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Thursday, December 24, 2009

In Dan's Garage...#13

Hellooooooooooooo everyone and MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! In the last post, which seems like eons ago, I mentioned how beautiful and balmy the weather was here in upstate New York. Well, you know... Mother Nature likes to turn on a dime, and now were in the midst of a January like deep freeze. No problem though. It actually feels Christmasy out there with a nice blanket of white snow covering everything. We're not exactly knee deep either, and that makes life a little easier. I've been really busy doing the shopping thing for Xmas, and my lovely wife has been so busy baking delectable goodies for all to enjoy. She's also very adept at candy making, and this years bounty was one of the best. She made these almond joy like things, you know, with coconut and almonds and chocolate that were literally out of this world...ummmm....I'm sorry. I got a little sidetracked there. This is a music blog, and I do have another post here. As usual, you get a veritable cornucopia of hip 60's sounds ranging from frat-rock to freakbeat. So here it is....In Dan's Garage #13!!!

Dee Jay & The Runaways - She's A Big Girl Now / He's Not Your Friend
 
Dee Jay & The Runaways' big claim to fame was "Peter Rabbit", and were one of the biggest bands to come out of Iowa. This was their follw up, and as you can see by the label, this particular tune was "restricted" because the theme of the song has to do with a girl "blossoming out". Pretty strong stuff back in '66.

Kenny & The Fiends - She Kept Doing Him Wrong / Last Night Was The Night
Great two sided frat rocker from L.A. I don't know much else.....

Untamed - Someday Baby / Lonely Boy
 
Fantastic, upbeat garage from a Chicago area group, with an upfront electric piano as opposed to the cheesy vox/farfisa organ sound that was so popular at the time. The flip is a cool moody ballad.

Vandals - Ballad Of A Loser / My Girl
From 1966 comes this coolest of moody garage "ballads". This was the same label that brought us the crushing "I Love You" by The Worlocks. This one on the other hand is a little more polished with dripping, surfy guitars and ultra cheesy organ. Both sides are fantastic.

Bob Morrison - Hey! Puppet Man / I Looked In The Mirror
I'm not exactly sure who Bob Morrison was, but I presume he was a studio musician from either N.Y. or L.A. He did leave us with at least three 45s on Columbia Records, and this great two sider was his best. Puppet Man has a nice snotty vocal with teriffic fuzz guitars, and the B side is a fantastic folk rocker. He allegedly had an LP on Capitol too, but I've never seen it...

Dearly Beloved - Wait Till The Morning / You Ain't Gonna Do What You Did To Him To Me
One of Tuscon, AZ finest groups. They reportedly recorded an entire albums worth of music for Columbia, of which only four songs were released. This one's pretty good, even with the slightly wacky B side.

Caeser & His Romans - Green Grass Makes It Better / Why Make A Fool Of Me
 I should have saved this Buffalo, NY 45 for my "Upstate New York" post, but what the heck... As you can see, singing songs about "Green Grass" in 1967 wasn't too cool with radio station WSAY (I'll get to this legendary Rochester, NY radio station in a later post...), so they "renamed" the song "Changes". This band eventually became "Big Wheelie & The Hubcaps" who were sort of a "Sha Na Na" 50's revival band. I saw them once, and they were actually pretty good....

Gypsy Trips - Ain't It Hard / Rock 'N Roll Gypsies
 Another Los Angeles Guy/Gal combo, this was the original that was later covered by The Electric Prunes.

Hardtimes - Fortune Teller / Goodby
Originally from San Diego, these guys moved to L.A. and were regulars on Dick Clark's "Where The Action Is" An excellent version with a great B side in my opinion...

Jerry Raye - I Cry
 The guy who sang the legendary "Mindrocker" in Fenwyck, this one is a solo effort which features a blistering fuzz guitar throughout. Great stuff.

 New Dawn - Slave Of Desire
 Here's an obscure one that I know nothing about. Great soul influenced psych/punk...

Newluvs - Be My Girl / It's All Over
No, this isn't the real label artwork. Just some teenager getting wild with a handful of magic markers. An awesome garage/punk two sider from Reading, PA

Noah's Ark - Love In / I Get All The Luck
Groovy, eastern influenced psych from Tampa, FL.

Ron De Voos - Trip So Wild / Run, Run, Run
 I'll presume this is the same group who gave us "The Maid" on Back From The Grave Vol. 7. This single is a weird psych effort though, and not exactly punk like their earlier record.

Second Summers - Bad Vibrations 
Another real obscure group, probably from the NYC area. Released in 1969, this is a great example of how some bands still avoided the more "progressive" sounds of the "Woodstock Generation" (blechhh)

Smoke - My Friend Jack / We Can Make It
I'm gonna finish this off with one of my absolute favorite singles ever. You can't beat this one for total freakbeat goodness!

Get it HERE

















11 comments:

  1. happy holidays dan and thank you again!

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  2. thank you!

    merry christmas and happy 2010!

    alessandro

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  3. Thank you for all your wonderful posts Dan. Have a very merry xmas. Henri

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  4. lucky number 13... Cool.

    Thanks as always, and I hope you had a great holiday. Maybe your wife would like to share some of those candy recipes lol :)

    Peace and blessings.

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  5. My copy of Caeser & His Romans
    also had the title changed, it looks
    about the same as yours, but I don't think it's from a radio station.
    I luckily found all of their
    45s at one time. The other 45
    on GJM is also very good. Looks
    like an interesting collection of tunes.

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  6. Thank you once again! Another very cool comp. Have a great New Year!

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  7. Thanks yet again Dan,you have posted some great tunes this year please keep it up,have a good new year and thanks again.

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  8. Dan,
    The Vandals are killing me! Such good stuff. Do you have any of their other 45's? Thanks!

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  9. Hi Dan,

    i haven't heard this volume but I ended up here because I was looking for Bob Morrison (I do know the 45 here) not exactly a well known character, right?
    Both sides are great, the B-side was the object of my search since I knew the song in Italian!
    In fact nowadays if you look for I POOH "Nel buio" on youtube you'll be able to hear it.
    It just amazes me that apart from obvious covers of US or UK hits done in Italian you also find total obscurities that were being covered.
    I suppose there was a time when for example The Brogues was just another new band, still...

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  10. The Ron-de-Vous of "Trip So Wild" fame were from Asheville, NC, not the same group that did "The Maid."

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