Ill Wind - Flashes (1968)

"People of the Night" by Ill Wind

Ken Frankel was a veteran musician by the time he decided to attend MIT as a biophysics graduate student.  He played rock and roll in high school then folk music with the likes of Jerry Garcia in Hart Valley Drifters.  At MIT, he returned to rock music forming a band with fellow graduate student Carey Mann.

Over the course of the band's early life, they settled on a name and a style that echoed the mix of folk, jazz, garage rock and psychedelia brewed in San Francisco.  Like the Bay bands, Ill Wind were skilled musicians and brought a different kind of psychedelia with their unique and dreamy amplifications.  But their version of the San Francisco Sound lacked grit or much complexity, smoothed down to be shapeless and inoffensive and, as a result, forgettable.  They released their only album Flashes in 1968 on ABC Records before departures led to Ill Wind's eventual abatement.

Here is the discography for Ill Wind:

High Flying Bird (1968 single)

Walkin' and Singin' (1968 single)

Flashes

"Walkin' and Singin'" by Ill Wind

"Dark World" by Ill Wind

Pass the Headphones!!