Just a Walkin' Down the Street in a Snakeskin Garter

Manfred Mann: Snakeskin Garter, One Way Glass and Traveling Lady
From Manfred Mann Chapter 3 (Polydor, 1969)


Psychedelic Rock has been obsessively collected by smelly longhaired guys with glasses since, well, the psychedelic era. Within the last several years, the genre has enjoyed a renaissance amoung hip hop producers and beat heads due to the chunky drums, sparce arrangements, and extremely heavy fuzz found in the better output of bands with names like Boysenberry Imagination or Os Panteras Inflamables. While original records by local or obscure acid rockers can easily set you back a G or more, there are few which in my opionion can top a releatively accessable record by the same r&b/poppers who brought you "Doo Wah Diddy."

Manfredd Mann Chapter Three was formed by original Mann members Mike Huggins and Manfredd Mann after mounting frustration with melding their jazz and r&b influenced rock with the changing pop sensibilities of the time. Whether they ended up making, as the liner notes say "what we personally have been wanting to do for some years" or not, the record is pretty fantastic by today's standards. The drum sound pretty much smacks you in the face on every single song, especially Snakeskin Garter, which has a nasty drum and fuzz bass breakdown towards the end. Aside from the generic "oooh, this his drums" aspect, Chapter Three features excellent songwriting and (its secret weapon) wonderful horn arrangments. It's definitely evident that these are pop musicians with a background in jazz and music theory.

While this record gets grabbed pretty quickly, it isn't an impossible find by any means. For a listener developing a psychedelic itch, this will find a nice place in the collection filed under "albums where every single song is worth listening to."