Michael Draine's Twisted Vista
Hava Narghile:
Turkish Rock Music 1966 to 1975
(Bacchus Archives)
Ever since it dawned on me that Dick Dale’s
surf classic “Miserlou” is electrified
Middle Eastern wedding music, I’ve been
scouting for its cross-cultural correlate.
And here it is…a carefully annotated and
colorfully illustrated chronicle of the
amazing, hitherto unexplored Turkish
psychedelic scene. A broad range of styles
emerge in these 22 tracks: haunting
ballads by Baris Manco & Kaygisizlar and
Erkin Koray; Apaslar’s Easternized
Fillmore-style jamming; Istanbul super-
group Mogollar’s sitar-psych, and belly-		Music Review Index
dance music, something like the Indian
soundtrack Thora Birch was grooving to
at the beginning of Ghost World. While
these Turkish tripsters radiate the
naïve charm shared by their American
garage counterparts, the musicianship
and vocal range far surpasses anything
you’d hear on a Pebbles compilation.
This musical voyage comes highly
recommended, though be warned that
roughly half the tracks have high
levels of vinyl transcription noise.
Since the release of Hava Narghile,
some of the bands represented herein
have received full-length CD reissues.
published in Vendetta #17, Jan 2002
www.dionysusrecords.com