Craig Smith - Love Is Our Existence
(Maitreya Apache Music)

Hopefully Love Is Our Existence is the first piece of the Craig Smith story to be told in 2018. Smith was a gifted songwriter and performer who was ascending the music business in the mid 60’s with parts on Andy Williams’ Good Time Singers, a promising songwriting duo in Chris & Craig and a series of professional produced psych-pop recordings by his band The Penny Arkade produced by The Monkees’ Mike Nesmith. He ultimately never got those projects off the ground and instead, transformed himself into the dark and disturbed mystic Maitreya Kali in 1969. As Maitreya, he would record two incredible, privately released acid-folk LPs (Apache and Inca) that have become pretty legendary. His story only gets worse from there.
But before all that, he had been woodshedding writing various songs to sell to publishers and to ultimately get himself a recording contract. On Love Is Our Existence, we get to hear those songs in their raw glory mostly with just Smith and his guitar. All previously unreleased and recorded from 1966-1971. (Dom)
Check out a track here.