Wednesday, March 08, 2023

Your Wednesday Moment of Words Fail Me

From upstate New York in 1967, please enjoy a genuine honest to god old fashioned Battle of the Bands.

If you're of a certain age, that's beyond Proustian, obviously.

I should add that I discovered that clip at YouTube purely by chance the other day, and that it seems to have been shot by somebody who worked at a local NBC affiliate, which probably explains the near professional quality of the video.

I should also add that the band doing the two Blues Project songs sounds impresively just like the real thing. Although my fave performance is by the group with the kid drummer who looks like Beaver Cleaver.

16 comments:

SteveS said...

That was fab!

Mark said...

Cheryl's Going Home, the second Blues Project cover in this film clip, was written by Bob Lind and was the B-side to Elusive Butterfly of Love, for those of us collecting 45s at the time. This is a great little piece of documentary history that took place in one of America's great dual-hyphenated towns, Croton-on-Hudson.

The Kenosha Kid said...

Look at that long hair! I can't tell if they are boys or girls. Someone oughta draft those kids and send them to Vietnam.

MJConroy said...

You can tell that group had spent some time listening to the Blues Project records! Nice covers.

joeleeh said...

The lead singer and guitarist in that "Blues Project " band is my buddy Stephen Miller, still an excellent full-time guitarist now living in Brantford, Ontario.

Allan Rosenberg said...

I just had an Acid Reflux Flashback!

Captain Al

JB said...

I remember playing in a number of BoB's. The first one, my band played an entire set of Cream songs, Tales of Brave Ulysses, Sunshine of Your Love, Politician, I'm So Glad. At one of the battles they even managed to get a DJ from WFIL in Philly to introduce the bands. I forget his name but I do remember him being a bit of a douche. Fun times.

dorethyroad@aol.com said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
dorethyroad@aol.com said...

Green Tambourine ..of course - Gloria.
Our drummer hated Wipe Out since our set list was so small he was called upon to play W/O again, again - lol
rob

dorethyroad@aol.com said...

Had to revisit as you can't amend post..We were truly a Garage band.
We had a base player who never played a note in his life. He came from a well to do family who bought him a Fender Base and a Baseman amp.The extra speakers came in handy as we had no sound system and could plug in a Mic. As he played so little our vocals could be heard...lol
Two funny stories - we had few songs that we had "madtered" - Last Train, etc. We did do well enough on Wipe Out and most times had to reprise it which our drummer hated as he said it Hurst his wrists.
2. Our guitar player who was good for his age (15) went on to produce / engineer the ultimate garage band -
The Knack - ;-) rob

steve simels said...

Rob -- I'm even more speechless. :-)

Anonymous said...

Which left you speechless ?
That we were four 15 year old kids who were so naive / terrible that we thought we
could get on stage to express our exuberance for "music" (I use that word loosely "
Or...
That our guitar player - left handed, baby blue, Hagstrom III produced the Knack. ;-)

rob

edward said...

Some seriously white dancing going on there

steve simels said...

Rob -- the Knack thing. :-)

Anonymous said...

Steve, The Knack connection. Rick Bosworth heard Horace Greeleys - Go West Young Man and left for California in early 70s. Ultimately London found him at Abbey Road studios under the tutelage of Geoff Emerick, Ken Townsend,Peter Asher...
Here is the link -
Cavehollywood.com/the- beatles-revisit-abbey-road-with- special-anniversary...
Think that might be enough for search engine.
It's a good read.
Now regarding Knack - Doug Fieger met Rick and the shared love of Beatles was a bond.
He was able to duplicate Beatles technique on modern gear and subsequently engineered later albums and later production.
Rob - PS
15 years old,we were hellions. ;-)

pete said...

All it needs is a girl singer named Madeleine.