I love compilation CDs of impossibly obscure, great old singles. These compilations allow a cheapskate geek like me to own hundreds and hundreds of ultra – cool songs without having to waste the money and time that collector geeks spend to score the original old records.
In the area of 60’s rock ‘n’ roll, the Nuggets and Pebbles series get the lion’s share of critical attention. Every Pebbles disc has at least three or four mind blowing classics, and the first two Nuggets boxes are sheer ambrosia. My favorite however, is the Back From The Grave series. While Pebbles and Nuggets intermix garage band trash (That’s a compliment!) with psychedelia*, folk rock* and full - blown pop music productions**, “Back From the Grave” never veers from pure, sinister, ultra primitive, demonic, garage band trash! Before the more common term “garage band rock ‘n’ roll” took over, this type of music was referred to as “60’s punk”, and these comps show the accuracy of that term! You won’t think for one second that any of these musicians are professionals or over the age of twenty at the most. (And that’s the way rock ‘n’ roll is supposed to be!!!) On the CDs there are five volumes, numbering 1 through 4, then skipping to #8. (There were eight original vinyl double - record volumes, the contents of which can fit into five digital discs, so apparently the fifth CD is listed as the “eighth” as a sign of completeness.) Each of these CDs contains between 29 & 32 songs!
These songs have to be heard to be believed, but I can’t resist trying to describe a few. On Volume One; “Jack the Ripper” by The One Way Streets, in which the singer is out in the slum after dark in the age of the Ripper murders. The song is something of a call and response, with the lead singing things like “Now I hear my mother calling me”, followed by the band shouting “Jack the Rippa! Jack the Rippa!”. He needn’t have worried – at the end of the song he realizes he is Jack the Ripper. The lyrics (but not the wild music) of “Surfside Date” by The Triumphs is a great, sarcastic fun – in – the- sun parody; “We’ll take a dip in the waves / Like sun – ripened surfside slaves / After that usual razzamatazz / I’ll take you home and all that jazz / We’ve had a surfside date!” When someone unearthed it years later, they assumed “The Crusher” by The Novas featured the TV wrestler The Crusher on lead vocals. However, it was really a 300 pound 16 year old boy imitating “the great athlete”. The lyrics go along the lines of, ”Do the hammer lock, Do the hammer lock, Do the hammer lock you turkey - necks, everybody do it now. ROAR!!! Do the eye gouge, Do the eye gouge, Do the eye gouge you turkey necks etc.)
Volume Two is just as great – among the many highlight is “Willie the Wild One” by Willie the Wild One. According to the song, the guy drives a motor cycle and has long purple hair. After singing the verses he likes to holler masochistically “AW – SUFFER!” Oddly, Conrad Birdie, the Elvis parody character in the wholesome Broadway play “Bye, Bye Birdie” frequently yells that during one of his songs, after which the girls all swoon.
The insanity is unabated through Volumes Three & Four. The former kicks off with a gloriously tacky, hyperactive organ riff from “In the Hall of the Mountain King” introducing the great “Stormy” by The Jesters of Newport”; “ I love you girl, but you’ll never adore me / You’re like the ocean / You’re stormy”. “Nonymous” by The Treytones sports the lyric, “Had a blind date the other night / She looked like the loser of a hatchet fight!” The song is unrelenting until the band stops on a dime after the lead singer shouts “That’s it! I Quit!”
The latter has “The Snails’ Love Song” by The Snails. The band plays the same four note R&B riff over and over again, while the vocalist (an ultra nerdy looking white teenage boy – pictured in the CDs booklet) does a James Brown type rap: “Yeh, we’re the snails, (“audience” cheers) over here is Mister Randy Corley on gee-tar (“audience” cheers)” Apparently the band invited about a dozen friends into the studio to create a party atmosphere -- punctuated by cheers from the audience and calls for sandwiches! Volume four also includes two songs by The Spiders, Alice Cooper’s original teen garage band!
By the way, the same label, Crypt, that released Back From the Grave, also released two volumes of Garage Punk Unknowns. Every one of the 31 songs on Volume One is great. It includes great Mersey Beat style remakes of Bobby Vinton’s Roses are Red My Love, and Frankie Lane ’s Jezebel. It’s every bit as great as the first four volumes of Back from… and beats that series’ lackluster Volume Eight all to hell. Garage Punk Unknowns Vol. One is a tad less wild than that other series – perhaps that warranted a different title in the producer’s minds. Like Back From 8, Volume Two of Garage Punk Unknowns is a disappointment too, except for The Little Boy Blues remake of The Yardbirds remake of Tiny Bradshaw’s R&B classic “Train Kept A Rollin’”. It features the wild, rewritten lyric, “She was a heifer, and I’m a real gone stud!” I recommend getting the song on the vastly superior Pebbles Volume 10.
* (not that there’s anything wrong with it)
** (not that there’s anything wrong with ‘em)
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