The Third Bardo ‎– I’m Five Years Ahead Of My Time / Rainbow Life (7″ Vinyl)

Description

Reissue / Vinyl single repro – 45 rpm

1967-USA

Format: 7″ Vinyl

#Ref: 3667

Release date: 2000s

Release notes

Repro of super rare Bell Studios (NY) acetate of the 2 songs in their only single on Roulette Records. Fabulous 60’s Garage-Psych with Eastern melody techniques and distorted guitar sound.

100 Greatest US Garage/Teenbeat/Psych 45:s. Number five.

The Third Bardo were a psychedelic garage rock band from New York who distinguished themselves from their contemporaries with an Eastern influence which infiltrated both the band’s name – a reference to Bardo Thodol; popularly known in the West as The Tibetan Book of the Dead – and their sound. You can hear this influence in the mind-expanding minor chords of I’m Five Years Ahead Of My Time and in its searing, needle-sharp guitar solo.

The Third Bardo were active for a couple of years in the late ‘60s and in that time managed the sum total of one recording session. Out of this session came six tracks, including I’m Five Years Ahead Of My Time, and its B-side Rainbow Life, which is considerably further out there than Five Years… and no better for it, lacking the grit and vehemence of the main track. A lot of this harshness and attitude came from the ultra-confident lyrics and sandpaper vocal chords of singer Jeff Monn.

I’m living somewhere in a new dimension,
I’m leaving everyone so far behind
Don’t waste any time girl, step inside my mind
I’m five years ahead of my time
Look into my mind, look ahead, don’t look behind
I’m five years ahead of my time

The song stopped getting radio play when someone looked at these lyrics and leapt to the conclusion that they could be construed as drug-related.

This proved to be their one and only single release. Jeff Monn went on to release music as a solo artist, toning down the garage and psychedelia in favour of a more accessible, straightforward hippy sound, before re-emerging later with an album of entertaining blues rock under the stage name of Chris Moon with The Chris Moon Group.

The Third Bardo were in danger of being completely forgotten, but fortunately I’m Five Years Ahead Of My Time made it on to a 1979 Pebbles compilation of psych/garage rock and several such subsequent collections.

Tracklisting

A. I’m Five Years Ahead Of My Time (2:12)

B. Rainbow Life (2:36)