The Yellow Payges ● Volume 1

The Yellow Payges’ “The Two of Us” just might be one of the great lost songs of the psychedelic era. That’s saying something when you consider the band responsible for such a memorable track once participated in a promotional campaign with AT&T (photograph yourself knee-deep in a pile of phone books and suffer the consequences). Volume 1, first released in 1969 on UNI Records, is an impressive mix of heavy garage rock and mellow psychedelic pop. The aforementioned “The Two of Us” is the album’s best track, a blistering three minutes of late ‘60s fuzz guitar and gnarling vocals, while “Little Woman” “Crowd Pleaser” and “Devil Woman”—loud, aggressive and at complete odds with the band’s somewhat jokey band name—all deliver a double shot of hard rock heaviness. The group’s more pop-oriented influences are heard on songs like “Friends,” “Never Put Away My Love” and “Moonfire,” the latter eventually gaining release as a single. Selling out wasn’t cool back in 1969 and the quartet’s relationship with corporate America—a phone company no less—spelled the end of the Yellow Payges. The band recorded several unreleased songs for a second lp before calling it quits.

Notes: Here is an audio-only YouTube clip of “The Two of Us” by the Yellow Payges: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=J_-cBL-8ilU&feature=related. Also, if you want to learn more about the Yellow Payges—and I do mean more—check out this lengthy biography at http://www.60sgaragebands.com/bandbios.html.