Felt “Felt”
Not much is known about this mysterious hard rock/psych group. Felt hailed from Alabama and released their only album on the Nasco label in 1971. Formed in the late 60s, Felt’s lineup featured two solid guitarists in Myke Jackson and Stan Lee. The latter would eventually play guitar for the legendary (and great) late 70s/early 80s punk band, the Dickies. Other group members were bassist Tommy Gilstrap and drummer Mike Neel.
Their album is a sterling example of late 60s/early 70s American underground rock n roll – a very strong disc. Felt alternates between crunchy blues based rock (with biting teenage vocals) and Beatlesque psych. Their ten minute epic, “The Change,” is two or three songs wrapped into one. Most bands would never be able to pull a trick like this off but Felt gets by on great musicianship and interesting arrangements: plenty of potent guitar solos, fresh organ interplay, blistering drums and brooding hard rock vocals. “Weepin Mama Blues” and “World” are similar cuts with more of a blues influence – solid early 70s hardrock with none of the histrionic wailing or 10 minute guitar solos that plagued so many LPs of the era. The remaining half of this disc sports more of a psych feel. “Look At The Sun” is a downbeat popsike gem while “Now She’s Gone” and “Destination” are great tracks that feature jazzy time signatures and good psychedelic guitar work. Felt is definitely a keeper without any real weaknesses – a solid 4 star album.
Akarma reissued this lost gem several years ago. Flawed Gems followed Akarma in 2010 with a bootleg version of Felt.
“Look At The Sun”
MP3 Album | download amzn ]
Original Vinyl | 1971 | Nasco | search ebay ]
Spotify link | listen ]
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Interesting. Clearly no relation to the other Felt, the UK shoegazing outfit who appeared on the celebrated independent imprint Creation from 1979 to 1989 and are best known for releasing exactly ten singles and ten albums in ten years, and who allegedly took their name from Tom Verlaine’s heartfelt pronunciation of the word “felt” in Televison’s “Venus”. All totally irrelevant to the above post, but we all love rock’n’roll trivia, don’t we?
Hi, i am intrigued by the lyrics of the song “Now She’s Gone”, i don’t speak a lot of english and I can’t understand what its being said, could you help me with the lyrics?
thanks
Hi, i am intrigued by the lyrics of the song “Now She’s Gone”, i don’t speak a lot of english and I can’t understand what its being said, could you help me with the lyrics?
Thanks in advance
oops forgot to add my email for notifications.
I’m not sure if the Akarma release of this Felt LP is fully legal. And that goes for many Arakama re-releases (plus several other dubious labels like Radioactive, Phoenix, Tapestry….).
In general hey transfer from old original Vinyl or – if available – from CD. Rarely they have the original master tapes for an adequate transfer, nor they contact always the true right holders.
Promoting an item as “high quality 180 g pressing” says not necessarily that the sound is convincing.
The covers from Arkama re-releases with original artwork are indeed often pretty. However, in many cases they make the outer sleeve so slim that it is difficult to pull the record with the inner sleeve out….
I am also intrigued by the lyrics of Now She’s Gone and I have the same problem jajajaja could you help us??
im not a native speaker either but from what i can make out the lyric in “now she´s gone” is about a young woman that runs away from home and ends up in the drug szene and drifts away or even dies. I find this track particulary interesting not just the story but the music, man. that riff is pure genius, and the way they all go quiet in the middle when he sings “well, her father´s still counting his money”, man, thats the stuff! The whole record, all of it ist just so great. It´s very sad that they didn´t do any more.
Hi,
I am Mychael John Thomas, aka, Myke Jackson. Thanks for the great review, but Stan never played with the Dickies…different Stan Lee. AND we did a second album in 2012, available at http://felt2.bandcamp.com
Blessings,
Mychael John
“Sell Your Mother” was a great song. I enjoyed playing/recording it with you.
Spotify recommended me this album. I never heard about them but it has been a great surprise for me.
I tried to know more about the band and the only thing I found was this web comment.
Is good to know about the musicians and their work. Thank you