There is something anachronistic to the Greek rock scene. Although it started out normally in the early-to-mid 60's with garage bands emulating The Beatles, Stones, Animals etc. it suffered a setback during the years of the colonels' dictatorship (1967-1974). Despite seizing power with U.S. help (ostensibly to ward off the "red scare"), the dictators were mistrustful of American culture. Elvis was OK, The Beatles were too big to ignore, but all other rock was kept out of the airwaves after '67. If I remember correctly, the Woodstock movie was also hurriedly pulled off cinemas in 1970 when deemed too dangerous to the morals of Greek youth. A few rock bands did exist, and they catered to a small informed audience, but only those with contacts abroad or those who lived inside the radius of the U.S. Army Base radio would get to listen to the likes of Hendrix, Cream, Doors etc. Flower-power was something to ridicule in popular musical comedies, not a movement. Then, in 1974, the regime fell and a little rock music crept in through official and (mainly) pirate stations. Greek teenagers of the late 70's were thus simultaneously exposed to psychedelia, prog, metal, punk and new wave. There's not much of a time gap between first generation psych rockers like PLJ Band, who released their debut LP in 1982, and the first neo-psychedelic bands like No Man's Land (formed in '85) and Purple Overdose (formed in '87). Also, a lot of psychedelic rock LP's were issued for the first time in Greece in the mid-80's: I have records by The Human Beinz, H.P. Lovecraft, Electric Prunes etc. from that era, all released 15 years after their original circulation. Imagine, at the time these LP's were only available as new items in record shops in Greece, when in the U.S. and Europe you could only find them at garage sales and the like. Vinyl collectors, take note!
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The belated influx of all these psychedelic records was one of the reasons that neo-psychedelia and garage rock took roots in Greek underground culture of the 80's, probably more than any other European country. Purple Overdose leader Costas Constantinou mentions Jefferson Airplane as his introduction to psychedelic rock, then Electric Prunes and 13th Floor Elevators. He wrote some songs in that vein during the early 80's but had to wait until 1987 to find a band to play them. That was the early form of Purple Overdose, which also included Zaharias whom Athens music lovers will probably recognize from his famous records shop in Monastiraki (Athens), rather than from his stint in various Greek rock bands. Early P.O. also shared a couple of members with No Man's Land: Bassist "Sugar" George Papageorgiades stayed on, while drummer George Nikas returned to N.M.L. and was replaced by Chris Triantafilopoulos halfway through the recording of this album. The fourth member of the band for this recording is organist Michalis Vassiliou, whose keyboards are the most dominant sound on this LP. If I had to use one word to describe this album that may have been "groovy", and that is the result of Vassiliou's keyboards as much as Constantinou's compositions. The album opens and closes with the 2 halves of "Exit#4", a surf/psych instrumental that reminds me of Chocolate Watch Band's "Dark Side Of The Mushroom". Then the first voice we hear belongs not to the lead singer, but bassist George who takes lead vocal on "Are You There?". It's a nice melodic piece that falls between typical West Coast psychedelia and early Syd Barret-fronted Pink Floyd. It's one of their older songs, featuring Nikas as a drummer. Other songs by the same line-up include "When You Talk About Me" which starts off as a waltzy, Country Joe & The Fish-style tune and gets more intense/loud later, as well as a 13th Floor Elevators pastiche called "Elevation". "Holes" is a loud 6-minute garage rocker, the best of the early batch, and the only one of that early batch often played live.
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The newer songs show a marked improvement in the space of a few months: "Yellow Mole" sports a catchy tune, the organ is more to the fore, and the vocals are better realized, especially the combination of lead and backing vocals. "Blue Torture" is a bluesy song reminiscent of Love's "Signed D.C.", and "Orange Journey" (they had a color theme going, an allusion to acid trips and synesthesia maybe?) a mid-tempo piece with Doors-y keyboards. Last but not least -actually one of their most popular songs and perennial live favorite- is the ultra-catchy "Rooby Go Round", a perfect synthesis of Jefferson Airplane (the male/female vocal harmonies with guest singer Evie Hassapidou, then still a member of No Man's Land) and The Doors (the Ray-Manzarek-Goes-To-The-Carnival organ). This album was a pretty accomplished one by the standards of the Greek Alternative scene of the 80's, but with hindsight it's just a taste of greater things to come. The production and arrangements are relatively basic, and the overall sound rawer and closer to the garage side of psychedelia rather than the prog side they would later favor. On the other hand, it's the easiest of their albums to get a hold of thanks to Pop+Rock magazine, a mainstream music monthly that gave it away on CD as premium, sometime in the late 90's. A lot of that batch are still available 2nd hand pretty cheap, while both the original first pressing and 1993 limited re-release on yellow vinyl are rather costly. Albums 2, 3, and 4 (all great) were only ever released on vinyl and are now even more rare. Some more recent compilations of demos and live tracks are easier to get, but of less interest - so, while Exit#4 is not the best or most typical P.O. album out there, it could still make for a good introduction to the band.
***** for Rooby Go Round
**** for Yellow Mole, Holes, Orange Journey
*** for Exit #4 (Intro), Are You There?, When You Talk About Me, Elevation, Blue Torture, Exit #4 (Outro)
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