Lost Pebble from the Stone Age

Cromagnon's 1969 album Orgasm

A couple of posts ago I discussed some of my favorite songs from the various Nuggets and Pebbles collections (as well as some things not found on either) but I forgot one of the strangest forgotten bands of all:  Cromagnon.  I ran across them recently while searching through some of the Pebbles bands and found that they have achieved an a posteriori level of fame and recognition for their unusual sound.  Formed by multi-instrumentalists Austin Grasmere and Brian Elliot in the 1960's, Cromagnon played a truly bizarre blend of psychedelia, folk, and what appears to be a legitimate attempt to re-create the primitive sounds of prehistoric stone age music using sticks, rocks, etc (and including grunts, squeals, hoots, and other primitive vocalizations in place of actual lyrics).  Largely ignored by critics and music fans alike when it came out in 1969, their first album Orgasm has achieved cult status for its very bizarreness since.  Many listeners now see the primitive, percussion-heavy music as a sonic antecedent to the industrial music movement, particularly as practiced by bands such as Throbbing Gristle, Ministry, and Einsturzende Neubauten; others hear the stripped-down gloom of Norwegian death metal.  I was a big Test Dept. fan in the early 80's and sonically at least this is extremely similar even if conceptually they were coming from a completely different place (Test Dept. was attempting to create true "industrial" music by beating and sawing on oil drums and machinery).   Orgasm is available on iTunes; "Caledonia" is the standout track that evokes the ghost of industrial yet-to-be.

   The late 60's were definitely a strange and inventive time.  Sonny Bono was wearing fur vests and boots, so clearly a caveman vibe was in the air.  And other bands were looking for new directions:  Tyrannosaurus Rex and Led Zeppelin were also looking to the past and attempting to recreate an almost medieval/fantastical type of folk (in the late 80's Richie Blackmore took them one further and formed a true medieval/renaissance folk band with wife Candace Night known as Blackmore's Night; I have some of their stuff and its compelling in a cheesy D&D way).

Other bands were exploring the darker side of music and spirituality.  The American band Coven, formed the mid-60's by frontwoman Jinx Dawson, put out an album in 1969 that centered on themes of Satan worship, witchcraft, evil, etc.  They famously recorded a song entitled "Black Sabbath" a full year before the lads from Birmingham.  Listening to Coven today is almost laughable, however;  their "Black Sabbath" is nothing more than overwrought operatic female vocals over an almost groovy go-go boot kind of early psychedelic vibe; it almost sounds like Grace Slick singing a particularly evil version of "White Rabbit" over the theme from "The Man from Uncle", or the Stone Poneys trading in their differently beating drum for Halloween records.  The lyrics, which were undoubtedly controversial in 1969, sound silly in the post-Slayer, post-Cannibal Corpse world.  History in this case rightfully cast this version onto the slag heap and deified (or satanified?) the version by the band Black Sabbath, which remains one of the absolute scariest songs ever recorded in my opinion.  Ozzy sounds SCARED SHITLESS in the second half of this song, and this song launched a thousand (typically inferior) imitators and started entire new sub-genres such as stoner metal, death metal, black metal, etc.--even grindcore owes a thematic debt to Sabbath. 
 
Still, its interesting how similar concepts, whether conceptually, lyrically, or sonically, often coalesce in very different places at almost the same time.