In his native new york rusty evans was a very busy man on the local music scene.He kicked of his career as a rock'n'roller back in 1957 releasing a single as 'rusty evans & his rock-a-billys' and by the early to mid-sixties caught the folk-rock bug as 'ry cooper' and again releasing a fine single '1983/the life game' on the musicor label jan.1966 and a great little single it is too...backed by an electric band featuring some tasty lead work he delivers spiky vocals on a'protest' type tune and one you should check out for examples of his early work.
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| as folk singer ry cooper 1966. |
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| greenwich village 1965. |
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| rock'n'roller rusty evans 1957. |
By 1966 early signs of psychedelia were taking place particulary in san francisco but new york had its own artistic/bohemia scene and its here that evans made an entrance with an album by a studio creation he was heavily involved with as writer/producer/ musician 'the deep (a mind expanding pheonomena)' on the cameo parkway label '66.With his friend mark barkan they go all out in wonderful day-glo coloured sounds with tracks like 'trip#76/pink ether & color dreams...' an album that certainly should live in your collection.
Writing and producing came easy for him and one off the wall single he wrote both sides for has become an psych-punk classic the third bardo & 'i'm five years ahead of my time/rainbow life' roulette records '67 is a must hear track that over the years has appeared on countless compilations...
1967 also saw anothe album appear which seems to be a follow on from 'the deep' but this time the group was named 'the freakscene' and the album 'psychedelic psoul' columbia records '67 is a fine collection of psychedelia with 'far-out' tracks like 'my rainbow life/a million grains of sand & rose of smiling faces' he had used his good friend from greenwich folk days david bromberg to add guitar...
Many other productions took place with psychy-punk stuff such as the nervous breakdowns 'i dig your mind' a fabulous slice of new york cool.Others were the hitchikers & The third rail plus many that remain undocumented...1967 also saw evans tiring of new york and saw better opportunity's in san francisco so late '67 he relocated to Marin county where he teamed up with local shyster matthew katz.Katz infact had gotten involved with many bands in the flegling scene but they all regretted their decisions to sign with him.Probably the worst of all was moby grape & jefferson airplane who when they left him saw decades of court battles ...many people flocked to san francisco in search of new identities or what they saw as better lives and evans was no different and quickly went back to his birth name of marcus uzilvesky and quickly started to produce some great work for katz 'san francisco sound' label.Now we enter the arena of controversy with a single that for 50yrs has been cloaked in mystery.Katz had local band 'its a beautiful day' under management and instantly sent them off to seattle to live/rehearse & play dates around that city to sharpen them up but on their return to san francisco had fallen out with Katz after cutting a track 'bulgaria' with uzilevsky & with them gone a b-side was needed so a track written by uzilvesky 'aquarian dream' was recorded at 'coast recorders' over on bush st.Long thought to be a hidden gem by the early 'iabd' it just didn't really fit their sound and where was the violin of la flamme? Looking at the single its clear that yes,uzilvesky wrote and produced it but who really played on the session? so thanks to pat craig of 'westcoast natural gas' who on the sleeve notes of their great album of demo's/singles that was released a few years back 'two's a pair' rd records we can finally lay to rest who really did play on the track!....pat craig-guitar/jeff labrache-drums (both west coast natural gas)/june richards- vocals and girlfriend of katz! and no i've never heard of her../uzilvesky-producer-writer-guitar-vocals and finally lead guitar by frank frore of 'tripschord' but its here i cant find a frore of that band except a frank straight so was frore/straight the same guitarist? info or corrections needed....
Continuing to work for Katz uzilvesky also put out a single on fontana records under the name of marcus 'the artist/the lords prayer' in '69 with a nice art sleeve and with a backing band of 'kingdom come' but have no details on that group...I have also seen the record as the artist stereo/the artist mono....1970 and an album released as by 'marcus' on the kinitic label out of chicago full of free-flowing psychedelia with maybe some of those marin county vibes taking hold...
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| marcus uzilvesky 1969. |
As you see uzilvesky had a fasinating career & really needs a separate blog to fill in all the gaps ...just what did happen to him? he continued to release many albums but more in a country/rock-a-billy style and also became a well respected artist under the name 'uzca' where his paintings are sought after...as side bars we must not forget that 'bulgaria' the a-side of that san francsico sound single was played by la flamme's early band 'the orkustra' along with 'bombay calling' and both tracks are very intriguing as part of the early san francisco underground circa '66-'67....bulgaria/aquarian dream can be found on 'fifth pipe dream vol.one' san francisco sound label....
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