Golden Vaults Volume 1: Timeless

Sky sought to take advantage of the internet age and released this album as a CD-r on a mysterious label called Radio V in 2001 through a website. Golden Vaults is a compilation of several recordings housed in a homemade-looking package; it’s been unavailable for years.

Golden Vaults is a mix of unreleased stuff with various groups of musicians, plus songs fans had heard before. Sound quality throughout the CD is less than stellar, even on songs that have been released elsewhere in good quality.

At one time, a page on www.skysunlightsaxon.com (a never-updated website that as of August 2016 was still up but which as of March 2018 is finally closed) featured Golden Vaults tracks as individual paid mp3 downloads. The payment mechanism didn’t work when we tried it around 2012, though snippets of each song could be streamed for free. The Golden Vaults page of that website was eventually removed altogether.

Which is of course a shame. There’s some intriguing material on Golden Vaults, and it hints that Sky had a lot of unreleased stuff sitting around on various tapes from various eras. We bet there’s more where this came from. Hopefully someone can secure the rights to recordings Sky Saxon made with people like The Lemurians and The Chesterfield Kings and release a higher-quality set someday.

As for Golden Vaults, it’s a very hard-to-find CD but there is some worthy stuff on it. And Sky Saxon completists will want it regardless. (By the way, this CD is proudly called “Volume 1” but there was never any Volume 2 as far as we can tell.)

Sky’s art, from the back of the CD booklet.

About the songs

Song titles and artist credits taken from the back of the jewel case where possible.

1. "Red Stone Romance" (Fire Wall)
   A 1980s-era outtake from Fire Wall. Mars Bonfire’s “cheesey” organ glows throughout and the song is peppy and upbeat in the usual Fire Wall fashion. Has the perfunctory feel of a run-through.
2. "Tail Spin" (New Seeds)
   This is in fact the same recording of "You Took Me By Surprise" from the Seeds’ 1972 privately-pressed final single. The lyrics do mention being in a “tail spin for your sweet love”, which is where this (unnecessary) new title comes from. The sound quality is rough; probably a generation or two away from a copy of the vinyl single, not the original tape.
3. "The One I Adore" (Seeds/The Hour)
   Plodding, piano-led song with some busy drumming and prominent click-clack percussion. Loose jam from an unknown era. Incomplete; the recording cuts off suddenly. (And we can’t find anything about a band or Sky Saxon project called The Hour.)
4. "Throw Some Rice" (The Hour)
   Psychedelic pop song driven by a merry keyboard tone, plus Sky’s usual vocal shenanigans. A more-together performance than "The One I Adore" but the recording equipment has been overwhelmed; the sound is very tinny and distorted.
5. "Women Lost In Love" (Fast Planet)
   This is the same recording as on Down The Nile by Fast Planet (1994), but in curiously inferior quality.

Back of the CD jewel case.

6. "Dinosaurs" (The Lemurians)
   Very psychedelic, all tribal chants and percussion with weird sounds morphing into each other between Sky’s dreamy, melodic words. Vocals shared between Sky and others from German “psychedelic trance” group The Lemurians.
7. "We The People" (Seeds)
   Pleasant psych-pop from Sky and frequent cohort Mike Oakland. Jangly guitar and Farfisa-like keyboards support Sky and Mike’s shared lead vocals; the lyrics revolve around the optimistic phrase “let’s get together”. This recording was released in much clearer sound quality in 2008 on Back To The Garden.
8. "Let Her Sting" (The Seeds)
   This is actually The Seeds’ 1960s recording of "She's Wrong", first released on the Fallin' Off The Edge rarities album of 1977. Sky would later re-record this song, also under this new title, for the 2004 album Red Planet. We don’t see how he could possibly have had the legal authority to include this recording on Golden Vaults.
9. "Somebody's Watching You" (duet with Arthur Lee of Love)
   This song originally appeared on Arthur Lee’s 1992 album Arthur Lee and Love. Despite Arthur taking full writing credit there, the music was a direct rip-off of "Can't Seem To Make You Mine". This Golden Vaults version does indeed feature Arthur and Sky swapping verses, though it’s hard to tell if they recorded it together or if this is some studio concoction of mysterious provenance. (Pointedly, Sky and Arthur are both credited as writers of it on Golden Vaults.)
10. "Grow The Flowers" (Sky Sunlight Saxon and The Chesterfield Kings)
    A rather Seeds-esque track featuring Sky and neo-psychedelic garage rock band The Chesterfield Kings. Dramatic drums and a choppy rhythmic guitar are decorated with an odd noise that exists somewhere between a voice and a guitar, while Sky holds forth passionately about (what else?) growing flowers.
11. "Welcome To The World Of Dreams" (Fast Planet)
    Another track from Fast Planet’s Down The Nile, where it was called simply "World Of Dreams" and was in much better audio quality. Over slow soloing rock guitar Sky sounds stoned and sings about distorted senses, imagination, and utopia. Lots of tough, meaty guitar during most of the song.

Inner pages of the CD booklet.

12. "Wild Roses" (Dragonslayers)
    Originally appearing on 1989’s Just Imagine album, and also on a single that year. Spooky and melodramatic but of course in poor audio quality on Golden Vaults.
13. "Wishing Well" (Seeds)
    Another song with Mike Oakland which would later show up on Back To The Garden. Bright pop-rock with Sky handling the vocals.
14. "Ballroom Lady" (SSSaxon)
    Gentle piano-led ballad written by Sky’s wife Marianna Dapello Marsh. Dual lead vocals by Sky and a woman, presumably Marianna herself (?). (The CD case shows no artist credit for this song, but the now-removed page for this album on www.skysunlightsaxon.com used SSSaxon.)
15. "Carry On" (SSSaxon)
    A strange recording dominated by an echo-y xylophone that renders Sky’s vocals hard to make out, though it’s quite nicely psychedelic. Co-written by Sky and his wife Marianna but this time only Sky sings. Perhaps that’s her playing xylophone; we’ve never heard it on any other Sky recording like this. (Artist credit same as "Ballroom Lady".)
16. "Wish Me Up" (The Seeds)
    This is the original 1970 recording from the MGM single but there are differences: the organ is much more prominent. (And the audio quality is poor besides.) Either it’s a remixed version of the original or there has been a new keyboard overdubbed on top. Sky laid down new overdubs on this recording for the 1987 album Takes & Glories, and presumably that’s what happened here – it doesn’t quite sound as if he got access to the original master tape plus the technology to remix it. The CD case credits this to “The Seeds” but the www.skysunlightsaxon.com page used “Sky Saxon-Daryl Hooper”. Did Daryl collaborate with Sky on this at some point in the 1980s or 1990s, or is that a reference to the song’s two cowriters? Who knows.
17. "Summer Basket" (The Seeds)
    This is of course "Love In A Summer Basket" from The Seeds’ second MGM single of 1970. The mix is quite a bit different here though; Sky is front and center while the music is quieter and pinched. But not all of it – some of the guitars are clear as well. Unlike "Wish Me Up", it does sound like Sky was able to monkey with the original master tape of this song, though we haven’t seen evidence of him ever having done that before or since.
18. "Incense Bangles And Beads" (Invisible)
    Seriously psychedelic, this is one of the stranger things Sky has ever released. Complex layers of shimmering psychedelic echoes (guitars? flutes? it’s all the same) pile up endlessly on each other. Sky’s naked, vulnerable voice intones underneath it all, too swamped to be understood clearly. Five minutes of experimental, truly other-worldly bliss. More of this please!
19. "Morning Prayer" (?)
    Songwriter credits are Sky Sunlight Aquarian and Djin Aquarian. This brief acoustic-guitar led meditation on Father Yod and making every day better is a nice way to wrap up Golden Vaults. It even gets cut off mid-song; what a fitting ending. (Note: This song is not mentioned on the back of the jewel case.)

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