Jason Crest - The Definition of Psychedelia

This band recorded an idyllic psychedelic song, Teagarden Lane, which reminds me of something that Syd Barrett might've written. It's a happy little number about being outside in the Spring. It's very much the same genre as Flaming or The Gnome, or See Emily Play.

But, Jason Crest also recorded a song called Black Mass which has really heavy keyboard passages, backwards guitar (very experimental & disturbing), and wild shrieking vocals. Very, very weird stuff!! If you like Heavy Psychedelia (like Iron Butterfly), this is the grandfather of all of those bands....

Jason Crest released several singles, but the big Jason Crest Album never happened. They had developed a bit of a cult audience. ... Naturally, some tapes got into the wrong hands and a bootleg album was created back in the very early 1970s.

A few years ago, an archivist dug out all of the old Jason Crest tapes and put the album together properly for the first time and put it out on an official CD. The problem is that the songs were not always mixed on the CD the same way that they were mixed on the bootleg LP. Some are identical, but others are quite different. So, the bootleg LP versions remain quite rare..

I hope that the Floyd fans out there will give Teagarden Lane a spin right away. But, don't put this one up in your archives before giving Black Mass a few minutes of your time. I think that it's really powerful stuff. What a shame that it had to wait for so many years before being rediscovered!!

Here