WAYNE VERSAGE Gentle On My Mind 1969 BIRCHMOUNT PSYCH LP A Passing Fancy LISTEN

$

75

WAYNE VERSAGE "Gentle On My Mind" LP

ORIGINAL 1969 LP on the Canadian BIRCHMOUNT label, STEREO BM520

COVER IN EXCELLENT SHAPE

VINYL PLAYS VG++ to EXCELLENT

He may seem square, because Birchmount didn’t give him a cool cover shot like labelmate Suzanne.  Nor did he help matters by titling his lone album after the squarest song on it.  But make no mistake, Wayne Versage’s GENTLE ON MY MIND is a soft pop psych tour de force, right up there with the likes of Del Shannon’s CHARLES WESTOVER album and Chad & Jeremy’s THE ARK and any other square-guy-turns-on record you may think of.  It helps to know that Wayne used to sing in the Canadian garage band the Shays before that David Clayton-Thomas came along, so yeah, he’s certainly got some conversation fodder for the next time he runs into Al Kooper.  It also hopes to know that half of Canadian psych band A Passing Fancy helps out here – Jay Telfer and Greg Hambleton help out with songwriting contributions and may even play on the album, although we may never know for sure.  See, Wayne’s getting less and less square already. 

You can draw quite a few Pete Frame Rock Family Tree lines to A Passing Fancy to Wayne Versage actually.  The song “Island,” from their mega-rare album, shows up here on Wayne’s album too, and Wayne gives it a much cooler, laid-back drifty stoned vibe, with soft gentle hand drums and spooky organ, giving it the sense of stoned isolation and solitude you’d expect from a song called “Island.”  A Passing Fancy’s Jay Telfer wrote the big baroque psych pop epic “Sitting On My Windowsill,” and Wayne gives it a dramatic Lee Hazelwood/Scott Walker acid crooner vibe.  And then plunks on a big “Day In the Life” ending, with massively building crescendo at the expense of someone’s piano.  Then there’s “Flower Generation,” written by A Passing Fancy’s Greg Hambleton, which was previously recorded by the Fringe, a Canadian garage psych band featuring a slightly younger Wayne Versage!  It’s a great bit of floaty dream-psych with groovy flower power lyrics like “Flowers in her mind, she’s one of us.”  Okay, there may be no connections on the song “Now That You’re Gone,” but no matter – it’s a positively SEARING pounding bit of garage psych with downright FILTHY distorto guitar and pounding rhythm – a stone cold psych-o-delic killer track on this rare, obscure and as yet unreissued album. 

Okay, so the covers of “By The Time I Get to Phoenix”, “To Love Somebody” and “Gentle On My Mind” are skippable, and detract somewhat from what COULD have been a Canadian popsike monster on par with, you guessed it, A Passing Fancy’s album.  But Wayne Versage’s album is still 75 percent great, and if he managed to rope in a few housewives from Calgary with the sappy pop covers, then blew a few Canadian teens’ minds when they dipped into mom’s record cabinet along the way, then more power to him.  We should all be so square.

PLEASE NOTE I NO LONGER SHIP TO ITALY DUE TO A CORRUPT POSTAL SYSTEM (THERE, NOT HERE).  BUYERS FROM ITALY AGREE TO PAY FOR GLOBAL PRIORITY MAIL INSURED ONLY!

The less exciting stuff

Media mail shipping with delivery confirmation starts at $4.00 in the US, with each additional record only $1 additional shipping.  Overseas shipping has, unfortunately, gone way up in the fast few months, which translates to $15 for the first LP to Canada ($3 each one thereafter) and $24 for the first LP everywhere else in the world, with each add'l LP an extra $5 (so it pays to buy more, nudge nudge wink wink).   I accept payments through Paypal. 

I try to grade as best as I can, and I list as many blemishes/imperfections I can find (writing, ringwear, scuff marks, etc.) – Also, please note that I DO listen to these albums – I may not listen to every track, but my grades are based on LISTENING, not just looking at it, since chances are you’ll be listening to the record you buy, not just looking at it.  Most of the albums I sell are the ones I’ve enjoyed for years – and I treat my records with kid gloves.  But sounds speak louder than words, so check out the sound clips below – they’re from the actual record you’re bidding on. 

SHIPPING AND PACKAGING

Listen, I buy a bunch of records too (when I’m not getting outbid at the last second, which is more often than not) – and I know what it’s like to get a rare, one-of-a-kind album packaged dangerously in a flimsy bubblewrap package.  I hate that too.  So rest assured, I ALWAYS package albums with stiff cardboard reinforcements, same for 45s.  And yes, the records are removed from the sleeves (for albums).  I ship out once a week, every Friday, because I have a regular day job.  But I’d be willing to give that up if you’d all be so kind as to bid my items up to stupidly high amounts. 

 For more security and international tracking, you may request GLOBAL PRIORITY MAIL - but bear in mind the cost of this service is upwards of $30.  For expensive items, however, it may be well worth it.  Unfortunately, there isn’t a cost-effective way of tracking parcels to foreign countries yet, and shipping times vary depending on your country’s postal system.   Italy in particular seems to be really bad at delivering packages quickly, or delivering packages at all, now that you mention it.  I will always email you when your package ships, but once it’s on its way, please don’t ask me when it will arrive because I don’t know.  If the world’s postal systems can ever agree on a universal tracking system that’s affordable, I’ll be the first to use it.

NOW IT’S YOUR TURN…

I will always leave positive feedback for successful transactions, and would appreciate the same in return.  All I ask of you is the following – please pay for your items within 14 days of the close of auction.  Compared to other sellers, that’s a generous amount of time, so if you don’t pay within 2 weeks, then I have to assume something’s wrong.  You’ll get an Ebay payment reminder at that point, and possibly a decapitated horse head in your bed.  If, after 30 days, you still haven’t forked up the cash, I’ll relist the item and yell at you if I ever see you in town.