Ultimate Spinach-Behold & See (1968)

 

Artist: Ultimate Spinach

Title: Behold & See

Label: MGM Records

Format: LP

Cat #: SE-4570

Year of Release: 1968

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1968

Listed Condition: G+/VG, cover good shape but vinyl has some surface noise, no skips

Sell Date: 1/1/21

Sell Price: $39.99

Discogs Last Sold: 12/8/20 VG+/VG+ $45.00

Low: $12.77 G/VG $12.77 

Median: $38.29

High:  $134.15 11/1/20 VG+/VG+

Current low price: $90.00 NM/VG,  $103.89 VG+/VG+

Current Number on Sale at Discogs:  4

Have/Want: 1295/1263

Where Sold:  Enfield, CT

Time it took to sell: 5 years

Where and When Bought: Worcester, MA That's Entertainment dollar bin $1.29 early 80's

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: B+

Sad To See It Go:  No

This was a pretty good dollar bin copy I got in the early 80's, where my local dollar bin was filled with trashed bygones of the psychedelic era, particularly the Jefferson Airplane which was represented in my collection with totally annihilated copies of Crown of Creation and the Worst Of compilation.  Unwanted and unloved in that era, Boston's Ultimate Spinach were a curiosity for me when the price was right.  Nowadays a good shape copy of this goes in the $100-$150 range.  I played it once, didn't care for it much and filed it away.

I gave it a relisten while I was collecting the holes in my collection from the Nick Saloman 100 in the early aughts when I was getting his Bevis Frond titles issued/reissued on Rubric in the US.  Nick is one of those handful of voices on this planet that whatever he says he likes I'll want to give a shot.    Still I didn't like Ultimate Spinach that much.  To me it was subpar east coast Airplane, and I somehow didn't have the in-its-time connection to the Summer of Love that Nick did with his list as I was Negative 2 years of age when this album came out.  But like liver and brussel sprouts, the Ultimate Spinach I've found to be an acquired taste.  Maybe I'll move on to buttermilk!

Over the years people have rolled the dice on buying this album then canceling at the last minute, so my copy has been sitting in my room recently cleaned and played.  I listened to it again yesterday and felt like the buyer got a bit of a deal at $40 in terms of condition, the quality was a negligible VG, meaning I could've priced this around $75 and not felt guilty about it, but that's the way it goes in the world of The Reverse Collector (TM).

I'm getting a third listen in via streaming in as I write this, and I have to say the album is growing on me as I put in the time.  This is one of those bands you really have to put a few listens in to get a feel for the record.  For me the best track is the opener "Gilded Lamp Of The Cosmos" from which the albums title is the refrain.  The best psychedelic workout is "Mind Flowers" that closes the first side, but "Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse" is also a contender.  I hate to be a bit of downer, but some of the choral vocals of Barbara Jean Hudson are a bit grating overall.  Multi-instrumentalist and band leader Ian Bruce-Douglas can proffer up some cringe worthy lyrics that maybe require some psychedelics or at least some good grass to get into.   "Fragmentary March of Green" is a quaint protest of the hassle of getting the kids educated in suburbia ("You Must Be Good! You Must Do Well!").

I better mellow out, man.