John Townley's AstroCocktail

The Family of Apostolic

About The Family of Apostolic

by John Townley, interviewed by Kurt Benbenek

"It was a general set of what my then wife Gilma and my friends and I were playing
with at the time, both musically and recordingwise. We were just seeing what a brand-new
expensive toy like the first-ever 12-track state-of-the-art studio could do, along with the complete set
of all kinds of international instruments I invested in to go along with it. I produced the
album and am all over it, but you'll notice fiddler Jay Ungar (of later "Achoken Farewell"
fame from the PBS Civil War series) and a lot of other incredible
talent mixing and matching to see what came out...

Bubbling Brook and Water Music were both done in the studio, with sounds mixed in.
Another attempt at outdoors done indoors was Mabel's Umbrage, where the distant
rauschpfiefe I played was replayed and rerecorded on opposite sides of a closed studio wall
to give it that effect. Saigon Girls was a tune written by Garry Bonner and Alan Gordon
(who wrote most of the Turtles' hits, like "Happy Together"), earlier part of
The Magicians along with Alan Jacobs (Bunky and Jake) and myself. The "new report"
on it was recorded on a two-bit 7/8ips dimestore machine and played back
on it with a snare drum for gunfire. The woman crying on that cut later married (for a time)
our first engineer Tony Bongiovi, cousin of Bon Jovi.

"The most unappreciated cut was probably Taking Me Home, recorded on a primitive Norelco
1 7/8ips machine in our apartment (cover girl and daughter Deirdre is now 41, then three),
unless one is into the likes of John Cage and Nam June Paik. What's of interest is not the tune,
but the fact that she is clearly intentionally playing with and concentrating on the
beat tones and overtone series between her voice and the pump organ she
was fingering at the time. Children do that naturally, adults have to be trained to it.
The album photos were taken mostly with friends on Block Island, and
that littlest short, brown-haired girl is Aida Turturro, now on The Sopranos."

click image above for full size outer gatefold

The Family of Apostolic

Produced by John Townley for Tenth Street Productions
Copyright 1968 Vanguard Recording Society, Inc

recorded at Apostolic Studios

Engineering: Randy Rand, Peter Atchley,
John Kilgore, Matt Hoffman and John Townley
Photography by John Townley - Gilma Townley

mp3s encoded @ 135 kbps (VBR)
44.100 kHz - MPEG-1 Layer 3 - stereo
taken directly from the original vinyl

Side One (mp3s)

Redeemer John Townley 1:57
Zoo Song Gilma Townley 2:33
Spring Song John Townley 1:50
Down the Road Trad. arr. by Gilma and John Townley 1:57
Please Be Mine John Townley 1:41
Did You Like the Party Robert Berkowitz 2:29

all songs but Down the Road Epiphany Publications - BMI

Side Two (mp3s)

Fiddler A Dram John Townley, J. Ungar 2:49
Bubbling Brook (instrumental) John Townley, J. Ungar 3:19
I Won't Be Sad Again John Townley 2:06
Old Grey House Robert Berkowitz 2:53
Dholak Gheet J. Ungar, L. Hardy 3:58

all songs Epiphany Publications - BMI

click image above for full size inner gatefold

Side Three (mp3s)

Doin' A Stretch J. Townley, Gilma Townley 3:10
The Lone Pilgrim Trad. arr John Townley 2:53
Water Music (instrumental) John Townley 1:34
Grotesque Silly Bird Gilma Townley 5:58
Taking Me Home Diedre Heather Townley 2:29

all songs but The Lone Pilgrim Epiphany Publications - BMI

Side Four (mp3s)

O Splendour Arr. David Ames; Clarendon Press, Oxford 1:08
Lilting Lil Gilma Townley 2:19
Mabel's Umbrage (instrumental) Gilma Townley 3:24
Devil's Yard Gilma Townley 1:15
Personality John Townley 1:47
Saigon Girls Bonner-Gordon; Chardon Music - BMI

all songs but O Splendour + Saigon Girls Epiphany Publications - BMI

click below for each full size record label

Many thanks to Kurt Benbenek and Houseplant Picture Studio for transferring the original LP to .mp3