#dayblindness

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Special Ted Needs to keep his Doggles on!

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Special Ted

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Day Blindness

Day Blindness

Day Blindness

Studio, 1969

Still Life Girl

Jazz Song

Middle Class Lament

I Got No Money

House and a Dog

Live Deep

Young Girl Blues

Holy Land

Day Blindness are the Doors’ less insidious, more hard-rocking siblings. They cast off the gentle, refined creepiness and the elegant Morrison poetry of the Doors to produce a heavier sound still with emphasis on the mighty Farfisa, Wurlitzer, whatever organ. Day Blindness has an amateur sound and feel, after all their eponymous debut’s cover is drawn in marker (though cooly enough, one band member has the Beatles in the background of his photo on the rear of the cover). Nevertheless, the band forges a path through new territory, combining the riffs and grooves of the James Gang with the organ and cadence of the Doors, with a little Iron Butterfly thrown in. It’s entirely possible all these elements coming together are not coincidental, as Day Blindness were in Los Angeles around the same time the Doors and Iron Butterfly were cutting records. The band follows some of Butterfly’s style by using their songs as blues workouts, which are substantially longer than the psychedelic songs Iron Butterfly put out.

The band’s songs never allude to it, but Day Blindness’ drug use is an apparent point of pride, as the jacket advertises the record as a product “of many trips”, while mysterious potions and smoking joints dot the rear of the cover.

Unlike the Doors, who were never ones for the culture wars of the sixties (though they made the odd political statement), Day Blindness tackles the plasticity of the middle class dream with the song Middle Class Lament. Sounding a bit like the Bonzo Dog Band, another group that poked fun at British middle class morals and attitudes, the protagonist bemoans his dreary life now that he’s settled down and found a job. The band wails away inappropriately heavily behind the vocalist, most likely guitarist Gary Pihl. The organ, played by Felix Bria, the only non-vocalist in the trio (drummer Dave Mitchell sang as well), is always at the center of attention even though there are guitar solos and words to be sung.

Side two demonstrates the band’s imitations of the Doors to a T. Live Deep is the side’s opener, which swings pretty hard (the Doors’ default rhythm) and is sung with a Jim Morrison cadence- velvety, and trailing off at the end. Holy Land is a copy of The End. Built around a hypnotic bass line, it gently builds the track under the soft, smug voice of Gary Pihl. The beginning of the song is a messy jam that goes nowhere eternally, but as if out of thin air, a Latin groove drops down and Pihl begins asking questions of his “mother” and “father”. Sound like familiar motifs? This groove leads to an organ solo that could easily have been one of Ray Manzarek’s.

Day Blindness skimps on both quality and lyrics, preferring drawn out blues jams and guitar solos to actual content. But that doesn’t mean the album is bad- it just doesn’t stand out in a crowded field.