Recent Recommendations: N.V.Groep 65, Edgar Broughton, Lloyd Miller and more Kompakt
First off, three current youtube favourites:
The Poets, from Shindig, doing Now We’re Thru – one of the very strangest records to hit the Top 30, in an era of strange records: dig those ruffles.
For more, read George Gallagher in the second volume of Andrew Loog Oldham’s excellent biography, 2 Stoned.
John Lennon, who knew a thing or two about oddity, pronounced Now We’re Thru fucking weird
. The clip also reminds us of a period when real-life hard men were not afraid to dress up like ponces, pansies and such estimable members of society. The next clip is vintage Buddy Holly, from a US TV show called Arthur Murray Dance Party, December 29th 1957. I’ve been immersing myself in the brand new, career-spanning Not Fade Away 6xCD box – which is totally riveting – and so it’s great to see one of the very few clips of Holly and the three man Crickets in action. Despite his tux and bow-tie, Holly can hardly restrain himself, in stark contrast to the stiff teens behind him:
The introduction is rather sweet, and Holly is perfectly poised between charm, unrestrained motion, and a tiny hint of menace – if not actual punk attitude in such a setting. The final cut is from 1968, and it’s the Easybeats on German TV, Beat Club, nailing what should have been the follow-up to Friday On My Mind, Good Times. A great song – the primal R’N R spirit updated – and a beyond committed performance from singer Stevie Wright (and it is Steve Marriott you can hear on backing vocals, on the original record):
Rock’n roll: it makes you do the chicken, it makes you do the stroll. OK some 45’s now, as I like nothing better than to play these out: all these are from the 1960s, found at the Utrecht Record Fair. The first is by Dutch gods N.V.Groep 65, who released two deranged singles in 1966. This is their first, Dank Zij De Heer (thanks to the Lord) – a bizarre and scandalous Gregorian chant – backed with Tanger, a simple ode to the pleasures of ‘wietjies’ (joints). The band split up in 1966, partly due to escalating drug use of singer and writer Warnar Landkroon (a/k/a Jesus). The full story can be found in the recent Grey Past 10” EP that contains everything the group recorded.
Another find was a 1967 single by Q65 who, in their original incarnation, released a string of tough freakbeat/ punk 45’s and a terrific album (Revolution) during 1966. It Came To Me is a monstrous rocker, constructed around a driving riff, that builds and builds. It’s on their recent RPM compilation, The Complete Collection.
Also from 1967 is the first single by the revamped and relaunched Fortunes. The Idol was heavily promoted on Radio Caroline that summer, and with its spacey introduction, ear-catching hooks and breathy finale, adds extra spice to a lyric about the loneliness of the long-distance pop star: ‘I can walk on fitted carpets, I can swim down at my pool, I can throw expensive parties, yes afford to be the fool’. Fitted carpets?
A fantastic break that was also released in 1967 is Syl Johnson’s Different Strokes. A staple of various breaks albums (Ultimate Breaks and Beats, Super Breaks), it begins with a brilliant James Brown style grunt interspersed with the high moans of an ecstatic female. With a nod to the shing-a-ling and the funky broadway, Syl makes ‘so many ways to play’ sound like fantastic fun.
The last single is an epic by the Edgar Broughton Band from 1970. There were quite a few tribal rock beats at that time – beginning with Give Peace A Chance – but Out Demons Out is one of the greatest, with multiple applications. For its use in the 21st century, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sUxUsRuaXDo for a recent performance featuring Linder Sterling, dozens of local musicians and a very nervous dog, live at the Tate Gallery St Ives.
For some modern music, we go to CD’s still. No great complexity here, mostly electronica. More Kompakt, including Giu Boratto’s Take My Breath Away and the Total 10 2xCD compilation, featuring Boratto’s great re-mix of the Sam Taylor-Wood/ Pet Shop Boys’ version of I’m In Love With A German Film Star (in fact Roadent, but that’s another story) and DJ Koze’s latest wheeze, a track constructed around a tough tennis point, replete with the bonk bonk of the ball and female grunts, 40 Love. A couple of nu disco comps: Hibernation Vol. 1 on Bearfunk is really terrific, with a fake fur CD sleeve and plenty of those updated, high spacey disco sounds – including Greg Wilson’s version of Social Disco Club & Maia’s, The Way You Move. I heard Wilson’s own CD, Credit To The Edit Vol 2, playing in Les Hart’s Kingbee Records – quite possibly the best record store in the UK – and snapped it up. It has excellent extended versions of Love Is The Drug, Voodoo Ray and Dirty Talk in a very agreeable mix. Also recommended: the Feelies’ unregarded second album, 1986’s The Good Earth (reissued on Domino), songs that begin quietly and build to a surge; and most of all, to my surprise, the Jazzman collection of Lloyd Miller’s self-released music from the fifties and sixties, A Lifetime In Oriental Jazz – which becomes more and more oriental as you go through. Impressions of Bhairavi Raga indeed! Finally, Rick Tomlinson has morphed into Voice of the Seven Thunders, and, on tunes like Kommune and The Burning Mountain his forthcoming LP is liberally dosed with some great acid rock guitar. It’s out in February and is highly recommended.