Ace of Cups - It's Bad for You But Buy It! (1968)

"Looking for My Man" by Ace of Cups

Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Ace of Cups were both managed by Ambrose Hollingsworth with Ron Polte taking over after a car crash turned Hollingsworth paraplegic.  The five-woman band played amongst the giants of the San Francisco acid scene but never got to expand their reputation outside of it.  The record labels and their manager could never swing the Cups a worthwhile record deal and touring outside of the Bay area was a non-starter for young women with filial obligations.

So, the Ace of Cups never released an album or even a single (in their first incarnation, anyway) and all the testament of their sixties sound can be found in the compilation album It's Bad for You But Buy It! released by Big Beat Records (with 1968 being the year the last recording on the record was set.)  The album is a grab bag of potential never refined.  At their best, they find a mix of genres (R&B girl groups, gospel, acid rock,...) that suit their skills and voices, but the surviving evidence on the albums has them repeating winning formulas too often and not quite finding other signs of sleeping hits or dizzying jams.  With the compilation album alone not enough to make their case for lost gems, the Ace of Cups's sixties reputations remains with those who witnessed them... like Jimi Hendrix who touted their guitarist (Mary Ellen Simpson) as "hell, really great."

Noted: Included in the discography is a recording by future-Cup Denise Kaufman with her high school band.

Here is the discography surrounding Ace of Cups's debut compilation album:

Boy, What'll You Do Then (1966 single by Denise and Co.)

Girls in the Garage (compilation song by Denise and Co.)

Girls in the Garage Volume 3 (compilation song)

It's Bad for You But Buy It!

"Gospel Song" by Ace of Cups

"Simplicity" by Ace of Cups

"Stones" by Ace of Cups

"Boy, What'll You Do Then" by Denise and Co.

Pass the Headphones!!

Quicksilver Messenger Service - Quicksilver Messenger Service (1968)

"It's Been Too Long" by Quicksilver Messenger Service

When Jefferson Airplane was in need of a drummer, they recruited Skip Spence, a guitarist from the early lineup of Quicksilver Messenger Service, a band that rehearsed at Marty Balin's Matrix Club.  (Another source says Spence was actually a member of the garage rock band The Other Side when called over to Airplane, but we'll stick with Quicksilver.)

Quicksilver Messenger Service formed haphazardly around misfits and jailbirds (for marijuana possession) into a psychedelic jam blues band.  Their brand of blues excelled when their extended jams sought to push the genre into a more psychedelic or hard blues direction, though they could just as easily lack in cleverness or inspiration within the same song.  Quicksilver's worst quality was that they lost all sense of the blues whenever either David Friedman or Gary Duncan started to sing, and their pop song craft was too weak to stand on its own in a jam session setting.

But I'm not being fair to the band because their debut LP Quicksilver Messenger Service (released in 1968 on Capitol Records) is actually very good.  The record does away with Quicksilver's reliance on the Blues in their live sets and focuses on a more contemporary pop sound anchored in the dueling guitars of John Cipollina and Gary Duncan, and it's a wonder what actually hitting your harmonies can do to help a song along.

But the album doesn't capture what Quicksilver's sound was trying to achieve in the live setting, a "new sound" sourced from jazz, folk and blues that, at this early stage of the band's lifespan, was only just an insoluble mix of blues and psychedelic pop with both components stronger apart than stirred together.

Also included on this tour stop is the garage rock band in which Gary Duncan and Greg Elmore started their recording career: The Brogues.

Here is the discography surrounding Quicksilver Messenger Service's debut album:

But Now I Find (1965 single by The Brogues)

Don't Shoot Me Down (1965 single by The Brogues)

Live in San Jose - September 1966 (live album)

Live at the Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco, 9th September 1966 (live album)

Live at the Avalon Ballroom, San Francisco, 28th October 1966 (live album)

Fillmore Auditorium - November 5, 1966 (live album)

Live at The Fillmore, San Francisco, 4th February 1967 - Early Show (live album)

Live at The Fillmore, San Francisco, 4th February 1967 - Late Show (live album)

Fillmore Auditorium - February 5, 1967 Live (live album)

Live at The Fillmore, San Francisco, 6th February 1967 (live album)

Live at the Winterland Ballroom - New Year's Eve 1967 (live album)

Live at The Carousel Ballroom, San Francisco, San Francisco, 4th April 1968 (live album)

Live at the Fillmore, June 7, 1968 (live album)

Revolution (1968 soundtrack album)

Dino's Song (1968 single)

Quicksilver Messenger Service

Stand by Me (1968 single)

Smokin' Sound (1968 live album)

The Hush Records Story (compilation album featuring The Brogues)

Unreleased Quicksilver Messenger Service: Lost Gold and Silver (compilation album)

"Dino's Song (Live at the Monterey Pop Festival)" by Quicksilver Messenger Service

"Acapulco Gold and Silver (Live at The Fillmore)" by Quicksilver Messenger Service

"But Now I Find" by The Brogues

Pass the Headphones!!