Johnny Bello’s Strawberry Cliffs Of Monica – Black Oil
This record came my way a few years ago during the pandemic well before things opened up. Essentially every year I’ve lived in California, back since 1999, I’ve made at least one trip to Groove Merchant, which remains my all-time favorite record store. With that not possible during the pandemic, there were a couple of times where I sent Cool Chris a certain amount of money, and asked him to just send me records that he thought I’d dig. Perhaps some of you might think that’s foolish, but if you do, you clearly don’t know Cool Chris.
One of the best things about Groove Merchant are the notes that Chris will add to records, “Breezy California Folk-Psych, Check ‘Summer’ on Side 2,” or “Check out 2-1,” or “Breaks on A-1,” and on and on. So, when this 45, from a band I’ve never heard of, and even after a couple of years of searching still haven’t found any information about, arrives with a note in Chris’ handwriting saying “I Dig This One,” you know it’s gonna be something special.
This song from the appropriately theatrically named Johnny Bello’s Strawberry Cliffs of Monica likely isn’t everyone’s cup of tea, but knowing Chris and Chris knowing me, it’s exactly the kind of 45 I love. It all starts with those repetitive high notes from guitar that hypnotically flow throughout the mellow psych vibes of the song (only broken up by a psychedelic freakout after the 2nd verse). And then, there’s Johnny. Johnny Bello appears to be the credited (and apparently, the only songwriting credit of his career) songwriter John Pereira. There’s zero info about Johnny online, but I would not be surprised if he had a theater background. Some of it’s in the theatrical performance (which I bet on stage included a cape and rather dramatic hand motions while singing) and theatrical phrasing of his vocals. Some of it is in the largely inscrutable lyrics (for example, I’ve listened to this song at least 50 times, and I still don’t know why its titled “Black Oil”), that when you can understand them give off Hippie Prophet/Guru vibes critiquing the plastic world around us and pushing us to “stop looking behind you, start looking around you…start looking inside of you,” before Johnny Bello lives up to his name.
The record feels like a private press, but Sand was a solid label, though not generally for psych, and the one-off nature of this 45 makes it seem like the label simply didn’t know what to do with Johnny Bello and the group. That is a shame. There’s some flashes of serious talent here and it would have been interesting to hear what Johnny Bello’s Strawberry Cliffs Of Monica would have done on a full LP. But, at least we have this 45. And this is a 45 that both me and Cool Chris of Groove Merchant most definitely dig.