I recently got out loads of old Garage / Psych fanzines to re-read. Stuff like UGLY THINGS, SHINDIG and Bucketfull Of Brains. My record deck was out of action for a bit. So, while I didn’t play a single record, I READ about them instead for 2 weeks. Which is kind of like going to Rock’n'Roll college-you learn so much. I’m always reading anyway, but doing it 8 hours a day for 2 weeks did teach me a lot of things I didn’t know.
So, there I was reading about obscure Teen / Garage combos from the Northwest states down to Texas which rekindled (not that it really needed rekindling) my passion for obscure USA (and UK) 1960′s Garage / R’n'b bands. As you know I’m into all kinds of music but if I do have a “specialized” field in music it is 60s Garage / Psych. I’ve been exploring this particular musical avenue for well over 25 years, since I was 14 in fact. I’ve just become more obsessive about it in the last few years.
When I finally got myself out of bed and down to the record deck, I instantly got stuck into a whole pile of LPs, EPs and 45s that I’d been waiting to listen to for weeks. First up was a trio of really cool Northwest Garage band compilations on the SUNDAZED label which I got a little while ago. They¹re the NORTHWEST BATTLE OF THE BANDS (Volumes 1 to 3) LPs (and on vinyl too, yeah!!) which I’d been dying to hear for ages. Basically, they are all Jerden label 45 releases (or Jerden recordings licensed to other labels) reissued on three seperate LPs. Best of all, these cuts have all been taken from the original master recordings and sound as clear as a bell.
There¹s some great powerful tracks here by the likes of The Sonics, The Wailers, Mr. Lucky & the Gamblers and dozens of others. What I’ve always liked about Northwest (the Washington State area) Garage bands is their sheer rawness and power. Some of these bands used to regularly pull 2000 kids to their weekend shows, and they were just local heroes!! They’d release a bunch of singles, maybe make the local charts but very rarely score a national hit.
The Kingsmen of course were one such band, and they had a mega USA smash with LOUIE LOUIE which sort of put the Northwest on the musical map. Paul Revere & the Raiders were, of course, the most successful band from that area but by no means the best. Bands such as The Wailers, The Sonics & Don & The Goodtimes ruled their patch with a sound of iron, well, proto heavy metal actually and kept it up well beyond a time when the rest of the world was already grooving to the soft summer sounds of 1967. The Don & The Goodtimes compilation on Sundazed is another great example of a fab Garage / R’n'b band who, in their day, were local heroes of the highest order.
I hadn’t really been too aware of this band before. They are usually overshadowed by The Sonics or The Wailers, but actually they were just as good but have somehow been more or less forgotten. The sleevenotes to their Sundazed LP mentions that in a “Battle of the Bands” contest between these three bands one time The Goodtimes actually came top! Also mentioned were three LPs that they cut in the 60′s for the labels Wand, Burdette and Epic. Judging by the kind of prices original Sonics or Wailers LPs fetch these days (nothing under £100!) I reckoned that, being at least as rare, Don & The Goodtimes LPs would set me back a similar amount. Sometimes however, when you focus hard enough, strange and fortuitous things can and do happen. Sure enough, just recently I was rummaging in a record shop on the Portobello Road….and…scored an original LP copy of “Where the Action is” by Don & the Goodtimes (on the WAND label, 1966) for only £10!!!!!!!!!!!!! Wow – the seller probably lumped this LP in with the really common (and not all that good) KINGSMEN LPs on Wand, of which their must be at least 8 different titles. Now the KINGSMEN LPs really do only sell for about £10 to £15 being at best pretty average musically, but this Don & The Goodtimes LP is, in my book, at least as rare and as essential as any Sonics or Wailers LP! I¹m still doing cartwheels now. A vinyl slab of essential Northwest garage history, chock full of killer R’n'b tunes with some brilliant instrumentals too for only a tenner. Now that¹s cool!
Also, essential, for me, is a trio of LPs (again on Sundazed) of Garage tracks from the SOMA label out of the Minneapolis. Soma Records had two big hits in the 60s-one being “Run Run Run” by The Gestures, and the other “Liar Liar” by The Castaways. Of course, these two hits are only the tip of the proverbial iceberg, and Soma was a pretty effective local label that released some superb Beat Invasion and early Garage type 45s. I really like the fact that this label had its own unique sound and some of the songs and performances are pretty terrific. Most bands on the label only released a couple of singles each and The Gestures and The Castaways were poorly served when it came to distributing their nationwide hits. The label simply didn¹t have good enough national distribution to satisfy demand, but on a local level (ie in 4 or 5 states) they were quite successful. Again, a lot of these bands, although almost forgotten these days were major pulls in their local area and Teen dances were generally packed to the rafters and shows for 2000 or 3000 raging and spotty fans were not uncommon.
Which brings me neatly to another local scene which, even today, was probably the most influencial music area of the 1960s outside of San Francisco. Michigan gave us The Stooges, The MC5, Terry Knight & the Pack…..and….Bob Seger Now personally speaking, Bob Seger¹s mid to late 70s work is fairly middle of the road. In the 60s however, he was one of a large pool of Michigan artists trying to make his mark. And Michigan in the 60s fairly rocked. The heaviest bands like The Stooges & The MC5 came out of this scene, which was tough and uncompromising. Bob Seger, too, cut some fantastic and rare 45s from about 1966 onwards. There is a bootleg LP from about 1984 (from France) which compiles such Garage 45 classics like “Persecution Smith, “Heavy Music” and “Looking Back” but this LP is almost as rare as the originals! Find one, and you’ll probably pay less than £12.00 (no-one really knows what it is, the front cover is really uninspiring looking) but finding one is the hard part.
That really wraps up this month’s back page but if you’re into delving deep into this type of music, get UGLY or SHINDIG magazines. They are simply the best 60′s / Garage fanzine ever! I amhooked onto every issue I’ve ever read. One for Garage / Psych heads, to be sure-but interesting enough for anyone whith a passion for 60′s music.
