ASTRAL SCENE Astral Projection 1968 ORIG CURT BOETTCHER SOFT POP PSYCH LP LISTEN

$

40

THE ASTRAL SCENE "The Astral Projection" LP

ORIGINAL 1968 pressing on the US METROMEDIA label, STEREO MD 1005

COVER IN EXCELLENT SHAPE, super nice!

VINYL plays VG+ with some light crackle, nothing bad

When the cheezy county fair rolled through Allentown, PA a few years ago, curiosity finally won out, and my friends and I finally paid the 50 cents required to peek at the Snake Lady for a few minutes.  Not surprisingly, Madame Boa was nothing more than a local Giant Supermarket bagger with her head poked up through a hole in the middle of a giant 8th Grade Art Project papier mache python, a snake so fake you could see big white paint chips in the body.  But then again, if you were looking for evidence that the Snake Lady was fake in the first place, then you deserved to spend your Friday night at the county fair, munching on tasteless fried dough while waiting eagerly for Black Oak Arkansas to finish so they can start the Tractor Pull contest. 

But what made our short 5-minute visit with Annie Conda even more brilliant was that she was in the middle of a conversation when we walked in.  Rather than trying to act like a creature who was half-woman, half-snake, she was nonchalantly describing a fellow who had paid his 50 cents the day before and, finding himself the only customer in the trailer with her, began to…er, make himself feel happier, while she could only coil up helplessly and watch.  Probably creating a brand new fetish in the process.  But ya never know, there are internet sites for everything these days. 

The point of my story, if there is one, is that you’d be perfectly in the right for thinking of cheesy county fairs and freakshow scams when you first laid eyes on this little slab of cheap exploito pop from 1968 – an album called The Astral Scene by the Astral Projection (or vice versa, who knows?) which practically sounds like it should be surrounded by blinking colored lights and have a carnie perched next to it.  The liner notes promise an outer body experience – a way of leaving the physical plane to experience spiritual embodiment.  The last person I know who tried that sang lead for INXS, and it didn’t work out well.  

So does the Astral Scene really deliver on Astral Projection?  Of course not.  I didn’t leave my body once during the thirty-odd minutes this thing played, although I did get momentarily sidetracked thinking about Helena Christensen bound by neckties.  What The Astral Scene does deliver, however, and deliver in spades, is beautiful Curt Boettcher-esque soft pop, heavily orchestrated and filled with ever-so-subtly psychedelic production tricks, not enough to blow your mind but maybe enough to make the room a little fuzzy.  And if you’re a big fan of stuff like the Millennium, the Association and Sagittarius, then I wouldn’t completely rule out an out-of-body experience. 

Of course it thinks it’s more important than it really is.  It’s the work of Bernice Ross and Lor Crane, two songwriters and producers responsible for horror movie soundtracks and Chad and Jeremy singles (some would say that’s redundant).  So when this thing roars out the gate with a song called “Astral Projection…Leaving the Body…Overture: The Sunshine Seekers,” filled to the breaking point with Days of Future Passed string swells and glorious glissandos, you realize right away that this thing’s gonna have as much self-importance as it does ellipses and subtitles.  But unlike the Moody Blues, once the big dramatic entrance is over, they settle down into a groove of bouncy flower-power soft pop melodies, all harmonies and grooviness, like the Free Design if they owned an occult shop or ran a tent on your local county fair midway.  

In theory, though, this is really no stranger than the more popular hippie concepts like “all you need is love,” “feed your head” or “free your mind and your a** will follow” – at least Astral Projection is based on some pretty old s**t.  So it’s kind of surprising then that they don’t actually begin to talk about out-of-body experiences until the very last song, called – deep breath - “Spiral Interiorization…Overture: The Astral Scene.”  Here, they describe their first encounter with the astral plane (or their first encounter with hard liquor) in vivid detail, set to a groovy lounge exotica mix of Johnny Rivers’ “Summer Rain” and Simon and Garfunkel’s “Homeward Bound”:

“Last night as I lay on my bed,

A strange vibration filled my head,

Relaxed my mind and made me feel like I was floating through the air.

Well, I turned around to my surprise,

Right there before my naked eyes,

There were two of me – I was here and there!”

But rather than go on to describe how, in the neo-Platonism of Plotinus (a Greek philosopher whose metaphysical writings inspired centuries of Pagan, Christian, Jewish, Islam and Gnostic mystics), the various planes of existence are depicted as a series of concentric circles or nested spheres  in which each succeeding plane of manifestation is causal to the next (a world view called emanationism), the Astral Scene simply sing, “What a strange sensation, what a complex situation, to find yourself in,” which not only oversimplifies the entire paranormal, multi-denomenational concept, but also ends a sentence with a preposition.   Whadda they on, weed? 

In conclusion, let me make this simple (too late).  If you dig the soft pop and orchestrated lite psych of bands like the Neon Philharmonic, the Free Design and anything that’s got Curt Boettcher’s name in the credits, then the Astral Scene/Projection will send you to another plane of existence whether or not you even bother to read the lyrics.  But take it from the Snake Lady, if you should, on your transcendental journey, end up in the body of a papier mache cobra at a country fair, get the hell out of there before that fat guy takes a liking to you.  

PLEASE NOTE I NO LONGER SHIP TO ITALY DUE TO A CORRUPT POSTAL SYSTEM (THERE, NOT HERE).  BUYERS FROM ITALY AGREE TO PAY FOR GLOBAL PRIORITY MAIL INSURED ONLY!

The less exciting stuff

Media mail shipping with delivery confirmation starts at $4.00 in the US, with each additional record only $1 additional shipping.  Overseas shipping has, unfortunately, gone way up in the fast few months, which translates to $15 for the first LP to Canada ($3 each one thereafter) and $24 for the first LP everywhere else in the world, with each add'l LP an extra $5 (so it pays to buy more, nudge nudge wink wink).   I accept payments through Paypal. 

I try to grade as best as I can, and I list as many blemishes/imperfections I can find (writing, ringwear, scuff marks, etc.) – Also, please note that I DO listen to these albums – I may not listen to every track, but my grades are based on LISTENING, not just looking at it, since chances are you’ll be listening to the record you buy, not just looking at it.  Most of the albums I sell are the ones I’ve enjoyed for years – and I treat my records with kid gloves.  But sounds speak louder than words, so check out the sound clips below – they’re from the actual record you’re bidding on. 

SHIPPING AND PACKAGING

Listen, I buy a bunch of records too (when I’m not getting outbid at the last second, which is more often than not) – and I know what it’s like to get a rare, one-of-a-kind album packaged dangerously in a flimsy bubblewrap package.  I hate that too.  So rest assured, I ALWAYS package albums with stiff cardboard reinforcements, same for 45s.  And yes, the records are removed from the sleeves (for albums).  I ship out once a week, every Friday, because I have a regular day job.  But I’d be willing to give that up if you’d all be so kind as to bid my items up to stupidly high amounts. 

 For more security and international tracking, you may request GLOBAL PRIORITY MAIL - but bear in mind the cost of this service is upwards of $30.  For expensive items, however, it may be well worth it.  Unfortunately, there isn’t a cost-effective way of tracking parcels to foreign countries yet, and shipping times vary depending on your country’s postal system.   Italy in particular seems to be really bad at delivering packages quickly, or delivering packages at all, now that you mention it.  I will always email you when your package ships, but once it’s on its way, please don’t ask me when it will arrive because I don’t know.  If the world’s postal systems can ever agree on a universal tracking system that’s affordable, I’ll be the first to use it.

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN…

I will always leave positive feedback for successful transactions, and would appreciate the same in return.  All I ask of you is the following – please pay for your items within 14 days of the close of auction.  Compared to other sellers, that’s a generous amount of time, so if you don’t pay within 2 weeks, then I have to assume something’s wrong.  You’ll get an Ebay payment reminder at that point, and possibly a decapitated horse head in your bed.  If, after 30 days, you still haven’t forked up the cash, I’ll relist the item and yell at you if I ever see you in town.