So the other day, I was at some download site or other and I chanced across a link to a CD by The Roosters, a 60s California folk-rock band that I'd never heard of, and who made a couple of singles that are apparently well thought of by the sort of folks that are into obscure 60s California folk-rock bands.
So I downloaded said singles, and my immediate reaction was -- meh.
No big surprise there, of course; I've discovered a lot of really terrific obscure music since I've been toiling in these precincts, but the vast majority of the obscure stuff out there tends to be obscure for a reason, i.e., it isn't as good as the stuff that people actually liked at the time.
Anyway, that said, a listen to this Roosters a-side proved to be an eye-opener. In the "Block That Metaphor!" sense.
So take care when you're picking your women
Because you know
When you try to touch or squeeze them
They'll seem like a rose...bush!
Hey -- they were kids, and 1966 was a long, long time ago.
And let's be honest -- it's still a lot better than this piece of shit from two decades later.
I mean, seriously -- what was their fricking excuse?
From an interview with always amusing original Rolling Stones manager/producer Andrew Loog Oldham in the February issue of MOJO:
You tweeted about Pussy Riot -- "Don't get me started on the pussy group." Was this seriously meant or were you being mischievous?
"Both. If the Sex Pistols were a less musical, but still relevant, version of the Stones, then Pussy Riot makes Bananarama sound like the Three Tenors."
Boy, that's gotta be the greatest Compare and Contrast ever.
Ladies and gentlemen, from their 1985 album 12 Jealous Roses, please enjoy NYC alt/indie should-have-beens Dancing Hoods and the instantly indelible "Pleasure."
I must confess to having never heard of these guys until last week; apparently, one of them went off to somewhat greater success in Sparklehorse (who at least I've heard of, if not actually heard).
In any event, this song is, as they say, the shit.
I.e., rock 'n' roll as nature intended.
And man oh man, did this lyric --
“I danced on ledges a hundred flights up / I drank dirty water from a jagged cup / And I smashed my own bones just to hear them crack / You think this is pain, honey, this is the pleasure.“
-- deserve classic status.
Also -- may I just say, and for the record, that lead vocalist Bob Bortnick's wonderfully snot-nosed delivery of the line "ride 'em, cowboy" right before the guitar solo made me grin from ear to ear.
[h/t Willard's Wormholes]
UPDATE: I have just learned, via the Intertubes, that the aforementioned Bob Bortnick is currently toiling as Senior Vice President and A&R for Warner/Chappell Music. Words fail me.
If you were with us last Friday, you may recall that my old college chum Eric Boardman sang the praises of local heroes (in 1965) The Riddles.
Permit me to indulge in nostalgic gush for my days at The Coffee Break in Elmhurst and The Cellar in Arlington Heights, the two clubs where I dined on rock and roll. The Riddles were the house band at the C.B. and they covered the first three Beatles albums beautifully.
Apparently, said house band never made an album, and no audio of their Beatles covers has surfaced on the intertubes. However, they did cut one single, which was a local hit -- a version of the oft-covered Searchers cover of the Drifters "Sweets for My Sweet" -- and its b-side, a band original called "It's One Thing to Say" is apparently highly regarded by garage rock afficionados. So I got curious and looked it up.
And here it is, in all its original vinyl glory.
I think it's pretty average, actually, but I'm sure it sounded better at the time.
In any case, if you're so moved, you can find out more about these guys over here.
[I originally put up the following back in December of 2009, but given our discussion last Friday of certain bands that ruled the teen club roosts in the vicinity of Arlington Heights, Illinois circa 1965, it seemed like a good time to repost it. If you missed what follows below the first time around, please enjoy, if possible. -- S.S.]
Our younger readers will have to take this on faith, but unlikely as it now seems, it is ineluctable fact that in the immediate wake of The Beatles and the original British Invasion, every town, village or municipality in this great land of ours also boasted at least one garage band formed in emulation of the English and American acts we were seeing on TV. Some of these teen combos -- which seemed to spring up almost literally overnight -- were pretty good (and some of their members would go on to real musical careers), some of them were mediocre, but most important, some of them -- if they had affluent parents -- were able to sport the same clothing and equipment that the bands on The Ed Sullivan Show were wearing and using.
Oh, and (of course) many of these groups also recorded one-shot singles, featuring their own songs, for local labels, which is why there are now something like five zillion CD compilations with titles like Wails From the Crypt: Fulton County Garage and Punk 1964-67.
Anyway, like I said, almost every town in the country had a band like I've just described, but for me the one that best exemplified the ethos (or the movement, or what have you) is the one that ruled the area around Lake Forest College in Lake Forest, Illinois, when I was a college freshman. To wit: The Bryds. As in The Byrds, but with the letters cleverly reversed so that it was pronounced The Brides. Heh heh.
Not to mince words, but these guys were pretty much considered gods in the neighborhood, and when I finally went to see them -- at a dance at Waukegan High School (Waukegan being Jack Benny's old home town, BTW) sometime in late '65 I was pretty much blown away. The Bryds had the hair, the musicianship, the attitude, the Vox amplifiers, and -- have I mentioned? -- the attitude; they may not have been The Beatles or The Rolling Stones, but as far as the several hundred kids crowded into that high school gym that night were concerned, they might as well have been. Like I said, I was blown away -- and yes, jealous as hell, given my own participation in a bunch of rather not so great bands at the time.
In between sets, I also bought a copy of the band's indie 45 (see below), which I believe was getting airplay on AM radio powerhouse WLS at the time, although I may have dreamed that. Alas, I lost my copy sometime in the late 70s; I have since learned that it's fetched between five and eight hundred bucks on eBay.
As you can hear, the song makes all the right obeisances to The Kinks and Paul Revere and the Raiders, which is the game that was being played at the time; in any case, I remember that a live version of it went down a storm at the show I attended. I also remember that half way through the band's set, a circle of kids suddenly formed and in the center were two angry teenage girls going at it on the floor tooth and nail. This was the first time I ever saw what they used to call a cat fight, actually, and to say I was somewhat taken aback by the experience would be an understatement. Incidentally, I had always assumed The Bryds were, in fact, from the extremely well-to-do suburb of Lake Forest, but Jim Stanley, brother and sometimes bandmate of Bryds frontman Bob Stanley, has informed me that this was the not exactly the case.
"So far, everything I've read about the Bryds has had wrong information. But NO, they weren't from Lake Forest. The original 5 piece group had two guys from North Chicago, one from Waukegan, one from Deerfield, and one from either Libertyville or Lake Forest."
I stand corrected. Okay, for more information on The Byrds and their various off-shoots over the years (and it turns out that there were lots of them, and some pretty interesting ones at that), check out the official homepage over here. Jim has also asked me to mention that you can listen to a few tracks from Bob's new CD Roadman's Hammer -- and order the whole thing, of course -- over at his myspace page.
Done. And thanks for the memories, guys. You totally rocked.
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