Psy-Fi

Interesting to see a piece about The Ace of Cups. I was planning on featuring them in my journal at some point. I daresay they are not only my favorite 60's female rock group, but probably my all-time favorite female rock group. It's too bad things never worked out for them as far as making albums and singles and being able to tour and build a bigger fan base. I think they were much more interesting and talented than the vast majority of similar acts of that time.

Denise Kaufman was also an enthusiastic proponent of LSD, having her first trip in 1965 and becoming a member of Ken Kesey's Merry Pranksters shortly afterward. She was called 'Mary Microgram' during her psychedelic escapades with the Pranksters.

That Denise & Co. single is so rare that only 2 copies are known to exist out of only 100 pressed at the time. It was considered by many collectors to be the rarest garage rock single of all-time a few years ago when there was only 1 known copy, but a second copy has since surfaced.

Denise also had a connection to Moby Grape, briefly playing in a band called 'Luminous Marshgas' with Jerry Miller and Don Stevenson before she left the band and Jerry and Don reformed as Moby Grape. There is also a Blue Cheer connection to Ace of Cups, as Denise met Mary Ellen Simpson at a party on New Year's Eve of 1966 at the house where members of Blue Cheer lived at the time and was invited to join Ace of Cups by Mary Ellen after the two of them jammed together and hit it off.

And Denise was the band member who was hit in the head with an empty beer bottle (while 4 months pregnant, suffering a skull fracture as a result) while the band was playing at the infamous Altamont Speedway Free Festival in 1969.

Really a shame so few recordings and videos exist from them.

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She's a Brick House