Music Reissues Weekly: The Peanut Butter Conspiracy - The Most Up Till Now

“It's a Happening Thing,” January 1967’s debut single from California’s Peanut Butter Conspiracy, is one of the year’s best. Driving, with a full sound, a psychedelic edge, soaring vocal and immediate tune, it sounds like a hit.

However, despite being issued by major label Columbia, it wasn’t. As it’s put in the booklet coming with The Most Up Till Now – A History 1966-1970 box set, the single “barely scraped into Billboard’s Hot 100, peaking at the number 93 slot.”

The band’s next 45, March 1967’s "Dark on You Now” was as great. But, this time, no chart action at all. Their debut album, the also-groovy Spreading – geddit: The Peanut Butter Conspiracy is spreading – topped-out at 196 in the Billboard Top 200.

Listening to the superbly presented five-CD clamshell box set The Most Up Till Now, it increasingly seems amiss that a band of this calibre did not catch on commercially. The best of what’s here is, though more pop-slanted, as good as the early Jefferson Airplane at their most direct. The Conspiracy’s singer, Barbara Robison, was forceful, with a bell-like timbre recalling Cass Elliot of The Mamas & The Papas.

The Most Up Till Now tells the full story. Digging deep, it is the last word on The Peanut Butter Conspiracy. When they first hit vinyl, the PBC were: Alan Brackett (vocals, bass, guitar), Lance Fent (lead guitar, vocals), John Merrill (vocals, 12-string guitar), Barbara “Sandi” Robison (lead vocals, percussion), Jim Voigt (drums). Brackett and Merrill were their in-house songwriters. As well as the band’s three albums – Spreading (released March 1967), The Great Conspiracy (October 1967) and the not-so-hot For Children Of All Ages (November 1969 – recorded after line-up changes) – the box set includes single-only versions, masses of demos, late tracks recorded under other names and – despite a terrible blues cover – a terrific, previously unheard 16 September 1967 show from Seattle's Eagles Auditorium.

After digesting The Most Up Till Now, it’s hard to figure out exactly why The Peanut Butter Conspiracy – to a fair degree, that is – got lost in the shuffle. Perhaps the name was a problem. It didn’t scream “serious band.” Then, there was how they were marketed. The header picture here, a Columbia promo shot, shows them amongst the flowers. When “It's a Happening Thing” was issued in the UK in July 1967, it came in a sleeve with the band’s name in the centre of a flower (pictured left). The opening lines of “It's a Happening Thing” are “Love is the grooviest thing up 'til now in the world, It's a happening thing.” Maybe they came across as a petal-light, love-generation, flower-power cash-in?

The members of the band had roots in the early Sixties US folk boom, and there were ties with the world of mainstream pop: Alan Bracket had been a drummer in Jan and Dean’s live band, and turned down an opportunity to join The Beach Boys. There were early connections with a pre-Jefferson Airplane Spencer Dryden, pre-PBC singles featuring band members, members' time in the proto-PBC outfit The Ashes (which recorded for Vault Records), and interconnections with The Brain Train – who became Elektra Records psych band Clear Light. Everyone in the Peanut Butter Conspiracy knew the ins and outs of the music business. Despite this background, what comes across from the band history in the booklet is that arriving at the PBC was an organic process.

Once the band coalesced in Los Angeles in autumn 1966, Atlantic, Capitol, Columbia, Elektra and MGM were interested in them. Bob Dylan's manager Albert Grossman considered taking them on, but they plumped for Elektra staffer and former Columbia Records publicist Billy James as their manger. James had strong associations with both Dylan and The Byrds. On signing with Columbia – Dylan’s and The Byrds’ label – they were teamed with hot producer Gary Usher at the end of 1966. The Peanut Butter Conspiracy were on the launch pad for success.

But as with the name and the short-sighted, swiftly archaic period-specific marketing, reading the set's booklet raises another issue. How did The Peanut Butter Conspiracy fit in? Were they alternative, underground hippie types? Or sunny popsters? They knew and shared bills with The Jefferson Airplane – with whom they jammed. When guitarist Lance Baker left in June 1967, Robbie Krieger of The Doors recommended Bill Wolff as his replacement. The PBC played at San Francisco’s Avalon Ballroom in February 1967 – a Columbia press biography valiantly tried to make the case they were more like a San Francisco band than one from Los Angeles, the plastic city. They certainly had underground associations and credentials, and were not shy about peppering what they recorded with drug references. Yet they were not quite underground, not quite mainstream.

Up to the end of their period with Columbia, this balance rings through loud and clear on The Most Up Till Now – A History 1966-1970. As thought-provoking as this set is, what’s most important is that, in their prime, in 1967, The Peanut Butter Conspiracy made sensational records which could, and should, have been major hits. Without the music, there would be nothing to celebrate. A very welcome release.

• Next week: These Were The Earlies – 21st anniversary reissue of The Earlies’ psychedelic milestone
• More reissue reviews on theartsdesk
• Kieron Tyler’s website

@kierontyler.bsky.social