Royal Aircoach Open Up Your Mind LP (Mono) (Sky Blue Vinyl)

Gargantuan, untamed riffs initiate an extinction-level event in your ear canal with this staggering platter of soundwave-plowing '60s thunder. Royal Aircoach created a teenage riot all over the northeast, with a lone 45 as the only recorded evidence of their sonic sedition. But the arrival of Open Up Your Mind turns the Royal Aircoach rap sheet from a single charge to a floor-length list of crimes against complacency! On colored vinyl!

"I liked it loud and buzzy," says guitarist Bobby Greene about the ruckus he kicked up with Royal Aircoach in the late '60s. For a couple of precious years, the Topsfield, MA band were expanding their minds and their sound with tracks like the eight-minute metaphysical epic "Death of Man." Greene remembers, "We probably had smoked a couple of joints and we started having this philosophical talk about how man was destroying himself." The weed-enhanced skull session led to a slowly unfolding epic awash in fuzzed-out guitar riffs and spooky organ frills, with Connolly on incantatory vocals.

"We were listening to 'Hey Jude,'" recalls Greene. "Somebody broke the rule, 'Okay, your song doesn't have to be two minutes and 58 seconds.'" When Royal Aircoach unspooled the outsized tune in concert, its headiness was underscored by a DIY fog machine that was basically a batch of liquid nitrogen and a vacuum cleaner set on reverse.