Love Minus Zero/No Limit

Bob Dylan - Love Minus Zero

Top Drawer - Song of a Sinner

Recently I bought the "Forge your own chains" compilation, on the Stones Throw sub-label Now Again. With that I got myself a nice record, but it also meant that I bought Top Drawers - Song of Sinner on vinyl, and that kind of made my week. There is not a lot to find about either the band or the song, but the sleeve tells a nice story about it:

The Top Drawers are one of the most perplexing of psychedelic ensembles. Their sole offering Solid Oak hints at sly sense of humor and forces those collectors silly enough to list this album in their Ebay searches to endure listing after listing wooden dressers and cabinets. The band recorded at Fultz Recording Studio (the same studio responsible for a slew of Kentucky fink and soul singles, notably the Aristocrats Organization's "Don't Go"), yet there is no indication of whether the band hailed from Kentucky or Southern Ohio. The album was repressed in the early 1980's, yet, an Akarma reissue notwithstanding, none of the band's original members have ever surfaced to explain why they, in the introductory track to an album or rural hard rock with garagey edges, recorded an epic psychedelic number that flirts with perfection.
Steven Geary, the writer of this track and presumably the vocalist, sings with an angelic tone, on contrast to his sinner's lament. The band remain understated, letting their powerful vamp and John Baker's tasteful guitar solo take the front stage. It is our hope that by including this song here, the Top Drawer will somehow take notice of the attention afforded their magnificent "Song of a Sinner" and explain how a group of early twenty-somethings in the middle of America could conjure up such a hair-raising, psychedelic masterpiece-and then vanish, without a trace.

Top Drawer - Song of a sinner

Think Twice

The original and some high level sampling
Donald Byrd - Think Twice
The Detroit Experiment - Think Twice