Flashes

The Ill Wind: Connie Devanney (vocals); Ken Frankel (guitar, banjo, harmonica).
Personnel: Michael Walsh, Carey Mann (vocals); Ken Frankel (guitar, banjo, harmonica); David Kinsman (drums).
Audio Remixer: Gary Kellgren.
Recording information: Capitol Records, NY (1966-1968); New York, NY (1966-1968); Terry Hanley's Studio, Boston (1966-1968); Wellesley, MA (1966-1968); Westborough High School, MA (1966-1968).
Photographer: Bongiorno.
The expanded edition of Ill Wind's only album presents the original Flashes on the first disc and an entire CD of extra material from the era on the second, which amounts to no less than 15 bonus tracks. The additional recordings aren't enough to make most listeners elevate their ranking of Ill Wind to major late-'60s band status. But whatever one thinks of this talented but seriously erratic Boston outfit, the tracks on disc two are a significant augmentation of the group's slim legacy. For one thing, only one of the 15 songs ("People of the Night") appears in different guise on the Flashes LP. Also, some of the bonus cuts show Ill Wind putting an appreciably greater folk-rock/pop slant on their sound than the more generally psychedelic Flashes album offers. In part that's because most of disc two's recordings predate the release of Flashes, with four demos (in very good sound) done in Boston in 1966; five demos done for Capitol Records in New York in 1967, with Dick Weissman producing; a live track from 1967; and five basement recordings (again in good sound) cut shortly after the release of Flashes in Wellesley, MA in 1968, with Michael Walsh replacing Carey Mann on bass and vocals. Still in all, the material is fairly similar to the heavily West Coast-influenced, slightly gothic folk-rock-psychedelic of Flashes, without any songs as strong as Flashes' "Dark World" or "Sleep." Among the bonus items, "Tomorrow You'll Come Back" definitely shows the band at their poppiest, almost approaching the territory of early folk-pop-rockers like We Five, while "Mauti" bears a heavy mid-'60s Byrds influence despite its 1968 recording date. Oddly, the bonus tracks also include songs named after the band itself ("Ill Wind") and the title of their only LP ("Flashes") that somehow did not find a place on the Flashes album, where their inclusion might have seemed logical. The 12-page liner notes give a thorough history of the band, interspersed with related vintage pix and illustrations. ~ Richie Unterberger