Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! / Off the Charts: 60s Rock Revelations😊

Inez and Charlie Foxx — “Don’t Do It No More”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 24, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,025) Inez and Charlie Foxx — “Don’t Do It No More”

Everybody have you heard, he’s gonna cheat on me! A cheatin’ lover slowburner from sister and brother Inez and Charlie Foxx. No one hit wonderbird, Inez was “one of the most underrated of all the female singers of the 60s and 70s”. (Sir Shambling’s Deep Soul Heaven, http://www.sirshambling.com/artists_2012/F/inez_charlie_foxx/index.php)

Michael Jack Kirby tells us:

Charlie was the more musically inclined as a child; he sang with the Gospel Tide Choir, which Inez later joined. Heading to New York in 1960, little sis got the first break while Charlie, three years older, was still struggling to wedge his foot in a door . . . . Calling herself Inez Johnston, her first professional recording session was for Brunswick Records in the fall of 1960 . . . . Sue Records owner Henry “Juggy” Murray used to tell the story of how the struggling pair approached him one winter 1963 day outside the Turf restaurant . . . . They pitched an idea for a song and, impressed with such brashness and confidence, he invited them upstairs, several floors above the Turf, to the Sue offices where they sang “Mockingbird” on the spot. The tune’s origin can be traced to a softly-sung children’s song, “Hush Little Baby,” specifically the opening lines ‘Hush little baby don’t say a word, mama’s gonna buy you a mockingbird…if that mockingbird don’t sing, mama’s gonna buy you a diamond ring.’ . . . It had a rhythmic, in-your-face quality a world away from the original song and Juggy was sure it would be a hit if recorded exactly as the two had presented it to him. A session was set up . . . . Inez sang, Charlie answered and the back-and-forth wordplay resulted in a distinctively unique recording . . . . Juggy felt the record would do better if he positioned it as an Inez Foxx solo single . . . . [which] reach[ed] number two on the R&B chart at the end of August . . . while simultaneously entering the pop top ten. . . . Making Inez a star became Murray’s main focus. “He’s the One You Love” came next but struggled; the perception may have been that “Mockingbird” was a novelty one-shot. The Foxx siblings returned to the nursery rhyme concept for third single “Hi Diddle Diddle” . . . and it charted briefly in December. . . . “Ask Me” was in and out of the charts in January 1964. “Hurt By Love” managed a two-month run in May and June. The records continued to credit Inez Foxx, ignoring the two obvious voices on every song. Charlie kept his ego in check, as he was really more interested in writing and learning the producing end of things. Five more Symbol singles were released, uneventfully, through early 1966 . . . before they parted ways with Juggy Murray. [They i]mmediately signing a deal with the Musicor label . . . . Musicor started Dynamo Records to focus on R&B artists, in the process granting them permanent billing as Inez and Charlie Foxx. Inez blossomed as a live performer during this time; she appeared more self-assured, acquiring a flamboyant wardrobe (she often donned a tiger-striped outfit) while Charlie supplied the backbone. . . . The second Dynamo single, “I Stand Accused” (an R&B hit for Jerry Butler in ’64), reached the charts in the spring of ’67. “(1-2-3-4-5-6-7) Count the Days” was their biggest single for Dynamo, going top 20 on the R&B charts at the beginning of 1968 while spending several weeks on the pop charts. . . . Charlie was doing more writing and producing for other acts . . . . [and] Inez and Charlie . . . grew apart as an act in the early 1970s. She belted out one final R&B hit for Dynamo, “You Shouldn’t Have Set My Soul on Fire,” in 1971. Her solo career was reignited two years later at Stax Records in Memphis with a series of releases on the Volt label . . . .
http://www.waybackattack.com/foxxinez.html

Sir Shambling’s Deep Soul Heaven adds:

As is quite obvious from their vocal approach, they sang together in local churches, and after they left [high school], Charlie tried to get into pro sports as a basketball player or American footballer, while Inez decided on a gospel career, joining the Gospel Tide Chorus. Her talent was spotted by local impresario Charles Fuller who persuaded her to go solo, and who also suggested moving into the secular arena. She journeyed to New York and made her first two records for Brunswick . . . . Charlie joined her there having failed to make it as an athlete in the early 60s and they resumed their singing and songwriting partnership. . . . For Inez and Charlie – as well as Juggy Murray – the problem later in 1963 was how to follow up a surprise novelty smash. Not surprisingly perhaps they went with another similarly styled and paced “Here We Go Round The Mulberry Bush” and then with the bouncy “He’s The One You Love” but neither made the top R & B charts. Their next two 45s “Hey Diddle Diddle” and “Ask Me” both just made it into the top 100 R&B placings as 1963 moved into 1964 . . . . The quality of their 45s throughout 1964 was very high indeed. Starting with the splendidly hard R&B of “Hurt By Love” which put the duo back in higher reaches of the charts, “La De Da I Love You”, based on the Supremes “Where Did Our Love Go” riff but featuring incomparably better vocals, and finishing with the “High Heel Sneakers” sound of “I Fancy You”, this was music to savour. . . . Their final Symbol 45 was “Hummingbird” which was heavily influenced by the more modern dance sounds coming out of Detroit . . . . In 1966 the duo signed to Musicor, a subsidiary of Scepter/Wand . . . . [B]y the end of 1967 [Charlie] decided that he’d had enough performing leaving Inez to carry on as a solo act. By the end of the decade he was . . . running his own Tee Off label . . . . Even though Inez had another seven Dynamo 45s over the next couple of years, there was only one hit, the excellent big production number “You Shouldn’t Have Set My Soul On Fire” at the start of 1971 . . . . She journeyed south to Memphis, signing for Stax who placed her on their Volt logo for one memorable album and five superb singles. . . . By 1975 her career was over, suddenly and without any apparent explanation. . . .
http://www.sirshambling.com/artists_2012/F/inez_charlie_foxx/index.php

Here is UK swinging “[s]ixties pop diva-turned-avant jazz singer” (Jason Ankeny, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/julie-driscoll-mn0000261098#biography) Julie Driscoll’s excellent ’65 A-side:

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The Small Faces — “My Way of Giving”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 23, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,024) The Small Faces — “My Way of Giving”

We should all give thanks for the Small Faces’ way of giving, pilgrim! First a Steve Marriott and Ronnie Lane written Small Faces (see #969) demo that Decca released after the band left for Andrew Loog Oldham’s Immediate label, then an almost hit in the UK (#48) for Chris Farlowe (see #473), then a track off of the Small Faces’ first Immediate album, then an EP track for French rock icon Johnny Hallyday, then a track off of Rod Stewart’s Gasoline Alley, “Giving” “is a[] gem . . . with a psychedelic aftertaste in the melody and [Steve] Marriott doubling on both electric and acoustic guitars to accompany those 2 glorious minutes.” (Sergio Ariza, https://guitarsexchange.com/en/unplugged/413/small-faces-small-faces-1967/) Happy Modsgiving, everyone!

Andrew Hickey tells us that “[t][he first work the [Small Faces] did for [Immediate] was actually for a Chris Farlowe single. Lane and Marriott gave him . . . “My Way of Giving”, and played on the session along with Farlowe’s backing band the Thunderbirds. Mick Jagger is the credited producer, but by all accounts Marriott and Lane did most of the work”. https://500songs.com/podcast/episode-159-itchycoo-park-by-the-small-faces/

While the Small Faces hardly need an introduction, here is an introduction by Bruce Eder:

Small Faces were the best English band never to hit it big in America. Outside Europe, all anybody remembers them for is their sole hit, “Itchycoo Park,” which was hardly representative of their psychedelic sound, much less their full musical range — but in England, Small Faces were one of the most extraordinary and successful bands of the mid-’60s, serious competitors to the Who and potential rivals to the Rolling Stones. Lead singer/guitarist Steve Marriott’s formal background was on the stage; as a young teenager, he’d auditioned for and won the part of the Artful Dodger in the Lionel Bart musical Oliver! Marriott was earning his living at a music shop when he made the acquaintance of Ronnie Lane (bass, backing vocals), who had formed a band called the Pioneers, which included drummer Kenney Jones. Lane invited Marriott to jam with his band at a show they were playing at a local club — the gig was a disaster, but out of that show the group members decided to turn their talents toward American R&B. The band — with Marriott now installed permanently and Jimmy Winston recruited on organ — cast its lot with a faction of British youth known as the mods, stylish posers (and arch enemies of the leather-clad rockers, sometimes with incredibly violent results) who, among their other attributes, affected a dandified look and a fanatical embrace of American R&B. The quartet, now christened Small Faces (“face” being a piece of mod slang for a fashion leader), began making a name for themselves on-stage, sparked by their no holds barred performance style. Marriott had a uniquely powerful voice and was also a very aggressive lead guitarist, and the others were able to match him, especially Jones, who was a truly distinctive drummer.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/small-faces-mn0000423267

Here is the demo:

Here is some cool live footage:

Here is Chris Farlowe:

Here is Farlowe live:

Here is some live footage of Farlowe:

Here’s Farlowe briefly talking to the BBC about his recording:

Here’s Rod Stewart from ’70’s Gasoline Alley:

And, of course, here’s Johnny Hallyday en français:

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Tina & David Meltzer — “Pure White Place”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 22, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,023) Tina & David Meltzer — “Pure White Place”

We got the beat! Well, at least we got the greatest 60’s beat(nik) musicians — Tina & David Meltzer (see #873, 874) — giving us a “truly great” song from an album [Poet Song] filled with “excellent, psych-tinged moody folk” (Patrick Lundborg, The Acid Archives, 2nd ed.) It “does have some great songs, my favorite being the haunting ‘Pure White Place.’ For anyone who is enamored of that point in the 60s when anything seemed possible, and all forms of music and poetry could be combined into a glorious hybrid, this release will be appreciated in a major way.” (Poetic Psychedelia, https://www.amazon.com/product-reviews/B0002WTK1G)

Of Poet Song, Richie Unterberger writes:

Tina & David Meltzer’s late-’60s album is a pleasing, though not great, entry in the large field of San Francisco Bay Area psych-folk-rock. Naturally there are similarities to the 1967 album by the Serpent Power [see #873], which the Meltzers fronted. But the mood here is more subdued, folky, and occasionally orchestrated, with some violins, cello, mandolin, French horns, clarinet, and sax in addition to the folk-rock guitars. The cops from the likes of Country Joe & the Fish and the Jefferson Airplane are toned way down, and the music is broken up by a half-dozen spoken poems by David Meltzer with gentle guitar backup. Tina Meltzer takes the lead vocals more often than David Meltzer on the purely musical selections — a wise choice as she has the better voice, her rich and clear tones and phrasing suitable for the contemplative, wistful mood of the songs. . . . It’s a good record for sunny, solitary mornings.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/tina-david-meltzer-mn0001629632#discography

John McMurtrie wrote of David Meltzer upon his death that:

Fellow Bay Area Beat poet Diane di Prima called Mr. Meltzer “one of the secret treasures on our planet. Great poet, musician, comic; mystic unsurpassed, performer with few peers.” His friends Greg and Keiko Levasseur wrote . . . that “We have lost a great poet, scholar, musician, and jazz historian.[“] . . . Mr. Meltzer wrote more than 40 volumes of poetry . . . . Lawrence Ferlinghetti . . . wrote that Mr. Meltzer was “one of the greats of post-World War II San Francisco poets and musicians. He brought music to poetry and poetry to music!”

Raised in Brooklyn, N.Y., Mr. Meltzer got an early start as an artist; he entered a competition at age 11 with a poem about the New York subway system. “I owe my own fluency with language to Brooklyn,” Mr. Meltzer said . . . . “Everyone talked about everything, from the Dodgers to the revolution.” . . . Pushed into exile in California,” as he put it, living “as an alienated teen in L.A.,” Mr. Meltzer met artists who fueled his creativity. By age 20, he was recording poetry with jazz musicians in Los Angeles . . . .[He] was the youngest poet to be featured in Donald Allen’s anthology “The New American Poetry, 1945-1960.” He also wrote fiction. “I wrote 10 novels for a company run by gangsters,” Mr. Meltzer told The Chronicle. “The books were pornographic and political, too. I call them ‘agit-smut.’ . . . From 1977 to 2007, he taught in the Humanities and Graduate Poetics programs at the New College of California in San Francisco.
https://www.chron.com/books/article/David-Meltzer-Beat-Generation-poet-and-musician-10830409.php

Live from the ’68 Berkeley Folk Festival (“Pure White Place” is the first song):

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Chapter Four — “In My Life”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 21, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,022) Chapter Four — “In My Life”

No, not John Lennon’s “Life”! Rather, the greatest British freakbeat ever laid down by Americans, two members of Jay and the Americans that is (who, of course, were Americans)! This, their only A-side, is “a vicious slab of freakbeat with a guitar sound that could almost be Sonic Youth! Devastating!!!!” (belmontrecordshopct, https://www.discogs.com/release/1064309-Chapter-Four-In-My-Life) Mr Happening calls it:

Explosive! Malevolent prime Brit pop-art mixed up with demented US psych punk. Several guitars battle with minor chords, sustain and a fuzz box, going all eastern psychedelic in the manic break.
https://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/review/1656/

Mr Happening adds:

“I wanna spend all my money with the richest man. I wanna know how it feels, to starve with the poor, picking out of garbage cans”. It is brooding, dark and foreboding, asking fundamental questions about our very existence and our purpose in this “sick, sick world”. Like a teenage mystic in the throws of extreme acid/dope paranoia, the singer resembles someone either on the verge of a mental breakdown, or a crystal clear white light revelation about The Meaning Of Life. “I wanna know the feeling, of not feeling anything, at all.” . . . This 45 was their sole effort and only ever released in the UK. One of the few pieces of information I’ve managed to find, suggests this was just released to fulfill publishing/ contractual obligations or something. Criminal. “I wanna know about going to sleep knowing I’ll wake, to no tomorrow.”
https://www.headheritage.co.uk/unsung/review/1656/

Sweet Floral Albion: The Journal of British Psychedelia tells us that despite longstanding rumors to the contrary, Chapter Four was not in fact Jay and the Americans. How does SFA know? It went straight to the source and asked American #1 Jay Black, that’s how. But two of the Americans, Kenny Vance and Marty Sanders, did co-write the song and were indeed the core of Chapter Four. See: http://www.marmalade-skies.co.uk/sfa13.htm.

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Sonny Bono — “I Told My Girl to Go Away”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 20, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,021) Sonny Bono — “I Told My Girl to Go Away”

Sonny’s sole solo album, his late ’67 psychedelic opus Inner Views (see #281) is not well known — Bruce Eder notes that it “disappeared without a trace of its passing.” (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/sonny-bono-mn0000036402/biography) “My Girl” is Gabe Crawford’s “favorite song of the album”, “[a] ballad explaining how he has to tell the girl he loves to go away[:] ‘How could I tell her as much as I loved her we’d never be?’ and then ‘I don’t love you I had to say and then I died that day I lied.'” (https://vinylculturenyc.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/the-little-man-that-couldnt-2/)

Lindsay Planer adds that:

“I Told My Girl to Go Away” is an ambiguous protest number with a simple and childlike melody contrasting the heady lyrics “I overheard her mom and dad/I heard them say that they’d be glad/When she’d start dating her own kind.” Interestingly, monaural pressings of the album edited that verse out of the song, but the words remained printed on the back of the LP jacket. While the similarities to Janis Ian’s groundbreaking “Society’s Child” are undeniable, Bono’s . . . makes no direct allusions as to the nature of the parental disapproval, be it racial, religious, or social. The dramatic instrumental score embodies a larger-than-life “Wall of Sound” arrangement, proving Bono and company had learned a thing or two during their tenure with [Phil] Spector.”
https://www.allmusic.com/album/inner-views-mw0000206094

Oh, and Serene Dominic notes that “the verses . . . are the exact same melody as ‘I read the news today, oh boy.’–at a dirge-like speed, no less!” (https://psychedelicscene.com/2021/08/23/psychedelic-skeletons-in-the-closet-sonny-bono/)

Those who have been turned on to Sonny’s LP seem to have polar opposite reactions — delight or derision. Nathan Ford fondly writes that:

Sonny briefly dropped Cher (and a lot of LSD by the sound of it) for this surprisingly hip psychedelic opus. There are sitars all over the place and the lengthier tracks . . . have the slightly unhinged quality of Eric Burdon’s San Francisco narratives. It all fits together marvelously as an album and has moments that suggest a wiggier Lee Hazlewood. Why this potential cult favourite has remained largely unchampioned is a mystery to us.
http://active-listener.blogspot.com/2014/08/40-obscure-psychedelic-rock-pop-albums.html

Crawford is similarly effusive:

In 1967 Sonny Bono did the unthinkable. He departed from Cher . . . and made his own album. Inner Views is not well known, and definitely not renowned, but it does deserve serious respect. . . . By the time Inner Views was released Sonny was 32. He was past his party heyday and was actually quite conservative in nature. He did not smoke pot or partake in any other kinds of drugs. [H]is age and maturity are a major factor in the content of this album while showing some serious songwriting skills. . . .
https://vinylculturenyc.wordpress.com/2014/09/17/the-little-man-that-couldnt-2/

On the other hand, Serene Dominic is deliciously and hilariously bitchy:

Everybody who made a record before 1967 has at least one bad psychedelic moment and this week you’d better sit down, kids. Sonny Bono’s Psychedelic Skelton in the Closet wants to bum you out. . . . Sonny, who had a voice like the horn on a Hyundai[, f]or some unexplained reason . . . cut an entire album by himself . . . . Its cover is a hideous etching of Sonny sitting peacefully with a smokey genie of Cher billowing next to him . . . . In Sonny’s autobiography And The Beat Goes On, he admits, “I tried chasing the newer sound for awhile but could never get a handle on it. The LP Inner Views was my attempt at psychedelic music. . . .” [S]onny understands the requirements of this new music (to take drugs and do everything to excess) but stubbornly refuses to follow through with those requirements (by doing everything to excess stone cold sober) . . . . There aren’t two grooves pressed together on the whole first side that escape contamination from squiggly sitar runs . . . . [l]ike the dull droning buzz of a dying bee or the hum of a faulty air conditioner . . . .
https://psychedelicscene.com/2021/08/23/psychedelic-skeletons-in-the-closet-sonny-bono/

And Lindsay Planer opines that “the album reinforces why Bono let his then professional partner and wife, Cher, take the vocals” and points to “the seemingly uncomfortable references to the Beatles’ ‘A Day in the Life’ as Bono warbles ‘I read the news today, oh boy’ with all the finesse of a teenage high-school nark”. (https://www.allmusic.com/album/inner-views-mw0000206094)

My verdict? Well, I’m playing a cut, aren’t I (the second of the LP’s songs that I have featured)? Whether or not it is a guilty pleasure, in my mind’s eye, Inner Views is pure pleasure. I should note that I got to work with U.S. Representative Sonny Bono during my days as a congressional staffer. Don’t think I won’t select another cut or two from Inner Views. Well, I’d threaten more, but the album only had five songs!

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Blue Cheer — “Pilot”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 19, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,020) Blue Cheer — “Pilot”

From the “louder than God” Blue Cheer, comes a song that “is innovative, cosmic, intellectual — just well-threaded rock ‘n’ roll. . . . If the lyrics . . . are deficient, the music is distinct and original”. (Joe Viglione, https://rockasteria.blogspot.com/2015/05/blue-cheer-original-human-being-1970-us.html) Intellectual?! Tell that to mrkyussman, whose reaction to the song is “My GOD. This is [still] HELLA-F*CKIN-BALLS-TO-THE-WALL AWESOME”. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eCT9p2EdnjA) Lyrics deficient?! “Put on my travelin’ shoes!”

Of Blue Cheer, Ken McIntyre writes:

They were the bellowing Gods Of F*ck. There were no big ugly noises in rock’n’roll before Blue Cheer. They created sonic brutality, coiling their teenage angst into an angry fist of sludge and feedback and hurling it at stunned, stoned hippies like a wave of mutilation. Everything about them was badass. They had a Hell’s Angel for a manager, they were despised by the other bands in their scene, and they played so loud that people ran from them in fear. Proto-punk, proto-metal and proto-rehab, Blue Cheer took acid, wore tight pants, cranked their walls of Marshall stacks and proved, once and for all, that when it came to all things rock, excess was always best. Formed by singer/bass player/mad visionary Dickie Peterson in San Francisco in 1966, Blue Cheer – named after the band’s favourite brand of LSD – was at first a gangly, six-piece blues revue with much teenage enthusiasm and little direction. After seeing Jimi Hendrix perform for the first time, the band’s prime movers – Peterson, drummer Paul Whaley and guitarist Leigh Stephens – thinned the line-up and discovered their sound, a wall-shaking throb of low- end beastliness that sounded exactly like the world ending. Anchored by a sweat-soaked, hell-for-leather cover of Eddie Cochran’s teenage lament Summertime Blues, Blue Cheer’s definitive sonic manifesto Vincebus Eruptum arrived in 1968. It was the blues defined by acid-fried biker goons, and it changed the world. Two years later, the band was effectively over, its members shell-shocked, disillusioned, ripped-off and super-freaked.
https://www.loudersound.com/features/cult-heroes-blue-cheer-the-band-who-invented-heavy-metal

Mark Deming gives us some history:

The hard rock group Blue Cheer were often referred to as being “louder than god” and no band of their era more richly earned that title. Often cited as the first heavy metal band, they were inarguably heavy on albums like 1968’s Vincebus Eruptum and Outsideinside, playing raw, blues-based rock with a bludgeoning impact and monolithic guitar sound that inspired hundreds of bands to turn up their amps and summon mountains of noise. . . . Dickie Peterson, who had previously played with a group based out of Davis, California, Andrew Staples & The Oxford Circle. After relocating to San Francisco, [he] wanted to form an electric blues band, and recruited guitarist Leigh Stephens and drummer Eric Albronda for the project. When Albronda dropped out, he invited his Oxford Circle bandmate Paul Whaley to take his place. For a while, Blue Cheer expanded to a sextet . . . . [but] after seeing the Jimi Hendrix Experience . . . Peterson was won over to the idea of a primal guitar, bass, and drums trio, and the new additions were sent packing. . . . The group . . . began playing the burgeoning West Coast psychedelic ballroom circuit. Their overloaded, guitar-driven music turned heads, and six months after making their debut, Blue Cheer was signed by Phillips Records. . . . “Summertime Blues[]” . . . became a surprise hit upon its release in late 1967, rising to number 11 on the Top 100 Singles chart . . . . January 1968 saw the release of their debut album, Vincebus Eruptum, which made it to number 11 on the Top 200 albums chart, and made them one of the most talked-about bands on the West Coast rock scene . . . . Owing to the group’s massive stage volume and huge array of amplifiers, parts of the [their second] album [OutsideInside] were recorded outside, the tale being that they were simply too loud for any recording studio. [It] didn’t live up to the sales expectations set by the first album, and by the end of 1968, Leigh Stephens had left Blue Cheer . . . . He was replaced by Randy Holden . . . . Midway through the sessions for Blue Cheer’s third album, 1969’s New! Improved! Blue Cheer, Holden quit, and the band became a quartet . . . . [T]he group’s fourth album, 1969’s Blue Cheer, which moved them into a more conventional boogie-blues format, but Paul Whaley had quit . . . leaving Peterson as the only original member in the band. Gary Lee Yoder [who cowrote and sings on “Pilot”] who had been a member of the Oxford Circle with Peterson . . . became a full member of the band for 1970’s The Original Human Being [from which “Pilot” is taken], taking over as guitarist . . . . 1971’s Oh! Pleasant Hope was an unexpectedly rootsy album with touches of folk and country . . . . By this time, by his own admission, Dickie Peterson was struggling with a dependence on hard drugs, and he only sang lead on three of the album’s songs; after it came and went with little notice, Blue Cheer broke up.

Blue Cheer sound positively slick (at least by their standards) on 1970’s The Original Human Being. [It] is the most polished and professional album of [their] career, and there’s a lean but muscular proto-boogie groove that infuses most of the album’s 11 songs, and the performances sound tight and well-focused throughout. However, tightness isn’t what made Blue Cheer a memorable band in the first place, and the cleaner approach doesn’t always flatter this music. . . . [I]t’s most pleasing when the players forget trying to impress us and just go for what feels right.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/blue-cheer-mn0000059537#biography, https://www.allmusic.com/album/the-original-human-being-mw0000619048

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The Folklords — “Jennifer Lee”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 18, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,019) The Folklords — “Jennifer Lee”

A haunting song from a rare “Canadian folk/psych classic” album (Light in the Attic Records, https://lightintheattic.net/products/release-the-sunshine) filled with “[d]reamy sunshine-infused-yet-with-clouds-passing-by pop psychedelia with a folk bent and a futuristic sound”. (Return to Analog, https://returntoanalogrecords.com/products/copy-of-love-cry-want-s-t-lp)

Transparent Radiation enthuses:

[P]ossibly the finest Acid-Folk psych LP ever released . . . one of those fine gem’s which seemed to have gone astray in the corridors of time and is a work which is quite unlike anything that has been created. . . . The . . . album is a product of beauty, down to the last note, mystical lyricism, psychedelic ambience, mind altering chiming via the sounds of Autoharp, tripped-out melancholy, blurry visioned hope and a wonderful array of rich and textured harmonies, complemented entirely by Martha Johnson who anchors the whole thing.
http://thetransparentradiation.blogspot.com/2011/12/folklords-release-sunshine-1969.html

Bruce Eder says that “[t]his pretty if somewhat low-key album is a nice piece of folk/sunshine pop with resonant Autoharp and guitar, a kind of reflective male/female vocal mix that recalls the first Jefferson Airplane album, and some diverting psychedelic lyrics.” (https://www.allmusic.com/album/release-the-sunshine-mw0001128225)

Waxidermy incisively adds:

Basically, it’s a group of serious people in paisley singing morosely about a girl named Jennifer Lee and other such things. The autoharp features prominently and that’s a good thing. Toronto’s Yorkville pre-gentrification must have been a swell place, man.
http://waxidermy.com/blog/folklords/

About the Folklords, Canuckistan Music tells us:

The Folklords were a sort of tripped-out We Five. . . . The group actually got their start sometime around early 1968 when guitarist Tom Martin and bassist Paul Seip, who had been aping sounds from across the pond with their mod cover band the Chimes of Britain, decided to move things in a much more westerly direction. As the renamed Folklords, they added Martin’s wife Martha Johnson on vocals and autoharp and recorded an insanely obscure seven-inch for their own COB label (‘Forty Second River’ b/w ‘Unspoken Love’). Release the Sunshine came out later that year on Jack Boswell’s Allied imprint, but curiously slipped under the radar at the time, garnering absolutely no mention at all in any of the Canadian music publications of the day. What’s more, Boswell’s teenage son Craig was a last-minute stand-in after the band’s original drummer went mysteriously AWOL from these recording sessions, thus forever forfeiting his own brief fifteen minutes of fame. Though it is steeped – or mired, take your pick – in the sober, overly earnest folk traditions of the early sixties, Release the Sunshine thankfully manages to untether itself somewhat with some dreamy folk motifs and sweet harmonies that recall the very early, pre-Grace Slick Jefferson Airplane. Add to that Johnson’s haunting vocals and delicately played autoharp and the results are some interesting, if hardly essential, psych-folk.
http://www.canuckistanmusic.com/index.php?maid=119

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Hayden Wood — “The House Beside the Mine”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 17, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,018) Hayden Wood — “The House Beside the Mine”

New Zealand’s Hayden Wood gives us “a brilliant psych ballad” (barrympls, https://www.45cat.com/record/564499), “a wonderful mid-tempo ballad with a fuzz-raga lead guitar and really cool phasing effects”. (Vernon Joynson, The Tapestry of Delights Revisited). The song was one of the first songwriting credits for songwriter/producer/pastor Christos Demetriou, who co-wrote the Happy Mondays’ “Step On”. (https://www.discogs.com/artist/635085-Christos-Demetriou, https://garagehangover.com/chris-demetriou/)

Grant Gillanders gives us a sense of Wood:

Anthony Paul Jones [was born] in Lower Hutt . . . . [He] left school . . . and decided to travel the world, but he only got as far as Bondi in Sydney. At the weekly Surf Club dance, Jones was coerced on to the stage to sing with resident band The Echoes. Their front man . . . was about to leave the band and they were impressed enough to offer him a job as the lead singer. Jones took on the stage name Tony Summers. A short time later the group was spotted by Spin Records A&R man and producer Nat Kipner, who offered to record them. Tony Summers & The Echoes released “I’m On The Right Side” . . . in early 1966 . . . . [which] wasn’t a hit but received enough airplay to get the group a support slot on The Rolling Stones Australian tour in February 1966 . . . . A homesick Jones returned to New Zealand in 1967, staying for a year before deciding to head to the UK. There he had a chance meeting with Nat Kipner, who had arrived in London with John Rowles . . . . [who] was riding high on the UK charts with ‘If I Only Had Time’[. Jones and Kipner got busy writing songs for future projects including Rowles’ debut album. One of the trio’s collaborations was a song called ‘Make Time Stand Still’. Rowles’ manager . . . was impressed . . . and arranged for Jones to record the track . . . . [which was] released in September 1968. . . . [It] was well received and . . . Jones [signed with] NEMS Records. . . . [where] it was decided to change Jones’ stage name to Hayden Wood. [His] debut NEMS single ‘The Lady Wants More’/‘The House Beside The Mine’ was released in September 1969. . . . Work immediately started on an album at Abbey Road with a budget of £10,000, including a 30-piece orchestra and 10 backing singers. Wood [was] given first option on a batch of songs from the up and coming writers, Elton John and Bernie Taupin. Three of these, ‘The Greatest Discovery’, ‘The Ballad of A Well Known Gun’ and ‘Sixty Years On’, were chosen and Wood became the first person to cover an Elton John song. . . . ‘Sixty Years On’ was released as the lead single . . . . NEMS went into receivership the day after the single’s release, putting an immediate stop on activities including the album’s UK release. Wood managed to secure the master tapes, which he sent to New Zealand where the album was released in mid-1970. In the UK, Elton John’s publisher Dick James was impressed with Wood’s versions of Elton’s songs and he was quickly signed to James’ [label]. . . . In 1972 Hayden returned to New Zealand and established himself on the brewery circuit as a solo act . . . . [and] formed his own label Cherokee . . . .
https://www.sergent.com.au/music/haydenwood.html

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The High — “Begger Man Dan”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 16, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,017) The High — “Begger Man Dan”

Here is a boisterous, high-spirited ’69 UK B-side about Beggar Man Dan. This is no “Streets of London”! As to the High, Vernon Joynson writes that “[t]his long forgotten pop combo produced a cheery sound on their 45.” (The Tapestry of Delights Revisited) “The combo consisted of Dave ‘Buster’ Meikle (of Unit 4+2) and Billy Moeller (aka Coby Wells). Moeller, brother of Tommy (Unit 4+2) was more of a TV personality than pop star, who accidentally scored a huge worldwide [wholly whistling!] hit with ‘I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman’ as Whistling Jack Smith.” (liner notes to the CD comp Piccadilly Sunshine, Volumes 1-10: A Compendium of Rare Pop Curios from the British Psychedelic Era) The song included “probable backing by Tommy Moeller (Unit 4+2) and Russ Ballard (Unit 4+2 and Argent). They also released a ’70 single as High Society and a slew of singles from ’70-’74 (including “Hold on to What You’ve Got”, which reached #25 in the Netherlands) as Bill & Buster.

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Maitreya Kali — “One Last Farewell”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 15, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,016) Maitreya Kali — “One Last Farewell”

The strange, sad tale of a budding pop wunderkind who travelled down the hippie trail* and ended up an acid casualty in an Afghan insane asylum. He left us an album that is “[t]he psychedelic masterpiece nobody heard” including “[a]chingly beautiful, haunting acoustic folk songs” such as this compelling track (Forced Exposure, https://b2b.forcedexposure.com/onesheets/MAM202CD_ST.pdf), truly his last farewell.

In short, as Forced Exposure says:

After a suffering an LSD-induced mental breakdown, Los Angeles-based songwriter Craig Smith renamed himself Maitreya Kali and custom-pressed Apache/Inca, a double-LP documenting his musical, personal, and spiritual journey. His message to the world, encoded on the album jackets in rambling, quasi-mystical Messianic verse, was urgent, desperate, delusional, and disturbing. Recorded between 1967 and 1971, the music tells a different story. Achingly beautiful, haunting acoustic folk songs; luminescent psychedelic folk-rock; eerie, off-kilter acid rock; fragments; field recordings — all meticulously woven into a magical, mesmerizing whole. Apache/Inca is an extraordinary work. Not the dark, self-indulgent ramblings of a cracked Messiah, but a thoughtfully-crafted collection of work by a singer and songwriter of remarkable depth and talent whose world was falling apart. Soon afterwards Maitreya — and Craig — disappeared into the shadows. He died homeless in a North Hollywood Park in 2012.
https://b2b.forcedexposure.com/onesheets/MAM202CD_ST.pdf

Richie Unterberger tells us more:

[The two albums] are among the more interesting rare late-’60s folk-rock psychedelic relics, alternating between full electric band arrangements and solo acoustic guitar ones. . . . The mixture of folk-rock with harmonies, a slight country influence, and sunny Californian pop is . . . reminiscent of Merrell Fankhauser [see #10, 235, 327] . . . . The acoustic cuts, while still pretty, are a bit creepy and odd in the manner of a somewhat less cutting-edge Dino Valente or Skip Spence. . . . There are also some pretty ambitious meditations upon religion, loneliness, and mysticism, although in general the tone is upbeat, the melodies accessible, and the singing pleasantly normal. . . . The electric material . . . was not recorded by Maitreya Kali, but by a Southern Californian 1967 pop-folk-rock-psychedelic band, the Penny Arkade. And the rest of the songs were recorded a few years later by one of the two singer/songwriters in the Penny Arkade, Craig Smith, aka Maitreya Kali. . . . [T]he record covers . . . [were] crudely patched together from photos of the apparent perpetuator, taken on his travels around the world; hand-drawn inscrutable symbols for religious deities and planetary bodies; and rambling written dedications and musician credits. . . . Maitreya Kali was a pseudonym for Craig Smith, a guitarist and songwriter . . . . The liner notes are in a scrambled syntax that only renders them inscrutable, but is of a style that one associates with the mentally ill. For all that, however, the music is often fairly well-produced, well-played, and likable, not at all the kind of acid-damaged mush you’d suspect from the packaging. . . . [A]bout half of the LPs, were unreleased recordings done by the Penny Arkade in 1967, before Smith traveled around the world and got much weirder. . . . [T]hat group recorded quite a bit of material that never came out, produced by Mike Nesmith of the Monkees. Smith was not the sole singer/songwriter of that band; he shared equal time with Chris Ducey, [see #219] with whom he’d done an obscure [and quite good] single for Capitol in 1966 as half of the duo Chris and Craig. When the Penny Arkade broke up without having released anything, Smith took off on travels around the world, funded by his songwriting royalties from covers of his songs by the Monkees (“Salesman”), Andy Williams (“Holly”), and Glen Campbell (“Country Girl”). . . . When he returned to the States, he combined a bunch of unreleased Penny Arkade tracks with more recent, sparer, and spookier recordings he’d done on his own, most likely in the early ’70s. The results were the Apache and Inca LPs, pressed in extremely small quantities, essentially as vanity pressings credited to Satya Sai Maitreya Kali. . . . [I]t’s odd but accessible Californian country-influenced folk-rock. On the most acoustic ballads, there’s a gentle yet spooky mysticism . . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/maitreya-kali-mn0000195282#biography, https://www.allmusic.com/album/apache-mw0001148319

I now turn to the great Mike Stax, who wrote a book (Swim Through the Darkness: My Search for Craig Smith and the Mystery of Maitreya Kali, https://a.co/d/cVyefT6) on his 15-year quest to get to the heart of darkness:

It was the music that first hooked me. I acquired reissued copies of his solo records Apache and Inca. I didn’t really know what to expect because the cover art was so mysterious, deranged, and disturbed. I expected some kind of spacey, incoherent psychedelic folk music, so I was surprised to find that the music was coherent, and the songwriting and playing accomplished. . . . Some of it sounded like the Byrds or Buffalo Springfield, other tracks were desolate acoustic folk music—and then there were weird interludes with snippets of dialogue. I couldn’t stop listening to it. . . . [T]here was no information out there, just some speculation among collectors. The only known fact was that this strange loner guy who called himself Maitreya Kali had originally been known as Craig Smith . . . . His change around from this very wholesome, talented, happy-go-lucky guy into this very dark, almost Manson-like figure was absolutely fascinating to me. . . . His parents were dead, and I made every effort to reach out to the remaining family, but they were reluctant to talk. At the time, I didn’t know that Craig had badly assaulted his mother in 1973. The family wanted nothing to do with him, and didn’t even want to claim his remains when he died . . . . I talked to tons of people who knew Craig before he left—right up until he had a going away party at [the Beach Boys’] Mike Love’s house—and he was fine at that point. Prior to the trip, he had been happy, outgoing, gregarious . . . . But when he came back . . . he was completely different. Nobody knew what had happened. . . . I found out that Craig’s lawyer . . . had to help Craig get back from Afghanistan, where he’d allegedly been put in a lunatic asylum and couldn’t even remember who he was. He had changed completely. . . . He was now Maitreya, and he believed he was Christ and the Buddha reincarnate, the next messiah. . . . [A]t some point he had a black widow spider tattooed on his forehead . . . . His friends were deeply concerned about the disturbing changes in him. They tried to help him, but eventually they had to push him away once he seemed dangerous. . . . Craig’s mental state was so unbalanced that he had alienated all of his old contacts. Nobody wanted to help him. Reportedly, he managed to arrange a meeting with Mike Curb [see #57], who had been his high school classmate and was, at the time, president of MGM Records. But when Curb saw what Craig had become, he had him forcibly removed from his office. With no record deal possible, Craig decided to have the records pressed himself. He sold them on the street or gave them to friends and they were quickly gone. It’s my firm belief that Craig knew that his mental state was declining rapidly. For that reason, he wanted to gather all of his music together onto these records as a kind of last will and testament to the world, while he still had the faculty to do so.
https://www.vice.com/en/article/7bmxzx/swimming-through-the-darkness-the-hunt-for-craig-smith-psychedelic-messiah

Finally, from Stax:

His story . . . is perhaps the most unusual and tragic I’ve come across in all my years writing and reasearching the musicians of the 1960s. I was hoping it would have a much happier ending. One last farewell, Craig, one last goodbye.
https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=501460159878995&id=89900510433

* Wikipedia tells us that the hippie trail was “an overland journey taken by members of the hippie subculture and others from the mid-1950s to the late 1970s, travelling from Europe and West Asia through South Asia such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh to Thailand.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hippie_trail)

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Ray Brown and the Whispers — “Go to Him”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 14, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,015) Ray Brown and the Whispers — “Go to Him”

This ’65 B-side is one of Brown’s crowning achievements and “one of the great hidden classics of ’60s Aussie pop” — “an incredible chunk of driving proto-garage-psych that stands out like the proverbial shag on a rock”, a “fantastic, hard-driving piece of doomed-love pop”. (MILESAGO: Australasian Music & Popular Culture 1964-1975, http://www.milesago.com/artists/raybrown.htm)

Alec Paleo writes that:

Brown was to record two songs [“Go to Him” and “Ain’t It Strange” (see #365)] that could be at the very least regarded as the definitive interpretations, if not complete rewrites, and together they stand as the highlights of his recorded output. “Go to Him” was originally an obscure quasi-Mersey record by LA combo the London Knights [more on this, and all the music industry skulduggery involved, later!]. Brown’s version . . . increases the dramatic tension of the song considerably, via Lawrie Barclay’s 12-string riff and a magnificently brooding atmosphere.
liner notes to the CD comp Hot Generation!: 1960s Punk from Down Under

Milesago adds:

“Go to Him” is . . . pure sonic adventure, one of those rare and extraordinary B-sides that almost eclipses the main event. . . . [I]t’s apparently a cover of an obscure song by LA garage band The London Knights, the B-side of their only single [Don’t believe it!] . . . . alternating between minor and major major key from verse to chorus. Lyrically it depicts the narrator realising that his girl loves another, that he can’t compete, conceding defeat and telling her to go to her new lover. But the real feature is the outstanding production, and much credit is due to lead guitarist Al Jackson. Playing 12-string lead, fed through a vibrato circuit, Al [or Lawrie!] harnessed the clanging reverberation of Festival’s tiled studio walls to get a brilliant, chiming guitar sound which gives the song its remarkable character. His lead lines and rhythm work throughout are superb and the solo is an absolute corker. By combining the guitar with an electric organ (presumably played by Lawrie) which was also put through a vibrato unit, the band created a shimmering bed of sound, spiced by the judicious use of the tubular bells . . . in the chorus. Propelled by the Whispers’ booming rhythm section, Ray’s urgent vocal caps [it] off . . . .
http://www.milesago.com/artists/raybrown.htm

Milesago gives a definitive summation of Brown’s story:

Ray Brown & the Whispers were in the vanguard of the first wave of Australian beat pop, from 1964-67, and during their brief career they were one of the most successful and celebrated bands in the country. Aided by his boyish good looks and considerable charm, singer Ray Brown [was] one of the most popular stars of the period, and The Whispers are now widely recognised as being one of its most accomplished bands. Although they enjoyed unprecedented success at the time, the group was short-lived, and their contribution to Australian music, both during and after the beat boom, is still sadly under-appreciated. . . . Probably the Whispers’ greatest love . . . was American soul and R&B, [of which] they were tireless champions . . . . Their first major break came late in 1964 when they secured the gig as resident band at Sydney’s Surf City and The Beach House . . . . Within a short time the Whispers were regularly pulling in 2000 punters per night on Fridays and Saturdays, and by the new year they were rivalling The Easybeats for popularity in Sydney. . . . Their rise to national fame was meteoric — in just six months they scored four Top 5 hits in a row in Sydney, including their record achievement — still unbroken — of three consecutive #1 hits from their first three releases! They were also among the most prolific recording outfits of the day, with a nine singles, ten EPs and five albums to their credit in in little more than two years. . . . They made regular appearances on all the major pop TV shows and were reputedly so popular that during a Queensland tour, some country towns were given a special holiday to mark their arrival. . . . [B]ehind the scenes, business problems were making things increasingly difficult for the band . . . . The team came unstuck mainly due to management hassles — Ray had been under 21 . . . at the time he signed his first contract, and had virtually no control over his career. It took more than a year for him to extricate himself from this predicament, and as a result Ray and the original Whispers split at the end of 1966 . . . .
http://www.milesago.com/artists/raybrown.htm

Oh, and Happyolddude adds:

I saw Ray Brown and The Whispers sing this live at Surf City in Sydney late 1965. Both versions are good but Browns version flows better and does not have the vocal background. Also the instrumental part is more dominant. On that same night were three young boys then named Barry Gibb and The Bee Gees and The Whispers backed them up. Awesome night and better still I cracked a bird!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pLTEXU-JPQ

OK, on to the backstabbing. KevinWong6588 writes:

Actually recorded as a 1963 demo by UK band The Foursights [an “[e]arly 1960s UK beat group from Leicester” (Discogs, https://www.discogs.com/artist/3508683-The-Four-Sights-2)], later released as a single in U.S. in 1965. The London Knights were often billed as an obscure Los Angeles garage band with a 1965/1966 release on the Mike label, but later confirmed to be actually a 1963 demo by The Foursights and not a American group. Writer/producer Bess Coleman was a friend of Jackie DeShannon and a press officer for the Beatles under Epstein.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3pLTEXU-JPQ

Foursight member Tim Airey:

[W]e made a second demo and the record from that was supposed to have been released in the States under the name of “The London Knights.” However, the story we were fed is that the tapes of the original recording were messed up by the studio sound engineer and so the record was never released. But then, out of the blue, during the first week of March 2003, I received the following E-mails from Lyndsay in TooWoomba, Australia:

“Hello Tim, This is a long story, but I’m hoping you can help me out: I’ve been researching the original versions of Australian pop records from the 50s, 60s & 70s. My ultimate aim is to put this data up on a website, if I ever get organised enough. In 1966, top Aussie band “Ray Brown & The Whispers” had a #1 hit here called “Fool, Fool, Fool.” The B-side, a song called “Go To Him,” has become a much-loved oldie – a kind of a cult classic, you could say. Up till now, my research has led to a Los Angeles band called the “London Knights,” a name you mention on your Foursights webpage! The mystery for Aussie music nuts like me has always been that Ray Brown’s Aussie version came out in 1965; whereas, the London Knights’ version is apparently from 1966. In spite of this, Ray Brown’s is still referred to as a “cover version.” Now, your Foursights webpage appears to clear up that mystery, since the Foursights recorded the original in 1963! One puzzle remains: Your page says that the “London Knights” reissue never happened because the tapes were messed up, yet there does appear to have been a 1966 release by the London Knights, on the Mike label (#MK 4200). . . . I’ve had an e-mail from Artie Wayne, who is credited with Bess Coleman as co-writer . . . of “Go To Him.” Artie tells me he remembers recording “Go To Him” with “The London Knights,” and remembers Bess’s brother Bill. . . . The only thing I’m wondering now: is it possible (since the original demo came to nought) that Bill Coleman re-recorded the song later with Artie Wayne? That’s just a hunch, and probably way off mark, but I’d be interested to hear from you (if you’re still reading this!). Cheers, Lyndsay Martin in Toowoomba, Australia.”

. . . . When I played the mp3, I realised immediately that it was, in fact, the Foursights singing on the original demo from 1963. There was no mistaking Dave’s voice. It was not the US “London Knights” at all. . . . Overall, I think there was some deceit involving us . . . who were told that the demo was a no go because the original tapes were no ruined. We were young naive teenagers and I think that we were deliberately kept in the dark (if not outright deceived). . . . [W]e received not a penny for our released record on the Columbia label.
http://web.archive.org/web/20050508080109/www.leicesterandleicestershire.com/Foursights.htm

Here are the London Knights/Foursights:

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Ray Columbus and the Art Collection — “Kick Me (I Think I’m Dreaming)”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 13, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,014) Ray Columbus and the Art Collection — “Kick Me (I Think I’m Dreaming)”

From New Zealand with a stopover in San Francisco, comes “a classic piece of heavy psychedelic punk rock . . . with . . . monstrous fuzz guitars and freak-out lyrics: ‘This is a nightmare,” screams Ray, “and I’m going insane!'” (Steve Braunias, https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/when-steve-braunias-met-ray-columbus/GQHVOWZ3BAQY5RGA3ZPMREZZMA/). “Kick” is a “killer . . . fuzz punk classic” (Alec Palao, liner notes to the CD comp Biff! Bang! Powder: Also Featuring Ray Columbus, the Art Collection, Thomas & Richard Frost), “an incredible, fuzzed out stomper of the highest order” (Derek See, http://dereksdaily45.blogspot.com/2011/02/ray-columbus-art-collection-kick-me-i.html), “a fine example of fuzztone proto-punk”. (Mark Deming, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/powder-mn0001251845#biography)

Steve Braunias gets a kick out of the song:

It’s about the fear of flying mixed in with the fear of tripping on LSD; curious how [Columbus] tapped into panic and hysteria instead of the peace and love vibe going on just down the road at Haight Ashbury. Kick Me was less like the dreamy Eight Miles High by The Byrds than it was like the seething I Wanna Be Your Dog by Iggy and The Stooges. But then he was never very laidback, and never much belonged to any scene; he was always only ever Ray Columbus, who went his own way, did strange things. . . . I asked about his year in the US. He said: “I enjoyed the whole scene of just doing something a bit different. Kick Me was the most psychedelic thing I ever did. I sent it back to my management in New Zealand, and they took one look at it, one listen, and went, ‘Holy shit! This guy has gone completely wacko!’ They’d just released my version of Edelweiss, you see. I’d gone too crazy for them. Ha!”
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/entertainment/when-steve-braunias-met-ray-columbus/GQHVOWZ3BAQY5RGA3ZPMREZZMA/

As to Ray Columbus, Mark Deming tells us:

In the ’60s, few figures were bigger or more respected on the New Zealand rock scene than Ray Columbus. A strong singer and a dynamic frontman, Columbus was the first NZ artist to land a number one single in another country. Columbus was also one of the first Kiwi acts to make a dent in the American music scene, and went on to a long, successful television career. [He] was born and raised in Christchurch, New Zealand . . . . The swagger and charisma of Elvis Presley in Jailhouse Rock had a powerful impact on young Ray, and he formed his first band at age 14. In 1960, Columbus became the lead singer with a combo called the Downbeats. The group landed gigs at an American military base, where they picked up on U.S. rock and R&B hits of the day that were little known in the Antipodes. The Downbeats’ sound toughened up as they gained a stronger R&B edge, and they evolved into Ray Columbus & the Invaders. By 1962, they had become the most talked about band in Christchurch, and landed their own show on NZ television, Club Columbus. A handful of gigs in Auckland led to a record deal with Zodiac Records, and [they] made their debut on vinyl in 1963. . . . . [I]t was with “She’s a Mod” that Columbus and company found their signature sound. . . . going to number one on the [Australian] singles charts, leading to extensive Aussie touring. . . . In 1965, [they] joined The Rolling Stones and Roy Orbison on a massive tour of Australia and New Zealand . . . . 1965 . . . saw the release of “Til We Kissed[]” . . . which became one of the biggest New Zealand hits of all time. In 1966, Columbus launched a solo career after the Invaders were denied visas to tour the United States. . . . [He] relocated to America (his wife’s father was a U.S. citizen, paving the way for a green card). Settling in San Francisco, Columbus began working with a local band called the Art Collection* and was signed to a small label, Colstar Records. He cut an album with the Art Collection . . . as well as a single, “Kick Me” . . . . However, Columbus had little success in America, and when he was offered the opportunity to host a pop music show in New Zealand, C’mon, he jumped at the chance.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/ray-columbus-mn0001324547#biography

Michael Colonna, Grant Gillanders and Chris Bourke go deep on Columbus:

By 1955 he was a fashion-conscious, tap-dancing hipster, working at a cinema . . . . On leaving school, Columbus joined the Inland Revenue Department. He started visiting the US Navy icebreakers at Lyttelton Harbour and buying American records, clothing and cigarettes from the sailors. . . . One night . . . the Downbeats’ singer didn’t show up, and . . . [Columbus] scored a regular spot . . . . Ultimately the band evolved into Ray Columbus and the Invaders. The Invaders performed at the Bird Dog, a club for Operation Deep Freeze: US sailors who were heading to Antarctica. This exposed the group to R&B artists such as James Brown, Jackie Wilson and Ray Charles; Columbus also studied the dance moves of the black servicemen. . . . The Invaders became the resident band at The Plainsman . . . . One night in 1962 . . . . “Howard [Morrison] came over after their show and caught ours. He talked me into going to Auckland – he said we’d ‘kill them’ up there – so we took one of the offers and he was right. We were the toast of the Queen City.” . . . Eldred Stebbing signed them to a recording contract . . . . later recall[ing], “To me they were the complete package with a great mix of American R&B mixed with Shadows style riffs. They looked as good as they sounded and in Ray they had a world class front man – someone who could interact with an audience.” . . . Stebbing . . . agreed. . . . to finance a tour in Australia, and in November 1963 the Invaders played at Surf City . . . Sydney’s top teen dance venue. . . . The dynamism of their act – and their stage suits: black satin for the band, red for Columbus – quickly made the group a rival for local acts such as Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs. The Invaders returned to Auckland in February 1964 to record a cover of The Senators’ song, ‘She’s a Mod’. Initially, none of the Invaders liked it, although Columbus thought it had potential. The version they recorded was rockier than the British original, with a harder guitar sound and an exuberant “Yeah, yeah, yeah” hook that defined the times. Released in June 1964, it didn’t attract much immediate interest in New Zealand . . . . [but when] The Invaders returned to Sydney, where the song began to get airplay and then New Zealand programmers followed. . . . In August, Columbus married Le’Vonne – an American citizen . . . and the next day he flew to Australia to promote ‘She’s a Mod’. This time the group’s reception was different. Australia was still basking in the sunshine of The Beatles tour and ‘She’s A Mod’ . . . was tailor-made for Australian radio, which was looking for anything and everything Beatlesque. . . . Sydney went Mod crazy: the song sold 20,000 copies in two weeks then it began climbing the national charts. By October, [it] was on top of the charts on both sides of the Tasman, and the Invaders were the first New Zealand band to have an international No.1 hit. The song spent eight weeks at the top of the Australian charts . . . . During the song’s rise on the charts, the Invaders were on their first Australian tour . . . with The Searchers, Del Shannon, Peter & Gordon, Eden Kane and Dinah Lee. . . . A tour with Billy Thorpe and the Aztecs quickly followed. . . . They joined [the] package tour Big Beat 65, which also starred the Rolling Stones, Roy Orbison and The Newbeats. Also in 1965, Columbus and the Invaders recorded ‘Till We Kissed’, a Mann-Weil song originally called ‘Where Have You Been’ when it was released by Arthur Alexander. Columbus decided it should be a ballad . . . . Released in July 1965, it reached No.1 in New Zealand, and No.4 in Australia . . . . one of the biggest selling New Zealand singles. . . . Columbus recalled, “The band had tried to get work visas to America after we had big hits in Australia and New Zealand, and they turned us down because the consular general said, ‘We need teachers and nurses, not musicians’. I knew I could get a green card but I didn’t want to go without the group. Billy and Jimmy decided to leave the band and join up with Max Merritt and the Meteors in Australia.” . . . In 1966 Columbus toured New Zealand with Tom Jones and Herman’s Hermits . . . . Able to work in the US due to his wife’s citizenship, with his family he moved to San Francisco in July, signed a contract . . . and secured representation . . . . While in San Francisco, Columbus recruited . . . the Art Collection and in 1967 they performed throughout California. . . . [H]is first US single, ‘Kick Me’ got good airplay, but the band broke up soon after. . . . In 1968, he was invited . . . to return to New Zealand to join C’mon, the hit pop TV show that had recently lost its star, Mr. Lee Grant. . . . [“]That’s all I came back for, six months, because things were really starting to happen for me in the San Francisco Bay Area. In fact I’d just been offered a TV show the day I left. That’s timing, these things happen. I was doing quite a lot there. But I thought it’d be nice to come home for six months and see everybody and show off our baby and all those sorts of things. Sixteen years later, my contract finished[.”] . . . The 1970s saw Columbus become a stalwart of New Zealand entertainment, championing artists as a manager, producer, television host and NZ Listener columnist.
https://www.audioculture.co.nz/profile/ray-columbus

* The Art Collection, “d[oing] its best to sound like British mods” (Richie Unterberger, https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-art-collection-mn0001433121#biography), were in fact led by Thomas and Richard Martin, the wunderkinds behind Powder (see #789) and Thomas and Richard Frost (see #209, 211, 247, 385, 595, 775, 967).

Here’s an alternate take:

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Billy Preston — “Encouraging Words”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 12, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,013) Billy Preston — “Encouraging Words”

Grand gospel funk from the Fifth Beatle/Beatle Whisperer #1’s (see #368) second Apple album, produced by George Harrison and with Eric Clapton and Delaney Bramlett on guitar and Ringo Starr on drums.

About the album, Bruce Eder says:

Encouraging Words was about as fine an album as Apple Records ever issued by anyone who wasn’t a member of the Beatles, and it’s also better than many of the Apple albums issued by the ex-bandmembers; but it’s also among the most obscure of any album that the label ever issued by a major artist — without a hit single to drive its sales, the LP never did more than brush the very bottom of the charts, and it was quickly lost amid the financial collapse of the label and the implosion of the Beatles’ business ventures; even many Billy Preston fans never had a chance to find out it was there . . . . [It’s a] bold and searing effort mixing gospel, soul, and rock . . . . [that] lived up its killer musical pedigree, partly an offshoot of the evolution of the Let It Be and All Things Must Pass albums, and of sessions that Preston and George Harrison had produced for Doris Troy [see #424]; but it also picked up where Preston’s playing for Ray Charles had left off in 1968.
https://www.allmusic.com/album/encouraging-words-mw0000618856

Funk My Soul adds:

[I]t’s not just one of the labels better offerings, it’s a criminally forgotten Seventies Soul gem – and arguably the best album of [Preston’s] long career. The cast is impressive – GEORGE HARRISON co-produced the entire album with Preston, ERIC CLAPTON played guitar on 3 tracks [including] “Encouraging Words”. RINGO STARR and KLAUS VOORMAN are said to be on Drums and Bass respectively, while DELANEY BRAMLETT also plays guitar on “Encouraging Words” with Eric. The Rhythm Section for THE TEMPTATIONS are on there (Bass, Guitarist, Drums) while members of SAM and DAVE’S band played Drums and Bass too. Both MADELINE BELL and DORIS TROY provided beautiful soulful backing vocals . . . .
https://www.funkmysoul.gr/billy-preston-encouraging-words/

As to Billy Preston, Eder writes:

Although he enjoyed a period of solo success with 1970s soul smashes . . . keyboardist, singer, and songwriter Billy Preston was best known for his prolific work as a sideman and collaborator throughout R&B, rock, soul, and gospel music. A self-taught child prodigy, the Houston native cut his teeth as a teenager in the late ’50s and early ’60s backing up Little Richard, Sam Cooke, and later, Ray Charles. . . . Early on, his musical talent on piano and organ was abundant. By age 11, he had already backed up gospel diva Mahalia Jackson and sung on television with Nat King Cole. . . . Preston’s musical tutelage continued with a teenage stint in Little Richard’s band; it was on a European tour with Richard in Hamburg, Germany, that he first befriended the Beatles. . . . During the mid-’60s, he was a regular on the popular TV series Shindig! and cut moderately successful records . . . but it was his growing docket of session work that helped build his reputation . . . . In January 1969, Preston was in London playing with Ray Charles when George Harrison invited him to visit . . . . [while the] band was in the midst of their Let It Be sessions, and the keyboardist’s nimble electric piano and organ parts proved to be the glue that helped seal up songs like “Don’t Let Me Down” and “Get Back.” His effortless musicality and easygoing nature were widely appreciated by the band . . . . Preston’s contributions to the album were so significant that he became only the second artist to receive joint credit on a Beatles single (for “Get Back”) and he was immortalized on film playing alongside the group during their final rooftop performance. Apple subsequently signed Preston as a solo artist . . . . He joined the Beatles one more time to play on their Abbey Road album, and even after their 1970 split remained a close ally, especially to Harrison whose solo albums frequently featured the keyboardist. The early ’70s were a peak era for Preston . . . . [T]he clavinet-led psych-funk instrumental “Outa-Space” became a major hit . . . . Preston . . . forged a working relationship . . . with the Rolling Stones who featured his talents liberally throughout the ’70s . . . . By the early-’80s, Preston’s career as a recording artist had ebbed, and [he had] ongoing struggles with drug and alcohol addiction . . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/billy-preston-mn0000590285#biography

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Portobello Explosion — “We Can Fly”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 11, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,012) Portobello Explosion — “We Can Fly”

A “Wonderful Piece of Beatles like [UK] Psychedelic Pop” (German68, https://www.45cat.com/record/cns4001), a “charming slice of light psych from this one-off band, who developed from the ashes of Mirage. . . . [and] featured Elton John’s future bassist Dee Murray.” (liner notes to the CD comp We Can Fly: UK Psychedelic Obscurities: 27 Track Collection of British Psyche Rarities 1967-1972)

Of the Explosion, Richie Unterberger tells us:

The Portobello Explosion were basically an extension of the Mirage, a little-known British pop/rock/light psychedelic band that put out seven singles between 1965 and 1968. The Mirage ended when drummer David Hynes and guitarist/lead singer Dee Murray left to join the Spencer Davis Group in late 1968. In spring 1969, Hynes . . . rejoined the other members of the Mirage, possibly with Murray also in tow . . . to form the Portobello Explosion, who did one single for Carnaby in 1969, “We Can Fly”/”Hot Smoke & Sassafras.” The A-side, a David Hynes original, is inconsequential, light, flowery psychedelic pop . . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-portobello-explosion-mn0001288302#biography

I guess this makes me inconsequential, light and flowery, but I love the song!

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Renato E Seus Blue Caps — “Sem Suzana”/”Without Suzana”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 10, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,011) Renato E Seus Blue Caps — “Sem Suzana”/“Without Suzana”

This Brazilian “Young Guard” group specializing in Portuguese versions of Beatles songs gives us an utterly gorgeous and magical original ballad that John and Paul could have proudly called their own.

Yet, “Renato said in an interview with Lucinha Zanetti that he couldn’t stand this song…..and he didn’t know why he did it…..hahaha…..a musician thing.” (antoniothomeneto4366, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1c_hlHie1I)

Slipcue.com tells us that:

Renato e Seus Blue Caps were one of the best, and longest-lived, of the Jovem Guarda* teen-oriented Brazilian rock bands which flourished in the early 1960s. Swiping their band name from Gene Vincent’s original ’50s outfit, Renato Barros and his “Blue Caps” covered everything from surfbeat instrumental to Beatles-y pop, with plenty of cover tunes throughout, but also a notable amount of good original material. Renato and Co. were several notches above the average Brazilian teenybopper band — they were certainly not as wimpy as most, and could hit a blue-eyed soul groove roughly equivalent to that of the Spencer Davis Band.
https://www.slipcue.com/music/brazil/renato.html

Alvaro Neder adds:

One of the most important groups of the Jovem Guarda, Renato e Seus Blue Caps was formed to play in parties of the Piedade borough in Rio de Janeiro. In that period, the market for youth music was just being incepted and they were in the right place at the right time. Soon they were performing at the Rádio Mayrink Veiga. With their increased popularity, the group was invited by Carlos Imperial, who presented the program Os Brotos Comandam at TV Rio. Their first single, “Vera Lúcia” . . . was recorded in 1962 and became their first hit. The first LP came in 1965 . . . and featured another hit, “Menina Linda” ([a] version . . . of “I Should Have Known Better” by Lennon/McCartney). They also performed several times in the Jovem Guarda TV show . . . . Their other hits were “Até o Fim” ([a] version . . . of “You Won’t See Me” by Lennon/McCartney) and “Escândalo” ([a] version . . . of “Shame and Scandal in the Family” by Donaldson/Brown). After the end of the Jovem Guarda, they continued to perform in club dances around Brazil.
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/renato-e-seus-blue-caps-mn0000895532#biography

Discogs goes deep

The “embryo” . . . are the three brothers of the family Barros, Renato, Paulo Cezar and Edson (Ed Wilson). In the late ’50s, influenced by the musical tastes of the family, and the Rock’n Roll Elvis, Little Richard and Bill Haley, the boys began to imagine that they could participate in radio programs, mimicking the song hits, something that was quite common at that time. . . . [They first] adopted the name “Rock Bacaninhas of Mercy,” an allusion to the neighborhood in which they were created, in Rio de Janeiro. . . . After participation in a program Chacrinha on TV Tupi, [they were] hired by the Copacabana, where they released two 78s and two LPs in 1962 (Twist) and 1963 . . . . [In] 62, Ed Wilson left for a solo career, and Erasmo Carlos, then secretary of Carlos Imperial, assumes the [role of] crooner . . . . [They were] known in Rio de Janeiro, due to frequent appearances on TV and radio . . . . In early 1965 . . . [they release a] Portuguese version [of] “I Should [Have K]nown [B]etter”[ by] the Beatles, which was called “Beautiful Girl”. Presented in the program Carlos Imperial, Rio on TV, the music . . . . enters the charts . . . . The year 1965 was a milestone for the band’s career. The success – unexpected – is steadily increasing . . . . [T]he LP “This is Renato and His Blue Caps” achieves excellent selling and give greater impetus to the popularity of the group. The band specializes in versions of Beatles songs and other international artists, but also develops his own style of interpretation and composition. Many versions [by] Renato were more successful here in Brazil than the original English. Also arise tours abroad, and the band reaches the height of its popularity at the end of 66, with the release of the LP “A rocking with Renato and His Blue Caps,” the [band’s] most successful and best-selling career . . . . Between 1965 and 1969, [they] released six LPs, all achieving high performance on the radio and selling.
https://www.discogs.com/artist/1568206-Renato-E-Seus-Blue-Caps

The band was still performing when Renato died in 2020.

* Wikipedia says that this “was primarily a Brazilian musical television show first aired . . . in 1965, although the term soon expanded to designate the entire movement and style surrounding it. The members of the program were singers who had been influenced by the American rock n’ roll of the late 1950s and British Invasion bands of the 1960s, although the music often became softer, more naïve versions with light, romantic lyrics aimed at teenagers.” (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jovem_Guarda)

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The Dave Miller Set — “Mr. Guy Fawkes”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 9, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,010) The Dave Miller Set — “Mr. Guy Fawkes”

This New Zealand-moved to Australia band’s “psychedelic masterpiece”, a “tour de force” that “continued the great tradition of Aussie bands covering obscure overseas tracks and coming up with versions that far surpassed the originals”, is “now counted . . . as one of the classics of Australasian psychedelia” (MILESAGO: Australasian Music & Popular Culture 1964-1975, https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20100316061804/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/35967/20100315-0848/www.milesago.com/artists/dms-3.html) and “one of the great Australian psychedelic classics of the sixties” (New Zealand Music of the 60’s, 70’s and a bit of 80’s, https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20090915214845/http://www.sergent.com.au/davemillerset.html) and “ranks . . . as [a] highwater mark of Australian pop production in the late ’60s, a phenomenal single from a most memorable band”. (Glenn Baker, liner notes to So You Wanna Be A Rock’n’Roll Star?, https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20190303201134/http://poparchives.com.au/99/dave-miller-set/mr-guy-fawkes)

As to “Guy Fawkes”, the definitive Milesago tells us:

In early ’69 . . . a friend at Polydor Records . . . loaned Dave an advance copy of Sunrise, the debut album by Irish group Eire Apparent, which included guitarist Henry McCullough (later of Wings). Their album was produced and featured guitar contributions by Jimi Hendrix, whom the band had supported on tour in America in 1968. Dave was immediately captivated by two songs from the LP [including] “Mr Guy Fawkes”, written by lead guitarist Mick Cox . . . . [It] immediately inspired him and he set to work remodelling the song . . . and convincing the rest of the band and [producer] Pat Aulton that this had to be the next single. . . . [T]he ironic twist to the story is that we almost didn’t get to hear it.

Dave: “The guy that was running the Spin record company . . . . the day that the promotional copies of ‘Guy Fawkes’ came out he called me on the telephone and said, ‘Can you get down to the office?’. I said, ‘Yeah’. Got to the office … and I was pasted. I was berated for “the worst piece of trash that the Spin record company has ever been involved with … an absolute disgrace“. And I was told that if it hadn’t been for the fact that they trusted Pat with this particular project, had they heard it at any stage prior to this, it would never have been released. It was the fact that it had already been pressed that meant they had to go through with it. And they didn’t want to know it. I was told in no uncertain terms that it was the worst record that the Spin record company had ever been associated with!” . . .

[W]ithin weeks of its release in July it was a Top Ten hit in NSW and at year’s end, . . named . . . Go-Set’s “Single Of The Year” for 1969 . . . . [I]n Sydney . . . [it] reached the Top Ten.
https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20100316061804/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/35967/20100315-0848/www.milesago.com/artists/dms-3.html

As to the Dave Miller and the Byrds and then the Dave Miller Set, New Zealand Music of the 60’s, 70’s and a bit of 80’s says:

Dave Miller and the Byrds came from Christchurch, before moving to Auckland in 1965. They were one of the best R&B cover acts to appear in the early sixties, faithfully reproducing all manner of Chuck Berry and Chicago blues originals on stage. . . . In 1962 Phil Garland formed the Playboys . . . . [a] later version of the Playboys consisted of Graeme Miller, John O’Neill, Kevin O’Neill, Brian Ringrose, Phil Garland and Dave Miller. Phil left the group and with Dave Miller as the lead singer, and a couple of more personnel changes, they very shortly afterwards renamed themselves Dave Miller and the Byrds. After arriving in Auckland, they soon became a top attraction on the club scene. The group came to the attention of Eldred Stebbing [owner of the Zodiac label] and he soon had them into his studio to do some recordings. “Bright Lights, Big City”, a cover from the Pretty Things, was their first single on Zodiac in 1965 . . . and it performed quite well on the local charts. . . . In 1967, [two members departed and] the rest of the group renamed themselves the Dave Miller Set and moved to Australia.

Not long after their arrival, the band fell apart and Dave put together a new line-up with John Robinson on lead guitar. . . . A recording contract was negotiated with Spin Records . . . . In 1969 . . . John Robinson emerged as a fluid and inventive guitarist and the Dave Miller Set attained prominence as one of the first heavy rock bands on the local scene in the Led Zeppelin mould. Under the direction of Festival’s in-house producer Pat Aulton, the band cut its fourth single, “Mr Guy Fawkes”/”Someone Is Sure To” in July 1969. By 1970 the group was near its end. . . .
https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20090913081842/http://www.sergent.com.au/davemill.html, https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20090915214845/http://www.sergent.com.au/davemillerset.html

Milesago goes deep:

The Dave Miller Set is an important group in the history Australasian music, and one that has been long overlooked for too long. They were one of the most popular and hardworking live bands on the east coast scene in the late ’60s. . . . [G]uitarist and composer John Robinson, one of Sydney’s original ‘guitar heroes’ . . . went on to further fame with Blackfeather and also became an influential guitar teacher. Most importantly, the DMS was a key chapter the career of New Zealand-born singer-songwriter Dave Miller . . . . Dave is a crucial link between the formative music industries of Australia and New Zealand. He honed his craft in thriving Christchurch scene and since they were teenagers he has been a close friend and colleague of most of the top New Zealand acts of the era . . . . The DMS career spans the fascinating transitional period from the end of the “scream era” in 1967 to the start of the infamous Radio Ban in 1970 [over payola allegations]. They were one of the first Australian acts to pick up on the heavy rock/progressive rock trend pioneered by overseas acts like Cream, Hendrix, Free and Led Zeppelin . . . . Their style was forged on Sydney’s university and college circuit, and in the thriving inner-city club scene that was fuelled by the influx of American servicemen on “R&R” leave . . . . Despite a solid following throughout NSW and in Queensland, the DMS were victims of the infamous Sydney-Melbourne rivalry and they were almost completely ignored in Victoria . . . and unfortunately they never managed to establish a national presence. As with his first band Dave Miller & The Byrds, Dave handled virtually every aspect of the DMS business affairs, and his entrepreneurial skills guided them to considerable success in Sydney, in New Zealand and even as far afield as Fiji . . . . Another important thread is Dave’s association/collaboration with influential industry figures . . . . Dave moved easily in industry circles, had a good rapport with the media, was a tireless promoter and organiser on behalf of his band, and his collaboration with Festival house producer Pat Aulton created some classic recordings. The five records that The Dave Miller Set recorded for the Spin label are among the freshest and most enjoyable Australian pop-rock Singles of the late ’60s. . . . produced, arranged and included vocal and instrumental contributions by the great Pat Aulton, one of the most prolific, influential and talented producers of the period. . . . Well before he came to Australia . . . Dave Miller was already a significant figure in Kiwi music, fronting one of the best NZ ‘beat’ outfits of the period, Dave Miller & The Byrds. . . . A feature unique to Christchurch in the early ’60s was the influx of American personnel who passed through the city as part of “Operation Deep Freeze”, the establishment of the American Antarctic base. . . . g[iving] the Christchurch scene a special “leg up” and it many respects it became the “Liverpool of the south”, thanks to the infusion of original blues, R&B and rock’n’roll records brought in by the Yanks . . . . Dave proved to be a natural showman and a great addition to the [Playboys]. . . . The Playboys might have remained a local attraction but they got a crucial break in late 1964, which soon set them on the road to national prominence, when they were spotted by Howard Morrison . . . . the leader of the hugely popular vocal group The Howard Morrison Quartet . . . . [T]hey were impressed enough to invite them to be the Morrisons’ backing group on their upcoming summer tour of NZ holiday resorts. . . . Just before they set out they decided to change their name to The Byrds, to avoid confusion with other acts like America’s Gary Lewis & The Playboys, and Normie Rowe’s backing band of the same name. [This was] before the . . . American [Byrds] had their first hit[, which] necessitated the later addition of “Dave Miller & ..” prefix. Over that summer the Byrds and the Morrison Quartet played to literally tens of thousands of people, an experience which thoroughly honed their playing and showmanship. . . . Howard . . . recommended the Byrds to Eldred Stebbings . . . . Dave and The Byrds scored a major hit in Auckland 1965 with their debut single, a strong cover of Jimmy Reed’s “Bright Lights Big City” . . . [which] peaked at a very creditable #13 nationally. . . . [B]y 1966 [Miller] could see that even though the NZ scene was booming and The Byrds were doing extremely well, any further local success would be limited, and that they’d soon be going over old ground. . . . Australia was the obvious next step . . . . [T]he rest of the group were reluctant to move and start all over again . . . . The Byrds honoured their outstanding commitments and went their separate ways in early 1966. . . . [Miller’s] fiancé Corinne . . . had just moved to Sydney with her family. . . . When the DMS first formed they played much the same repertoire as The Byrds including covers of The Yardbirds, The Kinks, The Animals and other popular favourites. . . . As John found his feet in the band they gradually adopted this “heavier” style, becoming one of the first Australian bands to do so . . . . Dave worked assiduously on developing John’s stagecraft and showmanship . . . . [ and o]ver the next three years Dave provided John with the space and scope to develop into one of the most powerful and innovative electric guitarists on the scene . . . . [T]he friendship that developed between Dave and Spin Records boss Nat Kipner led directly to the DMS being signed to the label. Kipner teamed them with Pat Aulton . . . justly famous for the many classic discs he produced for Normie Rowe, Kahvas Jute, Neil Sedaka and many others. . . . The debut DMS single, released in October 1967, was “Why Why Why”, a cover of a Paul Revere & The Raiders song . . . . Spin were obviously happy with the result, so Nat Kipner teamed them up with . . . Aulton . . . . By ’68 the influence of Cream, Hendrix and The Who were reverberating around the world and . . . DMS to become the first local groups to pick up on this trend and develop it convincingly in the local context. . . . By the start of 1969 the Set had become one of the most popular live draws in the Sydney-Newcastle-Wollongong region, and each new single had gained successively greater attention. Yet throughout their career Melbourne was more or less a “closed shop” for them . . . .

Dave: “By that stage we were well and truly ensconced in that the progressive/underground direction of music we were taking. The band had expanded so much beyond the concept of a three-minute record that our live performances were up in the echelon of Zeppelin, Who, Cream . . . .”

As [1969] drew to a close, Dave became aware that trouble was looming for the music industry — a smouldering “pay for play” dispute between commercial radio and the record companies that was about to break out into open warfare as the infamous 1970 Radio Ban. . . . As the new year progressed the radio dispute hotted up, and many acts on major labels — including the DMS — would soon find themselves unable to get airplay. . . . [W]ithout another charting record to keep them in the public ear, the momentum they had built up began to dissipate. They were also tired from almost three years of incessant travel and gigging . . . and by now Dave could see the writing on the wall. . . . In May 1970, just as the Radio Ban was officially declared, Dave announced that he was leaving the Dave Miller Set.
https://webarchive.nla.gov.au/awa/20100316061804/http://pandora.nla.gov.au/pan/35967/20100315-0848/www.milesago.com/artists/dms-3.html

Here is Eire Apparent:

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Scorpion — “Hey la, la, la”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 8, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,009) Scorpion — “Hey la, la, la”

Good time rock n’ roll, straight outta Sweden? Yeah, and this “freakbeat rumbler”(SwedishProggBlog, http://swedishprogg.blogspot.com/2013/07/scorpion-i-am-scorpion-mnw-1970.html) really hits the spot. I’m not saying that it inspired Outkast’s “Hey Ya!”, but I’m not saying it didn’t!

Of the album — I Am the Scorpion — SwedishProggBlog tells us that:

One of the most legendary albums to come out of the Swedish progg scene, and also one of the earliest. It’s almost mythical to collectors, being extremely hard to find and fetching ridiculous prices any rare time it’s offered for sale. It was ninth album release on MNW, one of the most important labels of the Swedish 70’s, putting out many stellar albums of the era. Scorpion was in fact MNW head honcho Bo Anders Larsson’s own one-off project. Larsson had previously been in Tintacs who had two singles out in the late 60’s. Tintacs soon became Ron Faust . . . . Both incarnations of the band also featured Lorne de Wolfe who later made a mark in history as a member of Contact, Vargen, and . . . Hansson de Wolfe United. The entire Contact back Larsson on ”I Am the Scorpion”, and being produced by Kim Fowley, it’s like the evil cousin to Contact’s – much more subdued – debut album ”Nobody Wants to Be Sixteen”. . . . “I Am the Scorpion” is a partly wild affair, sometimes reminiscent of the Stooges or any other late 60’s/early 70’s Detroit band of your choice. Side A of the album is hard-boiled psych rock with frantic fuzz guitars. . . . With the first side of the album having the guitars going on the red and the drums pounding on your eardrums, side B [where you can find “Hey, la, la, la”] might come as an unpleasant surprise. Much mellower, and in parts downright terrible. It begins with one of the lousiest tracks ever recorded in Sweden, ”Michoican” . . . . Why this jolly-jolly-ho-ho-ho-thumbs-up-yeehah crap was chosen as a single – A side at that! – is a complete mystery. . . . The rest of the second side is much better, but a far cry from the stunning first one. . . . Side A . . . is as heavy and rough as music got in 1970, up there with the best and rawest US garage rock of the era.
http://swedishprogg.blogspot.com/2013/07/scorpion-i-am-scorpion-mnw-1970.html

Hey, I like the second side better than the first side!

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The Koobas — “Gypsy Fred”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 7, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,009) The Koobas — “Gypsy Fred”

“Great [whimsical] UK 1967 Psych [that] should be mentioned with Pink Floyd[‘s] “Arnold Layne'”& the two Pretty Things Psych 45s”. (Vintage Vinyl Via Valves, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h6l2SNjmYVc) “[T]he Koobas [see #178] gr[ew] their hair out, donn[ed] hippy garb and jump[ed] onto the psychedelic bandwagon during . . . [the] Summer of Love with “Gypsy Fred”, plugged on a BBC children’s television series, Mickey Dunne.” (Alan Clayson, CD reissue of Koobas)

Bruce Eder says that “[t]he Koobas were one of the better failed rock bands in England during the mid-’60s[!] (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-koobas-mn0000774106#biography) What an epitaph! Eder continues that “[f]avorites of the press and popular for their live shows, they somehow never managed to chart a record despite a lot of breaks that came their way, including a tour opening for the Beatles, top management representation, and a contract on EMI-Columbia.” (https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-koobas-mn0000774106#biography) In fact, “Brian Epstein saw Beatle-sized potential in The Koobas. Through him, they landed nine dates on the Fab Four’s last UK tour, going down so well that a golden future was predicted by both the music press and the in-crowd that frequented the Scotch of St. James, the Speakeasy and other fashionable London clubs.” (Alan Clayson, CD reissue of Koobas)

Pop Thing adds:

[They] are . . . clear proof of the existence of R&B in Liverpool, an essential component of the Mersey Sound. . . . [T]he evolution of The Koobas is worth following, because they began in 1965 as a group that seemed like a mix of The BBC Beatles and London R&B groups, then they became very close to The Who and the mod-pop of 1966, they flirted with Motown, recorded exciting ballads and then drifted towards more particular records starting in ’67. And all this accompanied by a careful image, supervised by Epstein and then by Tony Stratton-Smith, The Creation’s manager, which included bold floral-print pants, military-cut shirts, turtlenecks and two Rickenbackers . . . . They also composed . . . and, to round it all off, they were a group with a very forceful live performance.
https://www.popthing.com/pop_thing/noticias/the_koobas_singles_1965_1968.php

Eder gives some history:

The group was formed in 1962 by . . . veterans of Liverpool bands such as the Thunderbeats and the Midnighters. The band, known at one point as the Kubas, did a three-week engagement at the Star Club in Hamburg in December 1963 and out of that built up a serious reputation as performers. They had a sound that was comparable to the Beatles, the Searchers, and the Mojos, as Liverpool exponents of American R&B with a strong yet lyrical attack on their guitars and convincing vocals. It wasn’t until after Brian Epstein signed them a year later, however, that a recording contract (with Pye Records) came their way. They got one false start with an appearance in the movie Ferry Cross the Mersey, starring Gerry & the Pacemakers, playing one of the groups that loses a battle-of-the-bands contest, but the Koobas’ footage ended up being dropped from the final cut of the film. Their debut single . . . failed to chart, as did its follow-up, despite the exposure the group received opening for the Beatles on their final British tour. Coming off those nine shows, the group was booked into the most prestigious clubs in London and started getting great press, but two more singles failed to dent the charts in 1965 and 1966. They jumped from Pye Records to EMI-Columbia in 1966, and continued to get good, highly visible gigs, including a January 1967 appearance with the Who and the Jimi Hendrix Experience at the Savile Theatre . . , and a tour of Switzerland with Hendrix. The group’s sound was a lean yet melodic brand of R&B-based rock & roll, similar to the Beatles, though the Koobas didn’t start to blossom as songwriters until fairly late, which may have been part of their problem. They recorded good-sounding and very entertaining songs, but somehow never connected with the right sound at the proper moment. By the middle of 1967, they’d altered their look and their sound, moving away from American-style R&B and toward psychedelia. The group members also began writing their own material, sometimes with help in the lyric department from their new manager, Tony Stratton-Smith. Their singles still utilized outside songwriters, however, and the group’s best crack at the chart came early in 1968 when they recorded Cat Stevens’ “The First Cut Is the Deepest,” complete with heavy fuzztone guitar. Their single garnered some airplay but was eclipsed by P.P. Arnold’s Top 20 version of the same song. Despite his best efforts, Stratton-Smith couldn’t help the group overcome the failure of their last single. The quality of their gigs and the fees they were earning began declining, and their morale soon followed. By the end of 1968, the Koobas had agreed among themselves to go their separate ways. Ironically, the group’s split coincided almost perfectly with Stratton-Smith’s final effort on their behalf. . . . EMI-Columbia agreed to let the band cut a long-player in late 1968. The group lasted just long enough to finish the album . . , a mix of topical songwriting, psychedelia, R&B, and nostalgia that might’ve found an audience if only there had been a Koobas still together to tour behind it and promote the record in early 1969. Instead, by 1970 the album was already in the cut-out bins. Keith Ellis jumped to Van Der Graaf Generator and then Juicy Lucy . . . .
https://www.allmusic.com/artist/the-koobas-mn0000774106#biography

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Les Problèmes — “Je Ne Vois Rien”/”I See Nothing”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 6, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,007) Les Problèmes — “Je Ne Vois Rien”/”I See Nothing”

An “[a]bsolutely incredible . . . fuzz garage song[]. . . . one of the best sixties french [45’s]”. (vinylomania, https://www.discogs.com/release/7215663-Les-Probl%C3%A8mes-Je-Ne-Vois-Rien-Passe-Ton-Chemin) France? Absolument! “The Fuzz guitar intro is awesome!! [T]he good times where garage rock and that famous 60’s fuzz sound was present even in France!!!” (brunoguerineau8928, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=26VC9G47ON4) “Obsessive fuzz, scathing lyrics, the best French group of the 60’s”. (Léonard Michalon https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nq56Hn3VMQw) “My brain has just exploded ….those damn french have done it again!” (x23skidoox, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rcJxOqAFoHA) (All prior quotes courtesy of Google Translate). Apparently, Mo Fuzz, Mo Problèmes!

As to the Problèmes, Wikipedia tells us that:

Les Charlots, known as The Crazy Boys in the English-speaking world, was a group of French musicians, singers, comedians and film actors, who were popular in the 1960s, 1970s, and early 1980s. The group was active first from 1965 to 1966 as “Les Problèmes” . . . . They renamed themselves Les Charlots and remained active from 1966 to 1997, then again briefly from 2008 to 2011 (as a duo). Charlots is slang for “clowns” or “idiots” rather than being a direct reference to Charlie Chaplin, who was generally called Charlot in France. Their light-hearted comedy style was influenced by the style of popular Italian group Brutos and by the anarchist humor of the Marx Brothers. . . . Rinaldi and Sarrus were musicians in various short-lived groups . . . and they first met in 1963. They became friends and decided to form a rock band . . . . In 1965, they became the backing band for singer Antoine under the name of “Les Problèmes” (“The Problems”) or sometimes “Antoine et les Problèmes” (“Antoine and the Problems”). They backed him on two his greatest hits . . . . After a spoof of Antoine’s “Je Dis ce que je pense, je vis comme je veux” released under the alias “Les Charlots” became a novelty hit, their manager convinced them to stick to comedy and switch names for good. . . . They became instantly extremely popular for their humoristic/parodic songs. . . . After they left Antoine, they toured a lot from 1966 to 1970, first as the opening act of . . . even The Rolling Stones. One day, as The Rolling Stones were late for their gig, Les Charlots started playing “Satisfaction”. Later in the evening, Sarrus said to Mick Jagger that, if they wanted, the Rolling Stones could play “Paulette la Reine des Paupiettes”. Jagger politely refused. In the late ’60s, Les Charlots began to appear in comedy sketches on French television . . . . In 1968, Rolling Stone . . . named them the best French rock musicians. . . . With their increasing popularity as a genuine rock / comedy group, they received many offers to appear in films. [Movies became their main activity in the ’70s.] All their [eight] films from 1971 to 1976 . . . became phenomenal hits in France and all around the world (especially in India) . . . .
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Les_Charlots

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Tony Colton — “I’ve Laid Some Down in My Time”: Brace for the Obscure (60s rock)! — November 5, 2023

THE GREATEST SONGS OF THE 1960s THAT NO ONE HAS EVER HEARD

1,006) Tony Colton — “I’ve Laid Some Down in My Time”

This self-penned (along with Ray Smith) ’66 A-side dishes some “[e]pic monster freakbeat Modness!” (Narindude, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4QU6ggR9Stg) “Amazing how this disc managed to slip past the censorship of the day”. (liner notes to the CD comp Diggin’ For Gold, Vol. 4: A Collection of Demented 60’s R&B/Punk & Mesmerizing 60’s Pop) Anorak Thing tells us that:

This was Tony’s third and final Pye 45 from a short but brilliant run with them. “I’ve Laid Some Down In My Time” eschews the jazzy/r&b of his previous singles for an all out freakbeat assault on your ears. Full of distorted/fuzz guitar, some Nicky Hopkin’s style piano tinkling that give it a sound not unlike the first Who LP and some very brash lyrics full of bravado, Tony sings about “I’ve done some things people might call a crime, and I’ve laid some down in my time“.
https://anorakthing.blogspot.com/2016/06/the-60s-genius-of-tony-colton-ray-smith.html

As to Tony, Vernon Joynson writes that:

[He] is best know as the vocalist of Heads Hands and Feet, a multi-faceted ban comprised of some of the [UK’s] best early seventies sessionmen. After the demise of the Big Boss Band . . . Colton was in Real McCoy and Poet and One Man Band [see #710, 855, 993] prior to joining Heads Hands and Feet. He was also a noted songwriter . . . .
The Tapestry of Delights Revisited

Yes, what a songwriter. Colton left “a mass of superb songs penned with his sidekick, guitarist Ray Smith, which were recorded by such artists as Dave Berry, Zoot Money, Shotgun Express, the Tremeloes . . . Dantalian’s Chariot . . . & Jackie Lynton. But best known is probably ‘I Stand Accused’, a hit for the Merseybeats which earned the distinction of being covered by Elvis Costello.” (liner notes to the CD comp Diggin’ For Gold, Vol. 4: A Collection of Demented 60’s R&B/Punk & Mesmerizing 60’s Pop)

Colton later was reborn as a country songwriter and producer. Sackful O’ Rock, Country, Folk, Soul & Blues writes that:

Tony Colton began working as a songwriter and producer in Nashville after Ricky Skaggs had recorded ‘Country Boy’ and taken it to # 1 on the country charts in 1985. The renewed interest in him and his work made Tony move to Nashville and found him working with Willie Nelson, Ray Charles, The Allman Brothers, Johnny Cash, Tom Waits, Trisha Yearwood and Garth Brooks among others.
https://robindunnmusic.wordpress.com/heads-hands-and-feet/

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The playlist includes all the “greatest songs of the 1960’s that no one has ever heard” that are available on Spotify. The playlist will expand each time I feature an available song.

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