A Gathering of Promises

In the mist of sassafras
Many things will come to pass
And the smoke shall rise again
To the place above where it began

When I was in 6th grade, I was at a friend’s house and we were looking through his family’s record cabinet. It was mostly full of kiddie records, with some of his parents’ old stuff mixed in. I came across a single entitled Hot Smoke and Sassafras, credited to a group called The Bubble Puppy. I started laughing and asked “Who did this belong to?” “Oh, I bought that when I was a little kid at a garage sale. I thought it was a children’s record, maybe a song about a puppy or something. I don’t remember what it sounds like, but I remember that I didn’t like it.” After much bugging on my part, he reluctantly agreed to play the single. The song opened with a burst of feedback, followed with an acid rock guitar riff and some fast drum fills. Then it all slowed down, and some of the fruitiest hippie-dippy lyrics I’d ever heard were sung (for years, I thought the first line was “Hey Mister Sassafras”). Then the guitar riff and drums kicked back in, a pattern that was followed for the two remaining choruses. By the time the single ended, I was rolling on the floor laughing. “The feedback at the beginning,” I exclaimed, “it sounded like they were killing a cow or something!” Annoyed, my friend quickly put the single away. Later that day, I brought up the fact that he had owed me fifty cents for over a week. He didn’t have the money, so I suggested “Why don’t you just give me that Bubble Puppy single instead?” He looked at me like I was nuts, went to the record cabinet, and handed me the single.

Time will bring the fire and flame
As surely as it brought the rain
But in the gardens of the moon
Time is held within the silver spoon

A year or so later, I started listening to a Sunday morning radio show on KAZY called Psychedelic Sunday. You can pretty much guess what the focus was – old rock n’ roll from the 1960’s with a big emphasis on psychedelic tunes. I would usually miss the beginning, as I’d be at early church services with my family. One Sunday, when we didn’t go to church, I caught the show from the beginning. “This is Psychedelic Sunday!” the deejay announced, and a familiar burst of guitar feedback kicked in – it was Hot Smoke and Sassafras by The Bubble Puppy! After getting the chance to tune in for the beginning of the show a few more times, I learned that the deejay used that song every week for his introduction. Around the same time, I told some friends at school about the tune and how funny it was. They all started bringing cassette tapes for me to make copies. Pretty soon, references to The Bubble Puppy became a bit of a running joke with all of us. I did a little bit of research, and found out that the Bubble Puppy was from Texas and that Hot Smoke and Sassafras had been a top 20 hit in 1969. I later learned that International Artists, the label that released the single, was home to several other Texas psychedelic weirdo bands including the 13th Floor Elevators and the Red Krayola. I wonder what the old hippies in The Bubble Puppy would have thought if they knew that they had become a strange running joke to a bunch of smartass junior high kids in Colorado?

If you're happy where you are
Then you need not look too far
If you've found your place at last
Then you need not use the looking glass

Flash forward many years, and I’m browsing at a CD store in Seattle with my soon-to-be wife. In the B section, I see a name that catches me by surprise…oh no, it couldn’t be…its The Bubble Puppy! It was a reissue of their lone album, A Gathering of Promises, on the somewhat dodgy Collectables label. Collectables was reissuing a bunch of old stuff from the International Artists label, and I dutifully snatched up several of the discs. Unfortunately, the quality of the CD’s was pretty bad. The Bubble Puppy was by far the worst – it sounded like the tape they used was speeding up and slowing down when they transferred it to disc. Not long afterwards, much better quality vinyl reissues started showing up. I managed to find the 13th Floor Elevators and the Red Krayola, but the Bubble Puppy eluded me. Regardless, I got rid of the lousy CD, happy that I still had my old single. A few more years passed, and I’m back in Denver and browsing the vinyl at Black and Read in Arvada. I hadn’t thought about The Bubble Puppy in years, and I think you can guess what I found…yep, a vinyl reissue of their album. I bought it, of course, and the clerk looked at it and muttered “good lord” as he rang me up.

In this age of too much useless information (and long, pointless blog entries), there is a website devoted to pretty much everything you can think of. A week or so ago, an old friend sent me a link to the official Bubble Puppy website. Yeah, he was one of the smartass junior high kids who used to joke about Hot Smoke and Sassafras with me. Embarrassingly enough, I had to admit to him that I had already found that website. And that I had read pretty much every word of The Bubble Puppy’s story.