BYRDS 1966 MONO FIRST PRESSING "FIFTH DIMENSION" PSYCH 2-EYE CL 2549 NICE COPY

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BYRDS 1966 MONO FIRST PRESSING "FIFTH DIMENSION" PSYCH  2-EYE COLUMBIA CL 2549 NICE COPY!
I've been going thru my massive vinyl record collection this summer and pulling out some LPs that I thought that someone else would want for their collection. I've been collecting records for over 40 years and it's time to pass some of them on to the next generation of collectors.
This week on EBay I am offering up my nice, clean, original Mono first pressing of The Byrds Psych classic 'Fifth Dimension' from 1966.
THE BYRDS "FIFTH DIMENSION" RELEASED: JULY 18, 1966 LABEL: COLUMBIA CL 2549 ORIGINAL 'TWO EYE' MONO FIRST PRESSING "NONBREAKABLE" "ARROWS" "360 SOUND" RECORDED: COLUMBIA STUDIOS HOLLYWOOD Spring 1966 PRODUCER: ALLEN STANTON MATRIX: XLP 114237 PRESSING: PITMAN (p) I THINK
GRADING: VINYL VG+  JACKET: EX
This is an original, first pressing, MONO copy of "Fifth Dimension", the Byrds' 3rd LP, released in the Summer of 1966.
This is a very clean original Mono First Pressing of this great classic album. A 'true' First Pressing with the 'NonBreakable" and Mono 'Arrows' label.
This is my original copy that I've taken great care of for many years. The Cover is in EX condition and the Vinyl is VG+. See full description of the jacket and vinyl condition below.
~~~~~~~~~~ 'Fifth Dimension' is an important record. It was one of the first psychedelic records ever released, leading the wave that started a few months earlier with 'Pet Sounds' and continued thru the late 60s.
This was an important record for the Byrds' sound, marking a shift from gentler folk rock to harder and more adventurous rock and psych. It contains several classic Byrds songs that are now considered among their best work.
It has been recognized as one of the First Psychedelic Rock albums of the Era and an essential album in the progression of rock music in the '60s. It was highly influential and the music it contained was as innovative as any Rock music being made at the time.
~~~~~~~~~ This was the band’s first album without their main songwriter Gene Clark who left in February 1966, due to a combination of his fear of flying, personal stress of sudden success, and economic conflicts within the band, due to the fact, as songwriter, he was earning more than the others. In addition to losing Clark, their Producer, Terry Melcher, also moved on to other projects. They were left to go into totally new directions with this LP.
The departure of their best songwriter Gene Clark left a huge hole in the Byrds, but also opened up new space for Jim McGuinn and David Crosby to expand and showcase their own songwriting abilities. This album, released in the summer of 1966, saw a drastic change in direction for the folk-rock styled Byrds. 
By early 1966, the Folk music trend was starting to lose ground, It just wasn't hip anymore. With the loss of Clarke and his folk-ish songwriting, the band started to lean away from folk-rock and head into harder and more psychedelic directions.
By the spring of 1966, The Byrds, like so many artists and musicians, were actively 'Turning On and Tuning In'. Marijuana was everywhere, LSD was still legal, and the new sounds of musical artists like John Coltrane and Ravi Shankar were being introduced to the ears of West Coast American youth. 
The Byrds soaked up all these influences and began to explore the wild and crazy landscapes of psychedelia, moving their overall sound in a more psychedelic direction. 
This album is a groundbreaking psychedelic masterwork. It is one of the first Psychedelic albums ever released and "Eight Miles High" is now considered one of the first, if not the very first, psychedelic rock song. 
This album was very influential in developing the emerging musical style of psychedelia. Every band and every listener was looking for new experiences and new sounds and the Byrds offered them up on this classic album. This album included an eclectic blend of mod, folk, raga and jazz. 
It's important to place this album in it's historical context. Brian Wilson's 'Pet Sounds' had just come out in May and the Beatles 'Revolver' was a month away from release. Coltrane's 'A Love Supreme' had been circulating among musicians for just over a year. Ravi Shankar returned to America in the fall of 1965 and performed in New York and several select cities, introducing many 60s musicians to his music.
The Byrds soaked all of this up came up with this classic album. The album's 10 tracks span the whole range of the Byrds musical influences at the time. They managed to blend it all together and create a unique, 3-dimensional sound to their music. 'Fifth Dimension' has a sound that is uniquely their own and the album catches them flying at their height.
It still sounds as cutting-edge, weird, trippy and modern, to this day.
~~~~~~~~~ Many people agree that Roger McGuinn was the best and most innovative electric guitarist of the 1965-66 period. McGuinn didn't copy other guitarists, he invented his own styles, first a chiming, jangling folk-rock style used on the first 2 albums in '65 and then his soaring, melodic, modal, psychedelic style of '66.
McGuinn's guitar sound is truly iconic, instantly recognizable and unique for the time. Nobody sounded like him in the sixties. For many, the Byrds were briefly the best sounding and most advanced rock band in America in the first half of 1966. 
The band was also diving deeper into more complex lyrics on this album. Peace, Protest, Love, and Boy/Girl romance were the usual topics in the early 60s, but this album has 'serious' songs about Hiroshima's Nuclear waste fallout, 'I Come and Stand at Every Door', as well as whimsical songs about partying with Aliens, 'Mr Spaceman.' This album proved to be influential on the way future artists would inject 'deeper' themes and topics into their music as the 60s progressed. 
~~~~~~ The Byrds were quite comfortable in their embrace of the burgeoning drug culture, but the public were not. Corporate powers felt that some of the songs on this album were veiled drug references, resulting in the album’s first two singles being banned for airplay by some radio stations.
The album cover was also a rather obvious drug reference, with the band riding high on a magic carpet ride. It was the first use of the new psychedelic Byrds logo, which was also very suggestive.
~~~~~~~~~~ This album is worth owning just for the 4 classic Byrds tracks it contains: "Eight Miles High", "Fifth Dimension, "Mr. Spaceman," and "Hey Joe." 
8 MILES HIGH
The Byrds reached new musical heights with their single, “Eight Miles High”
The song has a fantastic lysergic feel, with its deep, tense baseline and freaky flowing guitar solos. It has a fascinating arrangement with McGuinn's guitar defying space and time. McGuinn channels both Coltrane and Shankar during his fantastic, highly improvised, psychedelic guitar lines.
The song was boycotted by the media, accusing them of drug-related lyrics, even though the song is supposedly about a high-altitude airplane flight to London. Despite that, I suspect that the band, especially Crosby, were literally '8 miles high' at the time.
Odd that it's the only song on the album written and recorded while Gene Clark was still a bandmember, especially since it was his fear of flying that led to him leaving the group.
5D (FIFTH DIMENSION)
Although the band quit doing Dylan covers on this album, the record begins with “5D (Fifth Dimension)”, a very Dylan-esque folk song by McGuinn, which builds as it goes along and sets the tone of the record and the folk/psychedelic songs that follow. The track features Van Dyke Parks on organ.
Fans assumed it was about LSD and the distortion of time and space it can create, but the band insist it's about the time distortion involved in Albert Einstein’s theory of relativity. My vote is for LSD.
MR SPACEMAN
One of my favorite songs on the album is the country-rock tinged "Mr. Spaceman." It shows McGuinn's extraterrestrial obsession. It's very melodic, has great lyrics and tells a funny story about partying with Aliens.
It is one of the earliest examples of Country rock, something the band would soon dive deeper into, especially on their classic "Sweetheart of the Rodeo" album.
HEY JOE
At the time, the summer of 1966, the Byrds version of 'Hey Joe' on this album was one of the best versions ever recorded. Energetic, jangly and hip. It was a psychedelicized version of the original by The Leaves. Hendrix would soon make the definitive version, but this was also a great version, with blazing guitar work and a great arrangement.
The 4 'Classic' songs above are reason enough to have this great album in your collection, but the other songs on the album are terrific as well.
David Crosby's songwriting, vocals and amazing harmonizing abilities really start to be heard on this album. "What's Happening?!?!", totally written by Crosby, is the earliest example of his laid back, hippie, vocal style that would soon be all over his later CSNY and solo projects. Crosby's ship started sailing on this album, but it caused him to be fired from the band. He would soon go on to bigger and better things.
The track "I See You" has great 12-string psychedelic guitar solos.
The blues rock instrumental "Captain Soul" was written by all 4 members, but started out as a rhythm section groove between bassist Chris Hillman and drummer Michael Clarke. It's part R&B, part Surf, part Country and part Blues, with Clarke playing harmonica over a groovy instrumental backing rhythm.
Even though the band was leaning in psychedelic directions on this LP, they did not fully abandon their earlier signature folk-rock sound.
There are 2 immaculate folk-rock songs on this album. The superbly arranged traditional songs "Wild Mountain Thyme" and "John Riley." Both sound incredible and both feature the Byrds 12-string signature sound and gorgeous harmonies. Two of the finest folk rock songs The Byrds would ever record.
The only 'filler' song on this album is the closing song “2-4-2 Fox Trot (Lear Jet Song)” which is a strange instrumental overdubbed with airplane sounds and cockpit recordings. It's more like a sound collage experiment. Some collectors feel that it was their goodbye message to Clark, as it's full of aiplane references, one of Clark's biggest fears.
~~~~~~ MONO FIRST PRESSING
This is the much rarer and much sought after MONO version of the album. The album was intended to be released in Mono from the start, but like many albums during that period, it was remixed for Stereo.
This record was produced and mastered perfectly, with each voice and each instrument superbly recorded. McGuinn's Guitar tone and style were captured perfectly. Crosby's delicate yet powerful voice and harmonies sound terrific. Recording engineers were still learning how to capture the new powerful sound of Rock, but they nailed it on this recording.
Roger McGuinn's 12 string Rickenbacker sound is crisp, clean and out front. Crosby's amazing, magical, harmonies are all over this album. The Bass and Drum sounds on this album ring out with clarity, depth and strength that was very unusual for recordings in those days.
In the mid 60s, engineers were still figuring out how to make Stereo rock albums and some of the techniques they used did not always work out well. It was hard to create a stereo mix without causing generational loss, so Mono copies tend to sound cleaner, bolder and fresher.
Engineers would split instruments and fully pan them either Left or Right. Vocals would sometimes be split between the channels. Overdub effects and percussion were sometimes added to one channel only and the whole effect left some of the music with a jarring, broken, disconnected feel.
The technology to 'blend' the channels was in it's infancy and most engineers put instruments and vocals either hard left or hard right. Early Stereo mixes often had harsh phasing effects or extreme panning effects which weren't really what the band intended and some of the songs suffered because of that.
Some of us record collectors argue that 'Psychedelic' albums always sound better in Stereo, but that's not always the case. This album sounds much better, more unified, and stronger in Mono.
The Byrds had a tight, cohesive, integrated sound, without any stereo trickery, and this album sounds so much better in Mono. It's crisp, punchy, spiky and sounds great.
The voices and harmonies blend better, and McGuinn's guitar punches thru perfectly. McGuinn’s 12 String Rickenbacker really pierces through the songs on this mono mix. Those beautiful four part harmonies, especially Crosby's voice, blend wonderfully on the Mono, but sound odd in Stereo.
The Stereo version of this album has some glaring mixing problems.
For some of the folkier songs, strings were added for emotional impact. On the Stereo, the entire band performance is in one speaker, and string overdubs are in the other. It’s jarring and distracting. The mono versions sound much better.
In the Stereo version of 'Hey Joe', the great fast-paced instrumental is fully panned to the left and there is an annoying cowbell overdubbed completely on the right. It makes the song feel torn apart and doesn't work at all. On the Mono, it all blends perfectly, plus there are some details in the first 10 or 15 seconds of the song that are lost on the Stereo mix but obvious in this mono mix.
Obviously, there are times when the mixing really works, whether Stereo or Mono, but the album sounds fresher, cleaner and more cohesive in this Mono format.
~~~~~~ CONDITION: The vinyl looks quite good for being 50+ years old. Nice overall condition, but there are fine hairlines and a few tiny 'scuffs' but nothing deep, palpable or significant. I'd give it a VG+. I tried to show good hi-resolution photos of the cover, labels and vinyl in my pictures.
I did not play test this record for this listing, but I do recall this Mono pressing to be bold and punchy. I'm sure you'll be happy with it. 
The labels are crisp and clean. The classic red and white Columbia 2-eye Mono labels. No markings or damage to the labels. The spindle holes show a few scuffs and dings, signs of some playing over the years, but nothing severe.
The album jacket is a great psychedelic statement for the time. The all black background is striking, making the Byrds’ new psychedelic logo jump off the cover. The 'magic carpet' is airbrushed to make it look like it's levitating or flying and 'smoking'. The grey area to the bottom left of the carpet is part of the cover art, not a smudge or defect. It looks a little 'amateur' but this was way before photoshop and photo editing. It's pretty good for 1966.
The band looks very cool and hip, hanging out on a magic carpet, inviting you over to go on a trip somewhere 'stranger than known'. They are literally drinking the laced 'Kool Aid', one guy is smoking something suspicious, Roger has his trademark sunglasses, and they all look cool and relaxed. Very suggestive for 1966.
The Jacket is in great condition, considering it's been bouncing around in my collection for 40 years. I've kept it sleeved all these years. The all black cover is notorious for showing ring wear, but this copy looks terrific. No signs of any ringwear. Corners and spine are crisp and clean. No scratches or dings to the all black cover, which is rare. The black and white rear cover is notorious for foxing and tanning, but this one looks great. NO names, marks, writing or signs of prior ownership. One of the best looking jackets for this album I've ever seen in decades of collecting! 
Overall a very nice copy of the Mono First Pressing from 1966.
This album still sounds fantastic. The production and mixing is immaculate and it's one of the best produced albums of 1966. It still sounds fresh, as if it were just recorded yesterday. It's one of the things that makes this LP a timeless classic.
Add this classic Byrds album to your collection today. It would make a great addition to any vinyl record collection. 
~~~~~~~ I’m recently retired and downsizing and letting go some gems and rarities from nearly 45 years of vinyl record collecting. Check out the many other fantastic 45s and 33s coming soon to my page!
All records have been carefully evaluated and graded by me. I visually inspect all records under bright light, personally gently clean them with a soft cloth and then, if unsure, play them on a modern high-end turntable to get a true picture of condition. Please look at all the high-resolution pictures I added. They are all my own and are of the actual record being sold. The pictures are part of the description and can show small details, label variations, and condition better than I can put into words. 
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THANK YOU for looking and reading if you got this far.  -- JOHN