The Orange Alabaster Mushroom - Your Face Is In My Mind (1993)

This “group” was the name given to the psychedelic recordings of one man: Greg “Grog” Watson. Born in Canada, Grog’s earliest solo psychedelic work was being laid down as early as 1991, but didn’t start to get released to the public until 1996. Anyone hearing his compositions for the first time would unmistakably think they were a product of the psychedelic ‘60s, as his music not only included the ‘60s-sounding Farfisa organ, fuzzy guitars, and Indian sitar, but also had all the style and hooks that were popular during that time. Though his music put out through this name is now primarily known only to his cult following and psychedelic aficionados, both he and his work should not be forgotten when speaking of incredible psychedelic tracks.

This song, the opening track on Space & Time: A Compendium of The Orange Alabaster Mushroom, could have been presented as either being released by The 14th Wray (Grog’s prior garage-rock group) or The Orange Alabaster Mushroom (his later solo work). It has quite a detailed history, and is best explained by Grog himself, which you can read below.

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A Special Edition post with Greg "Grog" Watson from The Orange Alabaster Mushroom!
I am proud to present yet another exclusive story! This time, we were lucky enough to catch up with the man behind The Orange Alabaster Mushroom: Greg “Grog” Watson. Grog was generous enough to share the history of “Your Face Is In My Mind,” which you can hear below. Enjoy!

Hi A Bit Like You And Me and readers,

Here's the story - at least, my recollection - about "Your Face Is In My Mind":

The first couple of years I was in university, I played with a garage-punk band called The 14th Wray. The drummer, Alan Wright (RIP), had given me a bunch of his poems to try to incorporate into songs; one of them, once I had rearranged it a bit, worked well with some music I'd written based around a cool Farfisa organ riff. The only problem was that the song was definitely more in the “psychedelic” vein and consequently did not really fit with what The 14th Wray were doing musically.

Nonetheless, one night during our recording sessions, the other guitarist, Patrick, could not make it, so Alan suggested we "try one of Grog's songs". I had already practiced "Your Face Is In My Mind" with our bass player Gordon, so we ran through it a couple of times. Since the second take sounded surprisingly good, I then added the tremolo-fuzz, backward guitar parts, and sang the vocal track. I remember Alan getting a little peeved that I'd changed one of his lines from "my attraction is not blind" to "...ain't blind" in order to get the lyrics to fit the meter of the song. At any rate, once the rough mix was finished, we were all impressed by how cool it turned out.

While Alan was very keen to include it on our cassette release, Wig, Man! Wig!!!, I was reluctant since Patrick, [the other guitarist], did not play on it and we had never performed it live as a band. As it turned out, we recorded a few more songs which leaned more toward the psychedelic end of the garage spectrum, mainly with just a few members at a time, so the B-side of our cassette ended up as a compilation of these psych oddities (which we didn't play live, unlike the A-side).

Then things started to get weird when Moxie Records asked to include "Your Face Is In My Mind" on a four-song, seven-inch EP. As an aside, The Worst ([band] from Vancouver BC) were also on that EP, and when I moved out to Vancouver in 1994, I met the singer for The Worst, Greg Johnson (also RIP), at a Sky Saxon concert. Greg asked me to join his new band, The Fiends, that night, and I played guitar and organ with them for the next three years. Anyway, a couple years later, "Your Face Is In My Mind" again appeared (along with the aforementioned Worst and Fiends) on a CD compilation of Canadian garage bands from the '80s and '90s, called Time Machine.

A few years after that, in 2000, I released my compendium of The Orange Alabaster Mushroom on Earworm Records; I decided to include "Your Face Is In My Mind" on it since it was a proto-Orange Alabaster Mushroom song and fit with the other songs I'd recorded myself in the early days. At the end of the day, I guess the song lies in a gray area of sorts: neither a true 14th Wray nor Orange Alabaster Mushroom song, but a little bit of both, in a way.

Thanks for your interest and support!

Grog
The Orange Alabaster Mushroom

That should clear up any remaining confusion about “Your Face Is In My Mind”. On behalf of our readers and myself, I’d like to send a huge ‘thank you’ out to Grog for sharing this song’s history. It's always interesting to learn more about something you enjoy and it's most definitely appreciated to get this kind of detail from the man himself.

If you’re interested in hearing the other tracks from Grog’s psychedelic work, I’d highly suggest you purchase Space & Time: A Compendium of The Orange Alabaster Mushroom, which can be found here. If you’d like to connect with Grog, you can find The Orange Alabaster Mushroom on Facebook, here.

And now that you've enjoyed this exclusive story, why not check out what other exclusive stories we've received?

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The Orange Alabaster Mushroom - Your Face Is In My Mind (1993)

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Lyrics:

Those few words you said to me
Meant something
But at the same time, nothing
For I wasn't listening
I was gazing into your soul
Your face has left an impression
Deep inside my cranium
When those thoughts are realized
It's here I find

That your face is in my mind
Yeah, your face is in my mind

If I wanted you before
I didn't know and you didn't owe me
You probably never will find out
Who or what I'm all about
But I could lead you into the dark
Recesses of my being, yeah
I can picture your beauty
My attraction lies

For your face is in my mind
Yeah, your face is in my mind

Well the future hasn't gone away
I see it all too clear today
And there are things I'd like to say
But I don't know if there's a way

Your face has left impressions
Deep inside my cranium
When those thoughts are realized
It's here I find

That your face is in my mind
Yeah, your face is in my mind
Yeah, your face is in my mind
Yeah, your face is in my mind- my mind- my mind- my mind
Your face is in my mind
Yeah, your face is in my mind
Yeah, your face is in my mind- my mind- my mind- my mind- my mind
My mind, mind, mind, mind, mind…