The group were among the last of the original major San Francisco bands to secure a recording contract, which meant that the album appeared many months after the debut efforts of Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead, Country Joe and the Fish, Moby Grape, and Big Brother and the Holding Company.

[2] Sessions originally began with Brooks in Los Angeles but were considered unsatisfactory, so a few months later they moved San Francisco with Gravenites and Welding to re-record most of the material.

[1] It was first premiered for shows in May 1967 and gradually extended and polished into what appears on the album; the studio take features expressive viola work from Freiberg as well as uncredited backing vocals by the all-female Haight band The Ace of Cups.

Many cover songs which had been regulars of the group's live show in 1966 and 1967, including "Long Distance Call", "Smokestack Lightning", "All Night Worker", "Susie Q", "Got My Mojo Workin'", "Walkin' Blues" and "I Hear You Knocking" were passed over for recording while other popular early staples like their interpretations of "Mona" and "Who Do You Love?"

Writing at the time of release, Barry Gifford at Rolling Stone thought the group's sound now resembled that of The Electric Flag a little too closely, but concluded that "the formula works" and was "a much finer record debut than The Grateful Dead's.