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Saturday, February 27, 2016

In Dan's Garage...#117


Greetings once again friends and followers! Although being somewhat busy (as usual), I've made a concerted effort to try getting this blog out at least twice a month. Hoarding records is great, but if you don't listen to the darned things they're completely useless, that is unless you get a box full of Perry Como records, then you don't know what to do with them. I have at times bought records in bulk, and they've been disappointments for the most part, but my dear friends Tim & Rox, who scour estate sales and auctions look out for me from time to time and when there's a cheap bundle of 45s they'll buy them and pass them along to me. Great friends they are and I have found some pretty decent finds in all that vinyl, but most of them miss the mark for this blog. Good items for the collection though. Perhaps I'll include them in "Dan's Leftovers", a blog that is completely neglected by yours truly mainly because I haven't been able to decide on a definitive format, and I'm looking for a file sharing service that will let me embed one file into the post but not be a "fly by night" affair like Div Share which I was using but now they are kaput. Cest la vie. I did use box.net for a couple of posts, but they're rather expensive, and I can see myself racking up huge Internet costs for uploading one song at a time. If anyone out there has a suggestion let me know. I'd love to get that thing going full throttle. For now, dig on this latest offering. As I stated in my last post, Windows Live Writer continues to stonewall and not allow me to upload my posts to blogger.com. This is really pissing me off and as of yet I have come up with no solution. The last post was somewhat of a debacle because I used the old time blogger app which is OK, but I made one wrong keystroke and sections of it came up messed up or altogether unreadable.Sorry. I shall do better :) In the meantime, enjoy this set of "nuggets". I'm sure they will pique your interest.

Tigers - I See The Light / She Calls Me Baby (1965)
 The same band that released "Jingle Jump" on Raynard which was featured on IDG #19. This one is certainly better and definitely more "garage" that the previous effort with some great bashing drums and cool guitar. From Milwuakee, WI.

Fugitives - Sticks And Stones / Lonely Weekends (1965)
A completely unknown group, but some evidence says they are from Bloomington, IN. On this two sider they tackle Ike Turner's classic "Sticks & Stones", on the flip we get Charlie Rich's "Lonely Weekends". Both are great!

Lady-Bugs - How Do You Do It (1964)
According to "Fuzz, Acid, & Flowers", this was a girl garage band from Norfolk, VA that had some connection to Kim Fowley. Go figure. What we have here is definitely a bunch of adolescent girls whooping it up with Gerry & The Pacemakers' big hit and doing a rather spirited job of it if I might say.

Spats - She Kissed Me Last Night / There's A Party In The Pad Down Below (1964)
Typical frat rock goodness from the Spats, this being the follow up to "Gator Tails And Monkey Ribs". 

Blue Things - I Must Be Doing Something Wrong / La Do Da Da (1965)
From Hays, KS this was the first 45 this legendary Midwest band would release on RCA Victor records and it's a pretty good one. The A side definitely has a pop feel to it with some extra orchestration added, but the B side is a solid Gene Vincent cover that rocks nicely.

Brute Force - Toys For Tots / Brute's Party (1967)
The second Brute Force 45, this one being somewhat anti-war, but kooky nonetheless. The B side I believe was not on his LP "Confections Of Love".

Blues Project - Lost In The Shuffle / Gentle Dreams (1967)
This one is tough to pin down date-wise, but I believe this was the last 45 released by The Blues Project before (or possibly after) Danny Kalb and Al Kooper left the band and Andy Kulberg and Roy Blumenfeld continued on and released "Planned Obsolescence" which was basically the pilot LP for the band Seatrain.

Stained Glass - A Scene In Between / Mediocre Me (1967)
The last 45 to be released on RCA by this fantastic group out of San Jose. This one is quite possibly their best

Simon Dupree & The Big Sound - Kites / Like The Sun, Like The Fire (1967)
Simon Dupree & The Big Sound were actually the stepping stone for Derek, Ray, & Phil Shulman who would go on to form the progressive rock band Gentle Giant. During their tenure as Simon Dupree they lamented the "progressive" style of this particular 45 as they saw themselves more of a "tough" R&B type band, which is a head scratcher to me because this is closer to Gentle Giant than any R&B they might have been doing at the time. Oh well, I was never a fan of Gentle Giant anyway but this 45, which they thought was crap, is kinda cool. It is rumored that Elton John auditioned for Gentle Giant but was turned down. Sucks for those guys because I think E.J. got the better end of the deal. Such is fate.

Fruit Machine - The Wall (1969)
A mostly unknown outfit from the UK that I believe had several other songs released in their homeland but had this one off 45 released in the US only. No matter. This is a terrific late 60s psych number which I'm pretty sure made it to one of the "Rubble" comps.

Sugar Shoppe - Save The Country (1969)
A Canadian Sunshine Pop group that had an LP released on Capitol and this one off (I believe) 45 o Epic where they cover Laura Nyro's "Save The Country". I know this is real "poppy", but I love Laura Nyro songs so I included it.

Yellow Payges - I'm A Man / Home Again (1970)
A pretty good band that had a slew of 45s in many diverse styles. Although this one was released in 1970, "I'm A Man" comes off as something three years too late, or maybe they were way ahead of their time as the vocals eerily remind me of every Billy Childish record (and his clones) I've ever heard. Great stuff on both sides here.

Goliath - Come With Me (To My World) / Cross Roads (1969)
A pretty good psych group that reminds me of a cross between Vanilla Fudge and The Graham Bond Organization. I believe these guys were from Philadelphia.....

Gun - Hobo / Don't Look Back (1969)
A British group that I have very little info on except for the fact that they released one LP on Epic and at least this one 45.

Scott - Peachnut Brandy / Miss America (1970)
A duo from Hollywood that had this one 45 that was strangely issued on Kent records, home of such garage/psych greats as Z.Z. Hill and B.B. King. Just joking. Scott Passen and Scott Crane played all the instruments on this rather excellent bubblegum flavored 45 and it even came with a picture sleeve as well. I don't have the actual sleeve but here's a scan I found on the web....


Lance - Working Overtime (1976)
In my never ending search for cool records I often am baited by Ebay listings that describe a record as 'garage". About 30% of the time it's nothing near garage-like and 5% of those outright suck completely (i try not to bid over $1 or $2 for these types of things. Sometimes, the "non-garage" items are a pleasant surprise as in the case of "Lance", a band who most likely came from Iowa, but since IGL Studios served a great deal of the upper Midwest (Minnesota, Wisconsin, South Dakota) I really can't pinpoint the exact origin of this one. Being from 1976 the A side is pretty much what you'd expect. It sounds a lot like "Bread" or some other soft rock band from the mid-70s, but on the flip they let loose with a surprisingly decent simple rock & roll tune that isn't over the top hard rock as you 'd think you might get from a band of this era. I really like this one and since it was only $.99, I'm loving it even more!!!!!!!





22 comments:

  1. It opened fine, & I'm enjoying it very much. Got lots to go, yet. Thanks much for this cool series.

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  2. Your hoarding obsession is my gain. As always, thanks very much.

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  3. As always, your collections are top knotch! Thanks!
    - Stinky

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  4. Thanks, always enjoy your posts.
    Have you tried the zipyshare uploader? it's at http://www.zippyshare.com/sites/uploader.jsp
    and can do upload without a browser. just get a free account, upload files as private or public, and it does it and creates a log withe the url for each file.

    I use it a lot and it's never failed so far (YMMV).

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    1. Yes, I use the Zippyshare uploader quite often to upload multiple archives which I link to posts. To be more specific, what I'm looking for is something that will embed a file player (with the file) to each individual post, as opposed to the box.net link which opens up another window.

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  5. For once I might be able to help you with some info, as small thanks for all the great stuff you have offered. Gun - Hobo / Don't Look Back (1969) is by the same British group who had a hit with Race With The Devil and released two lps (both in UK/Europe and the US) and at least 5 singles. They featured Paul Gurvitz and brother Adrian Gurvitz, who had been in the Knack (no, not that one) and would between them go on to form such worthwhile groups as Three Man Army, Parrish & Gurvitz, Baker Gurvitz Army (amongst other recordings which would best be forgotten). Hobo is not the best thing they ever did, but highlights the kind of guitar termed 'tasty' back in the day. The non-lp b-side is the more interesting and yet another reason to thank you for your searching and generosity.

    Mr Pinkwhistle

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    1. Ahhhhhhh yes! You are correct, and my feeble memory has failed me once again!!!! Thank you for this important info. It's friends like you that really make this blog tick!!!!

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  6. Great stuff as usual. Stained Glass, Gun, Simon Dupree & Blues Project....what's not to like. Cheers Dan!

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  7. Hey Dan real good stuff here. Appreciate all the good tunes you throw my way!

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  8. Thanks Dan. I now have all 117 of your incredible posts...WOW

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  9. re Fruit Machine - The Wall (1969)
    This has become a favourite of mine since one of the Rubble comps: you're lucky to have an original promo. I picked up one of their other UK singles (the superb I'm Alone Today) in Norfolk (UK) when on holiday with my parents many years ago(I was 14!). For info (some wrong - including mine, together with my pretentious comments!) and more correct ones from Dave at the blog and Chris Randall the bass player, see the excellent Left and to the Back blog (search for the blog name and Fruit Machine - The Wall (1969), and also for a separate entry on the same blog about the B-side - Fruit Machine - Willow Tree).

    Mr Pinkwhistle

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  10. I'm having the same trouble finding a file-sharing service for single files. The one I used when doing individual blog posts, Kiwi6, has disabled a good portion of the files I uploaded - they are still accessible in my account but I can't do anything with them unless I purchase a subscription or something. Very frustrating!

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    1. I'm going to try "Open Drive". It looks like I can get a decent amount of storage and you can embed a player as well. I'll keep you all posted.

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  11. Did you know that one of the members of The Sugar Shoppe was Victor Garber, who later played Jesus in "Godspell," but is best known as Jack Bristow, ultra-badass & father of Sydney Bristow (Jennifer Garner) in "ALIAS"??

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  12. Well....I don't watch "Alias", but on behalf of all the friends and readers out there, Thank you for the info!

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  13. Jim Danelectro ClevelandJuly 30, 2016 at 5:09 PM

    Hey, Dan! "Scene In Between" is a great track. One among many by The Stained Glass. Interesting thing is...... I've just been reading your Blog entry #109 where you have "Groovy Motions" by The Fireballs (another great track) and you mention their previous year's hit "Bottle Of Wine". Take the verse from "Bottle Of Wine" and lay it over the verse from "Scene In Between" and note how eerily similar they are! One is Alcoholic, the other is Psychedelic and both came out in 1967. SPOOKY!

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