Most Popular
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An ancient Apollo statue landed in Cleveland and touched off an international outcry
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Joe Cimperman hopes to tear down his former hero, Dennis Kucinich
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Beat Down
Cleveland teachers swap stories of school violence.
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Everybody Hates Mike
The peril of coaching an icon.
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Secret Valentines Notes from C-Town Celebs
Our I-Team uncovered the private love letters of Cleveland's biggest names. You'll be shocked by what we discovered.
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$100 Bounty on That Kid (19)
Copley-Fairlawn finds a way to keep the impostors out.
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At Indie-Rock Singles Night in Cleveland, an event for hipsters lacks one key ingredient: Hipsters (14)
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Dennis Kucinich’s brave talk about working and fighting — from the safety of the officer’s tent (10)
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Beat Down (3)
Cleveland teachers swap stories of school violence.
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Sour Notes (434)
Underneath its glossy exterior, the Cleveland Orchestra has a dark side. His name is William Preucil.
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Crazy Talk
Miranda Lambert is a lot like any other girl with a soft spot for guns and setting exes on fire.
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The Bravery's New World
New-wave revivalists discover the power of three-chord guitar rock.
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Beer, BBQ, industry schmoozing: Rounding up SXSW 2008’s local delegates
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Keep on Truckin'
Jason Isbell finds life after the Drive-By Truckers.
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It took them 10 years, but the Sadies finally craft a country-rock classic
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Akron mom embezzles $12,000 from PTA
05:21AM 03/10/08 -
Dispatch: Either Derek Anderson gets roster bonus in '09, or Quinn fans celebrate
02:49PM 03/07/08 -
Cleveland's power brokers take a turn at high fashion
02:39PM 03/07/08 -
Sound of Ideas Host Dan Moulthrop steals our idea, raises money for cancer
02:21PM 03/07/08 -
Review: Nellie McKay seduces the crowd at Nighttown
02:12PM 03/07/08
What we are writing about
- Black Sabbath
- Bob Dylan
- classic rock
- Cleveland art
- Cleveland dining hotspots
- Cleveland theater
- family films
- foodie media
- Get religion!
- great video games
- hip-hop
- indie pop
- indie rock
- jazz
- legal eagles
- Metal
- murder & mayhem
- must-see movies
- Neil Young
- Ohio City
- political clap-trap
- Punk
- R&B
- racism
- read your music
- Singer-Songwriter
- sporting life
- urban crime
- weird theater
- white-collar baddies
Recent Articles By Justin F. Farrar
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It took them 10 years, but the Sadies finally craft a country-rock classic
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Weener
Saturday, December 22, at the Jigsaw, Parma.
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The Pearlfishers
Up With the Larks (Marina)
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The Howling Hex
XI (Drag City)
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Flying Burrito Bros.
Gram Parsons Archives Volume One: The Flying Burrito Bros. Live at the Avalon Ballroom 1969 (Amoeba)
National Features
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Houston Press
"It Was Like an Armageddon Movie"
For days after Hurricane Rita, a Texas prison was hell on earth.
By Chris Vogel -
SF Weekly
The Candidate
Our columnist knows Ralph Nader's running mate all too well.
By Matt Smith -
The Pitch
How Not To Be a Rap Star
First of all, lay off the Ecstasy.
By Nadia Pflaum -
Village Voice
Project Runaway
What becomes a gossip columnist most?
By Michael Musto
Blossom Toes
We Are Ever So Clean/If Only for a Moment (Sunbeam)
By Justin F. Farrar
Published: December 19, 2007
Blossom Toes never amounted to anything more than an opening act during their brief career between 1967 and 1969. But when the headliners were the Move, Soft Machine, and a Syd Barrett-led Pink Floyd, "opening act" wasn't too lousy a slot. Reissues of the band's only two albums, We Are Ever So Clean and If Only for a Moment, reveal Blossom Toes for what they really were: fearless psychedelic pioneers — just like all those groups they opened for. The quartet pumped fuzzy mod-pop full of circus music, careening harmonies, surreal effects, primitive drumming, and most important, LSD. "Look at Me I'm You" and "I'll Be Late for Tea," from 1967's Clean, could pass for early Floyd outtakes — if they weren't so intricate. Every song sounds like a mini-opera stitched together like a kaleidoscopic quilt.
It took two years for Blossom Toes to record a follow-up. In that time, the band must have listened to tons of Mothers of Invention and Captain Beefheart records, because Moment is a snarling prog-rock beast. It's all banshee wails, avant blues, garish virtuosity, and social satire (they even diss "TV dinners"). Although the album contains some heady jams ("Listen to the Silence" in particular), this stuff doesn't go down quite as easily as the first record. Then again, prog, unlike mod, is designed to be difficult. Either way, Blossom Toes' rediscovery is further proof that London was a totally mind-blowing place in the late '60s.
