Lift - Caverns Of Your Brain (1977) {1990, Japan 1st Press}

'The New Orleans Years' (1972-1975):
LIFT was formed in June, of 1972, by keyboardist, Chip Gremillion, bassist, Cody Kelleher and drummer, Chip Grevemberg. Although they all had worked together in numerous groups previously, LIFT was formed with the purpose of being a progressive band from the South. Chris Young was added on rhythm guitar, 12 string and vocals in the first month. Lead vocalist Courtenay Hilton-Green, from Pensacola Florida, who had worked with Gremillion previously and lead guitarist Richard Huxen of New Orleans joined within several months. Chris Young left the group shortly thereafter to pursue other interests, but not before penning the lyric to "Simplicity" and co-writing the lyric for "Caverns" with Chip Gremillion and Courtney Hilton-Green. By late fall of 1972 the five member group now consisting of Gremillion, Kelleher, Grevemberg, Hilton-Green and Huxen began to rapidly build a strong following, even among area musicians who were often seen at LIFT performances. Throughout 1973 LIFT continued to attract the support of audiences and local music critics. LIFT became a frequent highlight performer at area universities for special events. Local club performances were often standing room only with musicians and fans enjoying the show equally. LIFT continued to cover ever increasing and complex pieces of progressive music. LIFT would often begin it's show with the Genesis tune, "Watcher of the Skies". Imagine the condition this created in a southern audience in 1973. Aside from standard southern bands, LIFT covered, Led Zeppelin, Beatles, Uriah Heap, Robin Trower, ELP, Yes, King Crimson, Moody Blues and gradually introduced original material as it was composed. In the summer of 1974 producer Sonny Fox put LIFT in the studio and recorded four songs; Simplicity, Caverns, Buttercup Boogie and Tripping Over the Rainbow. Most band members were barely 19 at the time. LIFT continued to perform in the New Orleans area and increase in popularity. LIFT incorporated the recorded songs as well as additional original material into their live sets. In the late Fall of 1975, at the suggestion of Sonny Fox, LIFT relocated to Atlanta.

'The Atlanta Years' (1975-1979):
From the outset Atlanta was a challenge. Nothing went according to plan! Just months after relocating and based upon the material from the 1974 "Caverns" session, LIFT went to Philadelphia to re-record modified versions of "Simplicity", and "Tripping over the Rainbow" as well as a newer instrumental tune entitled, "To Undulate Rapidly." (The band was unaware of the pending release of the bootleg LP. Members only became aware of the "Caverns of Your Brain" release in 1990 when Greg Walker from Syn-Phonic contacted Chip Gremillion to release a CD from the original master tapes. The title originally was to be "Simplicity" or simply "LIFT".) LIFT drove from Atlanta to Philadelphia, set up, recorded and mixed the three tunes with no sleep. The session was described by producers as "very hot." LIFT was involved in a short mixing session, listened to a good playback of each tune and headed back to Atlanta with promises of dupes and Masters to follow. To this day no one has ever received a copy of that session. The Winter of 1975 -76 was harsh for Atlanta and for LIFT. By early Spring, bassist Cody Kelleher and lead vocalist, Courtenay Hilton-Green left the group. Nearly a 7 month search ensued for replacements with virtually no luck. In early Fall of 1976 Laura "Poppy" Pate a soprano voice teacher answered an ad placed at a local music store. She claimed to be checking us out for a student. After hearing our music she was immediately part of the group. Within weeks a chance meeting between Chip Grevemberg, Mike Mitchell and Tony Vaughn in an apartment hallway resulted in what can only be described as musical critical mass! In less than six months of intense rehearsals LIFT added five new compositions to its catalog and completed rearrangements the "Caverns" material to better fit the new personnel line up. In spite of no live performances LIFT quickly garnered the respect of local musicians who frequented rehearsals and also the curiosity of British record producer Michael Stewart. Working in the studio as a group and the rehearsals that followed caused LIFT to develop a very tight "live" sound. As the band rehearsed to duplicate the studio performance we all felt our time was approaching. A professional photography session was booked, A&R reps from different record companies began expressing interest and enthusiasm was mounting. Based upon one listen to the new material, LIFT was booked as the opening act for an upcoming major show at Atlanta's leading concert venue of the time, Alex Cooley's Electric Ballroom. A&R people from up to four interested labels were to be in attendance. LIFT was ready! Two weeks prior to the scheduled show Poppy informed the group she was leaving immediately for personal reasons. Decision Final! Shortly after Poppy's departure and our withdrawal from the concert Richard Huxen left the group. Over the next six months Chip Gremillion, Mike Mitchell, Chip Grevemberg and Tony Vaugn invited a number a guest musicians to rehearse in an attempt to recreate LIFT'S capabilities, but to no avail. However, the remaining foursome soon realized that we were quite capable of producing a unique sound. In that remaining period some of LIFT'S best material was composed. Six to seven additional compositions were created; ironically it was this music that potentially had the greatest chance of commercial success. LIFT disbanded in February, 1979.

The music from the 'New Orleans years' is typical Seventies, YES-inspired symphonic rock, loaded with vintage keyboards (Hammond, Moog, Mellotron) along pleasant male vocals, fiery electric guitar and a powerful and dynamic rhythm-section. The music from the 'Atlanta years' (with a slightly changed line-up) is more in the vein of mid-GENESIS, the female vocals evoke Annie Haslam from RENAISSANCE.

Exact Audio Copy V1.3 from 2. September 2016

EAC extraction logfile from 10. April 2019, 19:35

Lift / Caverns Of Your Brain [Belle Antique 9013]

Used drive : HL-DT-STBD-RE BH10LS38 Adapter: 1 ID: 0

Read mode : Secure
Utilize accurate stream : Yes
Defeat audio cache : Yes
Make use of C2 pointers : No

Read offset correction : 667
Overread into Lead-In and Lead-Out : No
Fill up missing offset samples with silence : Yes
Delete leading and trailing silent blocks : No
Null samples used in CRC calculations : Yes
Used interface : Native Win32 interface for Win NT & 2000

Used output format : User Defined Encoder
Selected bitrate : 128 kBit/s
Quality : High
Add ID3 tag : No
Command line compressor : C:\Program Files (x86)\Exact Audio Copy\Flac\flac.exe
Additional command line options : -V -8 -T "Date=%year%" -T "Genre=%genre%" %source%


TOC of the extracted CD

Track | Start | Length | Start sector | End sector
––––––––––––––––––––––––––––-
1 | 0:00.00 | 10:06.00 | 0 | 45449
2 | 10:06.00 | 9:20.72 | 45450 | 87521
3 | 19:26.72 | 6:13.30 | 87522 | 115526
4 | 25:40.27 | 11:43.58 | 115527 | 168309


Range status and errors

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Filename D:\Rips by Alder\Lift - Caverns Of Your Brain [Belle Antique 9013].wav

Peak level 98.6 %
Extraction speed 7.2 X
Range quality 100.0 %
Test CRC A8566545
Copy CRC A8566545
Copy OK

No errors occurred


AccurateRip summary

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Track 2 not present in database
Track 3 not present in database
Track 4 not present in database

None of the tracks are present in the AccurateRip database

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1 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
2 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
3 | (1/1) Accurately ripped
4 | (1/1) Accurately ripped


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