The Graveyard Five / The Graveyard Theme b/w The Marble Orchard (7″ Vinyl)

Description

45rpm – / 2014 reissue – limited edition of 500 / with replica labels

1968-USA

Format: 7″ Vinyl

#Ref: Sr-102

Release date: 2014

Release notes

Lysergic Sound Distributors, Tucson, Arizona announces the first ever fully authorized, licensed, restored, and remastered reissue of the legendary Graveyard Five 45, featuring “The Graveyard Theme” b/w “The Marble Orchard”. This 45 is one of the true “holy grails” of the garage rock collector world and number 11 on the G100 Collectible U.S. Garage 45’s List. Truly, one of the rarest 45’s in the world, there are only a handful of original copies known to exist and they have sold for more than $4500 when they’ve come on the market.

The Graveyard Five (the band claimed they got their name from a Ouija board session) hailed from Lakeport, California and gigged all around the East Bay. The band was comprised of four musicians but appeared onstage with a coffin, which they considered the fifth member of the group! After winning a battle of the bands contest, the band was awarded a contract with local producer Stan Sweeney, which resulted in the now-legendary single being released on his Stanco label in September 1968.

The A side of the single, “The Graveyard Theme”, an exercise in fuzz guitar excess, was inspired by the Ouija board session in which the band derived it’s name. The legend goes, members of the band sat down at a Ouija board, turned off all the lights, their hands got cold and they heard someone walking outside the window in the gravel. There was no one there! After that, the “Graveyard Five” came to life.

The B side of the single, the fuzz guitar soaked reverb-laden monster, “The Marble Orchard”, was written in Lakeport’s Hartley Cemetery by lead guitarist Louie Shriner and bassist Steve Kuppinger. The song starts off with the thump of a panic stricken heartbeat and then proceeds to tell the true tale of a creepy, wet October night the duo spent in the cemetery where they were convinced they saw something move from behind a tombstone and then heard “a wolfpack howl”.

If the circumstances and subject matter of these songs isn’t enough to scare the socks off of you, the recording studio where these songs were recorded was supposedly haunted by a spectre that provided guest background vocals in the form of a growling noise that’s clearly audible near the end of “The Marble Orchard”.

A true masterpiece of 60’s U.S. garage rock that’s finally available as a reissue after more than 45 years.

Tracklisting

A. The Graveyard Theme B. The Marble Orchard