Framework "Skeleton" 1969 US Psychedelic Rock
San Diego has always been a spectacular place to live, but it seems to have been culturally landlocked in the 1960's. The city was gifted with-some amazing local talent and judging by the reception of The Brain Police (Rockadelic RRLP 26 & SHADOKS CD 008) and the mighty double vinyl release of the CD you are now holding, Framework: 'Skeleton' (Rockadelic RRDLP31/32) last year, collectors agree the music from the city was world-class.
Volume three will be released in 2001, and Glory (one of San Diego's longest-lived underground bands) will finally have a much-deserved vinyl document. How it is that these bands didn't have records thirty years ago is a mystery to me and to the proud and independent family of artists that call San Diego home. It seems that the excitement generated locally by these bands simply never spilled over the borders and into the ears of the outside world.
Framework is best remembered by San Diego rock historians as a wildly inventive power trio that wore dirty blue jeans on stage and made a mindblowing 45 that nobody can find. That may fix a picture in your mind of who the band were and what they were about- but as you play through this collection of tapes from the band's archives you will find, like I did, that they were quite versatile. Framework only released one single, and after hearing the psychedelic dirge that is 'The Direction', and speaking with a few guys whose eyes glazed over when asked about the group, it became a personal quest of mine to find out everything I could about them. It was four years before I had collected enough material to assemble Skeleton (the story is told in considerable detail inside the poster sleeve of the vinyl edition...due to space limitations of the CD format, what follows is an abbreviated text) and the various pieces provide separate and distinct views of the band that I believe, as a whole, comprise a comprehensive document that is long overdue. As I listen to it now, I can't help but wonder what kind of albums Framework would have produced circa 1968-1970 with the support of say... Probe, or Metromedia Records. Even as a local act struggling to pay their rent, they seem to have never been lacking in inspiration... but turned loose on the world? 'Reach the misty edge of freedom, and do just what you want to. You will feel the change that can come.'
Framework was borne of two mid-sixties San Diego bands, The Orfuns and The Centaurs. In one respect, these two bands were very different- The Orfuns were a hard-edged, arrogant garage punk outfit that wrote original songs (a handful of acetates in guitarist/vocalist Jerry McCann's possession bear this out, and some of this material will see a release in the near future), whereas The Centaurs were a dance band that performed covers. Knowing full well by 1967 that performing original material was the key to both credibility and longevity in the rock scene, the new lineup looked to McCann as their lead singer and songwriter for their repertoire. Naturally, McCann quickly established himself as the creative focus of the band, which he named Framework. This new band, along with The Brain Police, was managed by the KB Artists company of San Diego. The first recording session arranged by this management/record label cooperative was to produce a single by Framework in January, 1968. The two songs recorded, 'Iron Door' and 'Funny Kind Of Sunshine' never made it to vinyl as planned. Instead, only a handful of acetates were made for the band and for the local underground radio station, KPRI. To date, this is the only known recording of the original five-piece Framework, and these tracks appear for the first time ever on Skeleton. Framework Mk.I persevered, despite internal conflict, until August 1968. When it became clear that the band could not continue as it was, McCann asked the advice of his friend David Randle of The Brain Police. By chance, Randle had only recently learned of Terry Fann, a singer and bass player looking for a band. Fann sat in with the band for a couple of weeks, and it became clear to (the ex-Orfuns) McCann and Carl Spiron that Fann was the ingredient they needed to head in a new direction: as a trio. Groups like Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience were exploring new territory as trios and were being credited as innovators. Why not Framework?
