Clyde & The Nightswingers

greenfuzz

Orlyn Class
Joined
Apr 23, 2011
Anyone got the scoop on Clyde & The Nightswingers? I can’t tell if these are supposed to be authentic ‘67 recordings or a marketing ploy for a current group. The notes are fairly cryptic.

https://www.feelitrecordshop.com/co...enormous-midnight-and-nine-other-nocturnes-lp

Clyde and The Nightswingers entered the record world scores of years after first recording. In 2010 Arcania International issued The Enormous Midnight/On The Elevator Up to disappointing sales. A messed up pressing was in part the reason why only about 200 7” 45s made their way into the marketplace. Yet the few critiques the flop garnered were positive. Some threads follow.

Norfolk Hardcore “As mysteriously as they arrived on my turntable…”

Permanent Records “We’re not sure how this was kept a secret for so damn long.”

Terminal Boredom “…shocking that a Psych song this good has never been heard before.”

Ugly Things “The mysterious Clyde and The Nightswingers…”

Music well received. Still, those quotes also emphasize a unified observation, and it is one that inquires after a point of origin for a revolving cast. As it is, that point remains “mysterious”. Why? “Clyde” wishes to remain anonymous, a pseudonym. The Nightswingers also are near anon., a non-group. Hazy as the leader’s auto-bio may be, he bestows kudos to four forgotten black shaded session men. Guess who? But mostly it’s shifters; half a dozen or so come and go players. Add a dedication to Frankie, a pal who died young. Sound effects records he loved, adding aero clashes, fireworks and siren sounds at the title tunes’ 1:00 mark. His charged guitar spurs the movement, creates mini-movements. Listen at 3:21 as he slips in a psyched up little black egg-like lick. Too bad he’s only on two more cuts (Side 1 #2/Side 2 #1). Side 1 #4/Side 2 #2 feature an upright bassist who bows and a drummer with vibes. Their jazzbo coloration brings out more dissonance. Fuzziness on Should I Choose (?) becomes clear. While mostly dark there is a theme - the me - soul searching before too late. Death wish words and wah-wah come from what else but Wah-Wah Baby? Nothing. The “leader” had coasted by then. No one followed. And so - session men. Glass-like blows their fulsome R&B progression that signs Side 1 off to dead wax. A dead end for a side of Clyde, who dreamed up these songs, sings, plays guitar on all but those that end each side and plays harmonica on all those having harmonica. And due to their input, Clyde wishes to stress that all the music on this record is - Arranged by Nightswingers.

In Los Angeles in 1967, art filmmaker, all around artist and Sci-Fi fellow, William Rotsler, supplemented his talents with LSD to shoot footage for a crazed plot intriguingly entitled The Enormous Midnight. In due time, Clyde drifted in from some far away swampy place. What swampy place? “Uncertain,” he says. Then like some kind of past tense time mirrors, Nightswingers banded (on & off) to reflect a libretto for the misadventures of a poet-bum, as played by the filmmaker himself. Airmen on acid fly by as a home full of delinquent girls, also on acid, organize an orgy below. Up in the attic - tuned to the static.

Static was awash when the “Theme” was cut. Too late for footage on the cutting room floor. Outtakes into Rated X project. Negative cashed in for silver slivers in the art flick garbage? Garage garbage, as most thought Sixties Punk music to be, soon morphed into some kind of artsy merit via Psychedelia; for better ore. Unfulfilled things still lie about, unfulfilled things, like this. What was last heard as an instrumental now shrieks out its title. On The Elevator Up is present with vocals. And it still comes with string scrapes that tear like unthreading cables down a harp panned shaft. Fright Time Chills has XX, bright lime pills, a ghost chorus due to imprinted tape, a blown out harp, tremolo guitar and an explosion with a scream trapped in it. Rib It follows Frankie’s lead by lifting a variety of amphibious croaks from a record’s grooves. Late Last Night is in like dawn and out like dusk. Brisk, with bolero accents. Echolalia chases The High Flavored as the band plays fast. So fast in fact that we slowed it down 6 seconds via 21st C. technology. Permission granted. That spoken sigh at the end - “I hope you’re finished,” comes from Clyde’s girlfriend - Joy. His cut off laughter indicates he knows she’s still with him. And so a happy ending for the one who dreamed up these songs and the character within them.

But before that, the wears of confusion darken like a boggy swampscape. Those “arrangers” fortified the soundstage with tape loops - echoplex - tube inferno - sound effects - sad croaks, and so on. Too much drifting into ether, arsonistic passages, etc? No, that adds to the friction and the fun. Yes, there is little fuzz box, but distortion there is. So then when they scattered, fidelity’s infinite laws funneled all Nightswinger noise back to a garage-zoned nest, like trash. Fate tossed their songs into canisters, sealing the lids. At last they can “ooze through the seal.” Stereo channels The Enormous Midnight as close to quasar as we could hope for. Aligned with nocturnes that flower as if powered by deadly nightshade, are sounds that might animate some thing that is still within you. Look out; the moon may rise some evening, pulling you off with Clyde and The Nightswingers.
 
Wow, those liners are horrible. Really bad writing.

If this is a vintage '67 group, I'll eat all my orlyns.

as the cover is obviously made with "windows paint", they probably recorded this with audacity.

(well, it's not super bad of course, but i'm turned off by this kind of marketing)
 
The liner notes clearly imply they are '60s recordings. And yes they make some kind of sense, although they're borderline garbage and don't refer to anything or anyone I'm familiar with.
 
Some of it is ok. But I doubt if this is a genuine '60s recording. Too many and varied effects which would have been state-of-the-art and very expensive in 1967 and only available in top studios. Different effects on every song. Sounds more like Pink Floyd sounded in 1970. Guitar and vocal sounds are too produced - 50% over-produced, and 50% deliberately lo-fi, in the same song. Also, it's unlikely any genuine 60s group would want to remain anonymous in 2021. Maybe one member, but not the entire group.
 
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Putting on my Sherlock Holmes hat (the venerable 'deerstalker') here:
No lower-tier 1967 Sunset Strip combo would have so many obvious
Thirteenth Floor Elevators moves/references on display, not to mention
other, later tropes from later, obscure 'collector fodder' groups like
Instant Orange and Groep 1850 thrown in the mix. The Sky Saxon-
influenced stuff is more period-correct...but sounds like the mocking
'neo-Sky' vocals that Kim Fowley often affected circa 1969 on albums
like "Outrageous" and "Good Clean Fun". A clever pastiche? Perhaps.
 
I have it on good authority that these are not vintage 60s recordings. They are probably a scam or a joke. The person behind seems to be Brent Hosier, who owns the Acania label, maybe it is some friends of his from the band Plan 9, or even him. And that unreadable blurb definitely looks like the kind of waffle he puts out there.
 
So there indeed seems to have been a movie on SF teen/drug culture in '67/'68 with this title (also called "Like It Is"), but it does not seem to have this kind of music in it.

(also, if this was ripped from the movie, the recordings wouldn't have such a great sound quality)

i'll stand by my first impression: spoof.