The Milkshakes - Nothing Can Stop These Men - 1984

This UK, Chatham, Kent-based band were originally conceived in the late 70s by the Pop Rivets roadies Mickey Hampshire and Banana Bertie as Mickey And The Milkshakes. Often appearing on the same circuit as fellow Medway town bands the Dentists and the Prisoners, they performed as a "psychobilly" outfit, supporting the Pop Rivets from time to time with Wreckless Eric cover versions. Pop Rivets leader Billy Childish then began writing with Hampshire and in 1980 formed a new version of Mickey And The Milkshakes. Eventually settling on a line-up of Childish and Hampshire (guitars, vocals), Russ Wilkins (bass) and Bruce Brand (drums), they started recording a string of albums featuring various R&B classics plus original material. After the first album they truncated their name. Later on, when John Agnew replaced Wilkins, they began to refer to themselves as Thee Milkshakes. In addition to their normal activities of gigging and recording, they also acted as the backing band to an all-girl vocal trio called the Delmonas. As prolific releasers of album material, The(e) Milkshakes were only modestly successful with singles, achieving two UK Independent Top 20 hits with "Brand New Cadillac" (1984) and "Ambassadors Of Love" (1985). The band split in 1984 (although Milkshake material continued to be released long after), with Childish going on to form the equally productive Thee Mighty Caesars.

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HAPPY NEW YEAR

 

Very best wishes to all for 2012.

SUPERDRAG - REGRETFULLY YOURS

In the glut of grungy power pop bands that flooded the mid-'90s, it was pretty easy to write off Superdrag as "just another rock band." The difference is that Superdrag is essentially a pop band, as Regretfully Yours proves. While the band's sound itself is nothing terribly exciting, most of the songwriting lives up to the promise of the album's saccharine-rush single, "Sucked Out" -- full of hooks and tightly constructed. This is somewhat surprising, considering the album was the band's first for a major audience, and the norm of the time period was for producers and labels to reduce every rock band to a Seattle clone. Regretfully Yours will certainly satisfy the pop/rock and pop-punk crowds.

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The Seeds - A Web of Sound 1966

Web of Sound by the Seeds should be a garage rock classic. Everything about this record is superb '60s underground rock, from the cover concept (by band leader Sky Saxon) of the four musicians trapped in a spider's web to the back cover black and whites, and the bizzaro liner notes by producer Marcus Tybalt, who also penned a couple of tunes here. Unlike other albums by the Seeds, nothing on here sounds like their hit "Pushin' Too Hard," and that is a plus; not because that inverted Kinks riff isn't great -- it is, but Saxon had a penchant for trying to recapture that original butterfly. The six songs on side one are fun punk rock that helped inspire the new wave of the late '70s. But it is side two, with its four-minute "Just Let Go" and the fuzz pop of Saxon's "Up in Her Room," that cuts across '60s boundaries. Where "In a Gadda Da Vida" needed more melody and lyrics and Rare Earth's long version of "Get Ready" has too much drum solo, the Seeds take Van Morrison's then-censored Them hit, "Gloria," and kind of explain what happens once Saxon gets her up there, "making love in her room." The keyboards and Rolling Stones-wannabe blues guitar build a nice foundation for the fuzztone that follows Saxon as he keeps repeating the title of the song. He seems to be parodying the Beau Brummels, the Shadows of Night, and Them, all who preceded the Seeds by a year or two. The funny thing is, although the riff to "Pushin' Too Hard" is missing from this album, the melody to "Up In Her Room" is "Pushin' Too Hard." "Up in Her Room" has a fabulous '60s organ like ? & the Mysterians, and exactly like the fuzz organ in the middle of the Velvet Underground's similar epic, "Sister Ray," even ending with the same vamp as "White Light/White Heat," the title track of the album where "Sister Ray" made her debut. Saxon was clearly aware of what other people were doing at the time and A Web of Sound stands as a superior garage rock effort. It is just too bad tunes like "The Farmer," "Just Let Go," and "Tripmaker" didn't have the Top 40 charm of, say, Paul Revere & the Raiders' "Just Like Me" or "Kicks." The inclusion of a hit on that scale would have opened up many minds to the lunacy of the Seeds' "Pictures and Designs," with Saxon's growl that Iggy Pop copped so wonderfully. By drawing from the elements that made Moulty & the Barbarians, the Leaves, and Them so charming, A Web of Sound gave direction to the Stooges, Alice Cooper, and other acts who took it all a few steps further. Saxon does it all with great flair here, aided and abetted by organ and guitar sounds in "I Tell Myself" that imitators have not been able to accurately duplicate.

(AMG)

Tracks
01 Mr. Farmer 2:58
02 Pictures and Designs 2:40
03 Tripmaker 2:40
04 I Tell Myself 2:25
05 A Faded Picture 5:14
06 Rollin' Machine 2:28
07 Just Let Go 4:04
08 Up in Her Room 14:27 

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THE ELECTRIC PRUNES: TOO MUCH TO DREAM LAST NIGHT. ORIGINAL GROUP RECORDINGS 66/67

For a band that scored two major hit singles in their first year as recording artists, the Electric Prunes were given precious little respect by their record label, Reprise Records; the group was allowed to perform a mere two original tunes on their debut album I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night), and when their second, Underground, didn't sell, they became glorified session men under composer and arranger David Axelrod on Mass in F Minor. When the Prunes couldn't play Axelrod's charts to his satisfaction, they were replaced by session men, and the original bandmembers weren't even invited to participate on two "Electric Prunes" albums later released by Reprise, Release of an Oath and Just Good Old Rock and Roll. Despite it all, the Electric Prunes' best work is still the stuff of legend among garage rock enthusiasts, and with good reason -- the freaked-out, fuzz-enhanced guitar lineup of Ken Williams, Jim Lowe and Weasel Spagnola created a wild and distinctive sound most of their peers would envy, and they fused the energy of the garage generation and the sonic experimentation of the burgeoning psychedelic scene with a skill few have matched before or since. Reprise finally gives the genuine Electric Prunes the tribute they deserve with Too Much to Dream -- Original Group Recordings: Reprise 1966-1967, a two-disc set that features the albums I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) and Underground in their entirety, as well as handful of non-LP singles, unreleased tracks and monophonic mixes. Disc one, featuring the debut album, is more enjoyable, featuring the group's biggest hits and most memorable tunes, but Underground suggests the real tragedy that the Prunes were not allowed to follow their own muse in the studio again -- the group sounds tighter, more creatively unified and more mature on Underground, and it's not hard to imagine they could have had several more fine albums in them if they'd had the chance to chart their own path. As it is, this set collects some superb and atypical '60s garage stuff, the bonus material is solid and intriguing if not always revelatory, Jim Lowe and Mark Tulin tell the band's story in the thick liner booklet, and the Prunes' famous radio ad for Vox wah-wah pedals even makes the cut. This is a first-rate anthology from a wildly underrated band, and folks with a jones for mid-'60s rock will want to find room for this in their collections.

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The Count Five - Psychotic Reaction (1966)

The Count Five was a 1960s garage rock band from San Jose, California, best known for their Top 10 single "Psychotic Reaction".
The band was founded in 1964 by John "Mouse" Michalski (born 1948, Cleveland, Ohio) (lead guitar) and Roy Chaney (born 1948, Indianapolis, Indiana) took over bass duties, two high school friends who had previously played in several short-lived outfits. After going shortly under the name The Squires, and several line-up changes later, the Count Five were born. John "Sean" Byrne (born 1947, Dublin, Ireland) played rhythm guitar and lead vocals, and Craig "Butch" Atkinson (born 1947, San Jose, California) played drums. The Count Five gained distinction for their habit of wearing Count Dracula-style capes when playing live.
"Psychotic Reaction", an acknowledged cornerstone of garage rock, was initially devised by Byrne, with the group refining it and turning it into the highlight of their live sets. The song was influenced by the style of contemporary musicians such as The Standells and The Yardbirds. The band members were rejected by several record labels before they got signed to the Los Angeles-based Double Shot Records. "Psychotic Reaction" was released as a single, peaking at #5 in the U.S. charts in late 1966. The band got along for about another year, but dropped out of view altogether when their only hit had fallen from public memory. Another setback to a potential career in the music business was the decision of the five members (who were between the ages of 17 and 19) to pursue college degrees.
By 1969, the Count Five had broken up, but their memory was immortalized in a 1972 essay by rock journalist Lester Bangs, entitled "Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung." In the essay, Bangs credited the band for having released several albums — Carburetor Dung, Cartesian Jetstream, Ancient Lace and Wrought-Iron Railings, and Snowflakes Falling On the International Dateline — that displayed an increasing sense of artistry and refinement. However, none of these albums actually existed, except in Bangs' own imagination.
The Count Five reunited only once, when they performed a concert in 1987 at a club in Santa Clara, California called "One Step Beyond". This performance has been released as Psychotic Reaction Live.
The song "Psychotic Reaction" can be heard playing on the jukebox in an early scene in Wim Wenders' film Alice in the Cities (1974).
Craig Atkinson died on October 13, 1998 and John "Sean" Byrne died on December 15, 2008. Roy Chaney formed a new band in the 1990s called The Count (with Byrne and drummer Rocco Astrella, who played in the last version of the original group). The Count released their debut CD, Can't Sleep, in 2002. In 2006 they were inaugurated as one of the first into the San Jose Rock Hall of Fame. (From Wikipedia)

01. Psychotic Reaction [Mono Version]
02. Double Decker Bus [Mono Version]
03. Pretty Big Mouth [Mono Version]
04. World [Mono Version]
05. My Generation [Mono Version]
06. She's Fine [Mono Version]
07. Peace of Mind [Mono Version]
08. They're Gonna Get You [Mono Version]
09. Morning After [Mono Version]
10. Can't Get Your Lovin' [Mono Version]
11. Out in the Street [Mono Version]
12. Move It Up [Mono Version]
13. So Much [Mono Version]
14. You Must Believe Me [Mono Version]
15. Teeny Bopper, Teeny Bopper [Stereo]
16. Contrast [Stereo]
17. Merry-Go-Round [Mono Version]
18. Revelation in Slow Motion [Mono Version]
19. Declaration of Independence [Mono Version]
20. Enchanted Flowers [Mono Version]
21. Mailman [Stereo]
22. Contrast [Mono Version Demo Version]
23. People Hear What I Say [Mono Version]
24. Psychotic Reaction [Mono Version]

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Chocolate Watch Band - No Way Out (1967) With Bonus

 

The Chocolate Watchband, was a psychedelic rock and garage rock band formed in San Jose, California in 1965.^[1] The band had finally broken up indefinitely by 1970 but then reunited in 1999 at a 66/99 show Mike Stax organized in San Diego. They continue to play today at garage rock shows in Europe as well as the States with Little Steven and the Electric Prunes. The band's music was largely described as a blend of 1960s-style garage rock with a distinguishable rolling San Francisco Sound. The group's early music appeared to contain blues influences, and later it developed psychedelic elements through use of instrumental experimentation. Ed Cobb was well-known as their producer. The band also appeared in the 1967 film Riot on Sunset Strip and the 1968 film "The Love Ins".

1. Let's Talk About Girls

2. In the Midnight Hour

3. Come On

4. Dark Side of the Mushroom

5. Hot Dusty Roads

6. Are You Gonna Be There (At the Love-In)

7. Gone and Passes By

8. No Way Out

9. Expo 2000

10. Gossamer Wings

11. Sweet Your Thing

12. Baby Blue

13. Misty Lane

14. She Weaves A Tender Trap

15. Milk Cow Blues

16. Don't Let The Sun Catch You Crying

17. Since You Broke My Heart

18. Misty Lane (Alternative Take)

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