Annals of Devolution (An Occasional Series)

So the other day my fellow toiler in geriatric garage band The Weasels constant reader and friend of PowerPop Jai "Guru" Dave e-mailed me the following query:

"Steve -- have you ever heard the German Bonds?"

Now, my immediate reaction was "Why is Dave quoting a line from a famous scene in The Producers?" But as it turns out, he wasn't. Seems he had been watching that Pretty Things clip I posted the other day, and over at YouTube there was a link to another clip -- from German TV -- which was a live 1966 performance by a Kraut group called, you guessed it , The German Bonds.



Whom neither Dave nor I had ever previously heard of, but whom we both agreed -- at least on the basis of the aforementioned clip -- were pretty awesome in that mid-60s Nuggets/garage band sort of way.

In fact, they were actually quite a bit better than most bands of that ilk -- with very strong musicianship (particularly the organ guy) and above average performance and songwriting chops (although the trousers the bass player are wearing in the video are shall we say ill-advised). Anyway, one could only assume that the reason the GBs never became even a minor footnote to rock history is because (like so many of their contemporaries) their records weren't as good as their live performances.

I was curious about what happened to them, however, and after a little Google research, I learned that in 1970 -- with the addition of an expatriate Brit -- the band reinvented itself as Lucifer's Friend --

-- who were precisely the sort of doomy/prog-metal annoyances -- think Uriah Heep without the warmth -- who essentially ruined the early and mid-70s for me.

Thus proving that Devo was right, of course.

Oh well, at least they eventually achieved some small-scale commercial success both on the Continent and (occasionally) here in the States. In fact, with most of the original members on board, they're still at it. I hope Satan appreciates the effort.