Which suddenly brought to mind "Beat the Clock," his old band's absolutely brilliant psych/pop masterpiece from 1967. A record which should have been a much huger hit.
I think you'll agree that everything about that is great, beginning with the lyric (and no better one has ever been written about its subject, i.e. aging and the grim passage of time) and Derringer's glorious Wes Montgomery-influenced lead guitar work. Of which, BTW, nothing similar had previously been heard on Top 40 radio.
POSTSCRIPT: To my delight and surprise, I just found out that a cover of the song (by The Islanders, a band world famous in their native Finland) translated into Finnish, a language not usually associated with rock-and-roll, actually WAS a huge hit over the aforementioned new NATO member's various media, also in 1967.
Seriously -- to the point where, or so I'm told, literally everybody in that country has not only heard it but can sing along to it.
Pretty cool video, no?
I think the McCoys version still gets the nod overall, but I gotta say -- that Finnish guy has a great set of pipes.
6 comments:
The McCoys had so many great singles on Bang and most only know "Sloopy." Their version of "Stagger Lee" is a killer. And if you don't know the b-side to "Say Those Magic Words," you should definitely check out "I Wonder If She Remembers me."
Their version of Ritchie Valens' "Cmon Let's Go" is definitive, IMHO.
Didn't care much for the song but damn as he got older he learned his craft
His work on two Steely Dan tracks on Countdown To Ecstasy is amazing
Still one of my favorite albums
rob
What with this jazzy Zombies/Kinks vibe, I had to remind myself that the McCoys were Cleveland-area boys. And yes, the solo is out of another place and time. Wonderful.
Don't know if this is true but after the Countdown sessions he was so exhausted
from dealing with Fagan that he told his wife to tell Donald that we was not available if he called - BTW - Derringers guitar work on Show Biz Kids is Ecstasy ;-)
rob
I loved the McCoys. I had the first few singles when they came out. Shortly after, I got to know a foxy guy who sang and played lead guitar in a Junior High School garage band. He was the first guy to kiss me that dared to caress my buns as he did so. He read me perfectly. He had hair about as long as Phil May’s. A completely out of the box guy. Anyway, he had the McCoys’ LP’s. He based a lot of his own band’s repertoire on some of the material on the albums. They did a 12-string folk rock version of “Sorrow” which sounded like the McCoys meet the Byrds meet Love. It was muy bueno. The McCoys were the first band to do that number as far as I know. So the guy influenced me to get the albums and they were pretty consistent. Way better than I expected. Even leaving out the fact that they were so young. Each successive single got less and less airplay in SoCal. But, being a fan, I bought them anyway. Gillette’s knew better than not to stock a few. I’m glad I did because a few sides never made it to LP. That 1995 Legacy comp came close to rectifying it. Sal knows what they missed. And that cute bun grabbin’ lead guitarist won my heart when he did “I Got to Go Back (and Watch That Little Girl Dance), and dedicated it to me.
“Beat the Clock” is tops with me! The jazzy solo outro presages some of the stuff on the Mercury albums. I actually saw them live a couple of times. They played Gazzarri’s in 1967 just prior to “Clock” being released. Sandy and I thumbed to Hollywood and spent a couple of days at a girlfriend of ours who lived with her parents on Genesse right around the corner from Aron’s. We saw Buffalo Springfield and the Seeds at the Hollywood Palladium the first night and the Mcoys the second. It was a double dose of the former pair since we saw them the night before at the Swing in Berdoo. Bruce Palmer was not playing bass. It was probably Ken Koblum. Definitely not Forssi from Love. The McCoys played three sets at Gazzarri’s. They were tight and dynamic. The next night we saw the latter day Sons of Adam at Bido Lito’s and were fortunate to get a ride back home with a DJ from San Bernardino’s KFXM.
The second time I saw them, they had signed to Mercury. They opened for Moby Grape at the Kaleidoscope. They were good, very good. But the Grape were better, even without Skip. The third bill band, Genesis (Jack Ttanna’s band) had to cancel because Chief Reddin’s boys had thrown one of them in jail.
I had dinner with Rick quite by chance in the 1990’s but that’s another story.
VR
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