drywater: backbone of the nation

First ever reissue of this massively cool and hideously rare 1973 rural Pennsylvania private press jewel, originally released on the legendary RPC custom label in an edition of only 25 copies. The sound is essentially split between the two dominate modes of polarized male youth psyche: alternating moody, dejected, love scorned, melancholy folkrock with wasted, howling, proto-punk garage fuzz brain fry. All together it's a totally sincere lost in time vibe, delivered with gobs of naive charm and executed with almost zero resources. The album was recorded and mixed direct to tape in just a few hours, without overdubs or even the option to mix down. You can hear the clearly unprepared recording engineer frantically flipping switches and tweaking knobs in a state of near panic as these kids tear furiously through a rapid fire album worth of original songs, always teetering on the edge of total collapse, yet never quite imploding. While the end results are, to say he least, very crude, the band pulls together a distinct and wonderful sound. Underpinned by Ken Turcic's dry, low, rubbery bass lines and Greg Cheplick's wildly raw and cool drumming (he's only 15 at the time) Dennis Cheplick (Greg's older brother) and Jack Sarvis trade off vocal duties, guitars licks, and writing credit. Rhythm guitars chug excitedly, acoustic 12-string adds a sweet, chiming, folky texture, and Sarvis switches between a great, slightly surf-tinged ringing reverb tone and frenetic fuzz figures. Totally essential if the sound of 'rural,' 'real people,' and 'garage' all in the same sentence peaks your interest. Pressed on highest quality 180 gram virgin vinyl. Packaged in an exact reproduction heavy weight reverse tip-on cover, with exact repro label art, a heavy double sided insert with loads of vintage color photos and extensive liner notes, plus a bonus heavy vinyl 45 rpm 7-inch.One time vinyl only pressing of 500 copies.