The Masonics - Royal & Ancient - 2007

This LP, Royal and Ancient, is a mix of surf attitude, a fondness for '60s Britbeat before everyone's hair started toward the collar and garage punk dumbness. Now, don't take dumbness as a diss... some of the greatest records ever made have been dumb or made by dummies. So what kinda dolt-jolt is this? You dig Leave My Kitten Alone? Gone wild to early Kinks rekkids? Well, you're gonna git down to this LP for sure.

Do Thee Headcoats, The Milkshakes, The Clique,The Delmonas, The Kaisers or The Wildebeests mean anything to you? Well, the members The Masonics all served time in at least one of those bands. If you loved 'em, then you could probably argue that The Masonics are a supergroup of the Brit rock'n'roll scene. Either way, these cats have cut some serious stone. LP opener, Don't Talk To Me is a frazzled rabble-rouser which ticks ALL the right boxes. At times, it sounds like it's about to fall down drunk... but between... man, it's tighter than Booker T & The MGs.

The band switch between sweaty beat club to torch-song... garage torch-song I should add... there's no Celine or Whitney influence here... unless, by some fluke they've all had childhood sweethearts by the same name. Either way, Chicken Bomb, Shig-Shag, Call Me Deceiver all do exactly what they say on the tin. I've been lucky enough to have been given the long-player on both CD and vinyl, and to be honest, the vinyl pressing is a lot tougher. Maybe it's just the format... but if you wanna get the most outta this cut, then The Masonics 12 incher needs to find a home between your sleeves.

Get it: HERE

TALCUM SOUL - VARIOUS ARTISTS

If you didn't dance enough last night, dance a little more today with this fine collection of soul classics!

Get it: HERE

1. Seven Days Too Long - Chuck Woods
2. A Lil' Lovin' Sometimes - Alexander Patton
3. Dr. Love - Bobby Sheen
4. Breakout - Mitch Ryder & The Detroit Wheels
5. Fortune Teller - Benny Spellman
6. Looking For You - Garnet Mimms
7. One More Hurt - Marjorie Black
8. What's Wrong With Me Baby - The Invitations
9. Ready, Willing And Able - Jimmy Holiday & Clydie King
10. End Of Our Love - Nancy Wilson
11. Love And Desire - Patrice Holloway
12. Better Use Your Head - Little Anthony & The Imperials
13. Dance, Dance, Dance - The Casualeers
14. What Can I Do? - Billy Prophet
15. Condition Red - Baltimore & Ohio Marching Band
16. She Blew A Good Thing - The Poets
17. As Long As I Have You - Garnet Mimms
18. Ski-ing In The Snow - The Invitations
19. Working On Your Case - The O'Jays
20. Love In My Heart - The Entertainers
21. If You Go - Derek Martin
22. I'll Do Anything - Doris Troy
23. Lipstick Traces (On A Cigarette) - The O'Jays
24. Don't - Marva Josie
25. You're My Everything - Little Jerry Williams
26. The Drifter - Ray Pollard

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.

Get It: HERE

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.

Get it: HERE

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 

Get It:  HERE

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.

Get it: HERE