Crystal Circus

Crystal Circus put out an extremely Strawberry Alarm Clock-sounding single in 1967, "In Relation (To Our Times)"/"Merry-Go-Round," and an entire album of mostly unreleased material credited to the band surfaced on CD in 2001. The Strawberry Alarm Clock connection was not coincidental, since Crystal Circus recorded for the same label, All-American, on which the Strawberry Alarm Clock had first recorded. Also, Crystal Circus were produced by Bill Holmes, who also worked on recordings by the Strawberry Alarm Clock. Certainly "In Relation (To Our Times)" closely approximates the sound of "Incense and Peppermints" without sounding too explicitly derivative. Its B-side "Merry-Go-Round" is a poppier effort, with sunshine pop harmonies and production not much unlike those on Turtles records of the period. The Crystal Circus CD In Relation to Our Times includes these and ten other songs, and was said to be an untitled 1968 album that had gotten to the pressing stage, but was never released. The album's actually decent pop-psychedelia, again in the mold of the Strawberry Alarm Clock. In fact the argument can be made that it's rather more solid than the Strawberry Alarm Clock's own LPs, though it's lacking a classic on the order of "Incense and Peppermints."