The Wildflower CD

"Forty Years in the Blink of an Eye"

The Songs
1. Message To You
2. Please Come Home
3. Look Out Your Window
4. A Change Today
5. How Fast You Got To Go
6. Funny Too
7. Ancient Blue
8. Lonesome Don't You Fall On Me
9. Wind Dream
10. Saturday’s Mind
11. Coffee Cup
12. In My Mind
13. On Even Red
14. Of Planets, Mirrors and Man

THE WILDFLOWER
Stephen Ehret vocals/12 string/bass
John Jennings vocals/bass/guitar
Michael Brown vocals/guitar
Tom Ellis drums/percussion
Felix Bannon lead guitar
Robert South keyboards
with
Kenny Blacklock penneywhistle
Michael McCausland lyrics

REVIEWS

I scarfed up the Wildflower CD as soon as it arrived. I heard the band a number of times and my sister-in-law was a big fan. What fun. Sounds like all those years ago once again..
JOEL SELVIN S.F. Chronicle

Below is the column I submitted to Uncut, I believe it's their January issue.
THE SPECIALIST
This Month: The roots of West Coast psych and folk/rock

…Finally, there's the unlikely saga of The Wildflower. Among the first-wave of the ballroom groups, they splintered early, their quirky, moody madrigal harmony pop barely recorded for posterity.
Bandleader Stephen Ehret reunited the original quartet for
FORTY YEARS IN THE BLINK OF AN EYE (thewildflower-sf.com) rescuing a passel of lost songs once performed at psychedelia's dawn. The haunting,existentialist "Look Out Your Window," and a Dead-like turn, "A ChangeToday," co-written with poet Michael McCausland, ring true to the spirit of '67.
LUKE TORN Uncut Magazine

Just wanted to write and say I've been enjoying your CD immensely. I've been listening to it a lot. Even though it was recorded recently the songs all still have that great vintage SF sound. If that record would have come out back then, history would have been different!
I'll be reviewing the CD in the coming issue.
http://www.ugly-things.com/
Take care,
ERIC BLUHM Ugly-Things magazine

The Wildflower
Forty Years in the Blink of an Eye
Air It Productions CD
http://www.thewildflower-sf.com/

The Wildflower got their start in Oakland in ’65 and quickly got to gigging ‘round Bay Area venues like the Straight Theatre, the Fillmore, Avalon Ballroom, and even the Red Dog Saloon up in Virginia City where the Charlatans did their thang. Like the Dead, the Wildflower had a poet on the payroll—Michael McCausland—who, as Robert Hunter did for Jerry and co., tossed down heady lyrics for the guys to twang behind. And twang they did. Their harmonious Frisco folk rock is pretty much what you’d describe if you were trying to nail down a definition of “that” sound. Only better. The bad news is the only thing ever released back then were four tracks they contributed to the A Pot of Flowers comp—Mainstream’s stab at documenting the Frisco hippy scene (two of ‘em came out as a single as well). But what songs they were. Jangly and oftentimes mystical, they sit confidently alongside the other (absolutely killer) Bay Area groups on the record, the Otherside and Harbinger Complex.
The good news is that lead Flower Stephen Ehret thought it would be a good idea to go back in the studio now and record all the old songs that never made it to tape. My own modern recording prejudices aside, the results are pretty darned good. The harmonies are still there, in that haunting post-folk way that only kids who lived crowded together in Victorians could achieve. First there’s “Message to You”—uncannily catchy, a little mellowed with age, but take away the feelgoodness and it’s a Markley-esque ditty with great self-introspection lyrics (something the Wildflower is good at if you’ve heard their “Wind Dream”). “Please Come Home” suffers the most from… uhhh, technology, but underneath the Heavy Metal Pedal the secret’s revealed as to where Paul Kantner got his ideas for Blows Against the Empire. “Of Planets, Mirrors, and Men” has a haunting New Age Native/American vibe (in a good way!) and is reminiscent melody-wise of “Ripple” which it probably predates. “On Even Red” is a simply fantastic combo of Brautigan sincerity and get-chicks harmonies (pretty much the same thing I guess)—a tune criminally missing from our psyche for the last forty years. A song like “In My Mind,” with its “Hi–de-hi” verse easing into the heavier chorus must’ve been a trip live had we all been around to catch it. You can’t have it all, but stuff like this kinda makes up for it.
ERIC BLUHM Ugly-Things magazine

Thanks very much indeed, the Wildflower CD arrived yesterday and I have been enjoying listening to it today. It was well worth the wait, the finished result is excellent and I hope the disc gets the attention it deserves.
I think that the fact you didn't record so much back in the day works in your favour here as you avoid comparisons between the new and old recordings. Personally I think the new recordings of Coffee Cup and Wind Dream stand up extremely well to the original versions. I'll do my best to spread the word about the CD, I'll try and get some reviews into some of the magazines that cover 60s era recording artists.
Cheers
GRAY NEWELL UK westcoastpsychedeliaandacidrock