Influenced by the songs and sounds created by garage and psychedelic bands of the mid to late ‘60s, Greg “Grog” Watson set out in 1992 to record his own songs using similar aesthetics, while confined to the limitations of using a portable four-track cassette studio in his bedroom. He named his recording project “The Orange Alabaster Mushroom”, inspired by a cherished paperweight. Four years later, a small Norwegian label released a four song 7” EP from these sessions, and The OAM started to develop a cult status around the globe. This led to more recording sessions, a second 7” record and then a full-length LP released in England in 2000. Shortly thereafter, Grog assembled a full band of friends to perform the recordings in a live setting, and the band has been playing around Ontario as The Orange Alabaster Mushroom ever since – with a few hiatuses along the way – blowing minds with their psychedelic sounds.
Kingston’s answer to the Bevis Frond, the Orange Alabaster Mushroom is bedroom D.I.Y. auteur Greg Watson, whose one-man band reproductions of classic circa-1967 psych-pop are so dead-on perfect in every detail that one could play this collection of 1991-1998 recordings for any fan of Nuggets-era obscurities and they’d think it was authentic circa 1967 psych-pop.