell (The Yellow Duck) (aka Raphael Red The Village Idiot), Bob O'Connor (aka Dogan Pink Foot/Sheldon O'Dogan), and Michael Goldman (aka Garnet Crystalman) which morphed into the musical group. 

I've chosen two singles to represent this group: "I" is from their debut single (which was released on two different labels) and this truly shows the freaky rural sound of the group, as does the flip side ("Funny Feeling") which has a bit more commercial potential but is still seriously bent.

My favorite track from these whackos is "One Ring Jane" with some seriously speaker shredding lead guitar that brings to mind The Bubble Puppy (and that's a very fine thing indeed). The flip side to THAT record is the mighty fine but more restrained (at least until the guitar solo comes screaming out like a wild cat  peaking on acid) "Times Are Changing"."Times Are Changing" was the designated plug/ A side, but in this alternate Bedazzled reality let's pretend that "One Ring Jane" was a top ten hit in 1969, shall we?

 The group certainly showed some fantastic songwriting chops amidst all of the musical chaos, and these singles truly represent the very best of this amazingly bizarre group. All of these tracks seem to have been recorded during 1968-1969.

I

Funny Feeling

One Ring Jane

Times Are Changing

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Comments

[Aden]

I love One Ring Jane . it Reminds me of the 80's