Teasing with T's ( #AtoZChallenge )

      Teasing you with some great music in the T category, we get closer to the end of this Challenge.  This will be a somewhat long post because there are a lot of T artists.  Read on--I've got T in the bag.

       Traffic and the Turtles are with my vinyl collection no longer .  The same goes for Richard Thompson, 10CC, Robin Trower, and the truly peculiar psychedelic sound of The Tea Company.  Still the T's have a strong representation in my collection.  Just look at these T's...

Links to the music are included throughout the post if you want to hear the music.

Thirteenth Floor Elevators  "Easter Everywhere" (1967) and a bunch of other albums by this great group.---  In 1969 I acquired an 8 track cartridge version of Easter Everywhere and was amazed and befuddled by this arcane sounding group. I didn't know much about the group I was listening to and there were no liner notes to help out.  The album stuck in my head even after the 8 track was defunct.  Years later I started reading about the 13th Floor Elevators and became all the more curious.  Searching far and wide in my cross-country travels I could not find anything from this group.  And then all of a sudden in the late eighties I started finding cassettes and albums by the group.  Every one of those that I would find that I did not yet have I would buy to add to my collection.  Now I was obsessed.  Later I started locating CD versions of the albums and I bought those.  The Elevators epitomize the psychedelic spirit and sound.  I'm a big fan of this group as well as its co-founder the late Roky Erickson.  This music is not for everyone, but when you hear it you know who you are.

The Troll  "Animated Music"  (1968)  If you're looking for weird then look no further than this album by this short-lived group from Chicago--I give you The Troll.  A bit of Iron Butterfly mixed with Beatles, New Vaudeville Band, and whatever else you might scrape out of the record closet.  This is another find from the cut-out bins at Green Acres Discount Store in Alcoa TN.  I recall seeing quite a few copies of this one so I guess the record company had a lot of them to get rid of.  It was a fun find for me that gave me hours of listening pleasure.

Tee and Cara   "As They Are"  (1967)  This album is one of my favorite cut-out bin finds.  I recalled having heard their version of the Beatles song "Hard Day's Night" on the radio in 1967, but never saw the album anywhere.  Then in the early seventies I found it being sold for an absurdly low price in a cut-out bin. Needless to say I snatched it up.  This duo should have achieved music greatness.  This is some of the sweetest harmonizing of any pairing of singers.  As They Are is one of my all time favorite albums. Too bad they didn't make any more albums than this.  I'd never give this one up.  It's mine!

Thorinshield (1968)   I believe I paid a quarter for this album.  It was in a cut-out bin somewhere and it was inexpensive and it seemed kind of interesting.  It's a typical album of the late sixties.  Nice songs with a pleasant sound.  Maybe it's kind of collectible now. At least I've collected it. 

The Tragically Hip (EP) (1987)  My second wife Susan really liked the name of this group.  They took the name from a skit in a Michael Nesmith movie called Elephant Parts.  We bought some of their albums on cassette when we were working in Canada and we both liked the group's sound.  This vinyl was sent to me by the group's booking agency when I was inquiring with them about booking a tour in the U.S. southern states.  Due to lack of resources I never booked that tour, but I got a nice vinyl EP from the inquiry.

The Touchables Soundtrack  (1968)    "All of Us" by Nirvana   I've always been curious to see the movie this soundtrack comes from. The cover art intrigues me.  I sure it's probably a pretty bad movie judging from the reviews I've read, but still.   I've listened to this soundtrack so many times and it's not all that bad.  Unfortunately I couldn't find many cuts from the album so I've linked to my favorite by the group Nirvana which is not the same-named Seattle group that came later.

Third Ear Band "Alchemy" (1969)  And now for really weird, here's a band that sounds ethereally like some kind of world music mish mash.  In my first year at the University of Tennessee I saw this album advertised in the university's newspaper The Daily Beacon. It was an instrumental group that included an interesting sounding line-up of a percussionist playing an odd assortment of drums, a cellist, an oboist, and--wait for it--a violin player and that's all I'll say about that since I've mentioned my interest in violin music repeatedly over the course of my series.  This is music I mostly listened to alone since it was so weird and often in an altered state of mind.  

Bonus 8-Track Cartridge!   Robbin Thompson  "Robbin Thompson"  (1976)  When I moved to Richmond VA for a while in 1980 I was living a short distance from a Baptist church that I attended a few times.  I heard from someone that Robbin Thompson went there sometimes.  I only had a vague notion of who Thompson was, but later I learned that he had been with one of Bruce Springsteen's early bands and they often played at each other's performances.  Though Thompson often played at clubs around Richmond, I never saw him perform.  However in the late eighties I was surprised to find this 8-track at a Walmart in Alcoa TN in the record department's cut-out section.  The tapes were 10 for a dollar so I bought a bunch of them.  Thompson, who passed away in 2015, has collaborated with many well known artists over the years.  A few months before his passing, the state of Virginia named Thompson's hit "Sweet Virginia Breeze" as the official state rock song.   A pretty cool honor.

Robbin Thompson  Band "Two B's Please"  (1980)  With another entry by Robbin Thompson comes this album which I have on cassette and CD.  I had thought I had a copy on LP vinyl as well, but I couldn't find it.  This album has Robbin and his band with a very strong selection of songs.  This is really a great album that is worth a listen.  This should have been a big hit in my opinion. 

           

      Which of these entries are your cup of T?    Are there any artists that you are particularly obsessed with?   What other artists in the T category come to your mind?