The Choir - Choir Practice

The Choir was a garage rock band largely active in the greater Cleveland area from the mid 1960s into the early 1970s. Originally called The Mods, their largest commercial success came with the release of their first single "It's Cold Outside" in December 1966. The song, considered by many to be a classic of the garage rock era, was featured on Pebbles, Volume 2, one of the earlier garage rock compilation LPs (issued in 1979). The flipside, "I'm Going Home" was included as a bonus track when the Pebbles album was reissued as a CD, and it can also be found on a garage rock compilation LP on Ohio bands, Highs in the Mid-Sixties, Volume 9. The Choir is well known for containing three of the four original members of Raspberries (all except lead singer Eric Carmen).

The first bandleader of The Choir, Dann Klawon (also called Dan Klawon or Danny Klawon) discovered Beatlemania in late 1963 before most of his peers, since a girl he knew had been to England and brought back a copy of the Beatles' first single, "Love Me Do" and one of their early albums (probably With the Beatles) before their release in the U.S.^[1] Within months, he had organized a band with three of his friends who all attended Mentor High School in Mentor, Ohio. Dann Klawon began as the drummer for the band, Dave Smalley and Dan Heckel were the guitarists, and Tom Boles served as lead singer. (Randy Klawon, Dann's brother, did not officially join the band until 1968; but he filled in on drums for one concert in 1966 when he was just 14).^[2] They called themselves The Mods, and again, Klawon was ahead of his time: although Mod was established in England by the late 1950s, the British band that is most often identified as "mod" in the U.S. is The Who, which was formed in the same year as The Mods.
Soon, The Choir had subtracted Heckel and Boles and added Dave Burke on bass, Wally Bryson on guitar, and Jim Bonfanti on drums; while Klawon moved to the rhythm guitar post. Klawon recalls: So we began playing songs by the Beatles, the Who, Stones, Zombies, Troggs, and Moody Blues. If they were from England, we played it. We had this song list that was unbelievable... And everybody alternated instruments, depending on what song. We'd have that written on [index] cards, as to who played what on what song.^[2]
In the summer of 1966, the band traveled to Chicago, where they recorded their first single with "It's Cold Outside" (written by bandleader Dann Klawon) on the "A" side, which was originally released on Canadian-American Records.^[3] According to Klawon: I used to write quite a bit then, and one day I was thinking of some sort of theme to use with the moon/spoon, boy/girl lyrics. I decided to go with a weather analogy.^[2] While there, they discovered that a Chicago band called The Modernaires had shortened their name to The Mods, so they renamed themselves The Choir.^[2][3] The song was hugely popular in Cleveland and topped the Cleveland charts for six weeks; the song did quite well throughout the Midwest, particularly after the re-release of the single on Roulette Records in early 1967. By the spring of 1967, "It's Cold Outside" peaked at #68 on the Billboard Charts and at #55 on the Cash Box charts, and it even made the CHUM Charts in Toronto, Canada.
Not long after the single was recorded, however, Dann Klawon and Dave Burke left the band; and a succession of line-up changes ensued. Ironically, considering that he would later front the Raspberries with three core members of the band, Eric Carmen's audition to join The Choir did not go well; Kenny Margolis was selected instead.^[4] Carmen had been a major fan in the band's early years and was hurt by the rejection; not long after he joined Cyrus Erie, Carmen lured former Choir guitarist Wally Bryson to his new band, and they soon eclipsed The Choir as the most popular local band.^[4] The band's second and third singles did not have the same success as their first, and in the spring of 1968, The Choir disbanded.^[4]
The Choir reformed in late 1968 – for the second time, with the bandleader also being the drummer (Jim Bonfanti) – and regained much of their earlier popularity in the local scene. According to Denny Carleton: The new Choir's repertoire encompassed jazz, R&B, ballads and classical rock, and about 20 original songs. The group had an unusual keyboard-dominated sound, sometimes even using three keyboards on songs like "MacArthur Park" and Traffic's "Colored Rain". While other bands were simply performing standard tunes by The Beatles, Stones and Who, etc., The Choir was attempting projects of some magnitude, like taking "MacArthur Park", which was written for full orchestra, and rearranging it for three keyboards, bass, drums and guitar, or performing a 7-minute concerto with four time changes.^[3]
In 1969, the band returned to the studio and recorded a planned album that had a more psychedelic flavor, with eight original songs and a cover of a song by the Kinks. The tape was shipped to several different record labels without success.^[3] After releasing a final unsuccessful single on Intrepid Records in 1970 – including a cover of a song by the Easybeats as the "A" side, "Gonna Have a Good Time Tonight" (which was a hit song for INXS many years later) – the band broke up for good. (Wiki)

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The Music Machine - The Ultimate Turn On

 

The Music Machine's "Talk Talk" is one of the epochal moments in '60s garage rock, two minutes of killer fuzztone guitar, roaring organ, stop-on-a-dime bass and percussion, and the angry, frustrated bellow of Sean Bonniwell as he details the myriad ways in which his life stinks. On the surface, "Talk Talk" isn't that far removed from what the Standells, the Chocolate Watch Band, or the Seeds were doing at the time, but there was a precision in the Music Machine's performance that few of their peers could match, and even in a genre that encouraged lyrical and vocal melodrama, Bonniwell was tapping into something deeper, darker, and spookier than other bands of the day. And the group's matching black outfits, complete with a single black glove on the right hand, made them look as dramatic and threatening as they sounded. The Music Machine might have become one of major acts of the garage era if they'd lasted longer, but the group's original lineup was together for less than 18 months, leaving behind just one album and a pair of non-LP singles before most of the band split and the act evolved into Bonniwell's Music Machine (who released an uneven album for Warner Brothers). Many garage rock obsessives champion the debut album, (Turn On) The Music Machine, as one of the overlooked masterworks of the genre, and the British Big Beat label have paid homage to the LP with The Ultimate Turn On, a definitive study of the group's brief golden era. The Ultimate Turn On features the entirety of (Turn On) The Music Machine in both its stereo and mono mixes (the latter sounding noticeably more powerful), as well as both sides of the two non-LP singles, but that's not all. Along with the Music Machine's entire recorded output for Original Sound Records, this set includes a second disc featuring rehearsal tapes, demo recordings, and alternate mixes, offering an intriguing picture of how the Music Machine's original songs evolved and what their second album might have been like if they'd stayed in their original form long enough to record it. While Bonniwell's songs -- which snarl in a literate fashion and openly wear their social and psychological viewpoints on their sleeve -- are often cited as the Music Machine's secret weapon, the rough rehearsal tapes demonstrate what a solid and capable band he had, and the wealth of original material on disc two makes the presence of five covers on Ultimate Turn On seem like a wasted opportunity. The extensive liner notes by Alec Palao and video clips (playable on a personal computer) of the band performing on the television show Boss City are icing on a very satisfying cake. The Ultimate Turn On is the ultimate Music Machine collection, an exhaustive portrait of a band considerably more fascinating than their sole hit single would lead you to expect.  -AMG

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Maybe Tonight - Weird Past FREE ALBUM DOWNLOAD

 

They say that the best things in life are free, well, Maybe Tonight proves that is just the case, the bands blend of infectious Power Pop driven with great choppy guitars, beautiful vocals and a driving beat are simply uplifting and bring a smile to the listeners face and what is more they are giving their album away for free, so the best things in life really are free!

I know very little about this band, other than that they hail from Madrid in Spain, a country that is throwing some brilliant Power Pop bands out there and Maybe Tonight are in the driving seat here with Weird Past.  I have befriended them on Facebook and suggest that you do the same and don't miss a beat from the heart of this band.

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The Rockin' Vickers - The Complete It's Alright!

 

A competently energetic but relatively faceless British mid-'60s band, the Rockin' Vickers are mostly remembered today because the guitarist for the bulk of their recording career was Ian Willis, who would eventually gain international fame as Lemmy with Hawkwind and Motörhead. The Blackpool band were still Lemmy-less when they made their debut in 1964 with a supremely raunchy version of Neil Sedaka's "I Go Ape," which was anthologized in the '70s on Hard-Up Heroes, the British equivalent of Nuggets. They'd only record three other singles, all of which had Lemmy aboard on guitar. Although capable of generating respectably raunchy, modish heat, they had nothing in the way of original material. Their third single, interestingly, was a version of a Pete Townshend song called "It's Alright," which sounds like a prototype for the much superior "The Kids Are Alright" (although, puzzlingly, The Who had already released "The Kids Are Alright" by the time the Rockin' Vickers' "It's Alright" appeared in March 1966). Who producer Shel Talmy liked the band and produced their final 45, a cover of The Kinks "Dandy," which actually made number 93 in the States (where it was far outpaced by Hermans Hermits version) before the Vickers split in 1967.

(~allmusic) by Richie Unterberger

The Rockin' Vickers a.k.a. 'The Rockin' Vicars' (or 'The Wild Ones') was a notorious rock'n'roll group from Blackpool, England, whose first record "I Go Ape" was released on Decca in 1964. The Rockin' Vicars had a reputation of a wild and unexpected live band, which they strenghtened by using the priest costumes and dog collars as their stage outfit. However, after visiting in Northern Finland in the mid 1960s, they got the new idea of wearing Lappish national costumes, which no doubt looked even wilder in Britain.

The Rockin' Vickers is also remembered as being one of the first British groups to perform behind the Iron Curtain, when they toured in Yugoslavia in July 1965 as part of a cultural exchange with the Red Army Youth Orchestra. In november 1965, the group was ready to conquer Finland as well. Besides touring here as Rev. Black & the Rockin' Vickers (mostly in Northern Finland), they also appeared at the recording studio, where they cut altogether 8 songs, including "Stella" and "Zing! Went The Strings Of My Heart", which were released by Decca of Finland in early 1966, and leased later to Decca of Ireland.

Only a month after the first trip, they toured again around the Southern Finland (towns of Hämeenlinna, Helsinki, Lahti and Turku). At this point they were calling themselves just The Rockin' Vickers, and the line-up consisted of Harry "Reverend Black" Feeney, Nicholas Gribbon, Stephen Morris, Ciggy Shaw and Ian Holbrook. It was unclear, when Ian Fraiser Willis alias Lemmy Kilmister (ex-Rainmakers/Motown Sect), the most famous member (and the son of a vicar!) joined the group. He might have been in the band already during the first Finnish tour, which would mean that he also appears on the Finnish Decca single. However, all the written sources published in Finland during these tours allude to another guitarist Nicholas Gribbon, a steady member of the group until late 1965. In any case, when the Vickers recorded their last recordings (including Pete Townsend-song "It's Alright" and Ray Davies-song "Dandy") in 1966 for CBS, the guitarist was unquestionably Lemmy. In December 1967, The Rockin' Vickers did their last tour in Finland, and quite soon after the group broke up. Lemmy continued working with (Sam) Gopal's Dream, Opal Butterfly, Hawkwind and Motorhead, and Ciggy Shaw for instance with Soloman King. Steve Wilks and Jeff Carter who were one of the last members to join the group, still play in a band called Manitou with another Blackpool music veteran Pete Gurney. Nicholas Gribbon has maintained some music activities as well, and plays nowadays with his band Nick Unlimited. Nod Turner who was also in the Vickers lives on the isle of Man, and Harry Feeney has a large local main dealership for cars.
 

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Thee Dirtybeats FREE ALBUM DOWNLOAD

 

 

THEE DIRTYBEATS (Chapel Hill NC) specialize in aggressive, maximally fuzzed-out vintage garage rock from the 60s, the sound that inspired early proto-punk pioneers like the MC5 and the Stooges. 

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The Small Faces - There are but four Small Faces

Today would have been Steve Marriots 65th birthday, to celebrate the event I am posting one of the bands finest albums, There are but four Small Faces.

Small Faces' first album for Andrew Loog Oldham's Immediate label originally appeared in two different forms in England (where it was known as Small Faces) and America, and the two song lineups have been combined on an early-'90s American Sony Music reissue: There Are But Four Small Faces. The music here is much more fully developed and experimental than their preceding album, still largely R&B-based (apart from the delightfully trippy "Itchycoo Park," the band's sole American hit) but with lots of unusual sounds and recording techniques being attempted.  - AMG

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Paul Bertolino - Bandmaster Flash. FREE ALBUM DOWNLOAD

 

Paul Bertolino is a behind-the-scenes musician's musician from Berkeley, California... a short-list Bay Area session player who has done time fronting one of San Francisco's toughest garage-soul outfits The Sleaves, and is currently playing drums for major label breakout band Persephone's Bees.
Paul draws from a well that incorporates the toughest 60s jangle-rock, the softest 70's a.m. gold, and maybe even a pinch of Radio Shack synth swagger. Almost in spite of that it's laid back, California songwriting so solid and proprietary that it refuses to be picked apart into it's base elements...try as you might. This is the stuff that will make up the Nuggets Boxes of the future, so why wait? Come feel the love. - Paul Koehler 

FREE DOWNLOAD HERE: BANDCAMP

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