The War of the Roses

Boys and girls singing duets: not a new thing. You can probably trace an unbroken line from show tunes like "I've Got My Love To Keep Me Warm” (1937’s On the Avenue) and “Do I Hear You Saying” (1928’s Present Arms!) backwards to 17th or 18th Century opera; Pamina and Papageno in The Magic Flute or Nero and Poppea in Monteverdi’s The Coronation of Poppea.

A “Hey Paula” benefits from the same thing that made a “No Two People” special a few decades earlier. Chemistry, namely - the warmth and harmonics of the male and female voice added together, the sweet frisson of flirtation.

The ‘50s and ‘60s were golden decades for male-female duets in all different quarters - pop, folk, R&B, country, even jazz (think “Girl from Ipanema”). There are plenty of enduring examples: Louis Prima & Keely Smith’s “That Old Black Magic,” Mickey & Sylvia’s “Love is Strange,” Bobbie Gentry & Glen Campbell’s “All I Have to Do Is Dream” - “I Got You Babe,” of course. They captured the male-female thing in its carefree or deeply inspiring moments. Even the ribbing of Otis Redding & Carla Thomas’s “Tramp” or Johnny Cash & June Carter’s “Jackson” is affection in the guise of mere sauciness.

And there’s your problem: love is not all sunshine and strawberries. For every ten “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough”'s, Marvin Gaye and Tammi Terrell recorded only one “Give In You Just Can’t Win,” a wildly implausible ratio in the scope of romantic dalliance.

To that there would always be country music, where the brokenhearted were part of the genre's biological fabric. Kitty Wells & Roy Drusky’s “I Can’t Tell My Heart That,” Porter Wagoner & Dolly Parton’s “Holding on to Nothing,” Dottie West & Kenny Rogers’s “Two Fools Collide,” George Jones & Tammy Wynette’s “Cryin’ Time.” Believe me, the list is endless. You cry in your beer, the jukebox keeps on playing, things get worked out.

But if those wistful, grown-up discussions seem a bit old-fashioned in their restraint, then this week’s selections offer something more in the way of epithet-screaming catharsis. These spread the bitterness all around, verse by combative verse, with the raw sound to match. This phenomenon - Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf-style combat - would be pretty limited, unfortunately. But how could it not be? It was sort of like sitting at a table with a bickering couple, one just tries to stay out of the crossfire.

Time to reopen some old wounds.

1. Bud & Kathy, Hang It Out to Dry (Downey)
A mystery duo, Bud & Kathy recorded “Hang It Out to Dry” for the Los Angeles-based Downey Records.

Downey Records embodied all that is great about local, independent labels. Begun in the early ‘60s by Bill Wenzel and son Jack in Downey, California, the label took root in Wenzel’s Music Town record store. Downey would release a number of great instrumental 45s, including the Rumblers’ “Boss” and the Chantays’ “Pipeline,” two definitive early ‘60s Southern California surf hits. By 1965, the Wenzels transitioned to briefly take advantage of the suburban garage band phenomenon, issuing 45s by the Sunday Group, the Last Word and the Barracudas before shutting down the operation in 1967.

Among those releases would be this great raver from 1966, written by Pat McGowan, the man behind Pat and the Californians’ “Be Billy,” an earlier Downey release. Kathy is thrilling here, her voice an icy-cool dagger of reason. Bud is… being Bud. You have to love the basic conceit of “Hang It Out to Dry,” though. It’s not like there aren’t easier ways to tell off your lover, but sometimes only duet form will do.

2. Jon & Robin, You Don’t Care (Abnak)
Texas duo Jon & Robin were John Howard Abdnor Jr. and Javonne (Robin) Braga.

In the early 1960s, Abdnor’s father, Dallas businessman-turned-record-baron John Abdnor, Sr., started Abnak Records, a label that would earn its greatest national notice with some sterling rock 45s by the Five Americans, including “Western Union.”

Abnak’s initial 45 releases mostly indulged Jon Abdnor Jr.’s own songwriting and performing ambitions. The label would expand to accommodate favorite sons the Five Americans, and would add the R&B-oriented Jetstar Records subsidiary, too. And Abdnor would continue recording: from the teen pop of his first 45 to the country-rock and strange psychedelia of 1969’s Intro to Change LP, Abdnor’s series of records encompassed the entire Abnak timeline, if not the general arc of ‘60s pop.

But Abdnor’s best, and best remembered, records were with local teenager Javonne Braga, henceforth known as “Robin” (to fulfill the lingering obligations of the duo’s original female half, a vocalist named Robin). As a duo, Jon & Robin would have a run of interesting pop records for Abnak between 1965 and 1969. In a strictly ‘60s pop sort of way, their dozen 45s and two LPs were nothing if not eclectic, incorporating folk-rock, soul and AM radio stylings with a pleasant, vaguely Southern aesthetic. This would include their crowning achievement from 1967. “Do It Again A Little Bit Slower” was Jon & Robin capitalizing on the gimmick of Sonny & Cher. Neither were particularly telegenic, but the song’s charm was enough to make it a sizeable pop hit.

Jon & Robin’s second album, Elastic Event. Thanks to Strider’s Journal for the image.

Jon & Robin also tried out other styles, dabbling in the more aggressive tones of the garage band sound. There would be the jangly, “Gloria”-influenced “Love Me Baby.” And there was this selection, also from 1967, a laundry list of grievances set to a pounding beat. Minus the white lip-gloss all over the microphone, every relationship will have its “You Don’t Care” moments.

Jon & Robin’s productions were polished, their performances - backed often by the Five Americans - excellent, and their songs occasionally great, especially material written by Wayne Carson Thompson (author of the Boxtops' "The Letter"). But, even if their voices were better, without the momentous melodic hooks or Los Angeles industry connections, they never quite escaped the “regional act” taint. Plus they just looked so tragic in their psychedelic duds. Jon & Robin would release more good records together - and some apart, too, singing solo - but only with middling success.

The Abnak label itself folded in 1971. Robin reportedly married Five Americans drummer Jimmy Wright, and seems to have retired from music. Jon, sadly bedeviled by bouts of mental illness, was convicted in the murder of his girlfriend in the early ‘70s.

3. The Gas Company, Get Out of My Life (Reprise)
The Gas Company was the vehicle of Los Angeles songwriter Greg Dempsey and his longtime collaborator, Kathy Yesse.

Greg Dempsey’s first credits turn up in 1965. There were a few independent songwriting credits: Los Angeles garage band the Purple Gang recorded his “I Know What I Am,” for instance. Dempsey also produced an obscure 45 by Junior Markham & the Tulsa Review, an R&B-oriented group of studio musicians that included the young Leon Russell and Levon Helm.

In 1965 Dempsey would also join forces with the brilliant Jack Nitzsche, a Los Angeles studio wizard with a gift for dramatic arrangements and productions. This partnership would spawn a few co-authorship credits over the next year or two, including P.J. Proby’s “Sweet Summer Wine” and Don & the Goodtimes’ “I Could Be So Good For You.”

More to the point, Nitzsche would also produce several 45s by Dempsey’s group the Gas Company. The group’s roster featured more session musicians - guitarist Ken Bloom, bassist (and future Crazy Horse guitarist) Greg Leroy, drummer Gary Greene - suggesting a studio project rather than a working band. Either way, the Gas Company’s four singles records between 1965 and 1967 were commercial California pop and folk-rock, and were neither successful nor, this selection aside, especially noteworthy. Nor is Nitzsche’s involvement here necessarily a measure of success: he had a hand in a prodigious number of ‘60s pop sides, many of them quite obscure. Still, these activities give one a sense of Dempsey’s milieu.

Even less, or no, information about the early career of Kathy Yesse exists. Yesse sang with Dempsey on all of the Gas Company’s output, including 1966’s “Get Out of My Life,” the third and best of four singles. The accompaniment here is mid-‘60s Los Angeles folk-rock to the bone, if deceptively cheery, considering the song does not mince its words, except to rhyme them.

Dempsey and Yesse would continue to record into the mid-‘70s, sporadically but nearly always together. One of these efforts was quite memorable: a 1968 album of baroque psychedelia as the Daughters of Albion (again, basically a studio project), now a minor cult collector’s item. Others, like Kathy Yesse’s 1973 album Amazing (credited to her as Kathy Dalton), have not held up as well. Except for a few appearances by Yesse as a background singer on a some obscure Van Dykes Parks dates in the '80s, the duo since seems to have largely settled for obscurity.

Office Naps Winter 2008 Psychedelic Pop mix

The latest version of the psychedelic pop mix, streamlined and scratchier than ever.

If anything, people tend to remember the decade for the sitars and sunshine harmonies and fuzzed-out guitars. The reputation is not entirely undeserved. But I am here to say that it was echo, great heaping slabs of it, that really makes things go ‘round.

Anyway, there were a million deserving songs that didn’t make the mix, and we wish them good luck in their future pursuits.


Office Naps Winter 2008 Psychedelic Pop mix

Blair Smith, Vision of Molly (7”, Pompeii)
The Sunshine Trolley, Cover Me Babe (7”, Trump)
The Gallants, Robin's Blues (7”, Capitol)
Opus I, Backseat '38 Dodge (7”, Mustang)
Things to Come, Come Alive (7”, Warner Brothers)
The Gates of Eden, Elegy (7”, Warner Brothers)
Sagittarius, The Truth Is Not Real (Present Tense, Columbia)
The West Coast Workshop, Ode to Jackie, Dorothy and Alyce (The Wizard of Oz and Other Trans Love Trips, Capitol)
The Models, Bend Me, Shape Me (7”, MGM)
Unknown Korean Composer, Side 2 Track 4 (Heavenly Home Coming to Stars, part II soundtrack, SRB Korea)
The Parade, This Old Melody (7”, A&M)
Ian Freebairn-Smith, Other Hawaii (TV Track) (The Other Side of Clouds EP, Proud Bird)
6 7/8, Ski-Daddle (7”, Dot)
Ustad Vilayat Khan, Title Music: Tom's Arrival (The Guru soundtrack, RCA)
Click, Fat Lady in the Wicker Chair (7”, Laurie)
The Advancement, Child At Play (The Advancement, Philips)
Hearts and Flowers, Tin Angel (Will You Ever Come Down) (7”, Capitol)
Bill & Howdy, Misty Morning Confrontation (7”, Verve-Forecast)
The Pretty Things, My Time (7”, Fontana UK)
Somebody's Children, Shadows (7”, Uptown)
London Phogg, The Times to Come (7”, A&M)
The Relations, The Image (7”, Reena)
The Brain Train, Me (7”, Titan)
The Robbs, Castles in the Air (7”, Atlantic)
Evie Sands, It's This I Am, I Find (7”, A&M)
Ananda Shankar, Snow Flower (Ananda Shankar, Reprise)
The Fallen Angels, Most Children Do (The Fallen Angels, Laurie)
The Elite, I'll Come to You (7”, Charay)
The Vejtables, Shadows (7”, Uptown)
The Electric Tomorrow, The Electric Tomorrow (7”, World-Pacific)

12-Strung

When we think about the 12-string guitar - if we think about it at all - we associate it with the ‘60s. More precisely, we associate it with the Byrds, whose dense California jangle was such a tonic amidst the waves of British Invasion pop in the mid-‘60s.

The association is not undeserved. On 1965’s “Mr. Tambourine Man” and the spellbinding “Turn! Turn! Turn!” and “Eight Miles High” that followed, the instrument was so fundamental to the Byrds’ aesthetic that all of the 12-string's ensuing adherents - ‘60s cult-rockers Love, for instance, or REM and Tom Petty in later decades - have been doomed to inevitable Byrds comparisons.

The Rickenbacker 360/12

But the 12-string guitar, despite its exoticism and profusion of strings and metal hardware, was not just some newfangled hunk of space-age electronics in 1965. Its strings doubled in identically tuned pairs, the 12-string guitar had been around in acoustic form since before the turn of century. 19th century Mexican Mariachi musicians played them, as did pre-War Southern blues troubadours like Blind Boy Fuller, Rev. Gary Davis, and Blind Willie McTell. Later, Pete Seeger, emulating his folk hero Leadbelly, would pick up the 12-string, Seeger’s followers in American coffeehouses (including the young Roger McGuinn, then an aspiring folkie) doing the same in turn.

Such was the state of pop music in 1964, though, that it would be a visiting Brit - the Beatles’ George Harrison - who would be presented with a prototype of the American-made Rickenbacker 360/12 guitar, one of the first electric 12-string models.

An acoustic 12-string guitar is louder and fuller sounding than its 6-string counterpart; electrical amplification adds something more - something akin to cavernous space. It took just a few magically ringing notes at the end of the Beatles’ “Hard Day’s Night” (hear here) to inspire Roger McGuinn to switch over to the electric 12-string in 1964 - a switch fated not only to become the signature sound of the Byrds, but also to precipitate something of a passing vogue for the instrument. Sonny & Cher and Barbara Lewis featured the instrument on some of their mid-‘60s releases, for instance. So did the Mamas & the Papas. And, not insignificantly, so did this week’s three selections.

Alas, it was a phenomenon that remained mostly such - a passing vogue. Perhaps because the 12-string doesn’t lend itself to showboating solos or fat rock ‘n’ roll riffs. Perhaps because one doesn’t just go about knocking out plainspoken melodies on the instrument. Perhaps it’s the extra labor of its tuning. Chiming waves of sound might spiral magically forth from them, but, for whatever reason, the instrument has always remained something of a specialized whirligig, the Concorde of guitars.

1. The Mods, Days Mind the Time (Cee Three)
We might be forgiven for momentarily thinking the Mods English. Listen closer and you hear it, though - that unmistakable lack of polish that persisted around even the most vigilant stateside Anglophile musician. Something like the reek of Baron Cologne and Budweiser. Americans!

The Mods, in fact, hailed from Ft. Worth, Texas, a scene that produced some amazing ‘60s garage bands. It was scene, too, that, for want of fuller description, lacked musical subtlety (well documented on Norton Records’ brilliant three-volume Ft. Worth Teen Scene series). Which makes 1966’s “Days Mind the Time” that much more compelling. City elders fretted over wild-eyed Fort Worthians like Larry & the Blue Notes and the Barons, giving the Mods just enough time to record this class-act anomaly. For all of its clipped accents, “Days Mind the Time” is stunning, a blend of impeccable arrangements and soaring harmonies, all steeped in 12-string jangle.

Consisting of multi-instrumentalist Scott Frasier (drums), Chris Hawkins (guitar), Eddie Lively (vocals, guitar), and Don McGilvery (bass), “Days Mind the Time” would be the only 45 that the Mods produced, sadly. Frasier, along with Lively, would go on to record in the Texas band Whistler, Chaucer, Detroit, and Greenhill, who released an excellent, though wholly unrecognizable, album of psychedelic folk-rock in 1968 on the Los Angeles-based Uni label.

Thanks to my well-worn copy of Fuzz, Acid and Flowers for much of the information about the group. A special thanks, too, to Westex over at the must-read Lonestarstomp, the unrivalled king of its kind. Tex must have been in some sort of crazy mixed-up psychosis when he sent me home with this same 45 last summer.

2. Dale & the Devonaires, Never Be Free (IGL)
Dale & the Devonaires, were formed in the early '60s in Fort Dodge, Iowa, and forged in the state’s homegrown scene of the 1960s.

Truly they were a product of the heartland. The Upper Midwest's circuit of performing venues - especially its ballrooms - created a vibrant regional infrastructure where there might have otherwise been towns isolated by windswept prairie. The region’s stable demographics, too, meant that rock 'n' roll combos might expect a larger local following - if not a longer life-span - than their counterparts in the faster-paced suburbs of Dallas, say, or Phoenix or Los Angeles.

Indeed, Dale & the Devonaires - comprised at their core of Dale Black (vocals), Dave Bringle (keyboards), Dick Malloy (guitar), Frank Segar (guitar), Larry Lind (bass), and (Jack Yates) - would remain a fixture of the region well into the early '70s. If the quantity of their output - just two 45s - never fully represented the extent of their popularity, they compensated through quality. 1966’s “Never Be Free,” followed a year later by “Come Back to Me,” are haunting, minor key nuggets of the highest order.

“Never Be Free,” produced at another cornerstone of the Iowa scene - Milford’s prolific, teen-oriented IGL Records & Recording Studios - features the 12-string prominently, of course. And the instrument does here what it does best, imbuing teen love with melancholic mystery. Landlocked, lovelorn males suspect it, and “Never Be Free” seems to confirm it: there is a thrilling jezebel lurking somewhere in the heart of every female upperclassmen.

The group was a 1997 inductee into the Iowa Rock'n Roll Music Association Hall of Fame (thanks to the same site for much of the information). For more on Dale & the Devonaires and Iowa’s IGL Records, see Arf Arf’s two-disc archival compilation of the label. Highly recommended.

3. The Other Four, Once and For All Girl (P.L.A.Y.)
They began at one end of the 1960s as teen rock ‘n’ rollers the Man-Dells and came out at the other end, in reconfigured form, as psychedelic rockers the Brain Police. And, in between, they put out three 45s as the Other Four. They would continuously adapt themselves to the times without necessarily being innovators in their field, achieving local popularity in their various permutations without realizing chart success.

A well-worn trajectory for the ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll band to be sure, though the Other Four released some truly memorable 45s. “Searching for My Love,” their first 45 as the Other Four, is ringing, minor key pop straight from the Zombies and Searchers songbook. Their second - this selection - has all the right moves for 1966: commercial harmonies, mystical reserves of teenage energy, the briefly de rigueur 12-string.

The group, which consisted of Norman Lombardo (vocals, bass), Kenny Pernicano (drums, vocals), Craig Palmer (vocals, keyboards, bass) and Don Sparks (vocals, guitar) for “Once and For All Girl,” recorded the song at Hollywood’s Gold Star Studios, and, for obvious reasons, it was strong enough to attract the attention of Decca Records. To which Decca quickly set about transforming the Other Four’s manic verve into bland, fatal irrelevancy for their third and final 45, “How Do You Tell a Girl.”

Vocalist Norman Lombardo and one-time Other Four guitarist and keyboardist Rick Randle would reconvene a year or two later with a few other local San Diego musicians, self-releasing an obscure acid rock LP as the Brain Police in 1968. Incidentally, Don Sparks, who played on “Once and For All Girl,” enjoys an active career in television.

Office Naps Fall 2007 Psychedelic Pop mix

This is the rose-colored soundtrack I strive to cocoon my life in, a CD-length metaphor for the first time you watched Solaris. Part of the ongoing Office Naps psychedelic pop mix series.

Office Naps Fall 2007 Psychedelic Pop Mix

The Punjabs, Raga-Riff (7", Prince)
The Deep Six, Rising Sun (7", Liberty)
The Buff Organization, Upside Down World (7", Original Sound)
Chip Taylor, You Should Be From Monterey (7", Rainy Day)
The Gordian Knot, Year of the Sun (7", Verve)
Celebrated Renaissance Band, Heavy Is the Sundown (7", Lion)
Hard Times, Blew Mind (Blew Mind, World Pacific)
Phil Cordell, Red Lady (7", Janus)
The Glass Family, Agorn (Elements of Complex Variables) (7", Warner Brothers)
Junior Parker, Tomorrow Never Knows (7", Capitol)
Mercy, Our Winter Love (The Mercy and Love (Can Make You Happy), Sundi)
The Group Therapy, Thoughts (7", Mercury)
English Setters, Wake Up (7", Jubilee)
Dave Miller Set, Mr. Guy Fawkes (7", Spin)
Art Guy, Where You Gonna Go (7", Valiant)
Smokey and His Sister, Creators of Rain (7", Columbia)
The Raik's Progress, Why Did You Rob Us, Tank? (7", Liberty)
The Federal Duck, Peace In My Mind (The Federal Duck, Musicor)
Sonny Bono, Motel II (Chastity, soundtrack, Atco)
Peter Pan & the Good Fairies, Kaleidoscope (7", Challenge)
The Collection, Both Sides Now (7", The Hot Biscuit Company)
Pipes of Pan, Monday Morning Rain (7", Page One)
Emil Richards and the Factory, No Place I'd Rather Be (7", Uni)
The Sandals, Coming Down Slow (The Last of the Ski Bums, soundtrack, World Pacific)
Thomas Edisun's Electric Light Bulb Band, Common Attitude (7", Tamm)
The Yardbirds, Glimpses (Little Games, Epic)
Eden's Children, Echoes (Sure Looks Real, ABC)
The Soundz, Freak Out, pt. 1 (7", Crown-Psychedel*lite)

The Del-Vetts & the Pride and Joy

1960s garage bands were largely a white, male, middle and upper class phenomenon. And Chicago, its mushrooming rings of post-War suburbs home to, well, lots of white teenaged males, would distinguish itself in the ‘60s as a hotbed of band activity.

Their five year history netting them a grand sum of five 45s, the Del-Vetts’ was a typical ‘60s garage band trajectory of line-up changes, commercial aspirations and glimpses, ultimately transitory, of success. The Del-Vetts themselves, though - wild, competent and original - were anything but your typical three-chord garage band. They didn’t attain the same national visibility of mid-‘60s Windy City brethren like the Cryan’ Shames (“Sugar & Spice”) or the Shadows of the Knight (“Gloria”). The Del-Vetts, however, were one of Chicago’s top-tier bands in their day, especially locally, where, matching suits and all, they were briefly able to surround themselves with cars, girls and rock ‘n’ roll, the Holy Trinity of teenage fantasy.

Formed in Chicago in 1963, the quartet consisted early on of Jim Lauer (lead vocals and lead guitar), Bob Good (bass), Lester Goldboss (guitar) and Paul Wade (drums), an incarnation which lasted long enough to record one straight ahead rock ‘n’ roll 45 for the Seeburg label, “Little Latin Lupe Lu” and its instrumental flipside “Ram Charger.”

With a year or two of playing at popular local teen hangouts like the Rolling Stone and the Cellar, and just as many band member shuffles, the band’s line-up - Jim Lauer, Bob Good (now on rhythm guitar), Jack Burchall (bass) and Roger Deatherage (drums) - solidified. This would be the incarnation that issued three singles on producer Bill Traut’s Dunwich Records, where many other outstanding Chicago combos, including stars the Shadows of Knight (of “Gloria” fame), would find a hip industry ally.

1966’s “Last Time Around,” the Del-Vetts’ second 45 and the first of three releases for Dunwich, would be their biggest hit, charting in Chicago and other parts of the Midwest. The single that followed later that year, “I Call My Baby STP,” also on Dunwich, also excellent, underperformed. Rechristening themselves the Pride and Joy in 1967, the group soldiered on for two more 45s, the first, “Girl” (and its flipside “If You’re Ready”) was perhaps their finest moment. The second, “We Got a Long Way to Go” on Acta Records, reflected their end game pop proclivities.

By the 1968 the Del-Vetts were through, the victims of creative differences, a musical landscape leaning towards hippie aesthetics and the obligatory, disillusioning bout with the entertainment industry, Los Angeles-style. A well-worn theme to be explored again and again in Office Naps. This week, the Del-Vetts’ saga.

(Many thanks go to bassist Jack Burchall’s old website for much of this week’s information. Some great pictures there, too.)

1. The Del-Vetts, Last Time Around (Dunwich)
The Yardbirds were British heroes to stateside garage bands, their mid-period guitarist Jeff Beck’s swooping, proto-psychedelic lines in particular fascinating many American guitarists.

The Del-Vetts, intellectual property be damned, plunder Beck’s solo wholesale from the Yardbirds’ “You’re a Better Man Than I” (hear solo here), managing, like so many other American garage bands, to sculpt the English’s innovations into something crazier and more unstable. A bold new direction after their first 45 - a surf record - here the fuzztone ran amok and the lyrics didn’t so much have a message as set the mood, a bleak, chemically wracked mood.

Mid-‘60s garage band 45s all start sounding very much the same at some point, but never “Last Time Around.” Penned, as with all of this week’s selections, by the band’s friend Dennis Dahlquist, it was noncommercial, certainly, and antisocial, absolutely, but the Del-Vetts managed to land “Last Time Around” in the top request spot of Chicago’s AM giant WLS in the summer of 1966. They reportedly drove matching white Corvettes with their earnings. “Last Time Around,” in retrospect, would be their biggest success.

2. The Del-Vetts, I Call My Baby STP (Dunwich)
A somewhat odd throwback after the deadly “Last Time Around.” 1966’s “I Call My Baby STP,” was probably a year or two too late to be hip; it did not fare well on the music charts or among fans expecting the gripping drama of their previous hit. Still, this is really about as good as a hot-rod number gets. The Southern California-style harmonies are there, though there’s a certain surge in the guitars that belies the Del-Vetts’ garage band pedigree, too.

This single was apparently a promotional tie-in with STP, the fuel additive and hot rod culture icon, and included a decal useful for making a cool cultural statement or, alternatively, for holding those unwanted Jan & Dean records together.

3. The Pride and Joy, If You’re Ready (Dunwich)
The Pride and Joy are the Del-Vetts operating under a new name, apparently at the behest of their fan club. Which says something about the group’s commercial aspirations, and something about the wisdom of listening to one’s fan club.

“If You’re Ready,” though not their last record, would be the group’s crowning moment. A return to chart-tested territory, “If You’re Ready” seems like an attempt to revive the earlier success of “Last Time Around.” It has the same bite, the same Yardbirds-inspired soaring guitar solos. It’s just denser and heavier, doing everything but invent what thunderstruck Led Zeppelin and Black Sabbath fans would several years later know as riffage.

Though not as successful as “Last Time Around,” this selection (or rather its A-side, “Girl,” a polished pop number reminiscent of the Hollies) did perform well on the regional charts. Its 1967 release also coincided with the group’s extended visit to Los Angeles, where they’d record their final 45, the Cynthia Weil and Barry Mann composition “We Got a Long Way to Go.” There they’d film for the movie Somebody Help Me as well, a low-budget Dick Clark Production that featured them playing live.

It would mostly be for naught. “We Got a Long Way to Go” was released on the Los Angeles-based Acta label, sounding fairly unremarkable and doing the same on the pop charts. The movie itself was never released. This would be the end of the Del-Vetts/Pride and Joy story.

As far as I can tell, only the group’s bassist Jack Burchall would continue in the music business, enjoying some later, albeit dubious, success with his Jump N’ the Saddle Band’s 1983 novelty hit “The Curley Shuffle.” Sadly, Burchall recently passed on in 1999. Drummer Roger Deatherage currently designs furniture in Houston, Texas.

Overhauling the British Invasion (part two)

(Ed. note: This is part two of a post about wild British Invasion covers by ‘60s American garage bands. - Little Danny)

1964. Why did it take the British Invasion to re-ignite rock ‘n’ roll - a musical form that’d percolated out of our own national consciousness barely ten years prior?

I think part of the reason is that we, as Americans, persist in our boredom with what has already been established within our own culture. We habitually prefer our own vernacular culture packaged anew and handed back to us from external sources.

Coming from the Beatles and their brethren, rock ‘n’ roll, as an external product, was sleek and stylized. But it wasn’t simply that the English groups sensed some new potential in ‘50s American rock ‘n’ roll where American remained only blithely ignorant to it. After all, there were any number of American teen combos and surf groups that sustained the exuberance of early rock ‘n’ roll into the early ‘60s (well before the Beatles’ stateside arrival). Regionally and nationally popular American groups like the Kingsmen, the Joey Dee & the Starliters, the Sonics, the Astronauts, Johnny & the Hurricanes, the Wailers, Challengers, Paul Revere & the Raiders and the Trashmen were effectively modernizing rock ‘n’ roll, much as their counterparts on the other side of the Atlantic were doing.

But the British had long hair, bigger amplifiers, dark matching suits and, of course, accents. It was nothing so calculated, but if we’re talking classic corporate marketing strategy here, the British succeeded in re-branding rock ‘n’ roll where American groups couldn’t. And young Americans went crazy for it in 1964.

It’s easy to look at the British Invasion and consequently think the worse of the American imagination. Sure, the British had to reinvent rock ‘n’ roll for us before we’d take it seriously again.

Think about backyard wrestling and the Watts Towers, though. Think about early hip-hip DJing and homegrown YouTube spoofs. As long as there’s mass-produced culture, there’ll always be certain American individuals and communities who, knowingly or not, transform it into something more creative and more interesting. You can hear a similar process at work in this week’s selections. The ‘60s garage band phenomenon may have largely been America’s localized response to the British Invasion, but whether the Ambertones, the Mopp Tops and the Jagged Edge were, for all their cover versions, trying to summon a British affect is of little consequence. They’d still come out sounding as indelibly American as ever.

1. The Mopp Tops, The Kids Are All Right (Fantastic)
The garage bands of the sixties included plenty of young combos whose existence was measured in months rather than years. That was time enough to play the high school talent show, pool their money and issue one 45 in tiny quantity before college or the Vietnam draft ended the whole equation.

Other groups, like the Mopp Tops, would last a bit longer. The Mopp Tops were a popular rock ‘n’ roll combo, the kind with local fan clubs and local radio airplay, the kind that might open for the Yardbirds or Paul Revere & the Raiders when they headlined the local amphitheater.

The Mopp Tops’ was not an atypical history. Early in their career, numbers like “Flipper” found the Mopp Tops playing the kind of souped-up rock ‘n’ roll that prevailed at suburban high school auditoriums and campus bashes before the advent of the British Invasion. Five years later, the Mopp Tops would wind up stoned out of their minds for their final 45, “Our Lives,” a post-Woodstock, acid-rock testament to crushing volume. And, in between, the Mopp Top’s trajectory would include a few 45s of the classic teen garage band variety, like this version of the Who’s “The Kids Are Alright” (hear an excerpt here).

What most distinguishes the Mopp Tops is that they were an integrated group from Honolulu, Hawaii. Here they imbue the “The Kids Are Alright” with the requisite amount of rasping fuzztone guitar and adenoidal teenage angst, evidence that all was not just luaus and long tropical farewells in our 50th state.

At the time of this recording (circa 1966), the Mopp Tops included Michael Payton (drummer) and Jessie Morgan (rhythm guitar and vocals), two of the group’s main songwriters. I’m unable to identify other Mopp Tops, alas.

2. The Jagged Edge, Midnight to Six Man (Twirl)
Like many other American garage bands, the Jagged Edge gravitated to the hipper and more aggressive British groups of the mid-‘60s, their tastes in cover versions favoring the Rolling Stones, Kinks or Small Faces over the Beatles, Gerry and the Pacemakers or Dave Clark Five.

“Midnight to Six” is a mod anthem originally by the Pretty Things, a tough London R&B group who took the Rolling Stones’ punky aesthetic to wildly ungroomed extremes in the mid-‘60s. This version of the Pretty Things’ paean to nocturnal hipsterdom is actually pretty faithful (hear excerpt of the original here and watch vintage footage here). Which is ironic, as any attempts at nightlife for the Jagged Edge probably meant creeping down the hallway after their parents had gone to bed.

This was one of a number of American ‘60s bands named the Jagged Edge. Nothing seems to be known about this particular permutation, though it can be reasonably inferred that their “Midnight to Six” was recorded in 1966, that zenith year of the garage band experience.

3. Ambertones, I Can Only Give You Everything (Rayjack)
The Ambertones were one of a number of popular local rock ‘n’ roll bands from Los Angeles’s Hispanic East Side in the sixties.

Groups like the Ambertones, Thee Midniters, Cannibal & the Headhunters, the Premiers, the Romancers and the Sunday Funnies were extremely versatile, striving to outdo each other with their showmanship and sets of impeccably matched suits. Even if their visibility was somewhat circumscribed by their community, the vibrancy of East Los Angeles’s music scene in the ‘60s meant that the Ambertones might regularly play before crowds in the thousands. Live, these groups’ repertoires were calculated to excite, and were dominated by arrangements of the latest R&B dances, novelty instrumentals, and vocal group and Latin pop hits. There was also, of course, room for the occasional raw rave-up like “I Can Only Give You Everything,” too. Whatever it took to stir audiences into a frenzy.

This is the Ambertones’ version of the 1966 Them anthem. (Hear an excerpt here. Them was Van Morrison’s first group.) If you had a fuzzbox you were ready; thanks to its brilliant simplicity, “I Can Only Give You Everything” worked its way into many a ‘60s garage band’s repertoire. And, thanks to its instantly identifiable riff, “I Can Only Give You Everything” - even more than the similar “Louie Louie” or “Wild Thing” - managed simultaneously to capture adolescence’s euphoric swagger and its breathtaking stupidity.

Office Naps Middle Eastern Mix

The third installment of the Office Naps mix, and it’s all over the place. From Turkish wah-wah guitars and ’60s garage ragas to Yusef Lateef’s Mecca-wise wail, it’s Middle Eastern only in the loosest possible sense of the term. If there ever there was a darbuka to be struck or an argol to be wrangled, however, it’s probably in there. Enjoy.

-DJ Little Danny

Office Naps Middle Eastern Mix

Rosko With The John Berberian Ensemble, Perfection (Music and Gibran: A Contemporary Interpretation Of the Author Of The Prophet, Verve Forecast)
Charles Kynard & Buddy Collette, Blue Sands (Warm Winds, World-Pacific)
The Freak Scene, Grok! (Psychedelic Psoul, Columbia)
Elias Rahbani, Dance of Maria (Mosaic of the Orient, EMI)
Fifty Foot Hose, Opus 777 (Cauldron, Limelight)
Mohamed "Mike" Hegazi and His Golden Guitar, Nouni (Belly Dance With Zeina, Emi)
The Off-Set, Xanthia (Lisa) (7”, Jubilee)
Lloyd Miller with the Press Keys Quartet, Gol-E Gandom (Oriental Jazz, East-West)
Fairuz, Yalla Tenam Rima (Bint El-Harass, soundtrack, Parlophone)
Istanbul Calgicilari, Sax Gazel (Disco Fasil I, Bip!)
T. Swift & The Electric Bag, Free Form In 6 (Are You Experienced, Custom)
1st Century, Looking Down (7”, Capitol)
Don Randi Trio, Tomorrow Never Knows (Revolver Jazz, Reprise)
The Kaleidoscope, Pulsating Dream (Side Trips, Epic)
Omar Khorshid and His Guitar, Guitar El Chark (Rhythms From the Orient, Voice of Lebanon)
Ozel Turkbas, Bovzovkia Solo (Dance Into Your Sultan's Heart, Elay)
The Devil's Anvil, Hala Laya (7”, Columbia)
Ganimian & His Oriental Music, Swingin' The Blues (Come With Me To the Casbah, Atco)
Okay Temiz, East Breeze (Drummer of Two Worlds, Finnadar)
Clyde Borly & His Percussions, Afromania (Music In 5 Dimensions, Atco)
Sabah with Chahine's International Orchestra, Hully Gully (Halli Galli Dabka) (Music From a Millionaire's Playground, Parlophone)
Yusef Lateef, Sister Mamie (Live at Pep's, Impulse!)
The Rotary Connection, I Took A Ride (Caravan) (Rotary Connection, Cadet Concept)
Dorothy Ashby, Soul Vibrations (Afro-Harping, Cadet)
Herbie Mann, Incense (Impressions of the Middle East, Atlantic)
Lalo Schifrin, The Snake's Dance (Lalo = Brilliance: The Piano of Lalo Schifrin, Roulette)
Tony Martinez and His Mambo Combo, Pharoah's Curse (7”, GNP)
Johnny Lewis Trio and Millie, Snake Hips (7”, Coral)
Sonny Lester & His Orchestra, Song of India (Little Egypt Presents More How To Belly-Dance For Your Husband, Roulette)

Noise happens

Oh, electricity. Wind, rain, sun, snow: you never lose your temper. It’s always that same contented, 60-cycles-per-seconds hum with you. Records spin, lights light, refrigerators hum. You never alternate, even if your current does, and we thank you for that. And this week, we thank you for the electric guitar, as well.

Electrical amplification and magnetic pickups facilitated the guitar’s post-War ascendancy as a lead instrument, if not the lead instrument. The electric guitar’s crystal-clear tones brought new color to musical settings and its versatility, like the piano’s, allowed its easy use as a lead instrument or in a rhythm section. When electricity wasn’t enabling new styles of music altogether (e.g., rock ‘n’ roll), it was creating new potential for the guitar within existing styles (e.g. jazz, country, and rhythm & blues).

Electricity is one thing, but it took that special type of mind to see beyond just the electric guitar’s newly competitive role within group, combo and orchestral settings. The previously discussed Johnny “Guitar” Watson pushed the outer bounds of echo for 1950’s “Space Guitar.” Studio guitar whiz Vinnie Bell wired primitive versions of Wah-Wah and distortion pedals. Ike Turner’s guitarist Willie Kizart would use a damaged amplifier to get the distortion on 1951’s proto-rock ‘n’ roll “Rocket 88,” and instrumental guitar visionary Link Wray (“Rumble”) legendarily did the same by poking holes in his speakers. Bo Diddley’s hand-rigged tremolo units, session guitarist and inventor Del Casher’s tape-delay experiments - the list of early innovators goes on and on. Worlds and traditions might have separated these individuals, but their efforts were guided by sonic potential and the weird fun of altered signals, electricity, and guitar noise.

It was the British Invasion and Beatlemania which finally established the electric guitar as the de rigueur rock ‘n’ roll instrument. With it came amplifiers capable of crushing volume and an assortment of futuristic audio gadgetry. The first commercial Echoplex tape-delay units, and, later, fuzzboxes and Wah-Wah pedals seized upon the previous generation’s innovations, expanding the tonal horizons and psychedelic possibility of the guitar for the thousands of teenagers who snapped them up.

Even guitar feedback, though not an “effect,” had found its place in pop music by the mid-‘60s. A previously undesired consequence of audio equipment amplifying its own signal (resulting in ear-piercing squeal), feedback’s first putative use in commercial rock ‘n’ roll was the introduction to the Beatles’ “I Feel Fine,” from 1964. But before the Beatles, the Small Faces or the Who did it, amateur musicians must have recognized some potential in feedback beyond just its capacity to flatten an audience. There's something I find appealingly conceptual, subversive almost, about feedback, this infusion of chaos into commercial '60s music.

This week's selections could barely be remembered as commercial, of course. Still, they epitomize much of what I love about the wilder and woolier ‘60s garage bands: you listen to their racket enough and suddenly they become sleek, conceptual art.

1. The Romancers, Love’s the Thing (Linda)
Like Thee Midniters (“Whittier Blvd.”), Cannibal & the Headhunters (“Land of 1000 Dances’) and the Premiers (“Farmer John”), the Romantics hailed from East Los Angeles’s Mexican-American community, home to one of the sixties’ most interesting homegrown rock ‘n’ roll scenes. These were versatile groups with repertoires of ballads, Top 40 hits, greasy R&B instrumentals, soul, jazzy horn numbers and Latin pop - and the showmanship to match. Led by brothers Max and Robert Uballez, the Romancers never had a hit beyond East L.A. but, like these other groups, they put out a few records and played some wild, wild rock ‘n’ roll on occasion, too.

Exhibit A: “Love’s the Thing.” It’s hard to imagine what role this selection’s breakneck tempo and clanging, over-the-top guitar breaks might have played during the Romancers’ live shows, except to stir audiences into some sort of epileptic hysteria.

From 1965, this selection was produced by Eddie Davis, a champion of the East L.A. sound. “Love’s the Thing” was released on Linda, one of the many small labels owned and run by Davis in the 1960s.

2. The Rock Shop, State of Your Mind (Rowena)
Little is known of the Rock Shop, though they seem to have been based in California. It seems likely that the Norm Flint credited as producer and director was the same Norm Flint who was a DJ at KMPX FM, San Francisco’s pioneering late ‘60s commercial rock station.

This inspired proto-punk nugget, from 1967, degenerates into one the stranger guitar breaks of ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll; the bass, vocals and drums drop away, leaving only bare squalls of guitar noise. It’s striking, if nothing else. There's metaphor in there too somewhere. As if the Rock Shop might have just as easily been deconstructing American pop as they stripped away the layers of “State of Your Mind,” exposing that same 500,000-volt core that begat every howling American garage band.

3. Our Mothers Children, I’ll Make You Sorry (Falcon)
A band that never released anything commercially, Our Mothers Children (sic) were, if the Grande Ballroom gig posters and online recollections are any indication, a familiar name on the same Detroit/Ann Arbor rock ‘n’ roll scene from which the Stooges, the MC5, the Amboy Dukes, SRC, and many other bands emerged.

First things first, however. This record is actually an acetate disc, a glassy, highly perishable medium used to demonstrate songs (for deejays or record producers) and to otherwise afford an expedient copy of recording sessions. It was a medium, that is, never intended to be permanent. Acetates might begin life with passable sound, but, after just a few plays, fidelity dropped. A few plays more and whole guitar parts might be seen shearing off the needle in a shower of black lacquer flakes.

Ergo, the truly No-Fi experience of “I’ll Make You Sorry.” It’s a record that I’ve played four times, which is three times too many, but here it is, at least for the archives. Those caveman drums still come through just fine.

What happened to Our Mothers Children? What were their live shows like? Why did they never record commercially like their Michigan compadres? Why? Why? Why? For every question this record answers about how Our Mothers Children sounded, it asks a dozen more - to which the band would have likely shrugged their shoulders and plunged into another wrenching guitar break.

Recorded in Royal Oak, Michigan (whose town motto is "…the place to come to, not pass through on your way to somewhere else"), circa 1967, this is a cover of a minor hit by Chicago’s Shadows of Knight.

The flipside, “Down Down,” is an original, and another ball of tension that I hope to return to for a future post.

Girls!

Rare was the girl group that played their own instruments in the mid-1960s. The prevailing attitude amongst both major and independent record labels seemed to be that the distaff could handle singing and frontwoman duties, and separate backing musicians (and their producer) would take care of whatever instrumentation was needed. Prevailing decorum and gender roles outside the record industry subtly discouraged girls from playing rock ‘n’ roll instruments on their own terms - lest they come across too masculine, too debauched, or (most likely) as merely a novelty.

Aside from Britain’s excellent Liverbirds (who achieved some chart success in Germany with a ‘65 version of “Diddley Daddy”), there wasn’t really a popular prototype for an all-female band when it came to ‘60s rock ‘n’ roll. Things started to change in the late ‘60s and early ‘70s as society became more accustomed to the idea of women rockers, but it took the D.I.Y. and anti-commercial impulse of ‘70s punk rock to incontrovertibly land rock ‘n’ roll instruments in female hands - and to relieve them in a real way from musical obligations to female propriety.

There were notable exceptions all along, though, even during the British Invasion years. The Vejtables’ Jan Errico, the Honeycombs’ Honey Lantree, and the fabulous Maureen Tucker (whose deliberately primal technique is such an underappreciated part of the Velvet Underground’s sound) were all female drummers in what were at least nominally successful male bands. These were musicians who weren’t trying to make any grand political statements - they just loved rock ‘n’ roll. But they wound up filling roles that were radical in their own quiet way.

Then there were the bands which were not only comprised entirely of females, but which were deadly earnest about rocking. A fairly rare phenomenon, the ‘60s all-girl bands operated completely independently of each other; still, though, the Heart Beats, the Bittersweets, and the Luv’d Ones were breaking new ground - whether they were trying to or not.

All of this week's groups are tucked away on different volumes of the out-of-print Girls in the Garage compilations - a series which stretches the definition of “garage band,” but it's a fine introduction nonetheless for anyone interested in obscure ‘60s femme rock ‘n’ roll.

Thanks to Vernon Joynson’s indispensable Fuzz Acid and Flowers for much of the information on this week’s selections.

1. Luv’d Ones, Up Down Sue (White Oak)
If the girl group that played their own instruments was rare in the mid-‘60s, then even rarer was the girl group that chose to fill out their sound with dark bass lines and fuzztone distortion, and that chose to write, sing, and play their own songs. That chose, in other words, to ply their talents strictly in the male domain of the ‘60s garage bands. Led by Charlotte Vinnedge and her sister Chris, Chicago’s Luv’d Ones were all that, plus mascara. Their tough “Up Down Sue,” their finest moment, was recorded while in Florida in 1966.

Truth Gotta Stand, an excellent compilation of the Luv’d Ones’ 45 singles (of which there were four), demos, and unissued songs, was released by Sundazed Records several years ago.

2. The Bittersweets, Hurtin Kind (Tema)
This 45 was produced, arranged, and released by James Testa and Don White around 1966, but little else is known about the Bittersweets themselves. Testa and White also recorded a rowdier version of “Hurtin’ Kind” (on the Tema label again) by the popular Cleveland band the Tulu Babies. The Tulu Babies’ was a local hit, but due to an arcane label-sequencing strategy at Tema headquarters, it’s unclear whether the Bittersweets’ or Tulu Babies’ version came first: I suspect that since the Tulu Babies’ keyboardist Doug McCutcheon wrote “Hurtin’ Kind,” it was latter, however. (Incidentally, the Tulu Babies later achieved some national fame as the Baskerville Hounds.)

Either way, the Bittersweets handled the emotional breakdown of “Hurtin Kind” with chiming guitars, angelic harmonies, and a deadpan, faux-English sexiness that must have forever endeared them to the sensitive young men of the greater Cleveland area. Listerine would be gargled and poetry scribblings would be heard all throughout Shaker Heights that summer.

3. The Heart Beats, Choo Choo Train (The Heart Beats)
The Heart Beats hailed from an unlikely musical hub of the Southwest. A lot of fine musicians and songwriters have grown up in Lubbock, Texas, its bedrock conservatism and dry and dusty desolation either inspiring or revolting many of its populace to compose songs, even whole albums (Terry Allen’s Lubbock (On Everything), for instance) in the city's name.

Lubbock seems to be a city that musicians are perpetually getting the hell away from (the Dixie Chicks’ “Lubbock or Leave It”), or getting the hell away from and then returning to (Mac Davis’s “Texas in My Rear View Mirror”). The Heart Beats were the rare group who were merely returning to Lubbock. What makes this gem more remarkable is that when the Heart Beats sang, “My baby’s waiting / at the station / so give me just a little more acceleration,” they were reputed to be at scandalous ages ranging from twelve to fifteen.

“Choo Choo Train” was recorded in 1968.

With God as my witness, I will some day own a less scratchy copy of this record.

Office Naps Mix Spring 2007

The second installment of the Office Naps mix. More of my favorite ‘60s soft psychedelics and electronic pop, the mix perhaps steering towards the former. You may not know some of the artists, but it’s got an overall tang you sitar jockeys should recognize.

Office Naps Mix Spring 2007

Millennium, Prelude (7”, Columbia)
Appletree Theatre, Hightower Square (7”, Verve Forecast)
Joyride, Childhood's End (Friend Sound, RCA)
J.K. & Co., Fly (Suddenly One Summer, White Whale)
Bobby Christian, Mooganga (Vibe-brations, Ovation)
Critters, Awake in a Dream (Touch ‘n Go With the Critters, Project 3)
White Noise, Firebird (An Electric Storm, Island)
Beautiful Daze, City Jungle, pt. 1 (7”, RPR)
Network, The Boys and The Girls (7”, Spar)
Chapter V, The Sun is Green (7”, Verve Folkways)
Human Touch, I Can Imagine (7”, Warner Brothers)
Lee Mallory, Many Are the Times (7”, Valiant)
Shadow Casters, Going to the Moon (7”, J.R.P.)
Rouges, Secondary Man (7”, Thunderbird)
Ceyleib People, Changes (7”, Vault)
July, The Way (7”, Columbia)
World of Oz, Like a Tear (The World of Oz, Deram)
Ken Thorne, Sadie's Theme (The Touchables, soundtrack, 20th Century Fox)
Chamaeleon Church, Camillia is Changing (Chamaeleon Church, MGM)
Don Robertson, Why? (Dawn, Verve)
Lewis & Clarke Expedition, Why Need They Pretend? (7”, Colgems)
Antonio Carlos Jobim, Children's Games (Stone Flower, CTI)
Young Idea, Colours of Darkness (7”, Capitol)
David McCallum, House of Mirrors (Music: It’s Happening Now!, Capitol)
Beach-Niks, Last Night I Cried (7”, Sea-Mist)
Electric Prunes, I (Underground, Reprise)
Freeborne, Land of Diana (Peak Impressions, Monitor)
King Biscuit Entertainers, Pride (7”, Burdette)

San Antonio

Thousands of garage bands flourished weed-like in mid-‘60s America, their thousands of 45 rpm records basically reflecting the homogeneity of suburbs which spawned them. There were vague regional variations in sound amongst the American garage bands, but such variations seemed to owe more to regional individuation amongst radio stations, music stores, record stores, venues, producers, and recording studios. Cultural differences amongst these regions, if they existed at all, seem pretty insignificant - at least as far any influence might've had on the garage band phenomenon itself.

The burgeoning post-War suburbs of San Antonio, Houston, and Dallas/Ft. Worth teemed with their own independent teen rock ‘n’ roll scenes in the ‘60s. No surprises there. Defying the standardizing logic of the suburbs, however, there did actually seem to be something to Texan garage bands that was more than just the sum of their logistical parts. As with this week’s selections from San Antonio, there was something about many of the Texas groups which favored elemental madness and raw energy and raw-ness over subtlety. While it wasn’t universal by any means, there is something indisputably Texan about these - something which was overdriven and which was drinking beer long before you or your older brother.

1. The Rightly Sew, Lights Brightly Shining (Alamo Audio)
They’d read about it in Life magazine, they’d watched the news exposes, and they wanted some of it, too. A way out of the Vietnam War - or a way out of the suburban lifestyle of their parents. Drugs or spiritual enlightenment, sex or free love. Some of it was standard adolescent lust masquerading as counterculture. Some of it was desire for something genuinely new. You name it, though, and there were rebellious kids from the suburbs who were looking for it in 1967.

The Rightly Sew seemed dead set on something new that year, their weird, nervous energy and weird, nervous chord progressions obviating the need for anything so conventional as a solo or catchy chorus. Whether the Rightly Sew ever successfully clanged their way to something new is anyone’s guess - they were never heard from again after “Lights Brightly Shining.”

This 45 is one of the more obscure on Alamo Audio, a San Antonio record label with a reputation for releases by the area’s wilder garage bands.

(Ed. note: Thanks to Dominic Welhouse for providing this 45 to Office Naps.)

2. The Bourbons, Of Old Approximately - A Time for a Change (Royal Family)
If one of the eternal motifs of 1960s garage bands was declaring war on female perfidy, then fuzztone guitar and weedy Farfisa organ was its unofficial soundtrack. The Bourbons charted exactly such territory with the raw “Of Old Approximately - A Time For a Change,” bolstering their ill-advised vows with an almost comical amount of self-assurance and attitude.

It’s success, of course, that’s the ultimate revenge. While I can’t vouch for the singer or whether he ever got the desired vindication, “Of Old Approximately…” is off the charts in terms of emotional wipeout. In terms of record sales, of course, it was probably a disaster.

From 1967, this was the one and only record by the Bourbons.

3. The Outcasts, 1523 Blair (Gallant)
Like the Rightly Sew, the Outcasts dispensed with some of the formal musical conventions that were the bread and butter of mid-1960s rock ‘n’ roll. They left the pop lyrics behind - they left all decipherable lyrics behind, actually - a move which may have struck some as brazenly futuristic and others as just frustrating. They had no time for catchy choruses. Guitar solo? Not really - it’s all happening so fast!

The Outcasts must be praised for their unorthodoxy, however - they were busy doing everything but inventing punk rock in 1967. The music on this selection is jarringly experimental, the spirit is possessed fervor. “1523 Blair” is one minute and forty seven seconds long because it couldn’t have possibly been any longer.

This was the fifth and last release from the Outcasts, a fantastic band who dominated the San Antonio teen scene of the mid-‘60s, and whose business card read “Music from the OUTER LIMITS.” At the time of this record, the Outcasts included Buddy Carson (keyboards, harmonica), Rickey Wright (drums), Galen Niles (guitar), Jim Carsten (guitar), and Jim Ryan (bass).

1523 Blair, incidentally, was the address of Texas producer Lelan Rogers’ recording studio in Houston, thus making this the second time in less than nine months for the same Kenny Rogers reference.

Thanks to Jim Ryan and Denny Turner for their memories of the band, and for the amazing music.

Raga rock

There came that point in the mid-‘60s when everything was culminating in a great big blur of flowers, sex, drugs, and haphazard Eastern mysticism - and rock music was right there, the preeminent vector of a new pop counterculture. If you couldn’t avail yourself of a sitar you at least made your electric guitar sound like one. If your suburban upbringing precluded any established familiarity with Eastern religion, you could overcome that, too, with lyrics which came across as mystical, provocative, or - depending on your listener's patience - frustratingly enigmatic.

The Yardbirds had “Heart Full of Soul,” the Rolling Stones had “Paint It Black.” The Kinks did it with “See My Friends” and the Beatles, too, did it with “Rain.” There wasn’t anything authentically Eastern - Indian, Arabic, or otherwise - about this new sound in the pop charts. Nor was that really the point. I believe that most pop musicians generally understood their limitations, and understood, too, that - odd exotic modes and chords and Pentatonic scales aside - heavy amplification and psychedelic Eastern-sounding guitar solos belonged together in some sort of profound, predetermined way. It was kismet, in other words, and if someone somewhere was flashing on the Taj Mahal and blue clouds of hashish smoke, then so much the better.

1. The Off-Set, Xanthia (Lisa) (Jubilee)
The Off-Set were a popular band in mid-‘60s Brooklyn, recording their debut 45 as the Jagged Edge before renaming themselves for their second record, the stunning “Xanthia (Lisa).”

A peerless psychedelic dirge that seems to have shared AC current with cross-town compatriots the Velvet Underground, “Xanthia (Lisa)” would also be the Off-Set's last 45. However briefly, though, the Off-Set flourished in the atmosphere of 1966 pop experimentalism. Vocalist Elliot Ingber breaks into something that sounds like Latin two thirds of the way into the song, and when it came time for a solo, there’s the singular sound of a steel Zippo lighter slid against guitar strings. After all, the Byrds had a hit with their 12-string guitar freak-out “Eight Miles High,” so why not try the same with Zippo lighters, mysterious communiqués from “the night wind,” and a metric tonne of reverberation?

The Off-Set were Drew Georgopulos (rhythm guitar and vocals), Art Steinman (lead guitar and vocals), Kenny Bennett (drums), Elliot Ingber (lead vocals), and Harley Wishner (bass). Check out Mike Dugo’s great interview with lead guitarist Art Steinman here (with the story of this recording) , and Steinman’s personal history and official site for the band here. Both features were used in writing this post.

Xanthia is a genus of nocturnal moth.

2. 1st Century, Looking Down (Capitol)
The 1st Century’s exact origins remain unknown. If the involvement of Don Nix (former Mar-Keys saxophonist and future blues songwriter) is any indication, though, “Looking Down” was a Memphis production, the 1st Century themselves likely a one-off group of studio musicians.

“Looking Down,” their only recording, features sophisticated lyrics straight from a lost epilogue to The Doors of Perception, and the hypnotic propulsion of an unidentified stringed instrument. Is it an oud? A Greek bouzouki? Whatever it is, the miracle of “Looking Down” is that this instrument had worked its way up the Mississippi and into some corner of a Memphis studio, making producers uneasy for years before that epochal moment in 1968 when, finally, it could be picked up and put to proper use.

Authorship credit here goes to Ray Stinnett, former guitarist for Sam the Sham and the Pharaohs (of “Wooly Bully” fame).

3. The Raves, Mother Nature (Smash)
In 1967, it wasn’t always enough for just your guitar to sound like a refugee from the Arabian Desert. Sometimes you needed your harmonies, organ, bass, and your guitars all to hang in the air and literally vibrate in sympathetic melisma with the East. In the process of doing so, the Raves generated this sublime psychedelic pop classic.

One of innumerable garage combos who released a few fine 45s in the 1960s and who've languished in obscurity since (or, conversely, that have always languished in obscurity), the Raves’ blissful harmony sound is reminiscent of the era’s West Coast recordings. Their exact whereabouts a mystery, the involvement of A&R and production stalwarts Ron Haffkine and Jerry Ross on this 45, however, suggest that New York City was home to the brothers Jimenez.

Office Naps Mix 2006

Dreamy pop psychedelia, soundtrack gadgetry, and '60s electronics: my version of the holidays. Merry Mix-mas!

Office Naps Mix 2006

Johnny Harris Orchestra, Footprints on the Moon (7", Warner Brothers)
Scott Walker, It's Raining Today (Scott 3, Smash)
West Minist'r, Carnival (7", Razzberry)
John Barry, Something's Up! (The Knack... and How to Get It, soundtrack, United Artists)
Buffalo Springfield, Expecting to Fly (Buffalo Springfield Again, Atco)
Sound Vendor, Mister Sun (7", Liquid Stereo)
13th Floor Elevators, May the Circle Remain Unbroken (Bull of the Woods, International Artists)
Electric Flag, Peter's Trip (The Trip, soundtrack, Sidewalk)
Peepl, Freedom (7”, Roaring)
Chad & Jeremy, Distant Shores (Distant Shores, Columbia)
Oracle, Don't Say No (7”, Verve Forecast)
Bruce Haack, Super Nova (The Electric Lucifer, Columbia)
George Harrison, Greasy Legs (Wonderwall Music, soundtrack, Apple)
Moon, Brother Lou's Love Colony (Without Earth and the Moon, Imperial)
Societie, Bird Has Flown (7”, Deram)
Sergio Mendes & Brasil '66, Celebration of the Sunrise (Stillness, A&M)
John Wood, Maiden Voyage (Turn of the Century… And I’ll Come Back, Ranwood)
Poppy Family, There's No Blood in Bone (Which Way You Goin’ Billy?, London)
Phil Moore, Jr., A Now Thing (Right On, Atlantic)
Organ Grinders, Mirror Images (7”, Smash)
Fred Weinberg, The Keen Machine (The Weinberg Method of Non-synthetic Electronic Rock, Anvil)
Hooterville Trolley, No Silver Bird (7”, Lynnette)
United States of America, Clouds (United States of America, Columbia)
Electrosoniks, Orbit Aurora (Electronic Music, Philips)
Quincy Jones, Threadbare (The Slender Thread, soundtrack, Mercury)

****

Thank you to everyone who's written, commented, contributed to, complimented, recognized, criticized, linked to, and otherwise read and enjoyed Office Naps in 2006!

-Little Danny

Biker fuzz

First commercially available in the mid-‘60s, the fuzzbox was the earliest mass-produced means for distorting your guitar tone. This unassuming device was heard memorably on the Rolling Stones’ “(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction,” and the countless American garage bands who styled themselves on the Stones seized upon the noisy, harmonic sustain of fuzztone distortion and its ability to smooth over the inadequacies of cheap guitars and the inadequacies of the guitarists who played cheap guitars.

Possibly because it bore some analogy to the sound of a rasping exhaust pipe, fuzz also became, thanks to one musician - Davie Allan - officially identified with biker movies, an ephemeral sub-sub-genre which briefly captured the late ‘60s adolescent American male imagination. Marauding gangs of outlaw bikers might outrun The Man, but they could never shake those fuzztone guitars which followed them from exploit to sleazeball exploit.

Only “Cycle-Delic,” the first of this week’s selections, is biker music proper in that it was deliberately produced to cash in on the biker phenomenon. The other selections, however, conform to the basic aesthetic: big, brimming with testosterone, and guaranteed to lower your IQ by fifteen points.

1. The Arrows featuring Davie Allan, Cycle-Delic (Tower)
He got his start in the ‘60s as a for-hire session guitarist but, after an odd 45 or two and a fairly straightforward album of surf-ish guitar instrumentals, Davie Allan, along with his group the Arrows, transformed himself into the undisputed king of ‘60s biker soundtracks, single-handedly defining the genre with anthemic, fuzzed-out contributions to film classics like Devil’s Angels, Born Losers, The Glory Stompers, and The Wild Angels.

Featured famously on “Blue’s Theme” a bona-fide hit from the soundtrack to Roger Corman’s The Wild Angels, Davie Allan’s guitar sound - a rich, searing fuzztone - was instantly identifiable. It’s the mutated psychedelia of 1968’s “Cycle-Delic,” however, with its especially strident form of fuzz, which stands out amongst Allan’s work.

Cycle-Delic (Slowed excerpt)
A funny thing starts to happen if you examine “Cycle-Delic” more closely: let’s just slow that record down a bit. Does Davie Allan control the fuzztone, or does the fuzztone control Davie Allan? It’s Man vs. Machine!

Cycle-Delic (Molecular excerpt)
Get really close and “Cycle-delic” confirms what you’ve always suspected; with enough magnification, you can actually hear fuzz breaking apart into its individual molecular components, proving incontrovertibly that fuzztone distortion is a living, breathing organism. Here, with Allan strangling his guitar into some sort of submission, it seems to be yelling for mercy.

Davie Allan is still active today. Do check out his website, especially its excellent and exhaustive discography, including Allan’s own annotations.

2. Flower Power, Stop! Check It! (Tune-Kel)
From 1969, “Stop! Check It!” is the last of five releases by the group known as Flower Power. Their name suggests peace, love, and understanding, but the energy levels and preternaturally agitated aesthetic of “Stop! Check It!” suggest something more along the lines of meth lab. This is just one of those transcendent records that defies description.

The Flower Power hailed from Gulfport, Mississippi. Tune-Kel, their record label, was a New Orleans based operation better known for its soul and R&B releases.

3. Collision, I Gotta Know (Side Three)
I still have yet to turn up anything conclusive on Collision, or the Brothers Lopez. The best thing about “I Gotta Know,” though, is that it’s one of those records that could have been released anywhere between 1969 and 1982. This has something to do with the fact that it originated in San Antonio, but just as much to do, I believe, with the eternally satisfying combination of big amplifiers, Harley choppers, and those deep-seated, primal urges which bring us time and time again to plow through a case of Pearl brew on a Saturday night.