I used a song by Beefeaters on the ORGANS! comp, and I’d like to follow up with a bit more about them since they’re widely unknown to most people. Not to be confused with the pre-Byrds group The Beefeaters, this Denmark band got its start as a beat group in 1964, touring in support of big names like The Kinks and The Pretty Things. About the time that most bands were morphing into psychedelia, Beefeaters instead followed John Mayall into the blues. They released a self-titled full length in 1967 that is decisively bluesly yet still in the garage rock vein, toured in support of Jimi Hendrix and Pink Floyd, then followed that release in 1969 with Meet You There, which fully transitioned the band out of the garage rock category and into blues rock. On their 1967 release, they sound like a tougher Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers, minus the horns. Beefeaters were not above recording bluesy piano ballads alongside covers like “Crossroads” and “Papa’s Got a Brand New Bag.” It’s from their 1967 record that I took “Hey Little Girl” for ORGANS!. The following two songs also appear on the same album and showcase Farfisa organist Morten Kjærumsgård and vocalist Peter Thorup. Enjoy.
Beefeaters — “I Want You”
Beefeaters — “Let Me Down Easy”
ORGANS!, the long-awaited (by me anyway) follow up to last year’s smashing success, HORNS!, is ready to hit the shelves. If you’d like a copy, leave me a comment.
01 Introduction
02 Memphis Black: Why Don’t You Play the Organ, Man?
03 ? and the Mysterians: 96 Tears
04 Elvis Costello & the Attractions: The Imposter
05 The Small Faces: What’cha Gonna Do About It?
06 The Clean: Tally Ho!
07 Kim Fowley: Bubblegum
08 The Cyrkle: Red Rubber Ball
09 Adrienne Posta: Something Beautiful
10 Beefeaters: Hey Little Girl
11 Jonathan Fire Eater: Give Me Daughters
12 The Crazy World of Arthur Brown: I Put a Spell on You
13 Yo La Tengo: Sudden Organ
14 Blues Magoos: (We Ain’t Got) Nothing Yet
15 Status Quo: Green Tambourine
16 Mouse & the Traps: Cryin’ Inside
17 Clinic: Distortions
18 Rocketship: I Love You the Way I Used to Do
19 Camera Obscura: If Looks Could Kill
20 Adventures in Stereo: Down in the Traffic
21 Chubby Checker: Stoned in the Bathroom
22 Elfstone: Louisiana Teardrops
23 The Artwoods: One More Heartache
24 The Modern Lovers: Old World
25 The Lyres: She Pays the Rent
26 XTC: Are You Receiving Me?
27 The Galaxies IV: Piccadilly Circus
Mojo called White Noise’s 1969 album An Electric Storm one of the 50 most mind-blowing records of all time. I wouldn’t go quite that far, but the group’s often lighthearted, sometimes sexual, usually weird brand of space pop is a lot of fun and certainly pioneering for its time. White Noise is David Vorhaus, an American son of a black-listed Hollywood director who moved to Great Britain to avoid the Vietnam draft. While overseas, he studied classical music. Soon, his love of science was coupled with his growing fascination in electronic music. The result, which was released by Island Records, is this album, played on homemade equipment by a knob twiddler. The second tune, “Here Come the Fleas,” features collaborator Delia Derbyshire, a pioneer of British techno, on vocals. The song also, supposedly, features more tape-splice edits than the whole of Sgt. Pepper’s. There’s also some less poppy material on this album, but I excluded it from sample because it’s also the lengthier material.
White Noise — “Firebird”
White Noise — “Here Come the Fleas”
So, lots of people this weekend were attending a different music fest than me. While I caught Dan Deacon, Monotonix, and Black Mountain at the Pygmalion Fest, plenty of other peeps saw a far more incredible lineup featuring Polvo, Yo La Tengo, Shellac, Lilys, Mercury Rev, Built to Spill, Tortoise, and headliners My Bloody Valentine at All Tomorrow’s Parties (New York). Talk about a college homecoming weekend: Tortoise performed Millions Now Living… and BTSpill peformed Perfect from Now On. Some “newer” bands that I would have enjoyed seeing were also there, including The Drones and Wooden Shjips. The fest was curated by My Bloody Valentine and of course marks the highlight of the band’s long-awaited summer reunion tour. It’s hard not to feel a wee bit nostalgic for my younger days. Even though I don’t spend a considerable amount of time listening to any of the above mentioned bands anymore, each remains a vibrant part of the fabric of my musical past. In a way, I don’t need to listen to MBV too often, because their distinct music is likely forever lodged in my cranium.
Did you know they took their name from this early-’80s slasher film?
And that is the magic of live music. Monotonix, from Israel, put on a hell of a show. Until this, the strangest live band I had ever seen was probably U.S. Maple. Well, these boys from Tel Aviv blew them away.
Filed under: cold blooded old times, compilations, music | Tags: garage rock
The Druids of Stonehenge — do they make the cut?
Ever since my freshman year of high school I’ve been on a quest to create my own personal “best of rock” compilation. My first attempt came on the heels of inheriting my older brothers’ record collections, which meant I finally had access to the catalogs of The Police, Dire Straits, and Led Zep. In response to what at the time seemed like a somewhat comprehensive influx of rock music into my collection, I tried to compile a list of the Top 500 All-Time Rock Songs, a concept that is utterly silly for even the Christgaus of the world. I had to have a recorded version of this list, which meant that I had to of course own the songs I was selecting. That meant an awkward, incredibly limited hodgepodge of mainstream rock crap, from then-current radio staples like Extreme and Bon Jovi to AC/DC, from old Aerosmith to “new” Aerosmith. Luckily, time has swallowed both the list and the 15 or so cassette tapes that made up the compilation. But time has not taken away my desire to chronicle my tastes.
Nowadays that urge manifests itself in fun, sometimes clever compilations (like the Songs About Girls 3CD mix) or end-of-the-year Best of CDs. But as of late I’ve been kicking the tires on another overwhelmingly ambitious project, a 100-song, four CD mix of my personal fave “garage rock” songs from pre-1970. I haven’t actually began to seriously research the mix, but I’m certain that it would be much more significant than a combination of the two Nuggets boxes. Otherwise, what would be the point?
While the comp would no doubt frustrate me to no end, it would nonetheless be a challenging project that I’m sure would feel dated to me the minute I completed it (hopefully far less so than the Top 500 comp of 18 years ago, though; just a year after compiling that list I discovered the Chili Peppers and my world tilted on its axis). The frustrations for the garage rock comp would come as a result of being limited to just 100 songs. To most, I’m sure that seems like a lot of room to maneuver, but I’ve got so many records that feature garage rock from around the globe — not to mention like 20 volumes of the Rubble series and countless other garage series comps — that I could easily do a USA and non-USA Top 100 (a la the Nuggets model). I don’t want to do that, however; I want to force myself to make stupid decisions, to narrow down my favorite Druids of Stonehenge songs from three to the one that could make the cut, or to mandate that no more than three Kinks songs can make the list. Then, after deciding which 100 songs cut the rug, I’d have to actually order them 100 down to 1. That process on its own could take me a month.
My question to you is, “Am I crazy?” Would you actually listen to a 100-song comp of my fave garage rockers? I mean, do you even ever listen to Nuggets, assuming you own it? And does it sound largely obvious and deficient to you, as it does to me? Give me some direction here folks.
I spent Thursday afternoon on the beach near Michigan City, Indiana, listening to the mellow, sunny psychedelic folk of Linda Perhacs. Occassionally I’d catch a glimpse of an east-bound airplane departing Chicago. But mostly, the view was this …
… which was perfect for listening to Perhacs sing of parallelograms and dolphins. I had the beach almost entirely to myself, and I have the photos to prove it.
Mt. Baldy, which at 123 feet tall is the largest dune on Lake Michigan, kept me company.
Here’s Jens at the kick off of last October’s American tour in Bloomington, Indiana. (I was there. I love how he stops the song midway through, then picks it back up.)
Here’s a nice variation on the theme.
On another note, I was listening to WPGU today while running some errands, and they played my favorite song off Clinic’s Internal Wrangler album. The station is starting to consistently get it right with their backlist playlist. Their frontlist isn’t too shabby either. Yesterday I heard them play the Fleet Foxes and The Clientele. Of course, they followed Fleet Foxes with Depeche Mode’s “People Are People,” which the DJ, probably a 19 year-old, called Dee-Petch-ee Mode. Oh, just please stop opening your mouths already!
When the work Halloween party was still a well attended event.
L-R: Heavy metal drummer (me), scary dude (Kipp actually startled the young children at the party), Kobe Bryant (Noah, his “mistress” is not pictured).
M says that records are popular again. I guess I would call records “trendy” before I’d generalize them as “popular.” Fifteen years ago I could walk into two or three new record stores in Peoria and buy 45s pressed by tiny indie labels supporting obscure rock bands. That’s not the case nowadays. But LPs are once again a sign of hipness. Still, this cover to Dell’s recent catalog — which M received in the mail — surprised the hell out of me and got me wondering, “Just who is Dell’s desired demographic?”
This page inside the catalog didn’t exactly clarify things for me.
The Noiseboy Online 