Ignored             Obscured              Restored

On New Year’s Day, I was listening to vinyl from my collection while watching Indiana dismantle Alabama — with the game commentary mercifully turned off.

I reached in at random and pulled out a genuine obscurity: Phluph, by Phluph (pronounced “Fluff”).  Phluph were a Boston band who recorded and released a single album on the Verve label in 1968.  Both the band and the record quickly sank into obscurity, in part because of their association with the ill-fated promotional campaign known as the Bosstown Sound.  Conceived as a way to showcase Boston-based bands — Ultimate Spinach (really), Orpheus, Eden’s Children, Earth Opera, and others — it was meant to mirror the scene that was emerging at the same time, and far more organically, in San Francisco.

Acknowledging that the Bosstown Sound was, at heart, a cynical marketing exercise doesn’t mean that none of the music it produced had value.  Phluph is a case in point.

The album’s standout track is “In Her Way,” a judgment shared by the writers at the Rockasteria blog.In their review of Phluph, they note:

“In Her Way” has got to be the pick of the bunch. Spaced out vocal harmonies and jangling guitar chords open the song before the band gets into a bass heavy groove.

The shimmering organ fades in and out under the bass line, before the track moves on to a great fuzzy guitar solo, with the guitarist making the instrument sound like a busted sitar. It’s a near perfect 3 minutes of psychedelic pop.

Not much information about Phluph has survived, but that feels oddly appropriate for a band that was — and will likely remain — a footnote in the history of late-’60s psychedelic rock.

Enjoy… until next week.