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Black Tempest play Spirit
The Seventh Ring Of Saturn play The Grateful Dead


7" - colour vinyl
Crustacean 57

The final single in Fruits de Mer's '7 and 7 is' box-set combines Black Tempest reinterpreting a track from Spirit's 1970 album 'Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus', released on the Epic label, with The Seventh Ring Of Saturn, with a new version of 'Cream Puff War', taken from the Grateful Dead's first album, released in 1967:

'Nature's Way'
'Cream Puff War'

ONLY AVAILABLE AS PART OF THE '7 and 7 is' BOX-SET - GO TO THE FdM SHOP TO PLACE AN ORDER

black tempest


Spirit were an American jazz/hard rock/progressive rock/psychedelic band founded in 1967, based in Los Angeles, California. Their most commercially successful single in the US was "I Got A Line On You", but they were also known for their albums including The Family That Plays Together, Clear, and Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus.
The original lineup of the group evolved from an earlier Los Angeles band, The Red Roosters, which included Randy California (guitars, vocals), Mark Andes (bass) and Jay Ferguson (vocals, percussion). With the addition of California's stepfather Ed Cassidy (drums), and keyboard player John Locke the new band was originally named the Spirits Rebellious (after a book by Khalil Gibran) but was soon shortened simply to Spirit. In 1966 Randy California had also played with Jimi Hendrix (then known as Jimmy James) in his band, Jimmy James and the Blue Flames. Cassidy was instantly recognizable by his shaven head (hence his nickname "Mr. Skin") and his fondness for wearing black. He was around twenty years older than the rest of the group (born in 1923). His earlier career was primarily in jazz and included stints with Cannonball Adderley, Gerry Mulligan, Roland Kirk, Thelonious Monk and Lee Konitz. He was a founding member of Rising Sons with Taj Mahal and Ry Cooder.
The group's first album, Spirit, was released in 1968. "Mechanical World" was released as a single (it lists the playing time merely as "very long"). The album was a hit, reaching No. 31 on The Billboard 200 and staying on the charts for over eight months. The album displayed jazz influences, as well as using elaborate string arrangements (not found on their subsequent recordings) and is the most overtly psychedelic of their albums. They capitalized on the success of their first album with another single, "I Got A Line On You". Released in November 1968, a month before their second album, The Family That Plays Together, it became their biggest hit single, reaching No. 25 on the charts (#28 in Canada). The album matched its success, reaching No. 22. They also went on tour that year with support band Led Zeppelin, and it has been claimed that Page lifted the descending guitar figure from Spirit's instrumental "Taurus" for Led Zeppelin's signature tune "Stairway To Heaven". In 2014, Mark Andes, and a trust acting on behalf of Randy California, filed a copyright infringement suit against Led Zeppelin in an attempt to obtain a writing credit for "Stairway To Heaven". After the success of their early records, the group was asked by French film director Jacques Demy to record the soundtrack to his film, Model Shop and they also made a brief appearance in the film. Their third album, Clear, released in 1969, reached No. 55 on the charts.
After the release of Clear, California was called upon again to give the group a hit single. With the group producing the record on their own, they recorded a song California had written called "1984". It looked at first as though it would be the group's biggest hit yet. After being released in February 1970, it placed at No. 69 on the Billboard charts. In retrospect, no one is sure why the single had such a brief chart life, but there are several possibilities. It is no secret that Lou Adler's alliance with Epic Records was uneasy at best, and at the time that the single was released, Adler's distribution deal with Epic came to an end. He had been eager to move distribution of the label to A&M Records, which he did as soon as the deal with Epic ended, which might have killed the commercial availability of the single (though Adler ended up giving Spirit's contract to Epic in the process). It has also been said that there was a tip sheet distributed to radio stations outlining the song's supposed political and social views, and opining that it might not be appropriate for air play. The song would finally see general release on The Best of Spirit in 1973. In 1970, Spirit started working on what is widely considered to be their best LP, Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus. On the recommendation of Neil Young the band chose David Briggs as the producer. It was a prolific time for the group's writers and the album was finally released in late 1970. Especially memorable was Randy California's poignant "Nature's Way," which was written in an afternoon when the group was playing at the Fillmore West in San Francisco.
Epic released an early mix of "Animal Zoo" as a single, but this only made it to No. 97 on the charts. Like The Who's Tommy and Pink Floyd's The Dark Side of the Moon, Twelve Dreams of Dr. Sardonicus is critically regarded as a landmark of art rock, with a tapestry of literary themes about the fragility of life and the complexity of the human experience, illustrated by recurring lyric "life has just begun", and continued the group's pioneering exploration of environmental issues in their lyrics (cf. "Fresh Garbage"). The album is also notable for its inventive production and the use of a modular Moog synthesizer.
(taken from Wikipedia)

Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in Palo Alto, California.The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long musical improvisation. "Their music," writes Lenny Kaye, "touches on ground that most other groups don't even know exists." These various influences were distilled into a diverse and psychedelic whole that made the Grateful Dead "the pioneering Godfathers of the jam band world". They were ranked 57th in the issue The Greatest Artists of all Time by Rolling Stone magazine.They were inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1994. The Grateful Dead was founded in the San Francisco Bay Area amid the rise of counterculture of the 1960s. The founding members of the Grateful Dead were Jerry Garcia (guitar, vocals), Bob Weir (guitar, vocals), Ron "Pigpen" McKernan (keyboards, harmonica, vocals), Phil Lesh (bass, vocals), and Bill Kreutzmann (drums). Members of the Grateful Dead had played together in various San Francisco bands, including Mother McCree's Uptown Jug Champions and the Warlocks. Lesh was the last member to join the Warlocks before they became the Grateful Dead; he replaced Dana Morgan Jr., who had played bass for a few gigs. With the exception of McKernan, who died in 1973, the core of the band stayed together for its entire 30-year history.
The name "Grateful Dead" was chosen from a dictionary. According to Phil Lesh, in his autobiography. "... [Jerry Garcia] picked up an old Britannica World Language Dictionary...[and]...In that silvery elf-voice he said to me, 'Hey, man, how about the Grateful Dead?'" The definition there was "the soul of a dead person, or his angel, showing gratitude to someone who, as an act of charity, arranged their burial."
(taken from Wikipedia)

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