grown so ugly

She and her partner at the time (a Richard or Robert Alt -- our tipper couldn't remember) were the producers and driving creative force behind the band.
Despite all of the folklore claiming that this was a "hippie commune" outfit, we've been told in no uncertain terms that that's simply not the case; Lund and Alt were living above Lund's fathers shop in Queens, and enlisted local musicians (names unknown) to play on these albums. Neighborhood children were invited to participate in The School, as well.

It seems that the PVO were in fact rather regular folks.
I purchased all three of these LPs as a set from a seller on eBay, who had quite a few complete sets. I asked if he was involved in the band or knew people who were, but he claimed he had found them in boxes in an old house.

I'm not sure if I believe him.
I've ripped each as LAME --apx, and while there is some slight surface noise, overall they're pretty clean. This is either the first or second title from the hyper-obscuro early '70s Long Island-based PVO.

(Fuzz, Acid, Flowers lists this as the first, with a date of 1971, so I'm deferring to that, but I've heard otherwise from numerous others.)
Forty-five minutes of head-tripping white soul/blooz psych..

. Why no one ever saw fit to at least *bootleg* this stuff on CD is beyond me. As is why I'm having such a hard time uncovering the mystery of this band.

(How can such a secret be kept for so long?)
This is my favorite of the three, and the one containing a cameo from "someone famous." To this day the identity of the guest celeb has been kept a secret.

In any case, this is imho a lost minor classic of early '70s private-press rock, and it's easily as good as their other early album, Weltschmerzen (though nothing here can quite match the opening track on that). Every track on this has something to recommend to fans of this era's psych/blooz/acid rock. Throw a dash of weirdo folk into that mix and you're pretty much there.

One thing can surely be said about the female vocalist (Carla?) here: this woman's got range. She goes from sounding like Janis to Grace to Kate (Bush).

.. all within the first three songs.

And it doesn't let up.
A few standouts:

"Ballet for a Small Apartment," which builds from a piano ballad into a completely tripped-out klezmer drum circle..

. and back again.

"Children's Anthem / Let Us Sing a Love Song," which is, actually, a chorus of *children* who somehow manage to avoid sounding neither oddly creepy (unlike, say, the songwriting class at Widney High) nor cloyingly cute.

One can only assume that these are the same children who both open and close the album. One of these children is our "little bird," who put to lie all of the "hippie freak commune" rumors.

"Did You Ever See a Lady Act that Way," which sounds like an outtake from Exile on Main Street, and which possesses such rawkness that Neil Hagerty can only *dream* of one day matching its quality.

Serious mixtape fodder here, if you can't invest the 8 minutes for Weltzshmerzen's "Memories" (and you just *have* to have some PVO on there).

"Long Way from Home," with its R. Newman-esque beer-hall piano and bouncing jaw harp.

Frighteningly catchy stuff.

"Black Crow Country" features an almost stereotypical early-70s "native" fetishization that borders on injunsploitation, but pulls that shit out with a fuzz guitar so hot it completely kicks down any preoccupations one may have with what might be considered questionable musical tropes.
Someone selling this record (for $400!

) wrote this:
Very rare obscure psych outfit who did exactly 2 albums at the same time, and this one is their 2nd. The music on this is very different and difficult to describe. Some cuts sounds like Van Dyke Parks going mad, some others sound like the Beatles (Abbey Road-era), some like Janis Joplin (Cozmic Blues-era), some others like a US version of A To Austr, some w/a psychedelic Exile On Main Street touch, some of it sounds like any number of people acting quite same -- weird effects all over the place, stoned weirdness with fuzz leads, stunning guitar explosions, violin, slight orchestrations, some choirs and also ultra-stoned female vocals mixed with real guttural male vocals.

The opening track on this is worth the download alone.
popsike.com auction comment:

Nobody has been able to find this band.

..NYC early '70s hippie commune rock that mixes folk, blues, acid.

..a stoner band that is way underated.

From ballsy blues rock to folk to out out psych these LPs are a legend amongst my freak friends in NYC and way undervalued (Though I did see one of them priced at $300 in a European list lately!!!

). Here is a lot offer of BOTH LPs in Ex/M- shape "The School" and "Weltschmerzen" for one LOW min. Bid.

..hopefully a close buddy of mine will get a reissue out soon, but he's still hoping to find them nobody can it seems.

..ANYWAYS here's an OFFER of BOTH LPs for one low min.

bid...

NYC hippie commune freaks nobody seems to be able to find a word about at this late date!!
Some dude's post to the University of Buffalo Poetics List:

I and two friends are looking everywhere for any information on The People's Victory Orchestra.

.. including discogography, line-ups, etc.

We've loved their records for years (I found my first one over 20 years ago), but during all that time we've never run across anyone who really knew anything definitive about them.
We've heard that they were musicians who were under contract and used the P.V.

O.C. guise to record their own stuff on the sly.

We're not sure we believe this, though: we suspect this is just a rumor based on somebody's guess as to why they were so studiously anonymous. The other rumor we've heard, which we find marginally more credible, is that they were high school (and or grammar school) music teachers? -- which could partially account for the large number of musicians that pop up on their records (after all, there's virtually an orchestra on the third): some of the musicians could be their students.

(Of course, rumor #2 could simply be based on the fact that one of their records is called "The School.")
We've always assumed that the address on the labels was their own address, and hence that they were from New York..

..
Any direction, assistance would be most appreciated.

With this, their final album, the mystery begins to become unraveled.? Or at least we're given some bread crumbs to follow.

Included with the LP is a 64-page booklet which attempts, through letters and journal entries, to tell the story of "a particular time in the recent past" of a group prefaced as follows: "In March, 1975 a train left Ingonish Beach Station, Nova Scotia carrying sixty-two passengers across Cape Breton Island.? This is their memoire.

.." We're given a lot of first names, but no last names.

Ultimately, 64 pages later, we're really no closer to finding out exactly who these people were (are) than before, but at least we were given some good stories.
Even more than on the first two records, the band really earns the ORCHESTRA and CHORUS in their name. This thing's filled w/ huge sweeping orchestral moments and soaring multi-part choral passages.

It is, in fact, an orchestral rock opera, and quite an odd one at that. Seemingly out-of-nowhere waltz passages will pop up, and then the next moment a carnivalesque calliope comes in..

. which then segues into a period-appropriate folk-rock ditty. The whole affair is unabashedly baroque, and -- unlike the first two records -- offers absolutely zero Big Rock moments.

That said, and despite the use of a full orchestra throughout, it still manages to have that completely drugged out, hippie/commune vibe which pervades the first two.
PLEASE leave comments if you can at all clear up some of the mythology..

.