FUZZBOX MELTDOWN: Episode # 1

Ok, new feature here, but a pretty simple concept to grasp. Lately I’ve been listening to an absolute TON of garage/psych compilations, pursuing an increasingly obsessive dream of becoming familiar which each and every single genuinely wild n’ tripped out ‘60s gem amid the masses of entirely unremarkable obscurities that cackling collectors and compilers seem to rejoice in flooding the world with via a seemingly endless stream of outrageously packaged, randomly assembled compilations.

Perhaps they do this in order to satisfy some quasi-sadistic urge to inflict some of the same “needle in a haystack” style hard labour upon the casual listening public that they themselves have suffered through a lifetime of stockpiling warped garage-sale 45s, bidding outrageous sums for unheard acetate obscurities at record fairs and so on. Or maybe they just realize they’ll make more cash to keep their own excavation/reissue operations going if they release 17 volumes of “Blinding Yellow Bicycle Rings: Prime Scandinavian Pop-Sike Fizz 1968-72” than if they behave like sensible human beings and cut it down to, say, three good ones.

Either way, getting the most out of this particular musical infatuation inevitably involves breaking out the machete and cutting through some serious sugar-coated undergrowth to get to the good stuff. So to make things a bit more interesting, I’m going to throw on a compilation disc for the first time, and throw down my thoughts into MS Word as I listen, so that you can, um, take the journey with me so to speak. Be warned: it might get ugly, it might get geeky, but it might just be… amazing.

So, starting in relatively shallow waters, we shall begin, for no particular reason, with Disc Three of Rhino’s Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond: 1965 – 69 box-set. Let’s go!

1. Cuby & The Blizzards - Your Body Not Your Soul
I think I saw a picture of these guys on the internet somewhere; they looked pretty gnarly. This record is a fairly ok fuzz-garage stomper; “I want your body baby / I don’t want your soul!” Nice one Cuby, that’s sure to win her over.
2. The Twilights - Cathy, Come Home
Hmm… don’t like this much at all. Sounds like a sugary, low-budget British studio-bound affair.
3. Les Fleur De Lys - Circles
This is a fairly rockin’ bit of British fare. Fleur De Lys did quite a few good tunes within that whole Shel Talmy mod/psych crossover thing. This is a Who cover, and I think I actually like it better than their version (better vocalist), although it’s no “Can’t Explain” or “Substitute” obviously.
4. The Matadors - Get Down From The Tree
The Matadors huh? I wonder where these guys were from… would be dumb of me to assume Spain, but wherever they call home, these guys have a definite Latin-imitating –American thing in the vocals. Good octopus-drummin’ freakbeat stomper anyway – I could do the twist to this, except where it goes all slow at the end…hmm.
5. Q65 - Cry In The Night
Ho yeah! Q65! This is more like it! Holland’s premier garage-punk nutters with another short, sharp blast of straight-up r’n’b/punk. Rough-ass production, really ragged, energetic playing, great lyrics, good tune and good times all round! Party on, Q65!
6. Los Chijuas - Changing The Colors Of Life
Los Chijuas..? From a Spanish-speaking country I’m assuming..? Mexico at a guess? But, I mean, “Les Fleur De Lys” are English, so who knows. Great Standells-esque organ-driven sound here anyway, but with far more melodic vocals. I’m sure this would go down a storm on any '60s-focused dancefloor – it’s got a real nice swing to it.
7. The Bluestars - Social End Product
Man, this is fucking furious!! – Totally vicious, juvenile delinquent ranting song in the vein of The Seeds or The Lyrics ‘So What?’, but with totally harsh, headbanging instrumental bludgeoning, ala The Sparkles ‘No Friend of Mine’; “I cop a label as an angry young man / because I don’t fit into the masterplan / Under society’s microscope / I may look funny, but it’s no joke!” The next time some sausagehead starts insisting punk rock began in the ‘70s, whack this one on for them. Seriously, replace the organ with another guitar, make the beat about 50% less ‘oom-pah’ and this could be, like, The Dead Boys or The Exploited or something. Plus the singer makes with a great kinda leaking-gas-pipe “ssssssssss” noise throughout, and that always gets me excited. Best song on this comp so far!
8. The Syndicate - Crawdaddy Simone
This is pretty great too – sounds like it should be a John Lee Hooker style tough-boogie number, but the band have this kinda noisy, arrhythmic, proto-industrial thing going on that completely murders the blues. Plus some seriously damaged no wave guitarwork! It seems the Simone of the title isn’t the hot chick one might expect, but actually some mysterious, menacing cat ala Roy Orbison’s “Domino”. Holy shit, that’s the most cracked solo I’ve heard in months! Great, unusual, sleazy un-groove going on here and… oh my god, culminates in a load of just totally out-there atonal, space noise! Magnificent!
9. The Sound Magics - Don't You Remember?
I listened to this about 30 seconds ago and can’t think of a damned thing to say about it, so… yeah, guess I don’t. Has a kind of a melodramatic, slightly Latin-tinged thing going on.
10. The Guess Who - It's My Pride
Sounds much like you’d expect an early Guess Who single to I suppose – a boozy, leery Doors knock-off, somewhat in the spirit of a fat man on LSD being pushed down some stairs. Pretty solid stuff maybe, but, sorry folks, The Guess Who have never really floated my boat.
11. The Open Mind - Magic Potion
Nice ‘Magic Bus’ era Who stylings here, with a classic ‘we don’t actually know anything about drugs, but doing a thinly-veiled song about ‘em seems to be the done thing’ lyrics. Occasional outbreaks of Ron Ashton-worthy distortion/wah-wah abuse are the highlight for me.
12. The Missing Links - You're Driving Me Insane
The Missing Links have a reputation as Australia’s wildest / most notorious ‘60s group, and on the basis of this barely coherent chunk of sexually frustrated menace, I can believe it. The guitarist flings around some huge, Townshend-esque windmilling licks before launching into a totally ripping skronk solo that don’t give a damn for nobody, whilst the rhythm section sound like they are actually being physically attacked – maybe by the singer? – as they valiantly try to keep time. “When you kiss my lips / you’re driving me insane!!”; I have a feeling the citizens of Melbourne or wherever would have slept a lot safer at night if these guys’ girlfriends had loosened up a little and just, y’know, seen to their needs once in a while.
13. The Jury - Who Dat?
More knuckleheaded freakbeat raunch for us here, with real levels-in-the-red compressed production. The guitarist just repeats the first six notes of the “Have Love Will Travel” riff ALL THE WAY THROUGH. I ask you! This one’s very ‘Back From The Grave’ I guess.
14. John's Children - A Midsummer's Night Scene
I fucking love John’s Children! They did loads of great stuff besides their all-time weird-rock classic ‘Desdemona’ (included on another disc of this box-set), and can always be relied upon for a good bit of totally OTT brit-psych freakout, with a sense of humour and enough of their mod roots intact to resist complete dissolution by the sugar-lumps-and-afternoon-tea brigade. Not to mention Marc Bolan popping in to do his whole rock n’ roll gnome thing every now and then. Anyway, this one’s a great slab of thugs-takin’-acid Summer Of Love euphoria – “..In the park/getting dark/eating the heat/there’s an eye/in the sky/ melting your feet..”. As usual it sounds like they were going bonkers in the studio, with insane reverb, looped, echoed vocal chants, reversed bits, random noises, boinging trampoline guitar notes… you name it.
15. The Sands - Listen To The Sky
More ambitious than your average Nugget, this starts out like a mid-period Beatles character song and builds into a soaring pop melodrama about a doomed Spitfire pilot that sounds SO SO SO like it should have been stuck in the middle of The Pretty Things ‘SF Sorrow’. Has an outro consisting of air-raid sirens and machine gun noises that just goes on and on and, hey wow, it wasn’t the outro after all, the song’s come back in for some more dynamic guitar action!
16. The Mockingbirds - How To Find A Lover
I suppose a good first step toward finding a lover might be to NOT spend all day talking jive about obscure trash-psychedelia records and then publishing the results on the internet, but sadly The Mockingbirds have no such down to earth advice to offer on this unremarkable bit of baroque-pop fluff, so I’ll just carry on.
17. The Idle Race - Days Of The Broken Arrows
Never really been a huge fan of The Idle Race, despite their high critical standing amongst fans of this-sort-of-thing. They’re more imaginative than most admittedly, but a bit…. irritating, no? This is one of their better tunes though, I guess. Pleasantly crazy, but y’know, early Floyd and Soft Machine existed at this point, so…. why would you, really?
18. The Elois - By My Side
‘The Elois’? I wonder where these guys were from? Pretty uneventful tune anyway, in the context of the whacked out fare on this disc at least. Meh.
19. The Factory - Path Through The Forest
Oh, now this is fantastic. A British psyche classic of the first order I reckon. Strips away all that stupid post-Sgt. Pepper gloop for a simple lesson is true, dark psychedelic romanticism; an urgent ‘chase-scene’ rhythm, a great, subtle vocal performance sounding like it’s being beamed in via a transistor radio and drifting shards of feedback guitar imitating owl-hooting, growls and sharpened knives. Wordlessly weird and ineffably fascinating and atmospheric, like the musical equivalent of emerging from technicolour brambles to see the sole light in the gable window a derelict Victorian parsonage silhouetted against depth-defying blue-black sky…. THIS is what it’s all about!
20. Episode 6 - Love Hate Revenge
Oh my god! Opening verse: “I bought a dog from an old bearded lady / I called it Tanya and it looks just like you / and although it might sound kind of crazy / I can make you feel anything I want you to” – GENIUS! Musically quite interesting, with a faint raga vibe and some “Mother’s Little Helper” sitar-y bits, but man, these lyrics are absolutely whacko! I’m really not sure how to best respond to an upbeat pop song about a guy who tortures a dog because he thinks the pain will be magically transferred to his ex-girlfriend. Kudos to whoever dug this one up, but, um, moving swiftly on…
21. The Status Quo - Pictures Of Matchstick Men
..AAGH! No denim or misguided ponytails in evidence in the early twee-psyche incarnation of The Quo of course, but on the basis of this their penchant for mind-numbing repetition of simplistic themes was already well-established. A lot of people seem to really dig this record. Gimme ‘Sweet Caroline’ any day.
22. The Voice - The Train To Disaster
Top drawer bit of flailing, chaotic fuzz-punk. The vocal melody is a bit weak, but makes up for it with great ‘Eve of Destruction’ style apocalyptic lyrics. Nice!
23. The (Australian) Playboys - Sad
I like the “(Australian)”. Do you think there was a lawsuit with some other Playboys from a different country? Musically this one’s a bit so-so anyway. If I’m interpreting the lyrics right, the singer appears to be in a deserted seaside town, looking for a guy named “Sad”, which is an… odd lyrical theme.
24. The Slaves - Slave Time
Hmm, doesn’t have quite the same appeal as “MONK TIME!” does it? Don’t really know what the hell is supposed to be going on here, but it’s a bit fucking rubbish to be honest. I wonder if they dressed up as slaves or something? Who knows, who cares.
25. The Red Squares - You Can Be My Baby
More Who/Creation chops. Christ, the drummer’s going to get a hernia if he’s not careful!
26. Scrugg - I Wish I Was Five
‘Scrugg’? What kind of a name is that? – the kind of thing you call your band when you wish you were five presumably. Makes me wish I was 80 and listening to Ralph McTell, and that all this horrid electrified madness would just GO AWAY.
27. The Downliners Sect - Glendora
Ah, let’s end things on a high-note! Hopefully The Downliners Sect need no introduction, neither as primo Billy Childish inspirations nor as one of Britain’s rawest, most eccentric and generally bestest ‘60s bands. ‘Glendora’ isn’t anywhere near my favourite song by them, but I guess it’s fuzz/tremolo guitar and funny, psyched out lyrics render it more in the Nuggets spirit than their more characteristic blues and country rave-ups. Great, untutored girly backing vocals too! Cracking!

WHAT WE HAVE LEARNED:

1.Generally speaking, this disc reinforces my belief that whilst European bands in the ‘60s were more imaginative and open-minded than their American counterparts, particularly in regards to production values and guitar pyrotechnics, they were nevertheless * less rocking * in an indefinable but very important sense.

2.The Who have got a lot to answer for.

3. Ten of the tracks here are over three minutes! They’d never have stood for it in the States, I tell you. Bloody Beatles.

4. My head hurts and NO WAY do I want to hear any fuzz guitar or vox organ for…ooh, at least 12 hours.

TOP 3 TRACKS:

1. The Factory – Path Through The Forest
2. The Bluestars – Social End Product
3. The Syndicate – Crawdaddy Simone

(If you’re thus inclined, buy Nuggets II: Original Artyfacts From The British Empire And Beyond here.)

Labels: 1960s, fuzzbox meltdown, Nuggets, Psychedelia