A sweet spot of sixties psych

I caught myself doing a bit of reflecting recently.  Not always a good thing, I know, but what it led me to was thinking about those little sweet spots in life.  I do like that phrase, 'sweet spot', and found the perfect definition here: "An optimum point or combination of factors and qualities".

And what that led me to was music, and how there had been one very specific sweet spot in several decades of my personal musical meanderings. An optimum point in the 1980s when I first discovered and became immersed in 1960s psychedelia (and similar pop, beat and garage obscurities) which came into my consciousness via some independent label reissues, compilation albums, as well as boxes of musty vinyl at record fairs in London hotels and the Record & Tape Exchange in Notting Hill Gate and Camden.  Oh, what aural pleasures there were to explore!

Much of these underground treasures were like nothing I'd really heard before.  All those various elements of backwards, or fuzzy, or jangly and melodic, guitars, of piquant melodies and swirling (is there any other type?) Hammond organs, of trippy lyrics and richly enunciated vocals.  Plus there were the soulful numbers infused with mod rhythms, and dreamy Alice-In-Wonderland experimental freakouts...  All I could do was to imagine what it would have been like to be 17 or 18 in 1967, hanging out at the UFO Club or buying my clothes from Biba.  And imagining it was fine - moulded to suit my will and unbound by reality, one foot in my tangible world and the other in the curated version of a past I could inhabit freely through music and associated ephemera and imagery.  

I think the thing was, nothing could come along and spoil it.  The bands and their records had been and gone; it was finite.  Punk had been my gateway musical genre (and a very important one), but living through it in real time also meant being there for its demise, being there should it get 'spoiled' - which, in many ways, it did.  From the characters who became parodies of themselves and the unsavoury transition into Oi, to the postcard studded-belt, giant Mohawked tourist attractions, it evolved alongside my contemporaries and me.  But by delving back into moments in music which had already passed nearly two decades earlier, there was no future unwritten.

It was a bit of a sweet spot in life for me too, really.  That stage when you have some responsibilities - paying the rent, etc. - but  not too many it seemed, and they were a fair trade-off for youthful independence.  My '60s psych obsession fuelled my creativity and I adored making my own fanzine, all hand-drawn and hand-written, an uninhibited expression from the heart.  Swapping some meticulously compiled tapes with a fantastic friend introduced me to other similar bands and musical side-trips, opening it up even more. I also inherited my mum's lovely 1969 Triumph Herald, one of those cars which epitomised the era, and found an original paisley top or two in the racks of pokey second hand and charity shops. 

Being only 20-something in the analogue world to which I'm still best suited may have a lot to do with it too, but this isn't meant to be nostalgic - just a celebration of one of those sweet spots, and some music to dream to.  Here are three favourites, then and now....

Ruperts People: Dream On My Mind

The End: Cardboard Watch

The Factory: Try A Little Sunshine

Do you have a musical sweet spot too?

Bite me!

I've been bitten by the bug.  I wish I meant I'm addicted to an exciting new interest but unfortunately it's more literal than that; this is the culprit:

Oops, wrong pic, it's this one below, but it does feel as if something far more malignant is responsible.

This is the Flower Bug.  A sweet little thing, really, but I have so many painful bites from this insect that I feel more like one big bite with a little bit of unblemished skin attached.  The Flower Bug is only a few millimetres in length and whilst I've never noticed one land on me, they're all around - all around the tiny wildflower patch and the nettles at the end of the garden, all around any plants that attract aphids and other small insects which they eat (they're even used as biological pest control for crop production in some areas; these are the good guys!)   Unfortunately they seem to want to prey on me too and my skin reacts quite badly to their nipping, coming up in big red weals which are intensely itchy and take many days to heal.  There are bites on my arms, my legs, and in a few more unexpected places too (put it this way, I have no idea how one could have got inside my bra...)  Aside from sporting a hazmat suit I've kept as covered up as I can in their presence and yet still they manage to find their way into - under - through? my clothes.  A constellation of pink welts decorates my torso right now - an Ursa Minor of irritation.  Hats off (although probably best to keep them on, with nets attached) to our friends in Scotland who have to cope with the midges.  Anyway, insect repellant has now been bought and I hope I can frolic amid the flowers unbitten in future.

Thinking about the Flower Bug did, however, remind me of a really great song and I can't get it out of my head.  It was one of the first '60s psychy numbers I'd ever heard, some time in the mid '80s, which piqued my interest in the genre and started off a whole other foray into underground freakbeat and psych.  It was like nothing I'd ever really listened to before - oh, remember how that feels?! - the excitement and magic of embarking on a hitherto unknown musical journey.  From hearing songs like this I was opened up to all those obscure records which were given a new lease of life in the ‘80s when labels like Bam Caruso, Big Beat, Psycho and See For Miles mined the rich seam of 1960s psych and beat to present them to a new audience, and it became quite an obsession.  Dare I say, I was bitten by the bug...

Enough of the introduction!  Here's Flower King of Flies by the Nice, the opening track of their 1968 debut album, 'The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack', all Hammond organ, psychy guitar, speeded up echo effects and trippy lyrics.

Now to coat myself in insect spray.

In stitches, part two

Well, it's been a very long time coming but on this dull January day the moment is right for me to bestow upon you some more fine fashion tips from the pile of old knitting magazines which had me oohing and ahhing for all the wrong reasons a few years ago.

If your life is a little short of levity at the moment, I can honestly recommend a quick browse through the pages of some 1960s editions of 'Pins and Needles' for some mindless therapy.  

Of course exercise is also good therapy - one hour of high intensity knitting in an unheated room burns up 174 and a half calories (... don't check that...) -  but it turns out there's an easier way to shed a few post-Christmas pounds (and heat the room at the same time with the flush from your cheeks): try holding embarrassingly awkward poses for a family photoshoot wearing only your newly created woolly sports undies...

You can read whatever you like into this one... (and click to enlarge).  Promises, promises.

And if only life were this simple... hmm... 

"Start something exciting?"  Only as long as you also know how to cast off, as he's looking a bit shifty to me.

There's nothing remotely patronising in the tone of these ads, oh no

But I fear that after a lifetime of knitting for my husband I could end up looking like this...

...much to the horror of everyone else, including Tom Jones (as if giant daffodils weren't scary enough)

But the knitting isn't limited to golf jackets and nightmare dolls - why not crochet a bowl?  Or, to put it more aptly, why crochet a bowl?

Ditto the above...

Happy New Year!

In stitches

 A fantastic stash of vintage magazines came into our possession recently.* Well, I say fantastic... They're fantastic if, like me, you find there's nothing like a little tackiness to bring some brightness to a gloomy day.  

Tackiness comes in many forms but you can't beat a bit of kitsch knitwear, can you?  There's plenty of it to be found within the pages of 'Pins and Needles' and it seems only apt that I ended up with the condition of the same name after unwisely kneeling on the floor to browse through them.  But, oh you know how it is, you see a 1963 article on how to crochet a doily and you're hooked.  (No pun intended.)

Anyway, I can't keep them all to myself!  Let me treat you to some of the images and ads from that bygone age when the sound of our mothers' knitting needles clacking away was loaded with a strange sense of doom for us children of the '60s.  We just knew we might end up looking something like this... 

Life wasn't so great for our mums, either.   40-22-35?  "Where do you fail?"  Ffs!

There's nothing like a disembodied dog's head on a trophy shield to give you nightmares...

...oh, other than a wild-eyed, demented Gonk who wants to lick you.  Lucky?  I think not.

Still, if you seek something a little more sophisticated, you could always install a quilted cocktail bar:

- and invite Eric and Ernie over to compare sweaters

"What do you think of it so far?"

"Rubbish!"

He'll grow out of it...

Magic ones?

More creepy ideas to scare the children

The ultimate in suave

And finally, is it a dress?  Is it a tablecloth?  It's both!

* With many thanks to Pete.

Alien invasion

Aargh, I’m feeling very sorry for myself.  I’m on antibiotics and painkillers, thanks to a nasty infection inside one of my cheeks (apparently the culprit is likely a cracked tooth).  The right side of my face now resembles a cross between a Cabbage Patch doll and a chipmunk.... all swollen as if I’m storing nuts in it for the Winter, skin shiny and stretched like an overblown balloon - it’s not a good look.

And it hurts and I’m tired and and antiobiotics bring you down, don’t they?  So what do you do when you feel like shit?  You find yourself irresistibly drawn to tacky 1960s so-bad-they're-good sci-fi films ...

Thank goodness for ‘The Terrornauts’ being aired on the charming ‘Talking Pictures TV' channel earlier today.  I’ve caught quite a few gems (I almost typed ‘germs’ then, how apt) on this station, I get hooked in quite easily by anything from the ‘30s and ‘40s for instance, often with wooden acting and those strange clipped British accents that no longer exist.  And the outdated language – those frightful scoundrels!   I’m mesmerised by the décor in the houses (they can make me feel quite funny, as if I’ve been there in a previous life).  Ancient city sequences do it too – the sit-up-and-beg cars trundling down half-empty streets and thin people in hats and coats looking in Georgian-glazed shop windows, or those heady bucolic scenes where the birdsong is overpowering and you can almost smell the blossom, even in black-and-white.  Frequently the stories in these films come second, I just like immersing myself in their atmosphere.

1960s films are natural favourites too;  style and fashion and subject matters often more resonant, some evoking my own ‘60s early childhood – and movies featuring bands or groovy soundtracks are of special interest of course.   But there’s nothing quite like the ambitious yet amateurish props and op-art sets of 1960s sci-fi to soothe a sore face.

For sheer silliness ‘The Terrornauts’ (1967) had it all.  I curled up on the sofa this morning and welcomed its ridiculousness.  The main hero, Joe, played by Simon Oates, was immediately recognisable from his role in popular TV series ‘Doomwatch’ and stayed quite serious to the last even though he had to deliver a classic f’nar f’nar moment  about a strange alien device, “It’s a kind of vibrator, can’t you feel it?”  

His sidekicks were a somewhat mixed bunch including Charles Hawtrey , immediately bringing to mind the Carry On films, and Patricia Hayes, whose comically prosaic lines delivered in characteristic Cockney accent didn’t disappoint.    I love the way some people  can be abducted and transported through outer space in the middle of the night and yet they never panic...   

As hoped, and expected, there were plenty of kitchen implements too disguised as spacecraft, swimming cap headwear with wires attached (that our heroes plugged into funnels on top of boxes through which ‘knowledge’ could be transferred to their brains), a feathery sort of monster with tentacles, one crab claw and a juddering (cardboard?) eye on its side worthy of any small child’s drawing, and some nasty alien ‘savages’ with green skin wielding spears, whose thirst for (female, of course) sacrifice put actress Zena Marshall’s life in danger...  sort of.

Here's a brilliant trailer:

Just the tonic I need, especially as I'm looking and feeling like I've been invaded by aliens myself right now.  Pass the penicillin...!

Mary Mary

Something that struck me straight away was how few men were there, perhaps not surprisingly.  I only noticed a handful, one of whom was extraordinarily dapper with a liberal sprinkle of quirkiness (I'm sure I spotted sequins); I could just imagine him as an arty fashion designer.  Instead it was mostly women of the more mature variety who were wandering around the Mary Quant exhibition a couple of weeks ago at the lovely V&A Museum in London.  I went along with my sister and cousin (we all fit the above description...) and I loved it.   I also noticed that a number of particularly stylish, elegant ladies, the kind with chic white bobs and good boots, were clearly transported back in time by what they were viewing, chatting enthusiastically to their friends and sharing reminiscences as they lingered over the displays. “Oh, yes, I remember those…!”

Whilst Mary Quant’s fashion designs wouldn’t be considered controversial now,  it was interesting to remind myself that they were really quite anti-establishment at the time.  For a start they broke away from the restrictive corsetry of the previous decades - what a relief that must've been; in doing so they represented a new freedom that was more than just physical.  And they blurred the boundaries of conventional femininity with ensembles inspired by menswear, such as sharply cut suits with waistcoats and ties. Up until this point women simply wearing trousers in public was still quite unusual; embracing an even more androgynous image was sure to raise eyebrows.

“The voices, rules and culture of this generation are as different from those of the past as tea and wine,” Mary Quant wrote in the 1960s.  “And the clothes they choose evoke their lives..” she continued, “…daring, gay, never dull.” 

I’m just a little too young to have sported any of the original outfits on show from Mary Quant’s career between 1955 to 1975, but there were a few I honestly wish I could wear now, I must say.  The low-waisted wool jersey dresses, the androgynous trouser-suits, brightly coloured tights and wet-look PVC macs…some fabulous accessories too.   There’s just something about the look (and literally ‘The Look’)  plus the cut of these items that has a timeless appeal, at least to my eyes.  Perhaps it’s ironic that I think that now, being the age I am, when they were really all about youthfulness.

And a little slice of '60s mod/psych to fit the theme...

The Fresh Windows: Fashion Conscious (B-side to Summer Sun Shines, 1967)

The first singles you ever loved

It was just a little box of second-hand singles, but I reckon that’s where it all began, the moment that music took on a lifelong meaning.  I can’t even recall quite how they came into our possession - something to do with my teenage sister; she’d either bought them for a few pence, been given them or swapped them, I think.  But I do remember that there was much excitement about their addition to the family’s music collection.

I would’ve been about 8 or 9 I think.  My personal record collection at that point comprised a 7” EP of children’s songs on yellow vinyl (‘How Much Is That Doggy In The Window’ being my fave track), some Pinky & Perky, something from the Nutcracker Suite, and a concerto by Handel, or was it Mozart, on 45 in a shiny picture sleeve.  I wasn’t able to discern between Pinky & Perky and Mozart - but how free you are at that age, totally lacking any self-consciousness about genre; as far as I was concerned each had their own merits.

Downstairs in the very modern Danish style G Plan cabinet where the hi-fi, books and my mum's pottery were housed there were a few other records, but nothing that was of much interest to me: some jazz, opera and classical, one or two Reader’s Digest freebie flexi-discs, Glen Miller I think.   So this box of singles made quite a statement; they were pop records.

Childhood memories are funny – the things that can seem quite unremarkable to an adult can be so vibrantly sensual to a child and imbued with the most vivid associations and feelings.  Those old singles do just that to me.  I can clearly remember the ones I really liked, their B-sides too.  They were about more than just the tunes, they were about the weight and the shine of the vinyl, the touch of the creased paper sleeves, and about the room and the rugs and the cats and the curtains.   Their labels are indelibly imprinted in my psyche too - the colours, the logos, the type style.  My mind drifts now to the way this is so perfectly expressed in the words to 'Over The Border' by St Etienne: 

 “…. green and yellow harvests, pink pies, silver bells…”   

We know what they mean!

In this particular box the pies/Pyes were blue, and a faithful terrier listening to an old wind-up  gramophone was silver on black.

Within this small collection was one of my favourite songs of all-time – one of my bestest, most favouritest songs ever ever in fact - so it deserves a post of its own some day but I can’t write about the rest without mentioning it here.  I was totally hooked on this song and still am.  I could play it over and over and never tire of it (and I did, probably driving my parents and sister mad). I wonder what it is that makes it so special and enduring, and what was it about it that appealed to me so much, even as a child?

The Kinks: Days
(eternal perfection)

But the others in the box all had their own unique appeal, here's what they were:

I loved the catchy soulfulness of ‘Build Me Up Buttercup’ by the Foundations and was intrigued, and slightly unnerved by its contrasting B Side, ‘New Direction’ - a strangely doomy, jazzy/psychy number.

The Foundations: New Direction

'Do Wah Diddy Diddy' by Manfred Mann had obvious singalong appeal to a child of my age.  ‘What You Gonna Do?’ on the B-side was far less commercial – a classic example of raw ‘60s R’n’B.

Manfred Mann: What You Gonna Do?

'I’ll Be There' by the  Jackson Five - well,  a little later I had some pictures of the Jackson Five on my wall (next to the Osmonds), of course I liked it!

'Love Child' by Diana Ross & The Supremes - a song I still hear in my head with pops and crackles.  What a fine example of classy soul, not that I would have understood that word then.  

There were a couple of singles I was less keen on, one of them was '(If Paradise Is) Half As Nice' by  Amen Corner – I didn’t like the voice, I still don't.

And then there was also 'I Can’t Let Maggie Go' by the Honeybus – famous for its use in the Nimble advert and anyone as old as me will remember the girl in the balloon who "flew like a bird in the sky".  However, I much preferred the fabulous B side, ‘Tender Are The Ashes’ and I still really love this song with its uptempo groovy Northern Soul vibe.

The Honeybus: Tender Are The Ashes

Finally there was a record that always sounded a bit more grown-up to me.  I think it was because of the harmonica combined with the fact that it was an instrumental - it was 'Groovin’ With Mr Bloe' by Mr Bloe.  You know it, of course you do!

I don’t know what happened to them in the end - they weren't mine! -  but I continued to dig them out and play them in the interim years and even after I started buying my own brand new singles.  By the time Abba, then Buzzcocks, etc. each arrived on the scene for me, records from the previous 10 years seemed bloody ancient.  But there was something about this small selection that made them immune to my teenage prejudice against the past and all things out-of-date. The feelings, those first far-reaching feelings, endured.  I think it must simply be because that’s where my love of music all began.

How about you?

Pinky & Perky
(and a very scary duck)

Hey, fellas, have you heard the news...

You can’t keep a good song down, that’s what I used to think.  However, having heard a few ruined by having all the guts taken out and incorporating a simpering female vocal to soundtrack an advert, I’ve changed my mind about that statement.

But this isn’t one of those songs.  I haven’t yet heard a bad version, and hope I never will. 

Here are four renditions of 'Leaving Here' and, I hope you’ll agree, they’re all excellent.

THE BIRDS

As it happens, I heard these four versions in the wrong order.  The first time I came across 'Leaving Here' was on a mini-album of tracks by British r’n’b group The Birds released on Edsel in the mid-80s.  I'd never heard of the Birds before then (only the Byrds) and had been unaware that a certain Ronnie Wood played guitar for them before his time with the Faces and the Stones.  There's loads that can be said about Ronnie but I'll offer something a bit more random....  it's about a jacket.  Whenever I think of Ronnie, I think of my friend H and how jealous I am of an item of clothing she owns (and sometimes wears).  It’s a gorgeous slim-fitting, striped boating jacket that used to belong to Mr Wood himself!  It came into her possession through a friend of hers who just happened to be married to Ron’s brother Art, and it looks a bit like this... 

She lets me stroke it from time to time.

Alongside Ron Wood in the Birds line-up was vocalist Ali Mackenzie.  Some years ago I was lucky enough to enjoy the brilliant Small Faces tribute band, The Small Fakers, perform the whole of 'Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake' (complete with Stanley Unwin’s nephew there, narrating the relevant bits) at the 100 Club.  As the night drew to a close, Ali Mackenzie joined them on stage to give us a few extra numbers by the Birds, including this song.  It was as close as we were going to get to the real thing (both Small Faces and Birds) and I loved every minute. 

MOTORHEAD

Some time after discovering the Birds’ version and thinking it was their song, I must have heard it by Motorhead, although I’m not even sure I put two and two together at the time and certainly didn't know of its true origin.

Motorhead transcended boundaries when it came to musical genres, didn’t they?  Research tells me they recorded this in December 1976 and it was due to be released as a single by Stiff Records, but they were still under contract to United Artists at the time who prevented its release (in spite of UA’s refusal to issue Motorhead’s debut album).  So it didn’t make it as single at the time, although it did turn up on the eponymous Motorhead album on the Chiswick label the following year.  

I missed out on seeing Motorhead in 1978 when they played our local venue; I was only 14 and they were far too hairy and scary.  My sister went, though, and said it was so loud she thought her ears were going to bleed.  At least Mr SDS and I did once wave to Lemmy across a street in Notting Hill (and he waved back, bless him!)

EDDIE HOLLAND

Eventually, I got to listen to the original!   Eddie Holland released it in 1963.  Eddie was of course one third of the Holland-Dozier-Holland song-writing and production team responsible for many Motown hits. A far better informed friend of mine who knows his '60s soul introduced me to it, and it's great to hear the purity and power of the song's first appearance complete with brass, having only heard others' versions first. 

THE STRYPES

And finally, I heard a much more recent version when highly revered and incredibly young Irish band The Strypes, who had a penchant for the retro sound of bands such as the Yardbirds and Dr Feelgood, recorded it for their 2012 EP 'Young Gifted And Blue'.  They were all still in their teens, but the song itself, by that time nearly forty years old, suits them perfectly.  I found out in the course of writing this post that only a few weeks ago they announced that they were breaking up.  I guess they just packed in so much at such a tender age and I'm not sure where else was left for them to go, so I can understand and respect them for that.

Before I finish here, an honourable mention should also go to the Who who recorded an excellent cover, just as you'd expect.

So, I just have to hope no-one comes along and spoils it now... I don't think a soft tinkly piano version with a withering sing-song vocal would really cut it.

My bestest most favouritest songs ever ever - part 5

Time for another one of these!  I was shocked to find the last time I posted one was nearly two years ago; it feels like about three months...

Anyway, this is another one of those songs which sounds absolutely brilliant every single time I hear it and never loses its status or appeal (which is the point of this series!) but in particular it takes me back to an exciting period when I was discovering new old music.  As I was working in the record shop it was easier to order all sorts of obscure items from all sorts of obscure labels, plus get a staff discount -  suffice to say it seemed I was bringing home a new album just about every week.

Up until that point I'd always most enjoyed music that was current at the time of listening, so it was quite an adventure to explore an unfamiliar genre from the past. I first heard this particular song around 1985 I think, by which time it was nearly 20 years old.  To my 22-year old self, that meant it was bloody ancient.  Now, of course if I spool back 20 years, a mere blink of an eyelid ago, I realise it's me who's bloody ancient.

But never mind all that, because this is timeless.  My first awareness of its existence in the '80s was thanks to a brilliant compilation album: 'Perfumed Garden Vol 1' , put out by the Psycho label.  It grabbed me right from the off with its dirty, grungy, overdriven guitar intro.  The vocals are nicely rough too, and that insistent riff just keeps on going.  I had no idea until then that anything in the sixties could sound quite this punk; I thought the Stones and the Kinks were about as hard as it gets, so it came as a revelation.

'You're Too Much' was originally put out as a B-side in May 1966 (the A-side, 'Man With Money' still sounds fine to my ears but is not a patch on this).

As for the band - I wrote a piece about them in a fanzine in 1986 (shocking to think that is now longer ago than the original gap between the record's release and my hearing it).  So my research has already been done and I'll just reproduce it here...

The Eyes were a young band from Ealing who picked up a culty mod following in the mid sixties.  They supported such bands as The Action, The Kinks and The Move.  Their 'gimmick' was to wear colourful, amusing clothes - stripey Rugby shirts, bleached jeans, pink parkas with tyre tracks inked on the backs and red or yellow boots.  (Also for added decoration - big eyes sewn onto their tops!)

After 4 singles (the last one of which was a flop), an EP, and a disguised album, the band split up, and vocalist Terry was the only member to pursue a serious musical career.  He joined 'Andromeda' for a while but never recorded with them, then became vocalist for 'The Entire Sioux Nation' with Larry Wallis (who later became a Pink Fairy), Jim Taylor and Paul Nichols.

Anyway - onto the song.  It would be an understatement to say I just fucking love it.

The Eyes:  You're Too Much
(originally released May 1966)

The Eyes in rugby shirts and bleached jeans (1966)

The whole piece from the fanzine (1986)

'A trip into the world of real psychedelia and more' ?! #2

When introducing this new series last month I explained how some musical discoveries in my twenties excited me so much that I was inspired to make my own fanzine on the subject.  It was the 1980s and the garage, psych and beat music that obsessed me was mostly from the mid 1960s - but it was so fresh to my ears that it really felt like I was indulging in something new.

Much like blogging now, I wanted an outlet, a way to express and share my enthusiasm and the fanzine was the solution. Somehow I managed to write, illustrate and design six editions, by hand.

For this series I’m going to post some of the tracks I wrote about then, along with snippets of whatever it was I said.  As the strapline of my fanzine rather grandly announced, it's ‘A trip into the world of real psychedelia and more’.  

~ - ~

I remember wondering how to start.  So much to say!  And so excited I didn’t know how to say it!  So I started Issue 1 with some drawing instead – a doodly cover illustration with a woman with no top on…  they say sex sells.  For 15p, in this case. 

Armed with a selection of fine-tip Pilot pens, some magazines to cut up for collage and piles of records, I got going.  Issue 1 included quite a cross-section of reviews/summaries – including my favourites from the past such as the Eyes and the Action...

... alongside much loved contemporary bands with a retro sound, e.g. the Nomads and the Prisoners.

  Then I launched into a six-page article on the ‘Pebbles’ series of compilation albums featuring largely unknown US bands from twenty years back.  

Here’s some of what I had to say about them.

“The ‘Pebbles’ albums are a classic selection of American 60s punk.  They feature a mixture of incredible obscurities, psychy classics and novelty records that are just good for a laugh.  Some of the slightly better known tracks featured on them have since been covered by new groups such as the Lords Of The New Church, Plan 9 and the Cannibals and have thus reached a legendary status.  I’ve listed here most of the Pebbles LPs that I think are worth checking out if you can.  Most of them are stil available, though you’d probably have to pay over £7 each…”

£7 seemed an awful lot of money to pay for an album in 1986.

“…There are loads of similar compilations around – Acid Dreams, Acid Visions, Nuggets, Highs In The Mid-Sixties – to name but a few , but it’d take many long hours, several biros and yards of paper to review them all, so I’ll just stick to Pebbles for now!”

Err…  Biros…?   Paper…?  What are these things I speak of?

“… I think the reason there are so many more US compilations than UK ones is that so many bands over there were able to release one-off singles on really small labels, so a lot of stuff was getting heard.  Some records were the only ones to be released on a particular label.  The scene must have been similar to the indie scene that thrives over here now, and come to think of it, it’s amazing that half of the records ever survived as they must have been pressed in really small quantities!  Anyway, I’m really glad that someone managed to find them and compiled these albums for our enjoyment twenty years on…”

Weird to think that those twenty years are now… aargh! … fifty years on.

“VOL. ONE

A great one to start off with!  Side 1 opens with a real classic – ‘Action Woman’ by the Litter.  Check out the Damned’s version of this too, on the Naz Nomad and the Nightmares album.  It has a catchy chorus, screaming guitar and just shoots straight into your bloodstream….”

Forgive me, I was young.  I know music doesn’t ‘shoot straight into your bloodstream’.  But still, it’s a great track, so here it is.

“… The side closes with the Haunted’s ‘1-2-5’ – a beaty little number that has also impressed a few new bands such as the Electric Roaches and the Fuzztones!  It was a major hit in the band’s home country, Canada, at the time of its release…”

I loved the Fuzztones but, weirdly, I don’t remember the Electric Roaches at all.  Never mind, here’s the original from the Haunted.

You know what, they still sound fucking great.

More snippets and songs next time!

Beat box

A box of singles came into our possession recently via Mr SDS' uncle. It was this uncle who, as a 19-year old, first introduced the very young Mr SDS to music and his copies of Melody Maker around 1965. But that's Mr SDS' story, not mine, and may one day be told in more detail in another blog if I could ever convince him to write one, which seems unlikely.

Is this a tantalising image, though? Are you perhaps eager to know what gems might be in here? Feeling the anticipation, even from that distance? Enlarging the photo and straining to identify each record company sleeve, teasing yourself with the thought of what it might contain? (Maybe you're the kind who notices that there's a CD rack in the background of a scene on a TV programme and turns their head sideways to try and read the spines?)

I was reminded of those responses on reading a post over at the excellent blog Feel It which took me back to the days when we used to go to Record Fairs quite frequently. Flicking through this box of old 45s brought it all back too.

It seemed like it was every weekend in the early '80s that we'd take the train down to London for a Record Fair but I think that's my memory taking liberties. Anyway, we went to quite a few. I grew tired of it long before Mr SDS did, but it probably didn't help when I started a full-time job in a record shop, seguing my work time and leisure time just a little too much (as well as working every Saturday). Still, for a while they were exciting. I remember how resilient we had to be, prepared to search through every suitable box and crate, tirelessly and hopefully. Frequently the promise was matched only by the disappointment, but you had to keep looking – how could you pass by a box of singles and not look?!

The Record Fairs we went to always seemed to be held in somewhat downmarket hotels - maybe they still are; I wouldn't know. But I can picture them now: large function rooms with burgundy patterned carpets, scuffed woodchip walls... smoke and dust caught in rays of sunshine coming through a window in the dingy bar area... that particular breed of dealer with the greasy comb-over wearing a conker-brown cardigan, resting his not-insubstantial beer belly against the trestle table. We got to know the good ones and the not-so-good, the pleasant and the patronising. We got used to rifling through crates of albums in dusty plastic outer sleeves with corners that cut our fingers. The hand-written indices and barely decipherable price stickers. That smell - the smell of vinyl! Cigarette smoke too... body odour... coffee... mildew... fried breakfasts. Fried breakfasts? I don't know why I'm getting this memory of the smell of egg and bacon, but it's there nonetheless. And punters all but salivating... over boxes and boxes and boxes of vinyl.

Anyway, what was in the uncle's box? I'm sure you're dying to find out.

Well, it was just the usual Elvis, Beatles and the Rolling Stones....etcetera...

Grée days

'Killing time'. It's a strange concept really, isn't it? - when every second, minute and hour dies of its own accord without our help. Usually it flies, and we take great pains to save it. But anyway, in spite of being a life-long pacifist, I was fortunate to find myself in the fairly unusual position of having a little time to kill the other day. I chose a popular weapon – an internet connection. The minutes soon expired as I searched for something and then happily lost myself in it; I was looking for the work of an illustrator I hadn't thought about in a while and whose name I'd forgotten. All I could recall was that he was French, or was it Belgian? and that his children's book illustrations were popular in the '60s and '70s. It didn't take long for me to find him – Alain Grée. (He is French.)

For me, Alain Grée's illustrations provide a perfect tonic at this time of year. Winter's dragging on and we've hit that point when it's just thoroughly boring now and the hopeful journey towards Spring seems to be taking forever.  Art always gives me a boost. This kind of art may look 'simple' but the ability to pare back so effectively takes a huge amount of skill; the bold colours and shapes are just right and with no need for outlines or overly fussy detail. Distilling the complexities of reality into blocks of colour and naïve form whilst retaining real interest and character is something I'm forever trying to master.  And his compositions are so aesthetically pleasing - gorgeous examples of the graphic style of their era which work for me on a nostalgic level as well as an artistic one.

A number of Alain Grée's educational children's books with their original '60s and '70s illustrations have been reprinted in recent years and their popularity continues. 

I could happily kill time with him any day.