[2] The album features free improvised pieces involving industrial power tools and a revving motorcycle dubbed "Free Form Freak-Out" played by a group of over 50 people known as "the Familiar Ugly" as well as notable instrumental cameos by label mate and 13th Floor Elevators frontman Roky Erickson.

The Familiar Ugly was a group of 50 people who joined the Red Crayola on stage with music that was made on anything from industrial power tools to a revving motorcycle.

[3] "Free Form Freak-Out" was a term coined by record producer Lelan Rogers who proposed the idea of having the album intermingle songs with the Familiar Ugly, fading one into the other as well as having Rick Barthelme take up a tribal drumbeat instead of a standard rock beat for "War Sucks".

"[5]The Familiar Ugly were recorded on April Fool's Day 1967 in a three-hour evening session on one master tape, it was done on eight tracks with eight microphones, one per channel.

'"[9] Rick Barthelme had this to say about their music: "From our vantage out on the edge, Zappa and Velvet Underground, and other more conventionally strange bands, were ordinary musicians trying to do something different and still function within the rock & roll framework.

The first LP, The Parable of Arable Land is a wonder if you are wasted, and a poor example otherwise, as the nice guy who recorded it did it on two tracks instead of thirty-two, thus flattening the thing out somewhat.

[11] Tracks recorded before their debut album in an early 1967 demo session were released on the International Artists archive compilation Epitaph For A Legend in 1980, and subsequently re-released on the 2011 reissue of The Parable of Arable Land.

In a retrospective review of the compilation album Richie Unterberger wrote: "The five Red Krayola demos are prime acid folk".

Unterberger also assessed "Hurricane Fighter Plane" as being "one of the closest American approximations of Syd Barrett-era Pink Floyd.

Thompson also remarked in an interview with Reuters that during the recording session for "Hurricane Fighter Plane" he ran out of words so he decided to sing about the buckets of sand hanging on the studio wall.

[14] In a 1978 promotional booklet for the Radar Records reissues of International Artists material, Lelan Rogers mentions that the reason the Red Krayola never released a single was due in part to the controversy surrounding the sentimental lyrics in “War Sucks” - because of this, the album received little to no airplay as most radio stations refused to play the record.

In the 2007 book "Eye Mind: Roky Erickson and the 13th Floor Elevators" author Paul Drummond mentions that the Red Crayola had recorded a session in February 1967 for "Dairymaid's Lament" and "Free Piece" to be released as a single, they were both songs that would later appear on their sophomore album, the session was produced by Bob Steffek who had a hit on Shazam Records with "Wild Woody"; however, the single was never released.

Denson described the Familiar Ugly tracks as "just background noise", and wrote "I like two of the cuts very much: 'War Sucks' and 'The Parable of Arable Land', and no doubt so will you about the third time thru.

[26] Record Mirror wrote about the album in 1978, assessing "Transparent Radiation" as "almost a normal song" and comparing Mayo Thompson's voice to sounding "terribly like Talking Heads, David Byrne" and the song as a whole as a "total effect not unlike some Roxy Music opus, whilst "War Sucks" was spoken briefly about as an "odd raga weaving in and out".

[28] In a retrospective review, Pitchfork critic Alex Linhardt praised The Parable of Arable Land as "one of the most visionary album[s]" of 1967,[18] also noting that "listeners weren't sure whether the racket was the result of sharp intellectualism, sheer incompetence, or buzzed-out substance abuse.

[30] Mark Deming of AllMusic remarked that "The Parable of Arable Land exists on a plane all its own; if art-damaged noise rock began anywhere, it was on this album.

[31] Dallas Observer noted that the record "foreshadowed new wave, post-punk and art rock"[32] whilst another retrospective review branded the "stripped down simplicity and caustic lyrics" as a rarely acknowledged precursor to punk.

[34][35] In 2011, The Parable of Arable Land was selected by Andrew VanWyngarden of MGMT for inclusion in NME's list of "The 100 Greatest Albums You've Never Heard".

[36] Spin described "Transparent Radiation" as "the great-grandfather of the Spacemen 3/Spiritualized interstellar exploration division" and mentioned how "Hurricane Fighter Plane" had been covered many times.

In 2011, Peter Kember (otherwise known as "Sonic Boom") would remaster the album at New Atlantis studios from the original master tapes as part of a deluxe reissue.

In the 2011 Sonic Boom remaster, there are only 12 tracks displayed, as the "Free Form Freak-Out" following War Sucks is added as part of the song.

All tracks are written by Frederick Barthelme, Steve Cunningham and Mayo ThompsonPink Stainless Tail were a rock band which formed in Melbourne, Australia, who named themselves after the song.

Osees are an American rock band that borrowed the bass riff of "Hurricane Fighter Plane" for "Block of Ice," the opening song on their album The Master's Bedroom Is Worth Spending a Night In.

Bobby Gillespie of Primal Scream featured "Hurricane Fighter Plane" in his memoir, Thompson also produced the band's debut album Sonic Flower Groove.

I’ve always looked for those moments in time where definitions are blurry and that to me is what’s really nice about Nuggets is that the bands hadn’t figured it out yet, so you had a lot of wild cards.