The Baroques “The Baroques” 1967. Chess Records. Milwaukee psychedelic/pop rock, and apparently now a pretty rare record, though according to one of the lone articles on the web about The Baroques it did sell fairly well in the Milwaukee-Chicago market at the time of its release. The Baroques is the only release from the four-piece band (Jay Borkenhagen on vocals, guitar, harpsichord, Jacques Hutchinson on guitar and vocals, Rick Bieniewski on bass and Dean Nimmer on drums); Chess released their LP in an effort to branch out from r&B into the lucrative rock market. The record is very 60’s sounding – a mix of Donavan, the Monkees and the Byrds: think Renaissance-era English folk with jangle guitar and swirly paisley hallucinations. Some songs skew toward straight-up pop like “Rose Colored Glasses” and “There’s Nothing Left to Do But Cry” while others are more psych-bent like “Mary Jane” (which helped gain the band a bit of notoriety: released as a single, it was not played by many radio stations who were concerned about drug references), the album opener (and b-side to “Mary Jane”) “Iowa, A Girl’s Name” and the droning “Purple Day.” My favorite – and I admit it’s mostly for the title – is “Musical Tribute to the Oscar Mayer Wiener Wagon” which is just so delightfully Wisconsin. It’s also a total freakout of a song. Weirdest is “This Song Needs No Introduction” which is another freakout with discordant keyboards, wild guitar and crazed shrieks of “mother where are you” and asylum-level singing of “row row row your boat.” It’s totally wacked. Close behind for wackiness is “Bicycle” which has a pretty simple and repetitive keyboard melody – very high school level – with plain yet loopy lyrics and vocals.