Friday, March 27, 2009

Crystal Chandelier's "Suicidal Flowers"

"The Flowers Wilt Away"
Before Crystal Antlers, Crystal Castles, Crystal Stilts and Crystal Skulls, before Damien Hirst sold that ridiculous diamond encrusted crystal skull, The Crystal Chandelier made it cool to be associated with a "solid whose constituent atom, molecules, or ions are arranged in an orderly repeating pattern extending in all three spatial dimensions." The super obscure and hard to Google band was a pioneer of the dark psyche garage movement. Appropriately, their single "Suicidal Flowers" appears on the ever enlightening Acid Dreams Epitaph: 75 Minutes of Green Fuz compilation, as well as the legendary Pebbles Vol. 3: The Acid Gallery. I really don't know anything about these guys except that they released a string of singles between '68-'69, and they sort of remind of the Count Five, in that I could see them wearing Vampire capes while performing. While the band often tended to fall on the psych-folk side of the equation (ala Incredible String Band), for me, their crowning achievement is "Suicidal Flowers", a dark psyche rave-up complete with ripping fuzz guitar solos, spine shaking organ creeps and mystical lyrics about wilting flowers and aged queen's. If you think Sun Dial's Other Way Out is an underrated classic, then Crystal Chandelier's "Suicidal Flowers" will be right up your alley.

Crystal Chandelier "Suicidal Flowers"

2 comments:

Term Papers said...

Awesome Crystal Chandelier's "Suicidal Flowers"
"The Flowers Wilt Away". I really liked it. and i have enjoyed reading your Blog.

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oriolefreak84 said...

It's funny, I thought I was one of the only people to love Crystal Chandelier's music. It's so cool that it's on the internet for people to listen to. My Dad, Frank Giammarco was one of the guitarists and back up singers in 68 and I think 69. He was only 18 at the time. He still has the "Suicidal Flowers" single. I actually have an LP on CD which my uncle made from the old records, it has 4 songs: Suicidal Flowers, Setting of Despair, Land of Love, and one other song which slips my mind at the moment. If any one would like it I'd be glad to upload the other 3 songs for people to check out. Please email me if you guys want to check out the other songs.