Listen: Tragedy / Thomas Wayne
Tragedy / Thomas Wayne

Both sides are a childhood memory record. And I had all but forgotten this one until there it was in the collection I’d bought from Tony King. Certainly not representative of the general sound I ultimately went for until years later, unsure if it was the very first record I had someone buy me, but it was certainly one of the first.

Possibly ‘Tragedy’ is what planted that seed toward favoring violent death and horror records like those by Jimmy Cross, Twinkle, The Shangri-Las, Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages even The Gun Club. Thomas himself died in a car crash.

Listen: Saturday Date / Thomas Wayne
Saturday Date / Thomas Wayne

Like Side A, the flip, ‘Saturday Date’ was produced by Scotty Moore, one time Elvis Presley guitarist. Why it wasn’t included in the AMERICAN GRAFFITI soundtrack is beyond me. Lyrically, you can’t capture the era better. Speaking of guitarists, Thomas Wayne was indeed the brother of Luther Perkins, who played lead for Johnny Cash.

A side scan from Tony King’s collection, B side scan is my original copy from the day.

Listen: Monster In Black Tights / Screaming Lord Sutch
Monster In Black Tights / Screaming Lord Sutch

Pictures of this guy frightened me, given I was a really little kid. It was exactly summer 1963, stumbling on him, still spooked by monster movies, Dracula and dead people. My Mom and Dad took me along to Ireland for a visit with the family, and there he was, in the Ballymoney County Antrim Sunday Paper. I guess the lure of that other world was in me early, because I certainly wanted to hear him quite a lot. In hindsight, this was a time when both novelty and monster themed records were welcomed on Top 40, but I wasn’t even listening to records then.

As it turned out, hearing Screaming Lord Sutch was not to be for more several years, by which time I was a growing Joe Meek appreciater. He had coined the extra terrestrial production sound of creepy outer space and graveyards by ’62. What a logical fit then that he produced most of Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages’ output.

Always bugged me that the label copy never credited Screaming Lord Sutch’s band The Savages, unlike the photos, posters and writes ups. Why leave off such a spot on name tag?

As for ‘Monster In Black Tights’, it really has dated. Which makes me like it even more, a nice reminder of what technology has done, good and bad. I do wish I’d been old enough to see them live, the group turning up to shows in a hearse and all.

Listen: She’s Fallen In Love With The Monster Man / Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages ScreamingLordMonster.mp3

I finally got around to reading the Screaming Lord Sutch feature in the June issue of MOJO. Try to do the same, maybe it’s even online. A few priceless pictures and so many stunning details, I really don’t know where to start. He was everything I already knew and way more as well. Some of the live show descriptions and antics, well we now know where Alice Cooper got more than one idea. Don’t blame him for lifting a few, they’re just too good to waste. Okay, here’s a tiny bit: “cherry food dye, cold scrambled eggs with a few masticated inches of seaside rock and it’ll look like you’re spitting out teeth”.

No question about it, his recordings were made very inexpensively, several produced by Joe Meek, complete with dreadful sound effects – and I mean that in a good way. As the ’70′s arrived, more than one act paid respects. The Crazy World Of Arthur Brown, The Damned and The Revillos even covered and released as their A side as well, ‘She’s Fallen In Love With The Monster Man’. You’d think the song was written just for them listening to the original above.

Listen: Dracula’s Daughter / Screaming Lord Sutch ScreamingLordDracula'sDaughter.mp3

So many soon to be name musicians passed through the ranks of being Savages in the ’61 – ’63 period, prior to their own later successes. The list, also in the article, is long and fairly jaw dropping. Jimmy Page plays lead on ‘She’s Fallen In Love With The Monster Man’, and Jeff Beck on ‘Dracula’s Daughter’. Even then, in ’64, his style was recognizable and it’s easy to see how much he moulded The Yardbirds’ sound from one listen.

The usually precise MOJO does flub one detail. ‘Dracula’s Daughter’ was not his last for Decca, it was his first for Oriole after being dropped by Decca. While I’m at it, the above Cameo Parkway 7″ is the only US release from his period with The Savages.

Listen: Ecstasy / Johnny Kidd & The Pirates JohhnyKiddEcstasy.mp3

Seems theater played quite the part for a few big UK bands from ’62 – ’64. Like Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages, Johnny Kidd & The Pirates had their schtick as well. But despite the gimmick accusations heaped on both, there was an alarming reality to it all – they were both a little believable and frightening, to a little kid at least. With his pirate eyepatch, Johnny Kidd carried the rock and roll torch right into the beat group era, keeping a very bluesy raw sound to his band, that years later would be deemed quite influential. During ’62 – ’63, Mick Green handled lead guitar duties, and it’s from this period that ‘Ecstasy’ comes. His signature playing style, very evident here, was later religiously coined by Wilko Johnson. He added a near lethal dose of amphetamine to the recipe and Dr. Feelgood was born.

Timely even at this moment, ‘Ecstasy’ being co-written by Phil Spector and Doc Pomus, I always enjoyed the absolutely coincidental double entendre of the lyrics. “take me by the hand and lead me to the land of ecstasy” or “the first time that I saw you, you showed me the door to ecstasy”. Rave on.

Listen: Preachin’ The Blues / Cyril Davies & His R. & B. All StarsCyrilPreachin.mp3

Listen: Sweet Mary /Cyril Davies & His R. & B. All StarsCyrilSweet.mp3

I’m just so happy I own this. I only got it off eBay a few years back, and was rather excited thinking it was the same song I knew from The Gun Club – but it is not. No big deal, it’s a nice one to have still. Like Alexis Korner and John Mayall, Cyril Davies is often credited with helping to establish skiffle into purist blues, the form so many of the soon-to-be historic bands became addicted to. After his Blues Incorporated lineup that included Charlie Watts disbanded, The R. & B. All Stars were formed with many a member from Screaming Lord Sutch & The Savages. They recorded five tracks for Pye’s new ‘R&B’ imprint (basically a logo on the stock sleeve). These are two.