The Classics: Morning Disaster, “Black Leather Books” (3:04)
“Black Leather Books” by the Colonial Heights-based Morning Disaster is both a shimmering sonic jewel of a song — all mysterious Byrds-y chord changes and apocalyptic Doors-like lyrics — and a fascinating local music history lesson. In Morning Disaster, led by songwriter and organist Stanley Rose and longtime area drummer Bob Antonelli, we hear the first flowering of the Virginia Commonwealth University (then RPI) art school influence that so colors the music of Richmond today. “Nobody wanted to do original music around here. There was no demand for it at all,” Rose says about that period in the late '60s when the edgy Morning Disaster was opening for the likes of Iron Butterfly. The band held court at an adventurous Fan club at the corner of Laurel and Broad called the Asparagus Farm, toured the North Carolina college circuit and played packed shows at Dogwood Dell. Not long after the group recorded a demo tape in 1968 that went nowhere, it disbanded. Stanley Rose quit playing music and the group's recordings — including the sublime “Black Leather Books” — survived only on a homemade eight-track tape, which was rediscovered by archivist Brent Hosier and released on “Aliens Psychos & Wild Things Vol. 3 (Virginia & Outer Space 1965-70).” Clearly, judging from the evidence, the Morning Disaster was the one that both led the way and got away. — Don Harrison (Source: Style Weekly)
Check out the song here.