The Other Singles Box

For a long while I was also pretty obsessed with 60's garage/punk/psych records. I dug deep and picked up as much as I could afford along with the other multiple musical obsessions I had. (Keeping up the prolific output of The Fall alone was enough to break any starving twenty-something's bank or at the very least put a sizable dent in one's beer money.)

I broke into that box the other day with a decision to finally do away with the arbitrary vinyl segregation of that crap from the rest of my crap. It was all going to be one gigantic pile of vinyl crap from now on. There's some really good stuff in there.

Since that's how I roll, I'm a gonna start with some of shit from the New England area because that's what I wanted to listen to when I pulled this shit out.

 

Hey Little Bird (1964)

I'll Keep Seeing You (1966)

The Barbarians are probably the famous names here. They have two big claims to fame. 1. They made an appearance in some cuts of the "T.A.M.I. Show" along side of such big names as Chuck Berry, Beach Boys, an amazing James Brown and a really really baked Rolling Stones. They performed their first single "Hey Little Bird" and 2. the drummer, Moulty, had suffered an accident earlier in his youth and had lost a hand and drummed with the aid of a prosthetic hook. Not really a gimmick, but something interesting. (there was at least one other 60's percussionist with a hook in the Cryan' Shames which though hardly qualifies as a trend makes you go hmmm...) This does however come into play for the B-side of "I'll Keep on Seeing You" which features a rather over the top inspirational number entitled "Moulty" about persevering in what you want to do in life despite the setbacks you may encounter along the way....Forgive me, I'm getting misty just thinking about it...

It is truly a camp classic that I'm sure Moulty regrets agreeing to do to this very day. I can't blame him, but still I find it a rather guilty pleasure. The one thing I've found of note about this particular recording is that the actual Barbarians don't actually play on this one. Instead, Moulty's passionate inspirational plea is backed by the Band (you know, the one who backed Bob Dylan) without Levon Helm. I'm not sure that they keep this on their resume, though.

 Is This It (1965?)

Georgie Porgie put out a number of singles with a couple of different groups during the 60's. This is maybe the second or third one. Here's an interview with him. It's one of those ones where the A-side is kind of crap, but the B-side is gold. "You've Been Gone a Long Long Time" is a little garage pounder slathered in a shit ton of reverb. I'd forgotten how much I really loved this song. It's also one that for whatever reason hasn't been comped to death like most of its ilk. I have one long suppressed memory of making an epic journey home one lysergically inspired evening many many years ago because I really really needed to hear that song because it was calling to me and it was exactly the way my head sounded that evening. It was pretty blissful and we probably played it a dozen times before moving on. Ahhhh, youth.

Rag Bag (1965)


Little John & the Sherwoods on the Fleetwood label. The A-side is a reasonable garage number about dating a girl from the other side of the economic tracks. Not bad, but listenable. The money side is on the flip with "Long Hair". It's a lovely snotty fuzzy manifesto regarding hair length the upshot of which appears that despite society's disapproval of their coiffures, they're still banging society's daughters anyway. I find that message a lot more inspirational than "Moulty".