What a wonderful album. All the good parts and none of the excessive and self-indulgent stuff. Dark Star, Saint Stephen, and The Eleven are improvisational but take care of business, almost like jazz. Pigpen made Turn on Your Lovelight a personal statement—take your hands outta your pocket. Death Don’t Have No Mercy made me think of the Reverend Gary Davis. Outstanding all the way down even if you aren’t on acid.
I learned a word from Discogs. A double record set with side 4 on the flip of side 1 (and 2 with 3) is called auto-coupled. It’s for folks who use a record changer—put side 2 atop side 1 on the tall spindle, push the arm over, play them, and flip them over. If you have a turntable, there’s the bother of playing side 1, then putting that back in the sleeve, taking the second disk out for side 2, then repeat. When I was young, my family had a Santa rubber eraser sitting on the tone arm of the record player so it wouldn’t skip.
I still have the insert for this record. It is an 11×17 sheet folded over with Celtic-style art and the lyrics, such as they are.
converselyspeaking 