I know damn well by just posting the title here I've jeopardized every hip credential I have left. I mean, I'm gonna be kicked off every cool music forum, board, site and whatever I've ever been a member of. My name is mud! I might be able to get a pass for Led Zep, or even Springsteen (stretching it, I know) - but Fleetwood Mac? No - no way is any hip music goober gonna cut me an iota of slack for this one. I mean, I wouldn't myself if I didn't know better.
1975, `76, `77, `78. `79.....
Look, I was a kid. I didn't listen to the radio or rock music much. I liked Alice Cooper. And The Beatles (arguably, this has pretty much defined my tastes ever since). Most of the rest I heard I found pretty boring. In retrospect, that's because it was pretty boring.
Oh, and I heard Fleetwood Mac. Boy, did I hear Fleetwood Mac.
And I hated Fleetwood Mac.
Even the name sounded like a fast-food cheeseburger.
Yooooooooooooooo - yoo make luvvin' fun!
Gack! Whadda buncha shit!
And it was everywhere. Everywhere! You couldn't escape it! It came at you in the store, on the street, on TV, every damn place.
As I got older and my tastes expanded (artist, if not style-wise), I hated Fleetwood Mac even more. "Mellow Rock" they called it. Bleauch! El Lay Cocaine Barf Music is what I'd call it. And that's that. I hated Stevie Nicks' coked-out scrape and everything else about the damn band.
Over the years, I did become aware that earlier editions of FM had been a blues band with a hot guitar player who was said to have given Eric Clapton a run for his money. So what? By my 20's I'd developed a significant jones against white blues bands (outside of the Stones, Animals, and Yardbirds - and maybe a few others). I didn't give a shit they'd played with John Mayall.
No, Fleetwood Mac sucked, probably had always sucked, and damn if they still didn't suck.
(interlude)
In the late 80's, I had this job in a bookstore. After closing, we'd often crank a little music while we cleaned up. One night, the gal in charge of the shift threw on Fleetwood Mac. Oh, blech, I thought to myself. Stuck with this shit.
Then I heard the stuttering beat, the guitars that seemed to come tumbling down the rhythm section.
Loving you, is it the right thing to do...
Okay, dammit, I had to admit - this was catchy.
Okay, dammit, I had to admit - this rocked.
Okay, dammit, I had to admit - "Go Your Own Way" was damn good - make that great - fucking song.
You know you're onto something really good when you like something you emphatically don't want to like.
I didn't go out and buy Rumours, though.
(meanwhile)
So I went on with my life and very happily never heard Fleetwood Mac. And then, maybe two dozen years later...
(interlude two)
It's early 2001 and I'm sitting in a movie theater. And they're playing rock music over the PA. And, oh joy - it's fucking Fleetwood Mac! Bleeuch! Stuck listening to this shit. Damn.
And then, the rather mysterious music, creeping out of the speakers...
Listen to the wind blow, watch the sun rise
Eerie, simple, almost like a haiku
Run in the shadows, damn your love, damn your lies
The song builds. An ominous beat. The singer demands sex, love, surrender. Love me NOW; you will NEVER love me again; you must NEVER break the chain. It is all commands. So much force. This is no pop song. The music and the lyrics are too menacing, too demanding. As they ride the bass line out, I know I've just heard myself a mother of a record.
(meanwhile)
Well, in case you're worried that I became a convert to the Mac, or to seventies soft-rock in general, fear not. After the two big hits (Fleetwood Mac and Rumours) they made the very weird Tusk, which contains the title track, as song I actually found interesting back when (using a high school marching band as the backbone of a pop song is pretty unique). Then they completely succumbed to pop and that was as far as I've ever cared to follow FM.
But what about the early days? Well, I paid no further attention till I heard their version of "Rattlesnake Shake" on Launchcast one day. Son-of-a-bitch - that ROCKED! All bad blues vibes and stormin' guitar and a singer sounding like he was about to blow. So I finally got interested in the early Fleetwood Mac.
I would like to report that the Peter Green-era Mac stuff was loaded with genius, but that's not quite the case. In fact, I'd say they were good for one or two outstanding songs per album; the rest were solid but unspectacular British blues-rock; well played and yes, Green's guitar playing is remarkable, but not so much as to thrill me.
Except those one or two outstanding tracks per album...
Because when they stepped out, they stepped out all the way. They suddenly metamorphose from a standard-issue British blues band into an overpowering blues-rock monster ("Black Magic Woman", "Love That Burns", "Rattlesnake Shake"), bordering on Beefheart-ian intensity and ramshackle power ("Shake Your Moneymaker"). Then there's the truly bizarre (and awesome) Buddy Holly rips onKiln House, Jeremy Spencer's insane solo album (which is of a piece with the early Mac catalog), the rockabilly rave-up "Somebody's Gonna Get His Head Kicked In Tonight" - which wouldn't sound inappropriate coming from Graham Parker, or The Cramps, or Tav Falco or Billy Childish, and flat-out weirdness such as the country pastiche "Blood on the Floor" or "The Green Manalishi", which sounds like what might have happened if Derek and the Dominoes had wandered into Alice Cooper's Love It To Death sessions (right around the time they were laying down "Black Juju") and started joining in the fun. This stuff is seriously powerful, weird, unexpected - and your jaw's gonna drop when you hear it and think this is Fleetwood Mac???
Well, time fades away and Fleetwood Mac are now something mom and dad (or shit, maybe grandma and grandpa, now) listen to. And I don't have to hear their shitty 70's soft rock anymore. But I have nice little homemade compilation (I love MP3's) with "The Chain" and "Go Your Own Way" and "Tusk" and a few of the better moments off of Fleetwood Mac/Rumours/Tusk, and every now and then I get the yen to hear it again and - damn those songs still kick in hard for me.
And I have another nifty homemade comp of the Peter Green days, and every now and then I pop that one in and it makes my jaw drop to think this is Fleetwood Mac - and also because it kicks ass.
Essential Listening
I don't know what to tell you. None of the early albums are great, most are good, and all contain one or two outstanding moments, some of which are listed above. Explore for yourself. Live at the BBC, credited to both Peter Green and the Mac, is a good place to start - several winners there. There's several compilations from this era - none of them definitive, to me. My vote is to download the best tracks and make your own, as I did. I'd rate the Green-era albums, roughly in order of preference as, Kiln House, Then Play On, English Rose, The Original Fleetwood Mac, Mr. Wonderful, Fleetwood Mac(first album), and Jeremy Spencer'sfirst solo album.
I have no use for anything in the Bob Welch era, or anything after Tusk, so that leaves Fleetwood Mac,Rumours, and Tusk. Even a grouch like me managed to get a CD's worth out of those. Go nuts.
Chris D(esjardins). is one of those great rock and roll characters who came up out of L.A. punk scene of the late 70s' - the same scene that gave us X, The Screamers, and The Blasters. Over the years he's been an author, poet, producer, actor, filmmaker, film teacher, and film and music critic, with a bent towards Tarantino-esque obsessions (grindhouse, gangster, asian and horror films). And he's a rock and roll singer. As Jay Hinman put it in his tribute article at Perfect Sound Forever:
A word has come up in many descriptions of Desjardins’ voice, a word you rarely see elsewhere: YOWL. Yowl is what Chris D. did with this magnificent voice -- not yell nor howl, no no no – YOWL. For the uninitiated, imagine Richard Hell at his inebriated best, say on "Love Come in Spurts" or "Down at the Rock and Roll Club." Now drown that voice in gallons of gasoline and let it thrash up to the surface screaming & clawing. Ladies and gentlemen, yowling. At his best, Chris D. had a voice of skin-crawling beauty and intensity. If he had been just a rote screamer that’d be one thing, but Desjardins wrenched his words through haunting whispers and banshee-like shrieks, very often in the exact same syllable.
D. formed The Flesheaters around a rather loose line-up (original members were soon replaced by a floating amalgam including Dave Alvin, Steve Berlin, John Doe and D.J. Bonebrake) in the late 70's, and released a series of increasingly interesting LP's, that started off as raw punk energy, but soon began to fuse Stooges-esque jazz/punk excursions, African-sounding rhythms, and the barest hints of country and blues (especially in D's hellhound-on-my-trail/burning-love lyrical modes - "wonderful bleeding collages of B-movie dementia, street crime, Mexican Catholicism and Dionysian punk spurt poetics."as Byron Coley put it).
The Flesheaters petered out in 1983, with D. recording a new album (Time Stands Still) which, depending on how you look at it, is his first solo album or the first album by his new band, Divine Horsemen. DH was less jazz and Stooges-influenced than the Flesheaters, with a strong country influence running through it. With singer and wife Julie Christensen aboard, they clearly owed a debt to X. Unfortunately, they also owed a debt to AC/DC, and their music tended to be rather hamfisted, clubbing the songs to death and robbing them of their more interesting possibilities. Still it was enjoyable music. After the dissolution of that band - and his marriage to Christensen - D. formed a new ensemble, Stone By Stone, who recorded a now rare album (I Pass For Human) before renaming themselves The Flesheaters, under which nom de plume they recorded several more albums, the last in 2004. Chris D. occasionally performs with a version of The Flesheaters to this day, but seems more focused on writing and teaching.
The Band represent a challenge for me, because I simultaneously want to love them, and to loathe them. No matter how I slice it, they're a disappointment. And no matter how I slice it, they still made some great music.
They occupy a weird and fucked-up position in rock history, too, as an outfit that was popular but really didn't get a lot of big hits, was lionized, lauded, venerated by critics but, unlike, say, Dylan or the Stones, Who, Beatles, etc, are pretty much forgotten or ignored by subsequent generations. Then there's the unfortunate fact of their recorded output, which consists of two excellent albums, followed by a bunch of duds (each of which has a following, nonetheless), a couple live albums, then a break-up and a scattering of reunion albums liked by fans and ignored by everyone else. For a bunch so lauded, its not much of an output.
The real prob for The Band isn't their music or anything else. Its the critics and what they did to them. Hey, I love Greil Marcus' Mystery Train. But the hyperbole he spins around Robertson and company really gets far, far away from him. You'd come away thinking they were The Voice of the Generation, and that Robertson was some kind of god-like genius as both songwriter and guitar player. Neither of these is true. Robertson is/was an excellent guitar player (check out Dylan's Royal Albert Hall for proof), and undeniably wrote some excellent songs. But he wrote them all between `65 and `69 and not since. And he had help.
David Womack sums them up a lot more realistically on the King Of Pop Site:
As far as plurality goes, The Band, as led by Robbie Robertson, was thematically resourceful, but at times shallow. "Caledonia Mission," "Chest Fever," "Lonesome Suzie," "Rag, Mama, Rag," "Up On Cripple Creek," "Jemima Surrender," "Smoke Signal," "Volcano," "Ophelia," "Ring Your Bells," "It Makes No Difference," "Livin’ In a Dream" and Right as Rain," most of them done up in that wonderfully ragged and woolly Band-style, are love songs with a sepia-colored Southern flavor and nothing more (or less). On "Tears of Rage," "We Can Talk," "Long Black Veil," "The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down," "Rockin’ Chair," "The Unfaithful Servant and "King Harvest (Has Surely Come)", The Band didn’t explicate themes as much as they appropriated Americana on subject matter that included whores and truckers, failed crops, the Civil War, unfaithful servants, the Great Depression, Biblical apocalypse, and the Worker's Union. Everything that Robertson would be accused of doing wrong on later band albums and in his solo work, was present on these early release: obfuscation ("Kingdom Come," "Caldonia Mission," "The Weight," "In a Station," "Lookout Cleveland," "Jawbone,"); sloppy narrative ("Caledonia Mission," "The Weight," "Across the Great Divide," When You Awake), questionable moralizing ("Kingdom Come," "When You Awake"), underwritten song structures (Robertson didn’t care much for bridges or elaboration; he usually followed a verse/chorus/verse/chorus/verse/chorus pattern – a pattern that would soon stifle The Band: though this approach would include eight songs on The Band – which is an obvious exception).
There's no doubt - in their time, The Band were different. In an era when rock music was the rejection of
prior generations and all of their values, they wore their hair short(er) (they were still pretty beatnik-looking), and posed in front of their Woodstock house surrounded by their square-looking parents, as well as various aunts-uncles-cousins-siblings. Their music suggested tradition and looked to the past for inspiration. The songs were short and clean and free of lysergic influences. As Ed Ward put it perfectly:
...without quoting or making direct reference, verbal or musical, to country music, 19th century parlor and military music, or any of the patriotic poets like Whitman, Sandburg, or Lowell, it seemed to evoke all these things and more, entirely on its own terms.
Exactly. And coming off Sgt. Pepper, The Doors, Piper At The Gates Of Dawn, Their Satanic Majesties Request, Are You Experienced, and The Velvet Underground and Nico, it must have felt like a breath of fresh air. Like a simple morning breakfast after a night of partying.
And they were influential. Someone like Neil Young, Eric Clapton's Derek and the Dominoes days (his best music) and many more would be unthinkable without them. Their stamp is all over "Americana" and "No Depression" type artists, and, at their best, they did it better than any of them.
But they also shot their wad after two albums. This isn't a crime. Hey, the New York Dolls only made two albums (not counting their recent reunion). But then, no one ever put the Dolls on a pedestal as monumental American artistes.
And, y'know, in the end they were another 60's/70's-era rock band. I used to encounter a loon named Tim Herrick over on usenet who would rave on and on about Levon Helm's (very entertaining) bio, because it shattered his illusions. Yep, in the end The Band were smoking pot and fucking groupies and shoveling cocaine up their noses just as much as any of their contemporaries. Their image was as manufactured as Alice Cooper's. It was just more wholesome.
The proof's in the pudding. Robertson rarely raises his head as a solo artist, and he's never written a single song since 1969 as good as anything one those first two albums. Like I said - he had help.
But I can't ignore the fact - when I listen to Big Pink or The Band, or the comp I made of early singles and outtakes (much of which went on The Basement Tapes) and a couple bits and pieces from the later days, it's still intoxicatingly fine music.
The first two count. Music From Big Pinkand especially The Band. Everything after that is okay if you're really into `em, but none of them excited me. I am, however, a big fan of the early Canadian Squires and Levon and the Hawks singles, as well as the sides with Ronnie Hawkins. Add in the Big Pink outtakes originally released on The Basement Tapes and you've got a pretty great album that Never Was. The way to hear most of those is on The Band: A Musical History, an exhaustive 5 disk set. It's overlaps a lot with the two above, especially the CD reissues. But for what it's worth, most of the Hawks/Ronnie Hawkins/Canadian Squires and the Big Pink outtakes made my homemade comp, as did a half-dozen or so album cuts, singles, ("Don't Do It", "Get Up Jake", "Livin' in A Dream"). Get it from the library and rip it, or look for it online, is my advice.
Essential Reading
Greil Marcus' Mystery Trainis one of the greatest rock and roll books ever. He spins a lot of purple hyperbole on The Band in this one, but he still has interesting things to say - in other words, he's not totally wrong even if he does overrate the hell out of them. Any rock and roll fan should read Marcus anyway. Levon Helm's This Wheel's On Fireis hotly-disputed (mostly by Robbie Robertson) but a hell of a good read, anyway.
Essential Viewing
The Band: The Authorized Biography is a decent documentary, but out of print and expensive. The Last Waltz is an elegant little film with some fine performances, if you can handle the egomania of it all. Muddy Waters, Dylan and a few others are well worth seeing.
When The Pretenders hit in 1980 (on Amurrican shores, anyway), they were about the freshest breath of
fresh air in too long a time.
Here was a band that had the drive, energy, and power of punk - they could hit as hard as The Clash without even working up a sweat - but they weren't a punk band. Their musicianship was top-of-the-line - a tight, powerful rhythm section, a distinctive, flashy lead guitar player (who owed nothing to standard-issue blues-rock guitar moves), and a front(wo)man who could seriously sing. They had great songs - Chrissie Hynde's writing was smart, mature, and sexy - and so was she. They were loaded with hooks you could hang your coat on. What's more, they ROCKED. This wasn't "new wave" and it wasn't "power pop" - it was flat-out in-yer-face balls-to-the-wall rock and roll. It was clearly influenced by and built from 60's pop, British Invasion-era rock, rockabilly and (later) soul, but there was nothing retro about it. It was completely modern, completely contemporary, and yet followed no particular trends in rock music of the time (which is why it hasn't dated a bit). On top of all that, they were actually popular. Yeah, here was a band that was practically everything you could want, and they actually had hits. You could hear them on the radio, see them on TV!
And Chrissie Hynde was truly ground-breaking. She was a step beyond Patti Smith as a female rocker. Patti had proved a woman could rock by taking over previously boys-only territory by force - coming off as grotty as Keith Richards on a bad day. Chrissie, by contrast, for all her toughness, was utterly and unapologetically feminine. In her appearance, demeanor, and her songwriting POV, she was a W-O-M-A-N all the way. She was sexy and classy. She had no need to show off a lot of skin to be hot. And if she had plenty of attitude, she had the chops and the band and the music to back it up every step of the way.
And man, did she let me down.
That first album - it wasn't great, but it was damn good. A little more flow and a couple less duds ("Private Life" - ech!) and it would have achieved greatness. As it was, there was enough greatness there to make it a stone classic. "Mystery Achievement" alone is still one of the most spellbinding rockers I've ever heard, and I still love to crank it in the car.
But album two was a serious letdown. Worse, it was one of those oddball records that wasn't actually in any way bad. It just wasn't that good. The best tracks ("Talk Of The Town", "Message Of Love", "I Go To Sleep") were right up there with album one - thrilling. But the rest either went in one ear or out the other, or just hung some riffs over some repeated tough-chick phrases. Then Honeyman-Scott and Pete Farndon were dead.
But the story didn't end there. It had a second act. With new recruits on board, Hynde unleashed the gorgeous "2000 Miles" and "Back On The Chain Gang", and then the Learning To Crawl album which, if it wasn't quite as good as album one, was song-for-song far superior to album two, showed profound growth, maturity, and versatility, and rocked like hell. Honeyman-Scott and Farndon might have been missed, but it looked like The Pretenders could be counted on for great things to come.
The sad part is, that was it. The Pretenders aka The Chrissie Hynde show never blew me away again.
Instead, she put out Get Close, an album overloaded with fake funk and awash in icky 80's synthesizers. Robbie McIntosh aside, they weren't a guitar band anymore. And while the songs were still well-crafted and smart, only on a few moments ("Chill Factor") did she hit something I cared to hear even a second time. I saw them on that tour in `87 - a great show (Iggy opened), but it was the older songs we were all there for. A few years later, when Packed came out, a buddy of mine loaned me his copy. I couldn't get more than 30 seconds into any track without hitting the skip button. While I've heard better stuff since then, nothing she's done has ever come within a light year of those first three albums. But damn, they were good in the beginning.
The firstthreealbumsare all readily available. The bootleg of their 1980 Central Park show is superb, too, and worth seeking out (pretty much all the live recordings of the original band I've heard are first rate).
Aah, the garage bands. The story would not be complete without them.
The archetypal garage band is a group of pudding-bowl-haircutted teen or college age guys banging out Stones/Yardbirds style rock, with more enthusiasm than finesse, shouting their lyric of frustration (source of frustration usually being a chick who's dishonest/stuck up/bitchy/doesn't put out/all of the above). Local phenoms (maybe) who occasionally broke out of the pack and scored a single national hit.
This isn't entirely accurate, of course. Some of the garage bands predate the British Invasion identikit - The Wailers and Sonics, for example, had one foot in the predominant rock styles prior to The Beatles arrival. Some had a greater sprirtual/artistic reach - The MC5 and 13th Floor Elevators being prime examples - and earned themselves a greater reputation, no longer being lumped with the garage-istas. Likewise, a few others were genuinely original, and don't fit the mold at all - The Godz, for example, who probably don't belong here. There were a number of outfits who modeled themselves more on The Byrds and Beatles than Stones/Yardbirds. But they didn't kick as much ass.
So the bulk of the garage bands drew on a similar set of influences (mostly British Invasion), were local acts
who might or might not have achieved some measure of fame in their hometown, and (rarely) had a moment or two of attention beyond their hometown, before school and the Vietnam war pulled them apart and away. Some members stayed in the game. Most left it forever. A few left it and came back. Many of them reassembled, on bases of varying permanence, in the 90;s, 00's and 10's - realizing they had something back then and wanting to explore it some more.
By the late 60's, as FM rock became a powerhouse and the music began to take itself seriously, the garage bands began to fade (1966 is considered the peak of the style). Rock music evolved and the bands, who either never got that hit or never got another one, dropped away. The music began to be looked down upon by many as little more than amateurish, teen drivel.
You could, of course, argue that there's some truth in that. Few of the bands sported virtuoso musicians (those that did generally graduated out of the class - MC5 again). Or songwriters. Or singers. They were mostly derivative. Their music was crudely played and often crudely recorded. For some this meant it was, therefore, junk. For kids just looking for something fun to dance to on the radio or at the teen club, they were just fine, thank you (thus the Top 10 status of some of these). For a few, who realized in retrospect, it was clear that while the music might have been crude, it was also a joyous expression of a moment. That it didn't really matter how well they could play or sing - as long as they could play or sing their moments of inspiration effectively enough to put it across - and they did. A decade-plus later the same thing would happen with hardcore (which, spiritually, is closer to this kind of thing than most 70's-era punk, which was derived from it, but is more self-conscious and arty - yes, that even goes for The Ramones).
One of the ones who got it was Lenny Kaye, rock crit and musician, who compiled the now-legendary Nuggets compilation, an album that made the then-shocking suggestion that the garage bands records might have some merit of their own, might be an expression of something that rock was now losing sight of. Of course, he was right.
The punks of the 70's rightly took the Nuggets album as a touchstone and an influence. Television used to cover "Psychotic Reaction". The Ramones whole look and sound seemed to echo it. Interest in garage-rock burbled, and in `78 the Pebbles comps began to appear, dredging up even more garage goodies. This led in turn to the Back From The Grave series in the early 80's. From there, the whole garage thing mushroomed. The list of garage comps linked below has over 200 titles. It's probably not complete. Rhino got in on the act with a series of Nuggets albums before finally kicking in with an expanded, 4-CD version of the original set. In New York and L.A. and Boston and San Diego, bands sprung up in tribute to garage rock, covering the songs from these albums, often adopting the pudding-bowl look. The Lyres, The Fuzztones, The Morlocks, The Gravedigger Five ... they recorded singles and albums. Like their predecessors, some of it was brilliant, some merely amusing. Some managed national or even international (they love garage rock in Europe) attention, others didn't.
Now, the other side of the coin. Like other rock and roll subgenres, garage has built up a cult following that swears by almost anything in the genre. The facts that Pebbles unearthed some buried treasures that Kaye missed can lead to the misguided belief that all 200+ of these albums are loaded with chunks of unrecognized genius on a par with "Pychotic Reaction" or "96 Tears", and that this is THE TRUE essence of rock and roll.
The idea, while amusing, ain't true. Not in my experience, anyway.
Okay - maybe I'm not entirely fit to judge. I only made it through volume 4 of Back To The Grave before diminishing returns and an unwillingness to further diminish my bank account in pursuit of same caused me to retire. But all the best stuff was on the first couple volumes, and there's only so many Stones/Yardbirds imitations you can sit through before getting bored. Oh, there's a part of me that would love to at least hear all those comps. I just don't think I'd care to own or keep many of them.
Similarly, many of the "name" garage bands got compilations of their released or un-released tracks on the market. Let's put it this way - I'm a proud owner of the Count Five's original Psychotic Reaction album. I like it. It's an enjoyable record. But is it a classic album? Christ no! Is anything on it as memorable as the title track? Again, sorry - no. It's a fistful of originals, none of them as strong as the title track (though enjoyable enough in their own right), and a couple of spirited Who covers - neither of which touches the originals - sorry. The same goes for ? and the Mysterians 96 Tears album, which I own on CD, no less. It's good. It ain't great. The various comps of the Shadows Of Knight, Gonn, Alarm Clocks et al are all much the same. Despite one or two genius singles, the bulk is just covers of r&b songs, British Invasion songs, perhaps a few pastiches of same or an older rock`n'roll classic worked up. Competently performed but not in any way special. There's nothing there that touches the early Stones/Who/Yardbirds/Animals/Them/Kinks - the source of inspiration and repertoire. I really wish there was, I do. But it ain't so.
Similarly, while I find the crazed liner notes of Back To The Grave, trashing all non-garage and British bands a lot of fun, I doubt even the author believes them. I find the covers, depicting EC Comics-style zombies burning and burying disco, reggae, punk and prog albums ("Jimi and Janis - Glad Ya Died!" reads one platter being tossed into a bonfire) - and sometimes fans of same, the idea that these records contain the true essence is silly, however amusing.
But you still can't have my copy of Psychotic Reaction.
***
These are some of the more notable names in garage-iana, or at least the ones that rise to the top for moi.
The Alarm Clocks, a trio from Parma, Ohio, recorded one classic garage gem "Yeah"/"No Reason To Complain" in 1965, released on their own Awake label. "Yeah" and "No Reason" are really a wonder to behold - Stooge-like monoto-rock that pounds and plods away in a kind of stoned grumble. "No Reason" later got a definitive re-work by The Lyres. Norton released a comp and a couple reunion albums by these guys in the 00's. The rest of their repertoire was Stones/Who/Kinks covers.
The Barbarians from Cape Cod, were best known for (a) appearing in the T.A.M.I. Show film and (b) having a one-handed drummer (he sported a hook). They had a distinctive look (sandals, puffy shirts) and a minor hit ("Are You A Boy Or Are You A Girl") which has never been a fave. Better was the autobiographical "Moulty", the story of their one-armed drummer and his quest for meaning and love. Legend has it, alas, that it was not The Barbarians but Levon and the Hawks(!!) who backed him on this 1966 gem.
The Bees from Covina, CA, pulled off one of the all-time whacked-out one-shots - "Voices Green and Purple" on the Livepool label, in 1966. This completely deranged slab was very much in the vein of "Psychotic Reaction" - i.e. The Bees were clearly Yardbirds fans. And probably dropped acid. At least, this record sounded like a bad trip. The original is horrifically rare and the small-run single, distributed to few beyond some local record stores and DJ's, was forgotten until it turned up on Pebbles Vol. 3.
The Chocolate Watchbandfrom San Jose, CA were very much in the Stones mold, with a strong dose of The Yardbirds and Who. They actually produced a couple albums which are highly thought of by garage aficionados. They mix the usual Stones rips with some good rockers psychedelic oddities, some of which are pretty cool.
The Count Five also from San Jose, CA, were responsible for the ultimate garage classic, "Psychotic Reaction", a total gutbucket Yardbirds rip-off. I spent months searching for the original Psychotic Reaction album, which, despite a very cool cover, is, I regret to report, not a lost 60's classic. The title track is a high point and the rest is decent faux Who/Yardbirds. Not an embarassment by any means - the Five deserve their legend - but if you're expecting genius here, sorry, Lester Bangs was having you on.
The Godz from NYC - John Dougan from Allmusic.com describes The Godz as follows: "Few bands in the annals of rock & roll were stranger than the New York City-based Godz...the Godz coughed up some of the strangest, most dissonant, purposely incompetent rock noise ever produced...Sounding like a prototype for Half Japanese or the Shaggs, the Godz play as if they discovered their instruments ten minutes before the tape started rolling. The singing is intentionally off-key, almost parodic, and the songs...well, they sound more like improvised snippets than actual compositions. And while that may not be your idea of pop music, this works, in large part, due to the absolute glee and unself-consciousness with which they approached their peculiar brand of aural nonsense." Lester Bangs would say “The Godz were exciting to think about because they promised to break through and become even more outrageous by dynamiting all the stupid standards by which esthetic-minded critics and technique bound musicians sought to raise rock from pygmy squall to art form.” The Electric Eels and similar outfits owed a lot to The Godz. Their albums didn't do much for me, alas.
GONN from Keokuk, Iowa - Over the years, "Blackout of Gretely" has acquired a life of its own. Singer Craig Moore begins by intoning: "The universe is permeated with the odor of kerosene" over Gerry Gabel's muscular Vox organ, followed by his "blood curdling scream". Rex Garrett's infectious, fuzz-drenched guitar riffs take over at that point, which might be described as an amped-up interpretation of the opening guitar chords on "Satisfaction", or The Standells' "Dirty Water", which it closely resembles. The influences of the Standells and Count Five are also apparent. Moore screams while the howling vocals by Gerry Gabel are a tale in several verses where the singer cannot understand why everything looks so dark, only to discover when he arrives home that he has been wearing sunglasses the whole time. Greg Shaw states that "'Blackout of Gretely' is without doubt one of the Top 10 great punk records of all time" and noted that it had sold for as much as $1000.00 by the mid-1990s. In 2008, the UK publication MOJO Magazine also listed it in the Top 10 garage psych singles of all time. (wikipedia) Although they recorded another bit of weirdness ("Doin' Me In"), most of their repertoire was the usual. They reformed a few years ago and are recording again.
Kenny and the Casuals an ultra-clean-cut outfit from Texas recorded the startling "Journey To Time", which is definitely (and accidentally) in Stooges/Velvets territory. Another lost classic that eventually bubbled to the surface. Due to a revival of interest in their rare The IMPACT Sound of Kenny and the Kasuals Live At the Studio Club album, they ended up with a following in Europe, and opened for the likes of Patti Smith and Iggy. The band is still active, I believe.
The Knickerbockers from Bergenfeld, NJ recorded the classic Beatles pastiche, "Lies". Classic.
The Lollipop Shoppe from Portland, OR are another outfit that achieved notoriety after Pebbles rescued their "You Must Be A Witch" from the 45 Grave-yard. The band was originally known as The Weeds, and a listen to their tough, bluesy album tells me that was a more appropriate name, by far. MemberFred Cole is still active, and formed the legendary Dead Moon.
Mouse and the Traps from Tyler, Texas pulled off the uncanny Dylan rips "Public Execution" and "Maid Of Sugar, Maid Of Spice", both gems. Other releases were less obviously pastiches - also less obviously interesting.
The Music Machinefrom L.A., were basically the brainchild of Sean Bonniwell. Genuinely different, the MM had a fairly long career (into `69), and Bonniwell never stopped making music until his death in 2011. "Talk Talk" is their snot-nosed classic.
The Nightcrawlersfrom Daytona Beach, FL, landed on the radar with "Little Black Egg", a tender tale of love between a man and bird's rotten egg. Its hypnotic refrain was the first song I learned on guitar.
? and the Mysteriansfrom Bay City, MI were fronted by ? aka Rudy Martinez, and responsible for the hypnotic "96 Tears". They have been sporadically active ever since, though recently without ?.
(Barry and) The Remains, from Boston, weren't, strictly speaking, a garage band - they were less subversive, more pop-oriented, and fairly professional. Actually, the One-ders, from the film That Thing You Do, remind me heavily of Barry and the Remains. Barry Tashian remains active in the music scene to this day, and the band has re-formed.
The Seedsfrom L.A. had a failry lengthy (multi-album) career, and even got Muddy Waters to somehow scrawl liner notes for one of their platters. After some time spent in religious cults, Sky Saxon reemerged in the 80's and became a kind of grand-old man figure in the garage revival crowd. He remained active until his death in 2009.
The Shadows Of Knightfrom Chicago got the hit with "Gloria" which should've gone to Them. Their best was "Bad Little Woman".
The Sonics from Tacoma, WA, are one of the oldest and narstiest of the garage bands, their snarling, Little Richard-influenced rawk, dark preoccupations and general bad attitude making them perennial favorites of garage-meisters. Songs like "The Witch", "Psycho", "He's Waiting" and "Strychnine" are garage staples to this day. Like many of these outfits, The Sonics are active again.
The Standells from LA (not Boston, sorry) were responsible for three major garage classics - "Dirty Water", "Riot On Sunset Strip" and "Sometimes Good Guys Don't Wear White", all essentials.
The Syndicate Of Sound another San Jose outfite unleased the raving "Little Girl" in 1966. They still perform in the Bay Area from time to time.
The Wailers were another Tacoma outfit, dating back even earlier than The Sonics (their 1959 hit, "Tall Cool One" was also their best). The Wailers are something of a bridge between pre-British Invasion styles (instrumentals, etc) and the later garage bands.
Essential Listening
Nuggetsthis is the essential garage-rock collection, esp. in its expanded, multi-disc form. If you want one definitive garage-rock classics collection, this is as close as you're gonna get.
Back From The Grave (8 volumes) for those who can't be satisfied with the above. These lean heavily on the rawer, tougher bands, so "psychedelic" stuff is excluded. Some gems to be found here, among many guilty pleasures. The covers and liner notes are a scream.
Pebbles (28 volumes!) a number of buried treasures have emerged from this series. Whether 28 volumes worth has is another question. Nonetheless, worth checking out if you're a true garage-rock aficionado.
Michigan Brand Nuggets - hell, the cover alone is classic. This is an above average set that's elevated to greatness by the presence of some early, rare - and outstanding, MC5 cuts, and early, even rarer, and even more outstanding stuff by Bob Seger. Track this one down.
There are tons of books on sixties garage rock, particularly in specific scenes. I can't comment on any of them, sorry. The links above are a gateway to the garage-world. I wish you luck in your journey...
In September, 1983, I picked up the latest issue of Rolling Stone over on the stands at Crown Books, and read this featured review of a band I'd never heard of named Big Country:
Here's a big-noise guitar band from Britain that blows the knobs off all the synth-pop diddlers and fake-funk frauds who are cluttering up the charts these days. Big Country mops up the fops with an air-raid guitar sound that's unlike anything else around, anywhere...Like the Irish band U2 (with whom they share young, guitar-wise producer Steve Lillywhite), Big Country has no use for synthesizers, and their extraordinary twin-guitar sound should make The Crossing a must-own item for rock die-hards.
So wrote Kurt Loder in a piece that has, I guess, become semi-iconic. Well, it turned me on. Burning with it.
a passion for 60's rock, a increasing passion for punk, hardcore, and especially the precursors of same (Velvets!), an interest in U2, and a loathing for the synth-pop diddlers and fake funk frauds then cluttering up the charts, I was ready for a new band to the blow the knobs off rock music again. Loder's review made BC sound like they might be
1983 was a Dark Year. The height of Reagan-era brinksmanship, many of us growing up in that time (myself included) feared (some even believed) the bombs might fall at any moment. The economy was bleak. "In A Big Country" and "Fields Of Fire" hit the airwaves, and they sounded pretty good. They seemed to express something other than despair and resignation, but also something other than simple good times. They sounded like hope.
But 1983 came and went, and by the time I had a copy of The Crossing my interest in sincere British Isles rock bands ala BC and U2 was fading fast. I preferred The Clash. Even more I preferred Husker Du, who really delivered on the guitar-army sound Loder claimed for BC in his review. I liked U2 (still do), but I had my problems with them (still do). American bands were filling up my favorite-band slots pretty fast, and BC just couldn't hold the post, even though The Crossing wasn't a bad album. It just wasn't what I wanted to hear any more. British rock had been eclipsed, and I was happy about it.
The other, even more serious problem, was that BC just went on to disappoint. Watching them on SNL, I was struck by their thin sound and total lack of stage presence. The Wonderland EP kicked off well with the title track ... and was totally forgettable otherwise. The Steeltown album that followed left me cold. Their passion had turned to mere pretense, their bagpipe guitar move had overstayed its welcome. Where U2 seemed to expand into a real rock band more and more, BC just seemed to contract into a one-hit-wonder gimmick. 1986. Just three years after The Crossing, their latest (The Seer) was getting slagged in Stone next to REM's Life's Rich Pageant - hardly the Athens boys greatest, but still one that was (and still is) of greater interest to me. Sometime not long after that I recall Pulse, Tower Records' house organ, covering their galsnost-era tour of the Soviet Union. The author depicted them as bunch of well-meaning has-beens. Well...
Everything I heard after Steeltown (which admittedly was not much) seemed to be a bigger dud than what I'd heard prior. Next thing I remember was seeing an ad for The Buffalo Skinners and thinking "Christ - are THEY still around?"
And the next thing I heard was 10 years later - that Stuart Adamson was dead, an apparent suicide.
I guess that must have haunted me a bit, because about a year later I felt compelled to buy myself a new copy of The Crossing (my original vinly long having been purged from the collection). For $10, what the hell?
Heard with new ears, outside the context of a dozen plus fellow U2 sound-alikes, it sounds better than it did last time I heard it. It rocks hard. They don't actually sound like U2 (though a similar attack and approach is obvious). Adamson wrote better lyrics than Bono. There's a Celtic-ness to the music that I really like. It evokes green hills and valleys full of heather, a fantasy Scotland that exists only in the imagination. Maybe that's what it was meant to do. It's pretentious at times, and more than a little corny. But it's good. Not great. The Crossing is no classic - not by my standards, anyway. But its unique, its solid, its consistent, and I like to listen to it now and then.
It makes me a little sad, looking back. In the end, Big Country was just another of many, many bands who failed to follow up on a particularly strong debut. This only puts them in the company of, oh, Television, among others (and no, The Crossing is no match for Marquee Moon. But its better than Adventure). They were a nice, earnest little band who made a promising debut, and whose greatest sin was to never be the band some thought they would be.
Because when they stepped out, they stepped out all the way. They suddenly metamorphose from a standard-issue British blues band into an overpowering blues-rock monster ("Black Magic Woman", "Love That Burns", "Rattlesnake Shake"), bordering on Beefheart-ian intensity and ramshackle power ("Shake Your Moneymaker"). Then there's the truly bizarre (and awesome) Buddy Holly rips onKiln House, Jeremy Spencer's insane solo album (which is of a piece with the early Mac catalog), the rockabilly rave-up "Somebody's Gonna Get His Head Kicked In Tonight" - which wouldn't sound inappropriate coming from Graham Parker, or The Cramps, or Tav Falco or Billy Childish, and flat-out weirdness such as the country pastiche "Blood on the Floor" or "The Green Manalishi", which sounds like what might have happened if Derek and the Dominoes had wandered into Alice Cooper's Love It To Death sessions (right around the time they were laying down "Black Juju") and started joining in the fun. This stuff is seriously powerful, weird, unexpected - and your jaw's gonna drop when you hear it and think this is Fleetwood Mac???
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