Clean Cut Kids

Hey gang -- from 1967, it's native New Yorkers Every Mother's Son and their quite wonderful pop/rock classic "Come On Down to My Boat."



A cool song, to be sure, but you have to wonder what management Einsteins told the band it would be a smart idea not to look like DFH's at the height of the Summer of Love. In any case, their career was not a long one (perhaps as a result) and the group scattered by '69. Guitarist Dennis Larden went on to play with Rick Nelson 's Stone Canyon Band in the 70s, while keyboardist Bruce Milner became a very successful dentist with a ritzy upper East-Side practice [scroll down]; until last year he occasionally frequented my lamented watering hole, the All-State Cafe, where he acted with becoming patience once when I tried to pry the gory details of his rock star past out of him.

Incidentally, you can get a nice reissue of the band's first album, with an interesting couple of bonus tracks (including the vaguely psychedelic almost hit "Pony With a Golden Mane") here, and I highly recommend it. Milner's wonderfully riffy "Didn't She Lie," in fact, just may be the best Monkees record the Monkees never made.