GOLDEN CUPS 2 1968 ORIG JAPAN FUZZ PUNK GARAGE FREAKBEAT PSYCH LP RED WAX LISTEN

$

80

THE GOLDEN CUPS "ALBUM VOL. 2" LP

ORIGINAL 1968 PRESSING ON THE JAPANESE CAPITOL LABEL, STEREO CP-8473

COVER IN EXCELLENT SHAPE, BEAUTIFUL!

RED WAX LOOKS GREAT

VINYL PLAYS VG++

“Hey, the Golden Cups!” shout a crowd of cute Japanese schoolgirls (probably in sailor outfits), and with a flurry of fuzz guitar and a Motown-by-way-of-Godzilla shake and pop rhythm, the Golden Cups are off and running through another Sixties Greatest Hits J-pop style, here on Golden Cups Volume 2!  Since they’ve been given the freedom of exploration by the two little girls who guard Mothra, it’s no big deal if the Cups go off on a jazzy little break during “Shotgun,” because every time the lead singer says anything, the little girls shout like they’ve just seen Cheap Trick in their living room.  They even throw in a little drum solo now and then, although at only 23 seconds, Ginger Baker doesn’t even acknowledge it as such.  It’s all about keeping the girls excited for the Golden Cups, and they do it well.  “Money” gets a frenzied workout, with buzzing organ and epileptic guitar, and a jazzier “Spooky” gets some groovy cocktail piano and an Astro Sounds string section.  A pair of ballads gets all the girls’ panties in a swoony bunch, later to be sold in a vending machine in the back alleys of Tokyo.

But something very strange happens on Side 2.  Someone in the band drops acid, and suddenly the Cups drench their groovy little approximations of the hits in big bucketloads of echo and reverb, and everything seems positively infested with fuzz.  They’re Gods now, and they don’t even think twice about tackling “Strange Brew,” which explodes off the grooves in so much fuzz and echo, you’d swear it was being sung by a giant Toho Studios radioactive wasp inside an empty reactor core.  “Gimme Little Sign” is almost unrecognizable, and the groovy Japanese-language “Baby, Please Don’t Run Away” is all gogo soundtrack horns, swinging rhythm and freakishly-echoed disembodied female backup vocals, the whole thing once again punctuated by that ear-piercing Wasp Monster fuzz guitar.  “I love you, I love you, forever more” they plead on the fade, the only English in the entire song, but by then it’s too late.  The schoolgirls have packed up and left, not willing to accompany their heroes on this bizarre new acid trip.  Don’t worry, girls, it won’t be long before Cheap Trick comes around.  

But the real clincher here on Golden Cups 2, the true monster freakout acid casualty, is a little something called “Happening at 3 O’Clock AM,” possibly loosely (very loosely) based on the Yardbirds “Happenings Ten Years Time” but bearing no similarity at all.  It’s a band original, and there’s really nothing this twisted on the rest of the record, or in most of Japanese music.  This is one truly demented, way way out-there freakout, starting with a sped-up advertisement for a Cry Baby guitar pedal that sounds like the Smurfs jamming with a wah wah.  A lumbering drumbeat enters, followed by that skull-clearing fuzz, and then someone starts moaning like they’d just seen King Ghidorah outside their balcony with a pink slip.  “Monday morning, 3 o’clock, someone told me 3 o’clock” a stoned voice sings, barely making sense, until Dad cuts in and yells “Forget it buddy, you’re alive!  A good-for-nothing!”  More bad trip moaning ensues, followed by more fuzz, this time sped up.  And as Sadako crawls from the well once more, the singer curls up in a fetal position in the corner of the room, awaiting death by blue-faced boy, moaning “Monday morning, 3 o’clock” over and over and over, until the song finally fades away in a cloud of radioactive smog over Tokyo Bay.   It’s one truly shining moment of demented genius on a great album that seemed like it was gonna be a crowd-pleasing frat rock party until someone took something they shouldn’t have, and all psychedelic paisley Toho Studios hell broke loose.  Japanese music has never been this insane.  Unless you count Pink Lady and Jeff. 

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