The Seeing Eye Gods - s/t ep (1985, Epitaph)

While we're on the subject of psych pop/rock I thought this would piggyback nicely with yesterday's Shallow Reign entry. The Seeing Eye Gods were a one-off side project that was the brainchild of Bad Religion's "Mr. Brett" Gurewitz and as it's been reported, his dealer at the time,  Joe Bertini.  Taken from the website linked above here's a backgrounder. 

The Seeing Eye Gods is the name of the band Brett Gurewitz was is in in the early eighties. It was Brett's first side project and they released a self-titled 12" picture disc. It was released in 1985 on Epitaph Records at a time when he was heavily into drugs, and not on good terms with his Bad Religion band-mates.

Back then Brett had a distribution deal with a company called Sounds Good and they released about 1,000 copies. The album has a pop-psychedelic feel to it, with Brett singing on all tracks, and him and Bertini (his friend and pusher) playing all the instruments.  On this record Brett goes by the nickname "Billy Pilgrim" and John Bertini by the name "Ripped Van Winkle".

With that out of the way, the nearly half-dozen songs here presumably cut on nothing more sophisticated than an 8-track recording console aren't anywhere near the Bad Religion realm, even their botched 1983 synthesizer foray Into the Unknown. "Only One" and Psychedelic Suzy" uncannily resemble the work of the Three O'Clock, almost to the point of prompting me to wonder if SEG were something of a deliberate parody/send-up.  Seriously leaning into '60s sonic affectations, a faithful rendition of "Pictures of Matchstick Men" slots in seamlessly.  "Strawberry Girl" naggingly puts me in the mood for Buffalo Springfield, but maybe I'm alone in that observation.  A fun and surprisingly substantive record.  Per the snapshot above this was a picture disc accompanied with not-quite a proper album jacket.

01. Only One

02. Psychedelic Suzy

03. Pictures of Matchstick Men

04. Strawberry Girl

05. Happy

Hear