An Alternative History of "Pop" Music

[daf]

[daf]

The Spectrum - London Bridge Is Coming Down



Released in June 1968 - did not chart

The Spectrum were reportedly put together by British RCA with the aim of creating a U.K. equivalent of The Monkees.

Consisting of Tony Atkins (lead guitar), Colin Forsey (vocals), Bill Chambers (organ), Tony Judd (bass), and Keith Forsey (drums), they made their debut with a single of "Samantha's Mine" in early 1967, a flop in the UK, it [allegedly!!] reached the number one spot in Spain!

The group was also featured in the closing credits of the Gerry Anderson-produced series Captain Scarlet & the Mysterons, singing the title song, but this exposure failed to get them any significant sales and the song was never issued commercially.

[Oz Oz Alice]

Minette - Come To Me At Tea-Time



https://youtu.be/nkx19EIE6bg

Born 1928, Minette was a fascinating lady in her own right and music (recorded music anyway) was a very small part of it. This is the title track from her sole recording, a fusion of psych pop with the gay club cabaret style of the time containing possibly the only queer love song to invoke Lyndon B Johnson (LBJ Don't Take My Man Away).

The album covers various topics from the nascent gay liberation movement pre Stonewall to 'Nam to, er, LSD. This is a great opener, sounding incredibly woozy and lopsided with her vocal delivery somehow making the innocuous lyrics sound like utter filth. An RYM user described this as sounding like The Fugs doing Weimarr cabaret so of course I had to investigate. I was not disappointed. This is the perfect blend of John Waters and David Lynch's respective aesthetics. Imagine Edith Massey as the Lady in the Radiator (although Minette was more conventionally glamorous).



Included just because I love that picture, neither of these people actually appear on the record.

More info on this fascinating lady here:
https://www.queermusicheritage.com/drag-minette.html

It does, annoyingly consistently refer to her as a drag queen despite the fact that she consistently went by she/her but I guess the Queer Music Heritage site was set up a long time ago, a fact clearly illustrated by the cheerfully terrible web design.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Order is restored.

Minette - Come To Me At Tea-Time

Fascinating stuff, Oz. I'd never heard of Minette before.

[Brundle-Fly]

Movin' In- Toby Twirl.  Released on Decca in 1968



Joy.

All you need to know and more here
https://thestrangebrew.co.uk/articles/toby-twirl/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7veSjyi8HhY

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Why wasn't that a massive hit?! Same goes for this...

The Fun and Games - The Grooviest Girl in the World



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1p-q_14X2aU

A pure sugar rush of perfectly hook-packed bubblegum, this didn't get any higher than #78 on the Billboard Hot 100. A travesty of pop justice. The Fun and Games released one album, Elephant Candy, and disbanded in 1969.

[jamiefairlie]

Sun Dragon - Far Away Mountain

https://youtu.be/cC_0QCxU4Vg



Taken from their solitary album, Green Tambourine, which includes contributions from a pre-Deep Purple, Ritchie Blackmore on lead guitar, Ian Paice on drums and Jon Lord on keyboards.

[Brundle-Fly]

The rich seam of this thread so far... Thanks man.(s) x

[daf]

Neath the Spreading Mushroom Tree . . .

Ed Ames - Who Will Answer?



Released in the UK in January 1968 - reached #19 in the US

"Who Will Answer?" was originally written as the Spanish song "Aleluya No. 1" by the Philippines-born Spanish singer-songwriter, poet and painter Luis Eduardo Aute, it was adapted into an English-language version with new lyrics by songwriter Sheila Davis.

Billboard magazine, naming the song its "Record of the Week", praised the topical lyrics and the unusual musical combination of "Gregorian-like chant ... Johann Sebastian Bach and ... hard rock", saying the song "expresses the urgent feelings of our times and deals with such meaningful subject matter as nuclear war, apathy, religious discontent and the underlying confusion of today's generation."

The magazine's "Spotlight Singles" reviewer that week said, "With appeal for all programming and buyers, the vital lyric message based upon today's world situation must be heard throughout."

    

The song reflects contemporary topics and anxieties of the times, with references to such subject matter as nuclear holocaust, drug use, war, divorce, and suicide.

The liner notes on the single state that, "As music speaks for the times, it also changes with the times. In Who Will Answer? we find contemporary lyrics that reflect the feelings and concerns of today's world. To the music of Gregorian-type chanting, Baroque harpsichord figures and hard rock, Sheila Davis' penetrating poem can hardly be considered of the 'moon-June' variety."

[Brundle-Fly]

I Am Just A Mop - The Mops  Released in 1968



Like the aforementioned The Spiders from Japan, another turbo-powered derivative band but WGAF?...They're .bloody brilliant

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Mops

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rOW6hwlDMV4

[Brundle-Fly]

INTERLUDE



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKMDGjnHc-Y

Sorry, I love this 1968 track...

As you were...

[jamiefairlie]

Pearls Before Swine - Images of April

https://youtu.be/hdmyY4MTwHc




Formed in 1965 in Florida, they released 9 albums between 1967 and 1973 before returning for a belated finale in 1999.
Main man, Tom Rapp, died on February 11, 2018

[Brundle-Fly]

Love, Love, Love Drags Me Down - The Bob Crewe Generation Orchestra    Released on Stateside in 1968 for the Barbarella OST



What can you say? The sexiest, sleaziest track you could ever hear from the sleaziest soundtrack ever made at the fag end of the sleaziest decade.

Brilliant!

Bob Crewe himself (recording as The Bob Crewe Generation) released a version of Sid Ramin's 1967 instrumental "Music to Watch Girls By" (originally composed as a Diet Pepsi commercial jingle) on DynoVoice. The song became a Top 20 hit and spawned another successful instrumental version by Al Hirt and a vocal hit by Andy Williams. In 1967, Bob Crewe produced and wrote seven of the songs sung by Lesley Gore on her last commercially successful album, California Nights, including producing the title track. The Bob Crewe Generation also recorded the original soundtrack (composed by Crewe and Charles Fox) for the 1968 Paramount Pictures motion picture Barbarella, starring Jane Fonda and directed by Roger Vadim. The soundtrack for the cult favorite features vocals by Crewe and the group the Glitterhouse.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Esz5eRaIb4

[daf]

Jason Crest - Turquoise Tandem Cycle



Released in January 1968 - did not chart

Starting out as The Good Thing Brigade, the Tonbridge based Jason Crest consisted of Terry Clarke (vocals)  /  Terry Dobson (lead guitar)  /  Derek Smallcombe (rhythm guitar)  /  Ron Fowler (bass) and Roger Siggery (drums).

Despite releasing five singles from 1967 to 1968, the band were never commercially successful and disbanded towards the end of the 1960s when their contract with Philips expired.

   

Jason Crest's fourth single, "Waterloo Road" (1968), improbably reached number one in France when French singer Joe Dassin covered it under the title "Les Champs-Élysées".

[Astronaut Omens]

: In 1968 veteran bluesman Muddy Waters made a psychedelic rock album called Electric Mud. Though it was a bit dismissed as a sad bit of bandwagon chasing, it's had its supporters- Hendrix really liked it, but more interestingly Chuck D has said it was a big influence on Public Enemy. I think I can hear why on this cover of "Let's Spend the Night Together"- cue it up next to a PE track like "Welcome to the Terrordome" and you can hear two things in common-both have a noisy, cluttered backing track, and a vocalist who cuts through it with a very deliberate, but very unconventional and often 'wrong' use of pitch.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fWyUr8Abd0E

Other older blues musicians responded to the latest musical developments of the time by flatly ignoring them- see Buddy Guy's old-fashioned, but very sprightly version of Money (that's what I want)- https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=WNq0sxE2_Fo

or by following developments in soul- see Albert King's groovy "Oh, Pretty Woman" (sorry for cheating with a track from 1967 but in 1968 all his tracks were too long and unpoppy for this thread. Sorry I've gone too far outside the pop remit into genre stuff with this post anyhow:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CuzC_3ai1ek

[daf]

Gervase - Pepper Grinder



Released in August 1968 -  did not chart



No idea who this was, sounds like a right posho!

[Mr Farenheit]

The Harvey Averene Dozen - Never Learned to Dance

Starts off with what sounds like a take on the Tighten Up [nb]Another 1968 classic but a number one hit so NOT ELIGIBLE, also gramatically notable for its use of someone talking about a group of people in the first person- "Hi everybody I'm Archie Bell and the Drells". Here's Homer Simpson's version: youtube.com/watch?v=YMBu2eFIHXg. The only other person I've heard doing this is Harvey Scales and The Seven Sounds[/nb] bass-line but then goes off on its brilliant booglaoo tangent.

Harvey was more successful as a writer, producer and record label boss than a performer in his own right, producing fantastic stuff on the Fania label and setting up his own CoCo Records where he produced some abosulte classics which deserve their own posts when their years come up.

Harvey is also notable for being the subject of something completely fucking jaw-dropping which I only discovered just now looking up his wikipedia page now... it's a cover version of one of his songs from 1967- BUT the youtube clip says 1968 so I'll take my cue from Daf and disengenuously squeeze it into the next 1968 post. Stay Tuned!

[Mr Farenheit]

Is this well known? It may well be, anyway I'd never heard of it before but it feels like it should be famous for its oddity and being years ahead of its time.


Terry Reily - You're No Good unreleased until 2000, worth sticking with it through the first 2m40s

Discovered this looking up Harvey Averne's wikipedia. Harvey's original song You're No Good (a belter in its own right) is sampled to form the basis of a 20 minute crazed deconstruction of the song with all sorts of loops, echoes, phasing, distortion, static and general insanity. Made with 2 reel-to-reel tape recorders, an early moog and the Harvey Averne record, its mental that this was made in 1967- surely a total one-off?

when the owner of a Philadelphia disco—clearly still addled from watching Riley perform an all-night concert of alto-sax feedback—commissioned him to compose a "theme" for his nightclub, Riley took the opportunity to apply that process to something a little more club-friendly that he could totally fuck with.

Riley's victim was "You're No Good," a just-released R&B cut from vibraphonist and minor Latin soul sensation Harvey Averne, with vocals by Little Anthony And The Imperials' Kenny Seymour. On its own, "You're No Good" is a solid little tune, with Seymour engaged in a catchy call-and-response with a finger-wagging female chorus over his cheatin' ways. But in Riley's hands, it becomes a true exercise in delirium. Beginning with nearly three full minutes of synth drone that suddenly breaks, in media res, into the song's funky verse, it only gets more disorienting from there.

Riley plays with the channels, panning from side to side and cutting speakers out completely, before introducing a doubled track played at a slightly different speed. It echoes at first, then abruptly slips out of time—Averne's vibraphone notes cascading infinitely upward, the frustration of Seymour's rejoinder, "I've been through this scene once before," matched by the song's increasingly maddening loops. Finally, near the end of its 20-minute run, Riley tosses the whole thing into a bleeping, buzzing cacophony of synth drones and glitching reverberations, as though the song is being torn apart and scattered to the ether—soul destroyed by the machine.

[Brundle-Fly]

New Man - The Magic Mixture  Released on Saga in 1968.



Make one album and then piss off seems to be the order of the day with a lot of these psyche combos. A nice shimmy beat on this that may have inspired Smashmouth's 1999 hit, Walking On The Sun.

The Magic Mixture were a British psychedelic band comprised Terry Thomas (guitar/vocals), Melvyn Hacker (bass), Jack Collins (drums) and Stan Curtis (organ) . Mel and Terry were both students at the Central Foundation Boys School in London in the early of 60's. After some line up changes they released their sole album in 1968. It is regarded as one of the better examples of the psych genre, featuring engaging instrumental work on tracks such as '(I'm So) Sad', 'Urge To Leave' and 'Slowly The Day'.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJnzSQCBmf0

[daf]

Turquoise - Tales Of Flossie Fillett



Released as the B-side to "53 Summer Street" in March 1968 - did not chart

Turquoise hailed from Muswell Hill and were friends and neighbours of Ray and Dave Davies of The Kinks. Dave produced demo sessions for them in their first incarnation as The Brood.

Through Dave, they were soon being managed by John Mason ["He's got the best cars 'ere!"] who hooked them up with Tom Keylock, The Rolling Stones' tour manager, who, along with Kirk Duncan of the Spencer Davis agency, secured them a recording contract with Decca, a publishing deal with Apple and a name change to Turquoise.

The next few months were spent rehearsing at the Stones' space in London's Docklands, visiting various London recording studios, running with The Who and The Kinks and generally twatting about being young pop stars in swinging London.

The lack of a hit single inevitably resulted in Turquoise's demise in 1969. Ewan Stephens forged a solo career, cutting further singles for Decca while Jeff Peters and Barry Hart formed the hard-rockin' Slowbone.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Turquoise - Tales of Flossie Fillet



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2IccFwMEIMM

This B-side wears its Kinks influence on its paisley-patterned sleeve. Whimsical, melancholy and ever so slightly sinister all at once. Ray and Dave Davies were friendly with Turquoise, who also came from Muswell Hilll, hence why Dave produced some early demos for them (as did John Entwistle from The Who). You'll notice the namedropping of Ray, Dave and Moon the Loon at the end of Tales of Flossie Fillet. Alas, despite the approbation of such big pop names, Turquoise never got anywhere.

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

AAAARRRRGH!!! A genuinely terrifying coincidence, daf.

[daf]

SNAP!!

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

Of all the obscure, jaunty British psych tunes in all the world... and to choose it at exactly the same time. We're through the looking glass here, people.

[daf]

I think our Turquoise Tandem Cycles have synchronised!

[Ballad of Ballard Berkley]

I think our Turquoise Tandem Cycles have synchronised!

Which is literally the last thing any of us wanted to happen.

[Brundle-Fly]

That is genuinely freaky, maaan.

[Brundle-Fly]

Bad Day At Black Rock Baby - Colours  Released on Dot in 1968.



I frickin' love this album. Peppery Beatley to say the least. Cannot recommend it enough. Orchestral sike pop at its best.

From Rate Your Music

Interestingly some reference works I've come across show this outfit as being English (probably due to the fact their name was spelled with the added English 'o').  Don't be fooled since the band's roots can be traced to Oklahoma where drummer Chuck Blackwell and bassist Carl Radle were buddies with a young Leon Russell.  Guitarist Rob Edwards had previously been a member of Eddie and the Showmen.

Best known for the fact their initial lineup included future Derek & the Dominos/Jimmy Buffett bassist Radle, this five-piece survived long enough to release a pair of interesting and highly diverse late-1960s albums. The debut is a little heard psych classic; the follow-up a far more conventional and altogether less impressive work.

Produced by Danny Moore and Richard Delvy, 1968's "Colours" offered up a nifty set of Beatles-styled pop-rock. Penned by guitarist Jack Dalton and keyboard player Gary Montgomery, material such as "Love Heals", "Helping You Out", "Where Is She" and "I Think of Her (She's On My Mind)" (the latter bearing an uncanny resemblance to the forthcoming Badfinger), offered up a wonderful collection of harmony-rich, radio-ready pop. One of the year's most impressive debuts, the set was full of playful psychedelic touches. Highlights included the droning, raga-influenced "Rather Be Me", the sitar-and-bagpipe (don't ask) propelled "Brother Lou's Love Colony" and the ominous leadoff "Bad Day At Black Rock, Baby" (which found the band effortlessly shifting thought at least a half dozen time changes). Unfortunately with public tastes already moving beyond the summer of love, the collection was overlooked by the press and the buying public. (Dock the set half a star for Jon Borgzinner's pompous liner notes ("Colours have the crystalline sharpness of the Beatles before they turned acid.") and for the tacky Nehru jackets the band sported on the front and back covers.)

Yeah, you can criticize the album as being imitative (and it was), but it was a fun set from start to finish and you couldn't help but be impressed who good the imitations were.  One of my favorites mid-'60s albums and you can still find affordable copies.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F1fhLMsK4ZU&list=RDF1fhLMsK4ZU&start_radio=1&t=21

P.S. Check this out too. It's like a Rutles version of The Fab's Getting Better.

Helping You Out
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hv0eOvjpbQ4

[Brundle-Fly]

Jason Crest - Turquoise Tandem Cycle



Released in January 1968 - did not chart

I can't believe I'm saying this but I'd love to hear Liam Gallagher cover Turquoise Tandem Cycle.

[daf]

Heh - those drums are pure Tony McCarrol too - back off the ride cymbal, mate!