Between 1966 and 1967, Long Island, New York garage rock band
the Mystic Tide self-released five singles and burned quickly through a lightning-speed evolution from stompy garage to acid-warped psychedelia with moody,
Zombies-esque undertones. Led by singer, guitarist, and songwriter
Joe Docko, the band epitomized the obscure youth garage rock experience of the late '60s, creating rawer and more bizarre homespun versions of sounds made popular by bigger artists.
Frustration collects remastered versions of the band's 11 songs, organizing their strange arc for easy digestion while illuminating just how far off the beaten path these little-known explorers were traveling at the time. Four-chord rockers like the title track or the misty and distant "Stay Away" are clearly informed by bigger bands of the day like
the Seeds,
the Animals, or
the Count Five, while "I Wouldn't Care" is gentler, with Merseybeat vocal harmonies and an air of melancholy jangle somewhere between
the Hollies and
Them. While not exactly so different that they sound like the work of a different band,
the Mystic Tide's excursions into psychedelia are wildly different than their more accessible material. "Running Through the Night" is a high-tension burner made all the more uneasy with slightly off-key vocal harmonies, and the skeletal blues "Mystery Ship" revolves around a pseudo-
Hendrix fuzz-guitar-freakout solo. Moments like this and the aptly titled "Psychedelic Journey, Pt. 1" and "Pt. 2" are noisy and brusque with the same uncouth character as
White Light/White Heat-era
Velvet Underground or the astral traveling of early
Pink Floyd. Though they never quite land on one consistent approach ("I Search for a New Love" is a weird hybrid of blue-eyed doo wop and surf-psych guitar),
the Mystic Tide's uniform strangeness in whatever style they choose puts them in the rare class of lesser-known '60s garage rock acts that fascinate as much as they entertain. They stand alongside names like
Index,
the Luv'd Ones,
the Enfields, and
Forever Amber as bands from the time that tried to emulate mainstream sounds and couldn't help but end up somewhere far more interesting. ~ Fred Thomas
