Ozzie- The Parabolic Rock: 1975 - 1982 2LP (SS039)

Rare and bizarro 70s California art-rock, newly unearthed by the good folks over at S.S. Records, released in 2010 as a 2xLP set. If you dig Devo, Sparks, The Quick, Tubeway Army, etc, then this is probably going to be your new jam. My brother Zack just walked into the room and confirmed it: "Yeah, this is my style..." So it was written, so it shall be...

"Android Love"- Their rad first single.


"Big Body Build"- Easy to hear Ozzie's direct influence on Nothing People


"Scattered Values"- A fine example of Ozzie's off-kilter power-pop


Download Link Removed: Purchase the wax from Academy or the mp3s from Other Music Digital

Promo write-up:
SSR Records: This double album vinyl release features 24 songs covering the career of one of Sacramento's most iconoclastic eclectic obscurantist proto-punk-art-rock bands (and, yes, I know that's too many mouth mumbling words).

From their ground-breaking rock opera, Berlin 1990 to their historic opening for The Talking Heads to their years in Los Angeles, competing for attention with spandexed hair-bands and mohawked poseurs, The Parabolic Rock tells the story of a Sacramento band's eccentric adventures on the blurred periphery of obscurity and cult status.

It is 1971 in a small town near Santa Cruz, California. Three friends from Sacramento have just polished off a bottle of cheap wine to the sounds of Captain Beefheart’s Strictly Personal and wander on to the beach with a couple of harmonica and a guitar. For the next couple of hours, they howl out some Beefheart inspired blues yuck. Thus begins a musical relationship that would become the band Ozzie. From their wine-soused, Magic Band obsessed roots to their art-rock/new wave end some ten years later, Ozzie made some fantastic music. They built up substantial followings in Sacramento, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. They were a Mabuhay Gardens regular, sharing the bill with bands like the Weirdos, The Sleepers, VOM, and the Nuns. In Sacramento, they played with everyone from the Rutabaga Boogie Band and the Talking Heads to the Nerves and the Fleshtones. However like many bands of the time, their limited output (only three 7”s during their lifetime) and difficulty fixing them to one musical subgenre led to their obscurity and ultimately them being forgotten. In the early 90s, S.S. stumbled upon Ozzie’s 1977 debut single, “Android Love”, and flipped. He tracked down one of the band’s main members, William Fuller, and struck up a friendship with him.

A decade later S.S. tosses Fuller the idea to reissue “Android Love” single with a different B side. Fuller digs out some reel to reel tapes, an act that starts a multi-year odyssey through the Ozzie archives, recordings and print material spanning from the mid 70s to the early 80s. The proto-punk meets glam wildness what made “Android Love” (produced by Public Nuisance/Twinkeyz David Houston) such a great song was present in the tapes, but there was more: Massive doses of Blue Oyster Cult inspired hard rock brilliance, Roxy Music glam drama, Sparks-like art, Bomp! Records-worthy power pop, edgy new wave that recalls the Suburban Lawns, and mid-Seventies-style underground rock sounds that thrill any collector of private press obscurities, all with a Keith Moon/Jethro Tull inspired drummer. By the time, S.S. was done digging through the archives, he’d assembled a solid double album worth of unreleased and live material, as well as alternative tracks and a few gems from Ozzie’s previously released stuff. Complete with a full history of the band, lots of photos, and archival images “The Parabolic Rock: 1975 – 1982” is the definitive document of Sacramento’s forgotten band, one worthy of mention with Sacto underground icons Public Nuisance, the Twinkeyz, and Tales of Terror.

"This Ozzie comp is nuts. Reissue of the year." - Rich Kroneiss, Terminal Boredom