Listen: The Green Mosquito / The Tune Rockers 01TheGreen Mosquito.mp3
On Thanksgiving, let us give thanks to Buffalo band The Tune Rockers from 1958. Without them, and their ‘Green Mosquito’ there may never have hatched a ‘Human Fly’ or possibly even The Cramps. Shudder.
Listen: To Know You Is To Love You / Marc Bolan & Gloria Jones 01 To Know You Is To Love You 1.mp3
Beautiful footage of them performing it on SUPERSONIC:
Listen: Don't Bring Me Down / The Pretty Things 04 Don't Bring Me Down.mp3
44 years ago today, a radio station in Detroit actually playlisted this. Can you believe it? It was one of the initial promos WMCR gave me, might have even been in that very first pile. A few years later, I found stock copies at Woolworth’s on Main Street in Oneida, NY, and saved a box (pictured). I bought several over a two or three day period. Lord have mercy. The great singles that were in those boxes.
Listen: We’ll Be Right Back / Steinski & Mass Media SteinskiWellBeRightBack.mp3
There’s a nice interview with Steve Stein in the December 2008 issue of RECORD COLLECTOR. It reminded me of the two Steinski singles Fourth & Broadway released, and so I went to play them, not having heard either for ages. They are a vivid soundbite of all that cut up stuff happening in both hip hop and dance but sound a bit dated now. ‘Pump Up The Volume’ was the unexpected mainstream smash from the bunch. Despite reaching Number 1 in Billboard, it lost a stack, as none of the samples had been cleared. Island were way more careful when releasing Bomb The Bass ‘Beat Dis’. Both singles were great, but those in the know claim without Steinski & Mass Media’s ‘We’ll Be Right Back’ from the year prior, they might not have existed. So just maybe this started it all.
Listen: Listen: Viva Bobby Joe / The Equals 01 Viva Bobby Joe.mp3
Ok, so a good friend of mine, who follows this blog, has on several occasions suggested I post an Equals single. And every time I agree I should. So I guess I take requests.
Like The Foundations, they were marketed as a multi-racial rock band. Back then, it was an anomaly, maybe novelty and possibly a little dangerous. I’m sure those late night motorway stops had their fair share of comments. This was England 1968 remember. Vicki Wickham has told me a few jaw droppers about the experiences she had when bringing over the Motown acts, and James Brown, for her READY STEADY GO!!! program in that era. Check out photos and footage of them, they looked fantastic in flowered shirts and Carnaby Street trousers. It’s hard to find an Equals track that doesn’t sound big and booming. Eddy Grant’s voice certainly didn’t hurt. I saw him live a few times, years later, when ‘Electric Avenue’ was a hit – and he had lung power. Seems like he didn’t even need to get near the mike.
I’m not going to say ‘Baby Come Back’ isn’t the greatest, but ‘Viva Bobby Joe’ is an absolute runner up and a hard one to hear very often.
Listen: Good Morning / Sparks SparksGoodMorning.mp3
There’s so much I could say about Sparks. It would take volumes.
To put it all in a nutshell, they are basically a higher form of life. Been a fan since the beginning, followed them around the east coast when KIMONO MY HOUSE was current. Corinne loved them before me – so I got hooked. Been loyal ever since, and why not, they have never disappointed. In May of this year, they played all 20 of their albums, in full, over a 20 night run in London. I was unlucky enough to miss eighteen of them, but very lucky to see two, KIMONO MY HOUSE and PROPAGANDA. This all led up to playing the newest release, EXOTIC CREATURES OF THE DEEP in it’s entirety on the 21st night. By shear coincidence, I was in London with Matt & Kim at the time, and stayed a few days extra to catch those two shows. The current single ‘Good Morning’ was being played all over the English stations. How very civilized. I even awoke in the middle of the night and heard it on the clock radio I’d fallen asleep to bedside. As always, the lyrics are tremendous.
It’s absolutely my favorite single of the year. This version is a rule breaker for me, given it’s not on vinyl like every other record on the blog. For Sparks, I’m making an exception.
The above audio originates from the first UK radio spin ‘Good Morning’ received, via the Jonathan Ross Show, broadcast 5/10/08. It’s worth hearing for the intro and outro banter. Great stuff.
I hung out with Phil tonight. He stopped by to get some songs needed for a DJ job in Scotland that he’s schlepping to. He started brainstorming about his next project, The Cherry Truckers and played me a few tracks. It’s going to be pretty hot.
We met ten years ago when I picked up his band The Lo Fidelity Allstars for Columbia and became fast record collecting friends. We certainly had some fun bus rides on those US tours. Then a few months ago, by ridiculous coincidence, he and Holly bought an apartment two blocks from me. Why he left England is a constant to and fro between us but that’s another story. Deservedly, their single ‘Battleflag’ became a pretty big hit even in the States. You see the original version, which was blocked from release, had a Prince bit in it. The Lo Fi’s publisher, Warner-Chappell also published Prince, but couldn’t seem to get him to clear it – or according to some sources, had no rapport with him to even present the idea at all – so off it came. This post is that uncleared version. Some white labels were initially pressed for clubs, but the legal department freaked and in addition to ordering them destroyed – covered their asses by having them stamped ‘Uncleared Sample – Do Not Circulate’ first, just in case. That was way too tempting for me. I had a pal in the plant grab a few boxes and send them straight over to my office. They have since changed hands on eBay for crazy amounts. Worth it I must say. More importantly, this version is out there as it should be – and I bet Prince would like it too. See if you can spot the potential issue.
Listen: Battleflag / The Lo Fidelity Allstars 07 Battleflag.mp3
So Phil is flipping through stuff, putting together some songs to play at this Scottish do. Inevitably, these are the fun moments, when one good track leads you to find another. Not having heard this in ages, we gave it a play. I’d forgotten about it’s deep soul production, one only a great voice can fill. Never knew at the time if this was a guy or girl. Deon was pronounced just like Dionne, and it always baffled me until I saw him on Shindig. This record actually got it’s start on TV. It was CKLW’s Swingin’ Time, Detroit’s local American Bandstand knockoff that triggered it. He even managed an album on Carla’s parent label, Atco. According to Wikipedia, he’s a student supervisor nowadays.
Listen: Love Makes The World Go Round / Deon Jackson 11 Love Makes The World Go Round.mp3
Listen: My World Fell Down / Sagittarius MyWorldFellDown.mp3
Gary Usher was an early collaborator with Brian Wilson. One of them hugely influenced the other, not sure which, their work is so similar sounding. You might even say their sound was identical. Very much tied to the surf/hot rod California scene, he manufactured a bunch of bands in the genre: The Hondells being the biggest. In ‘67, the sound of LSD mixed with clean, west coast surf-pop trademarked his then current fictitious band: Sagittarius. This single was ever present during the summer of that year. Although it didn’t chart that high (#70), it warranted a full length that is really good. This is almost a blueprint of well produced, commercial drug pop.
Listen: Did I Come Back Too Soon? / Swamp Dogg 01 Did I Come Back Too Soon_.mp3
Seemingly an ever present bargain bin resident, like everyone else, I just passed all his releases by in the day. Then I read he and Jerry Williams were one in the same. Wait, the Jerry Williams who had produced Inez & Charlie Foxx? It pays to read label credits.
Before that stuff vanished from those bins for good, I picked up a bunch. It was down and dirty. I liked this guy.
The great list of singles he’s written or produced or both is pretty impressive: ZZ Hill, Patti La Belle & The Bluebells, Arthur Conley, Ruth Brown, Gene Pitney etc etc. Being the Inez & Charlie freak, stalker, that I am, he’s a saint in my book, having co-written my all time favorite ‘(1-2-3-4-5-6-7) Count The Days’.
In the 70′s he signed to Island, and released a great album from which they pulled two singles. This is one, with a fun story line that sounds as country as it does funky – was oddly a US B side but UK A side. If only it had been a hit.
Check out the CD compilation of his work on Ace: Blame It On The Dogg – The Swamp Dogg Anthology.
Listen: A Public Execution / Mouse A Public Execution.mp3
I think it was Lenny Kaye who said something about Mouse doing Bob Dylan better than Bob Dylan. But in local towns across American during ’65 – ’66, all the garage bands mimicked some favorite. Occasionally it would be so good, you didn’t care. Such was the case with this first Mouse single, which became a real cult record even then. The three singles that followed came out as Mouse & The Traps and were all over the place musically. But the biggest success, reaching #122 in Feb ’66, was indeed the debut, ‘A Public Execution’. Actually the local Ohio label that issued it, Fraternity, was always of interest. Pressed on shiny, thick vinyl with a standard orange or more common, maroon label; their releases had a collector’s feel from the get go. A favorite from them that almost took off nationally, 2 Of Club’s ‘Walk Tall’, was a super girl group track that I’ll post soon. Meanwhile their biggest seller was Lonnie Mack, and who can hate that idea.
Listen: Israel / Siouxsie & The Banshees 08 Israel.mp3
Watching Siouxsie & The Banshees really early on didn’t hold any indication they had it, not to mention her. Really, that early show I saw was pretty nasty. But either you’re the real deal, or you’re not. It’s pretty obvious she was. Talk about someone who just grew exponentially, it was amazing. So many incredible singles, one after the other – for years!
She’s still going strong. Seriously, if you can see her – do it. Legend, plain and simple. I get into these grooves whereby I just spin their singles one after the other. I get so excited about the next one up that sometimes I don’t even let the one playing finish out. Do you know what I mean?
This may be my all time favorite. There are many, but this is so haunting, has never dated, and remains gripping – I’m still picking up little things I never noticed. Other-worldly. You’d think Joe Meek had produced it from the grave.
Listen: Take The Skinheads Bowling / Camper Van Beethoven Take The Skinheads Bowling.mp3
Do you remember 120 Minutes in the 80’s? It was on around midnight, Sundays, back when MTV still played videos. I’d been lazy and hadn’t bothered to go see Camper Van Beethoven although they were a bit of a buzz. The clip for this came on, and even more than the footage I immediately loved the song. Couldn’t get a copy fast enough the next day. Went right down to Tower and there was the 7″. This was just before actual vinyl singles started to be phased out by the labels, like their album counterparts – replacing them with cds. A great way to make everyone buy all the music they already owned again for twice the price. Sounded like an impossible plan, but it worked. Anyways, Tower on 4th & Broadway was the place for singles during the 80’s. The whole south wall of the shop was lined with 7’s. All the big titles, which included many, many acts not getting play but filling the Ritz and other big venues had their releases racked (as many as 50 copies) right next to the chart hits. You had to check the place about twice a week because once say, the new Smiths/kd Lang/Cult singles sold through, there would be the new Sisters Of Mercy/Replacements/Del Fuegos taking their slots, and on and on. Plus they stocked even more obscure bands – and imports as well. These would exist in 10 count amounts tops, all in bin rows just below the wall racked quantity titles described above. So you had to stay on your toes. Good fun though.
I quickly made my way to a few Camper Van Beethoven shows, where ‘Take The Skinheads Bowling’ was the absolute highlight for me every time. The record sounds a bit thin nowadays, but it has such a great pop chorus, kinda silly lyrically maybe, but who cares. Years later the band evolved into Cracker. Just for the hell of it, fate dealt a coincidental card: their bass player Sal lives in the building right across the street from me. I was well pleased when he told me he’d been a member of Sparks, even playing on their BIG BEAT album. We’ve since played and traded many singles. He’s another record nut. We figured we live on one of the few blocks, maybe only blocks, in the solar system where 2 copies of The Syn’s ‘Created By Clive’ exist. Again, small world.
Listen: The Duck / Jackie Lee 19 The Duck.mp3
This is one of those records you heard a bunch for about 4 months, then never again – ever, until Northern Soul thankfully came along. It was probably a token RnB single, that somehow crossed into pop despite being on the small LA label, Mirwood. Not sure how those things happened back then but they did. Anyways it was danceable, which probably helped. He was one half of Bob & Earl (see an earlier post on them) – Earl to be exact – under an assumed name: Jackie Lee, but only for this brief solo run.
Listen: Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear / Alan Price Set
Simon Smith And The Amazing Dancing Bear / Alan Price Set
His original band, The Alan Price Combo, morphed into The Animals once Eric Burdon joined up. A few years later though, he left forming The Alan Price Set, a six piece that included a few brass players. Weened as many of the Flamingo All-Nighter keyboardists were, on Jimmy Smith and Jimmy McGriff, he and the band’s live show was probably way more blues, rootsy and jazzy than the singles released. All but the first (‘I Put A Spell On You’) were polished up for the charts, but it worked. They had a string of hits, and like Manfred Mann during the period, chose really interesting material to cover. One example being this Randy Newman song. With a great voice like his, these singles just had magic. I remember seeing a B&W clip of this on AMERICAN BANDSTAND back then. God I wish it would turn up on youtube.
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Listen: Bustin’ Loose (Part 1) / Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers ConwayTwittyLorettaLynn.mp3
The first urban record that got handed to me was, in hindsight, seminal. Chuck Brown & The Soul Searchers ‘Bustin’ Loose’. I had no idea how lucky I was but knew one thing: this guy’s live show was out of control. Black radio, as it was weirdly known then, really hated playing this record. It was the first Go-Go record to break national – in fact the only one other than the EU single. Like many sub-genres, it went against the homogenization known as American radio. A true street record, it was too hard to stop.
Thankfully. I saw him again about three years ago in DC. He did a show with Vivian Green. The place was heaving. He smoked like that first time, and was the same sweetheart he’d been way back then.
Listen: Fresh Air / Quicksilver Messenger Service 01 Fresh Air.mp3
I was somehow attracted to them – as with both Big Brother & The Holding Company and Blue Cheer. All from San Francisco, all sporting super long hair – two things arrogantly against my better judgement at the time, yet I liked them still. Quicksilver were cursed with a forever tinny sound, oddly devoid of any mid-range, negatively enhancing the shrill of Dino Valenti’s vocals. Combine that with Capitol’s nasty habit of using recycled vinyl (ever notice the pops and crackles on all those pressings) and you should have a recipe for disaster but still – I liked them. Now some of their singles (‘Hope’, ‘Bears’) were……so not ‘singles’, that they attracted me even more. And then some were super great ‘Pride Of Man’ (I heard this once on late night Boston radio), ‘Shady Grove’ (shrill overkill) and ‘What About Me’. Lyrically, very period and very Haight-Ashbury. The secret weapon for Quicksilver was undoubtably guitarist John Cipolinna. His sound was so unique, he just scared off any potential imitators. I was lucky enough to see him play a few times in his later years – thankfully nothing had changed, not the hair, clothes, sound or sideburns. Oh, then there was the name: Quicksilver Messenger Service. Names are really important. They are the first thing to get you curious, to invite you in, then ultimately represent. This one really, really worked.
Listen: A Thousand Shadows/ The Seeds
A
I often find myself referring to records as night time or winter. Chris Blackwell once said of Marianne Faithfull, “She’s very much a wintertime artist”, making me quite happy to hear I wasn’t the only one who thought that way. Probably stems from, particularly in the case of night time, when I’d hear the actual music the most, or at least initially.
With The Seeds, I have confidence I never heard them during the day, not once, when they were current. In the northeast, they only were played at night, when the playlists loosened up a bit. Funny, given that on the west coast, like Love and X, they were pretty much mainstream which came with being local. Those singles by The Seeds are just imprinted as night time records for me, and I like that. They have a darkness and mystery to them, every last one. All a bit menacing, due to the eerie keyboards mostly. Sky Saxon is one of a kind too, you just never mistake his voice. When ‘A Thousand Shadows’ was released in summer ’67, it coincided with my first ever radio show, Friday nights from 6 – 8 pm on the very small, very local AM station WMCR. I had successfully been blagging records off them for about two years at that point.
I lied. Told them I was from the local Children’s Hospital and seeking donations of their unplayed teen records, as their format was adult contemporary at the time. And I mean very adult, your parent’s music if you will: Mel Torme, Steve Lawrence, Eddie Fisher. We turned our nose at this stuff, but would go home and freak out to Scott Walker. In hindsight, it was pretty much the same sound but with a much better haircut admittedly. Mark Warner, then evening DJ while home from college for the summer, got me the job, I think, once he went back to school in the fall. His parents owned the station. They knew all along the donation drill was a scam, but figured they weren’t using the records anyways, and Mark’s Mom coined me that clever little boy that loves his music. That was the last time I ever heard that one, but bless her. I got a radio show out of it instead of being ratted on. Mind you, it only lasted a few weeks into the school year.
About seven years ago, December ’01 to be exact, when I went home to visit my Mom and Dad, I just drove by for the heck of it and decided to ring the bell. It was Christmas Eve, lo and behold, Mrs. Warner was there and still in charge! She was so sweet, welcomed me right inside. The place was pretty much the same, still had the two Gates turntables in the control room. She even took me downstairs to see what was left of the record library. “If you see something you really want now, I’m sure it won’t be missed”. All these years later, it just doesn’t get any better than this.
The Seeds were the first band I played, ever, on the radio. The theme of the show was to pretty much stick with the latest sounds from England, so how The Seeds got the first spin…but they did.
Listen: Across 110th Street / Bobby Womack Across 110th Street.mp3
Think grainy, washed out color, heroin in Harlem 70′s blaxploitation films and you’ll have a spot-on stereotypical description of ‘Across 110th Street’. Formula even. Probably more known for his less gimmicky writing, this still is a favorite track. Any of those accusations – all of which I’ve read – are way overshadowed by an almost perfect soundtrack theme. It’s funny how so much of that era’s music was similar in production and instrumentation. It’s all rolled up nicely in this one song. As always, a stellar vocal too.
Listen: Boogaloo Down Broadway / The Fantastic Johnny C 06 Boogaloo Down Broadway.mp3
This was as potent as any Wilson Pickett track at the time (’67), energetic and no way did I switch the dial when it came on. You just never hear this one these days – I don’t at least. I was playing my jukebox over the weekend with some friends around. It came on. No one had heard it in ages. Had to pause the box, pull out the record and play it like five times in a row it sounded that good.
Listen: Ant Rap / Adam & The Ants
Ant
In 1981, it was quite okay to walk about sporting a new romantic look. Wearing your hair like one of The Golden Girls seemed absolutely normal. Now we might look back and think, not so.
The tougher side of that image was probably Adam & The Ants. Maybe they even instigated the whole movement’s look, I can’t say. But along with their post punk image reinvention came their musical one. Jungle drumming became an integral part of the singles, starting with ‘Kings Of The Wild Frontiers’, a surprising UK hit upon release.
Several A sides later came ‘Ant Rap’, the most twisted, sparse sounding one yet. And it was a UK smash (#3). But wow does, it hold up today.
