In Dan’s Garage…#93

Happy Thanksgiving!!!! I’ve been rather busy lately (as usual) and have slowly been packing away at this post for the last month, but I figure since I have all my leaves raked up (well..most of them anyway) and the snow blower at the ready, and a turkey in the oven, and nothing to do for the next few hours, I thought I’d at least start this post. We got a nice blast of snow here yesterday and it kinda feels more like January around here than late November, but I suspect that things will moderate somewhat over the next week or so. Anyway…I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday season. I figure I’ll have at least one more post before Christmas, hopefully two or three, but as you dig into turkey, potatoes, pie, etc… enjoy this latest offering!

Adam Faith & The Roulettes – It’s All Right (1964) Adam Faith was a huge teen star in Britain and had a number of hits, mostly in the pop style. When Beatlemania hit he sort of had to catch up with the times and hired The Roulettes to back him up on this classic beat raver.

Bill & Will – Goin’ To The River / Let Me Tell You Baby (1964) A group from Albany, GA had this one release on Chicago’s Checker label. Real crude Blues/R&B sounds that are at least a year ahead of their time.

Gary & The Night lights – Sweet Little Sixteen / Take Me Back (1965) A while back I swore this was the last Seeburg 45 I had left in my collection to post. I WAS WRONG! This another one by Gary & The Nightlights who would later morph into The American Breed and had a huge hit with “Bend Me, Shape Me” as well as a great version of “Mindrocker” Not sure if there’s any more of these jukebox 45s left so I'm making no promises this time.

Sandals – 6 Pac / Theme From Endless Summer (1964) Late 60’s surf sounds from the same guys who recorded the fantastic “Tell Us Dylan”.

Pacers – You Got Me Bugged / Sassy Sue (1964) An interesting 45 because these same two songs were featured on an LP by a phony group called The Buggs that released an LP called “Beetle Beat” under completely different titles.

Illusions – The World Outside / I Don’t Believe It (1965) One of many Illusions lurking around during the 60s. I was going to save this one for a “pop” post but I figured I’d mix things up with this mélange of surf and soul. Probably one of the “Beach Music” groups from the south east.

Nashville Teens – Find My Way Back Home / Devil In Law (1965) So as I was perusing through this “handful” of 45s I discovered that five of them were on either London Records, or one of their subsidiaries. I love that label!!!!!! Whether it’s the blue “stock” label (lots of Stones 45s on that on in my collection) or that bright swirly orange thing that graces some of the finest records ever to be released in the 60s. London certainly had quite few cool labels under their distribution including Deram, Seville, Coliseum, Chapter One, Hi, M.O.C., and literally dozens of others. Here’s a sampling of a few starting with the Nashville Teens, a fantastic group that never really got it’s due outside of their colossal hit “Tobacco Road”. Much of their output was really good R&B or their unique interpretation of folk/blues.

Moody Blues – And My Baby’s Gone / From The Bottom Of My Heart (1966) One of the last to feature Denny Laine before he left and the Justin Hayward/John Lodge era began (which I love by the way...)

Ragamuffins – Parade Of Uncertainty / Hate To See A Good Thing Have To Go (1967) A group from Greenwich Village that released two 45s on Seville, both fantastic folk/rock efforts.

Truth – Sueno / Old Ma Brown (1967) A British freak beat group tackles a really good Rascals tune.

Us Too – I’ll Leave You Crying / The Girl With The Golden Hair (1967) A Cincinnati group that recorded two versions of this A side, this one being the latter. You can read an in depth story of Us Too right HERE.

Layng Martine Jr. – Surabian Lament / Pick All The Flowers That You Can (1967) We featured Layng in IDG #14 doing a somewhat fuzzy teen pop number. This time he goes raga with a cool eastern influenced psych/pop two sider. Layng continued on after this with a very successful career writing song in Nashville.

Whispers –Knowin’ / My Long And Sleepless Night  (1967) Good two sider of psych/pop on the A side and a very subdued yet tense garage tune on the B that has no electric guitars in in it. Produced by Warren Schatz who also worked on many projects in the 60s and 70s including Richie Dean’s fantastic “Time” on Tower.

Danish Lost & Found – The First Cut Is The Deepest (1969) A group from Copenhagen takes on the often covered Cat Stevens song and while it’s not as intense as The Koobas’ version, it’s pretty good. A helluva lot better than Cheryl Crow………..

Blue Cheer – West Coast Child Of Sunshine / When It All Gets Old (1969) Let’s end this Thanksgiving feast with one of the last 45s to be issued by Blue Cheer on Philips records. By now Leigh Stephens had left the band as was replaced by Burns Kellog on keyboards and Randy Holden on guitar, and with Stephens went the ultra heavy proto-metal sound that defined their first two LPs. This 45 is a complete departure from that with a much more mainstream psych/rock sound.

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In Dan’s Garage…#92

Hi Y’all!!! I wanted to get this one out last weekend, but I ran into some detours and had to put it off until this weekend. It still amazes me that I’ve gotten as far as #92 in this whole deal, and since I started we’ve grown into  a nice little community of 208 friends and followers, and this thing has taken well over 300,000 hits since I put the little counter up there about three years ago. Thanks again for all your kind comments and suggestions. Please keep ‘em coming and yes do send me pictures and such if you were in or knew anybody from one of these acts. I love to hear stories and if you’d like to relate something in detail, perhaps we can do a feature. I’d still like to get my good collector friend Chuck Ciriello to do a guest post one of these days. He has an awesome collection that’s real heavy on local stuff. Chuck if you’re out there let me know, we can do it anytime! Once again I’ve gathered another pile of 45s and recorded them for your (and my) enjoyment, so sit back and dig on NUMBER 92!!!!!!!

The Mighty Hannibal – Jerkin’ The Dog (1965) This is definitely NOT a garage or even psyche 45, but what a lot of people consider “Northern Soul”, a genre that’s getting a lot of attention these days from collectors, and one that is fetching huge bucks for what are considered “rare” records. Personally, I don’t get it. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a huge fan of soul music and R&B, although I don’t collect those types of records, but many of these pieces are commanding prices way in excess of $1000, well above and beyond their garage “counterparts”.   I love this 45 though because it not only has tremendous soul mojo, but also evokes somewhat of a garage feel as well, with it’s very sparse instrumentation (no horns), and the general groove of the song. If there ever was a “crossover” record, this would be it.

Roy Head & The Traits – Apple Of My Eye / I Pass The Day (1965) Meanwhile, back in San Antonio, TX, white guys like Roy Head were singing “blue eyed soul” songs like this ace 45, his follow up to “Treat Her Right”

Captain Zoom – Long Tall Texan / I Really Want You (1965) From what I gather, these guys were not from Texas, although they do an excellent mimicking of The Sir Douglas Quintet, but were from Richmond, CA, the Bay Area, and had at least two other 45s on A&M. Ironically, KBOP is a radio station from the Dallas, TX area.

Gants – Road Runner / My Baby Don’t Care (1965) The Gants were from Greenwood, Mississippi and unlike other groups from the deep south, they emulated the British Invasion as well as anyone in the USA. They especially had a great knack for doing excellent cover songs as well as a few superb originals like “My Baby Don’t Care”, the flip of this classic two sider.

Teddy & The Pandas – Bye Bye, Out The Window / Once Upon A Time (1966) A very popular group from Boston that had several 45s and an LP on Tower records.

Wild Ones – Come On Back (1966) These are the guys who did the original version of “Wild Thing”, in a style reminiscent of Bob Dylan as opposed to the hard rockin’ version made famous by The Troggs. This was their second to last 45 which was oddly released on the Sears label (as in Sears-Roebuck) and was most likely some kind of promotional item sold through the department store.

Court Jesters – It’s All Right / Dance For Me (1967) Danny Jordan and Tommy Wynn were both members of The Detergents whose “Leader Of The Laundromat” was a hit in 1964. They went on to do other projects but in between they recorded two 45s as The Court Jesters for Roulette. This is one of them. Not bad really, but definitely more pop than garage.

Hysterics – Won’t Get Far / That’s All She Wrote / Why Should You Treat Me This Way / Everything’s There (1966) I generally don’t post reissues on my blog, mainly because I prefer to show off my “original” pieces, but sometimes (only twice) I cheat and replace the vinyl tracks with digital copies, mainly because the original has so much surface noise that it totally distracts from the song, or in this case, a reissue that is actually quite rare and includes an entire body of work by one of history’s best garage bands. I remember the first time I heard “Won’t Get Far” (on Boulders Vol. 1) and thinking that the singer had a real problem with his girlfriend, and was definitely letting his aggression loose in the studio. Real genius stuff here. The Hysterics were from Southern California, and released two gems, both included on this reissue EP which apparently is pretty hard to get these days.

Kinetic Energy – Suzie Q / Margaret Ann (1969) These guys were from Houghton located on the upper peninsula of Michigan very close to Wisconsin and Canada. They released one 45 on the Minneapolis based label Studio City as simply “The Kinetics”. They later augmented their name and released this real heavy take on the Dale Hawkins classic with a flip side that reminds me of Procol Harum.

Los Rockin’ Devils – Mi Carcachita / Azucar, Azucar (1970) Los Rockin’ Devils were a band from Tijuana, Mexico that had an extremely prolific career recording records for a Mexican audience hungry for American Rock & Roll. They specialized in covering the hits of the day and singing them in Spanish, and had an exceptionally raw delivery as evidenced on these two covers. One a Stones hit and the other a rather amusing rendition of the Archies’ biggest hit!

North Atlantic Invasion Force – Black On White / The Orange Patch (1968) An excellent group from Connecticut that had several other 45s.

Challengers – Hear My Message / I Wanna Hold You (1970) A decent group from Milwaukee, WI that also released the legendary “Take A Ride On The Jefferson Airplane” 45 on Night Owl records.

Rush Hour -  Before I Die / Set Me Free (1969) A Chicago group that takes the Vanilla Fudge formula and applies it to an outstanding flanged out original, and a cover of The Kinks’ “Set Me Free”

Syndicate Of Sound – Brown Paper Bag / Reverb Beat (1970) Best known for their huge 1966 hit and garage anthem “Little Girl”, The Syndicate Of Sound had several somewhat unsuccessful follow-ups including this one released early in 1970. This is actually a pretty good record, and some have said that they were trying to catch the same feel as fellow Bay Area legends CCR.

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In Dan’s Garage…#91

I haven’t got much to say today, mainly because an extremely NASTY virus infected my computer (courtesy of my loveable son) and has put me in a foul mood. But I did get it fixed so’s I can get this here post out. So please, enjoy this day’s offerings, and keep smiling!

Bobby Kent & The Kentones – Don’t Go’way / Summertime Is Through (1959) Let’s start off with an early rocker from the Salem, MA area. A side is a great mover and the B is typical teen heartthrob fare. Booby Kent’s real name was Bob Kassiotis and was apparently from Lynn, Ma.

Johnny & The Jays – Baby Do / Lugene (1960) I can’t say I know the complete history of this particular rocker, but it was also recorded by Jackie Lee Cochran and was never released except for the acetate making a couple of appearances on various comps. A nice up-tempo rocker backed by another teen crooner.

Chartbusters – Why / Stop The Music (1964) The second 45 by these D.C. legends, and they follow up “She’s The One” with another Invasion styled doozy. The flip was written by Big Al Dowling who they backed up as the Poe Kats back in the 50’s.

Billy J. Kramer & The Dakotas – Bad To Me / Little Children (1964) OK, I know this is not garage or psyche or anything related (well I stand corrected, they were a “beat” group), and yeah, it’s a common 45, but this was in the stack and I played it and…you know what??? I’ve heard countless CDs over the years proclaiming superior sound, and re-mastered this, and digitally enhanced that, and the whole argument that digital music is better than pure analog music (e.g. VINYL), and that you don’t have to deal with pops and scratches and BLAH BLAH BLAH. Well I’m here to say…FUCK CDS!!!!!!!!!. I hate those fucking things. You know what happens when a CD gets scratched?? IT’S FUCKED! You can’t play the goddamned thing anymore and it skips even worse than a piece of scratched vinyl does. Plus the sound is usually horrendous. It’s all tinny and there’s a general ice pick to the ear quality about it. Ever hear a copy of “Please Please Me” by the Beatles on VJ Records in pure mono? It’s glorious. Even with the pops and scratches, which is why I included this here 45 in this post. I played it and it just sounds so good in all it’s monophonic glory. Scratches and all. Sorry for the vulgarities, but I had to get that off my chest……..whew! Oh, yeah, Billy J. was from Liverpool (actually nearby Bootle) and a pal of the above mentioned Beatles. He was rather successful for a bit, but couldn’t keep up with the changes that the late 60s brought about. His handful of hits are excellent IMHO.

Fenways – Humpty Dumpty (1964) Pittsburgh’s Fenways are probably best known for backing up the Vogues who also recorded a version of this tune probably using The Fenways as a backing band for that one as well. This “solo” effort, if you will, is different from the Vogues track.

Leaves – Hey Joe / Funny Little World (1965) Released twice by Mira records, this is the second and more famous version of the song.There is a bit of debate as to which version is better, but I think both are great. The fist one might be a bit “garagier” than the second as it lacks the prominent fuzz guitar of the second.

Leaves – Get Out Of My Life Woman (1966) Another one by the Leaves, this time something a little more soul influenced. I swear I have a version of this same 45 in one of my boxes that is a different mix with some atrocious horns tacked on to it.

Vejtables – I Still Love You / Anything (1965) The Vejtables were one of the finest acts to come out of the Bay Area in the mid sixties before the Haight/Ashbury hype became prominent. They, along with other folk rock groups like The Beau Brummels and We Five created a unique sound that was somewhat different than their SoCal counterparts in LA. Both sides of this 45 are great and it’s too bad they never got the exposure they deserved. Drummer Jan Errico would eventually quit and join The Mojo Men who had a minor hit with Stephen Stills’ “Sit Down I Think I Love You”.

Combenashuns – What’cha Gonna Do? / Hey! Uncle Sam (1966) All I know about this somewhat lo-fi 45 is that they were from Bethlehem, PA. Anyone out there know more????

Life – Snake Bite / One O'clock Noon Time (1967) A group that was based in Auburn, AL, they formed in college and travelled up to Memphis and recorded this neat two sider at Hi studios. I could tell you more, but if you click HERE, It’ll take you to a very nice blog that’ll give you tons more info than I can offer.

Happy Return – To Give Your Lovin’ / I Thought I Loved Her (1969) I found a little bit of info on this group from St. Louis. The band members consisted of Steve Noack (vocals, lead guitar), Tom Noack (rhythm guitar), Jim Cunningham (organ), Jimmy Albright (bass), and Rich Carroll (drums). Apparently Norman Petty was involved in this affair as it shows up on a website of Norman Petty Productions. Nice fuzzed out heaviness on the A side with a much softer B side.

Movers – Leave Me Loose / Birmingham (1969) Another hard edged 45 from ‘69. Pretty good for something that came out so late in the decade. From New Port Richey, FL.

End – Shades Of Orange / Loving, Sacred Loving (1968) Long thought to be The Rolling Stones incognito because of Bill Wyman’s involvement, it appeared on many bootleg LPs before people finally realized they were in fact NOT the Stones. Their debut 45 which is more ‘mod’ than psyche can be found on IDG# 25.

Genesis – Angeline / Suzanne (1969) I’ll just politely point out that this is not the British super group, but an entirely different crew from the USA. They recorded an LP which was a mixed bag of pop and psyche, but this heavy number really stands out.

Hype – Waiting For The Man / White Light, White Heat (1970) Well, this 45 appeared in my stack and I wasn't sure whether to include it or not. For those who are unaware, The Hype was a band that was formed by David Bowie in 1970, and were sort of a bridge between Space Oddity and Hunky Dory, although you can hear what was to become the basis for Ziggy Stardust on both sides, which are covers of two famous Velvet Underground songs. Band members were Mick Ronson [guitar], Tony Visconti [bass] and John Cambridge [drums] as well as Bowie who played rhythm and sang vocals (naturally). The Hype never really had many performances except for a few appearances on the BBC which is where these recordings were most likely taken from. This 45 is obviously some sort of a bootleg and I’m including it here more for historical value, although I must say they’re both excellent performances and don’t really seem too out of place. I thought this was some kind of super rarity, but it turns out it really doesn’t fetch very much $$$ on the market.

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