The Animated Egg - Guitar Freakout (1967)

In the late 1960s, a mysterious self-titled LP credited to the Animated Egg presented a set of guitar-dominated instrumental psychedelic rock. Eventually it was learned that the principal instrumentalist behind The Animated Egg was renowned Los Angeles session guitarist Jerry Cole; the record was cut, according to his recollection, in one session with no overdubs. Cole is an excellent guitarist, and gets appropriately smoking fuzz out of his axe on The Animated Egg playing a Les Paul guitar through a Fuzz Face. But you need more than virtuosity to make a good record. You also need good material, and these songs, if not made up on the spot, certainly seem like hastily conceived generic or incidental psychedelic background music (liberally copping from the Spencer Davis Group's "Gimme Some Lovin'" in the case of "'T'Omorrow"). Cole's backed by adequate psychedelic a-go-go arrangements (including organ that, according to Cole, was probably played by a young Billy Preston), also moving into raga rock ("Sure Listic") and a credible simulation of Roger McGuinn's 12-string folk-rock/psychedelic work ("Sippin' and Trippin'"). Echoes of Cole's rock & roll and surf past surface on "Dark," and "That's How It Is" gets into a Latin jazz-soul-boogaloo groove, though psychedelic fans will probably be most impressed by the devastating shimmering fuzz of "Sock It My Way," the cut on which Cole really lets it hang out. [Some editions of the album added 11 bonus tracks. These were taken from Cole-speared performances featured on other studio-only outfits of the time, such as the Generation Gap, T. Swift & the Electric Bag, and the Projection Company. While these generally milk the same instrumental psychsploitation bag, they actually contain some better items: Cole unleashes some searing fuzz on "Fool's Luck"; offers more convincing McGuinn-isms on "What's Your Bag?"; sounds like a cheesy early Pink Floyd on "Expo in Sound" and "Free Form in 6"; and comes up with some anomalous decent boogaloo on "Tune Out of Place."]

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