Other Half

An enigmatic group from San Francisco with roots in Los Angeles and active throughout the 1960s attracted occasional attention during the 1980s once their raw punk-tinged garage number “Mr. Pharmacist” surfaced on a Nuggets anthology issued by Rhino and was later interpreted by the Fall. Far from sustaining that garage edge across their catalog, the Other Half devoted most of their output to psychedelic textures, anchored by Randy Holden’s sustain-heavy guitar lines that ranked him among the era’s strongest Jeff Beck disciples. The ensemble brought a freshly liberated garage sensibility to the Haight-Ashbury psychedelic style, resulting in one understated yet solid album and a handful of scarce singles recorded between 1967 and 1968. Before joining the Other Half, Holden had performed with the Los Angeles psychedelic garage unit Sons of Adam; he subsequently enlisted with Blue Cheer and also issued recordings under his own name.