Things Forgotten

Back in the Stone Ages of the 80's before the compact disc there were relatively few options for a poor fellow to have his music on the go. There was the transistor radio, of course, but that kind of tied you to what was on the radio and it was pretty bleak. You could spend some dough and get a ghetto blaster style boombox, but then you'd have to share and not everybody was amenable to that.

Then came along the Walkman and by the early part of the decade the price came down enough to be economically feasible for a penniless schmuck like myself to afford one and make his ever expanding record collection go portable. This involved lots and lots of cassette tape compilations that would be carefully chosen in the morning and carried around with a journal of juvenile profundity and various other bits of detritus in an over the shoulder man bag purchased at the Army/Navy store on Boylston st. I'd usually carry five or six ninety minute cassettes of most recent purchases. I loved making tapes. I traded tapes with other like minded individuals. I made compilation tapes for potential dates. (which is in itself a very special courtship ritual that's all but lost today.) I liked doing it.

Fast forward to the 21st Century and as I start digging into the 60's Garage/punk/psych box that I haven't really paid attention to in quite a few years and I start remembering how much I absolutely fucking loved this shit and I can still almost recreate the track listings of certain tapes that I played over and over again....

 The Lyrics (1967)

From San Diego. Both sides are quite good garage rockers of the era. This is their third single of three. It's the second one with the snotty bluesy "So What" that's been comped to death, but I personally listened to this single a whole fucking lot and still can't decide which side I like better.

 The Muffins (1966)

The Muffins were most likely from Rhode Island. They're kind of a mystery. They back two different vocalists on this single One side of this is a reverb drenched romantic ballad as performed by John Broughton called "Walk Alone" which is cool enough by itself if you're like me and like that moody New England garage thing.
But it's the garage punker "One More Time" on flip that gets all the action. This one is fronted by the inimitable Shawkey Se'au that gets all the panties damp in collector circles. Primitive and repetitive and wild. Just like the doctor ordered.

 the Novas (1964)


The Novas were from Minneapolis and threw down this love note to famed wrestler Crusher Lisowski in 1964 during some of the last gasps of the US surf music era that would be unceremoniously killed off by a bunch of lame English bands that year. But here's your opportunity, you turkeynecks to finally do the eye gouge in the safety of your own home.