Straddled with a 40 ton name and a somewhat strange history, West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band have aged well over the years. Shortened to WCPAEB, they were one of the more interesting and inventive bands to arrive on the L.A. scene in the mid-1960's. And even though they didn't achieve the props or notoriety most other bands from the area did at the time, they have nonetheless achieved a cult status among collectors and people curious about a rich, albeit short-lived musical genre known as West-Coast Psychedelia.
Tonight's track is off their first album for Reprise Records (a previous album got virtually no distribution and has subsequently gone for stupid amounts of money in the collectors market). Part One is probably the best known of the several WCPAEB albums they issued in their comparatively short career. I Won't Hurt You probably best exemplifies their truly trippy nature by utilizing a tape-looped heart beat as the rhythm track.
And when's the last time you heard that in a song?
A great band, underrated and underappreciated at the time. Being discovered and re-discovered daily. Which I guess goes to prove if you hang around long enough, someone is bound to notice.
