THE ELECTRIC EFFECT - FROM THE CENTRE OF THE SUN
(CD on Rubber Biscuit, Chasewear House, Alfred Street North, St. Anne's, Nottingham NG3 1AE)

It's a bit of a facer that a supposedly self-released and self-produced debut can sound this good. Not that I'm complaining; it's just that being drip-fed an almost constant diet of indie minimalism created with little more than unlimited imagination and an extremely limited budget, something as polished as The Electric Effect's album, on which sonic perfection is repeatedly attained with all the effortless ease of a gum-chewing tightrope-walker high above a three-ring circus of baying malcontents, stands out like a sore thumb. Who are these people? How the hell can they afford such studio gadgetry as must've been employed to create something which gives the likes of Kula Shaker and Gomez a run for their money and makes the Super Furry Animals sound positively lo-fi? Actually, the comparison carries weight even with further analysis, 'Sitting On' and the title track both sounding pre-packaged for the retro-hungry masses, and the only quixotic sparkle of 'Over the Moon Song' being an adorably out of context pedal-steel guitar. The opening 'Astronaut' meanwhile is a catchy sliver of psycho-pop from around eight miles high; 'Midnight Caught Me' and 'Atomic Stickman' are like hearing Pink Floyd abolish the 70s and start afresh from where they left off, and 'Saturn 2' is a mobius tale of systematic head-fuckery courtesy of some killer stereo panning, essence of psychedelia matched only by the aptly titled instrumental space rock trip of 'Orbit 6'. Make of this what you will, but The Electric Effect have proved to be a big hit amongst acquaintances of mine who profess not to be particularly interested in music.
(Phil)

LIGHT BRIGHT HIGHWAY - MOON GLORY AND THE SEVENTH SUN
(LP on Two Ohm Hop Records, PO Box 20266, Tampa, FL, 33622-0266, USA.)

Formed in '91 these Texans've slogged their way round local environs with such chalk and cheese outfits as Fu Manchu, Tortoise, Dirty 3, Bardo Pond, Bowery Electric, Main and LaBradford. Reportage of a typical live performance seems to portray the band scything through one looooong instr. piece that's stuffed to the gill-flaps with colossal peaks 'n' troughs sandwiched 'tween ambient thrum, the band's minds hopelessly lost meanwhile in the mire they've created. For the album the trio of Trinidad Leah (D and Perc) Robbie Dwer (Gtr) and Curt Christensen (BG)'ve approached the temptations of the studio in much the same way as a live gig - no overdubbing/trickery or polishing with Brasso. So . . . starting from near silence a vast outpouring and slow and eerie codas seep forth, unfolding in their own time - which they have the ability to stretch at will. Naturally the '69 Floyd and Ash Ra Tempel comparisons can only go so far. Light Bright Highway are truly marathon in isolation.
(Steve Pescott)

PETIT VODO - MONOM HUNGRY GHOSTS (S/T)
(CDs on Butcher's Wig/Narwhal, PO Box 16313, London, N16 0EB)

Petit Vodo's album is a scratchy messed-up scribbled-down blues stew of a record. For references look up the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion, early Beck and Gallon Drunk, but be prepared to throw your preconceptions straight into the bin. Petit Vodo is Sebastien Chevalier (how un-Rock'n'Roll sounding is that?!), a French drummer in a blues band who likes to experiment. No kidding. The nasty atmosphere loungecore of 'Timber Bo' simmers and boils like an east-end speakeasy. The hard attitude and Gallic roots make me think of his contemporaries on the smashing Larsen label. There's a lot of badass tuneage across the channel at the moment and this is one of the finest examples so far. 'About My Gun' has a delta swamp echo that makes Gomez look still wet-behind-the-ears. The cover of 'Morning Train' amps up the vocal noise from Led Zep's 'Hats Off to (Roy) Harper.' The slide and harmonica stomp of 'Border Line' is more conventional in a fuzzy photocopied way, but 'Special Spectator' throws everything into the mix, smears it in overdriven fog and chucks another five songs worth of equally blurry ideas over the top for good measure. Great, great stuff.

A release that dropped through the door at the same time is equally dark and experimental. On the Butcher's Wig offshoot Narwhal, the Hungry Ghosts' eponymous EP starts off with 'Three Sisters.' A violin runs through some Morrocan sounding scales, squeeze box and xylophone adds to the sawing sound until it's like a Tom Waits funeral dirge. The band are Australian, and this is produced by ex-Birthday Party member Roland S. Howard. 'Africa' is a clanging metaphor for disturbing incidents which go unreported amongst the pipes at the backs of factories. 'Fly' adds acoustic guitar to the recipe, which perversely recommends that this hot spicy dish be served cold: Freezing tombstone elegies delivered by people with life and fire in their veins. 'Love Song' lifts the heavy atmosphere at the end with a lovely workout sounding like Simon Jeffes of the Penguin Cafe Orchestra forced to busk with Spanish street musicians for his air fare home. This is one of the most original records I've heard all year and only Steven R Smith's solo work can match it. 'Nuff said.
(Steve Hansen)

THE FALL - HEX ENDUCTION HOUR
(CD on Cog Sinister, PO Box 50, Houghton-le-Spring, Tyne and Wear, DH4 5YP, UK)

A quarter of this album, 15 minutes worth, was cut in Iceland. Previous recordings had been made at the decidedly unexotic Cargo studios in Rochdale, and yet Reykjavik's landscape is just as grainy and cold:probably the first impression most people get from their first Fall record. The Fall are good art. Art in sketch form. Art as cut-up collage. If Cubism made the painting more important than the reality it was supposed to represent, then the Fall did the same for the pop song. Cubism was the revolutionary movement that allowed painters such as Picasso to do this. Punk was the movement that allowed the Fall. Fragments of 'Hip Priest' from this album went into 1988's solid groove 'Big New Prinz.' The Fall had the foresight to predict remixing fairly early, (along with fellow Mancunians New Order) though it was always more William Burroughs than William Orbit. Rip it to shreds then stick it together again with glue and sellotape. Less than a minute in and the one-liners start up: "Hey fuck face-ah," the surreal satire, "here on the vitamin B glandular show," and the downright non-sequiturs: "Benny's cobweb eyes-uh." On a recent Adam and Joe show our hosts received a good kicking on the doorstep before being admitted to E Smith's house. He was oblique, psychotic and grumped out. And here he is in 1982 being, well, oblique, psychotic and grumped out. Sometimes it seems he was born that way. 'Hex Enduction Hour' saw the first two drummer line-up. Smith believed the Glitter band's usage of it was "avante garde." It really does give this a solid base. I was astonished to find, returning to 'Just Step S'ways,' that it sounds like Sly and the Family Stone's 'Dance to the Music' doured down by the Joy Division whilst larking about during a soundcheck. (No, really, just listen to it.) "When what used to excite you does not", E Smith advises us, "Just step sideways from this world today." And this is the place he always harangues us from, reality on full tilt, upside down, like a tourette's suffering drunkard. The Fall took risks, sometimes they were justified by the results, sometimes they weren't. However, you always feel privileged to be witnessing these risks being taken, and elated when they work. And looking at their back catalogue you realise how much ground they covered, how far they pushed their own peculiarly shaped envelope. Sonic Youth, Pavement and Blur's so-called "new direction" all owe a massive debt to the work done by The Fall over the years. I've had a long standing love affair with the Fall. Not as long or intense as John Peel, but I'll forgive the band their infidelities. And really, you either love 'em or you hate 'em.
(Steve Hanson)

AMERICAN ANALOG SET - THE GOLDEN BAND
(CD on Emporer Jones, PO Box 49771, Austin, Texas, 78765, USA.)

Five years and many releases down the line the American Analog Set return with a 7" and this beauty. The vocals are introverted to Nick Drake extremes. The withdrawn not-so-frontman delivers his whispered observations as the band shuffles away like a contemplative bunch of music students looking at their feet because they daren't look at the audience. A new wave/krautrock synth drone lifts 'It's All About Us', and previous Stereolab comparisons begin to make more sense. It sounds a little like recent Delgados material too, emotional yet shy. The riff on 'a Schoolboy's Charm' mines a seam of step and repeat that goes back through The Teardrop Explodes ('Sleeping Gas') to James Brown, ('Stone to the Bone') yet is slowed down to the pace of evolution. There's no urgency here. Mellow bass strings drone together, vibes and electric piano tinkle. On 'Will The Real Danny Radnor Please Stand' a lone cello draws the short chords into long ones as the album comes to a close. Tasteful and laid back, a record for a contemplative Autumn.
(Steve Hanson)

STYLUS - THE LAST SEAWEED COLLECTING HUT AT FRESHWATER WEST
(CD on Ochre records, PO Box 155, Cheltenham, Glos, GL51 OYS, UK.)

This is another Welsh/English project from the label that brought you the multi-membered Serpents. The theme of this experimental composition is (you guessed it) the last seaweed collecting hut at Freshwater West. Which is now a listed building. The wind noises which have become such a cliché are here an evocation of place and situation, the desolate nature of the coastal landscape. The deserted and lonely sound of the wind as a metaphor for another bit of the past close to extinction. This is an exploration of folk culture, but it is in no way an excursion into handcrafted wooden acoustics. The fact that this record is largely electronic is another sign to read, which tells us that the old ways are going, replaced with a landscape of chain stores, drive-ins and theme parks. (Although electronic music is, in my opinion, a positive side of progress). And it's great. Ambient but affecting. A lengthy perambulation through a sparsely featured landscape, which is like loss, erasure. The sound of a wiped tape amplified until its background hiss becomes a foreground: A foreground representing an absence. The sound of tears, or strange laughter bleeds into 'Hop,' an elegy for a dead past or rejoicing for the cleared space of the future? You decide.
(Steve Hanson)

V/A - FREE FLIGHT V/A - BALTIMORE'S TEENBEAT A GO GO
(CD's from Get Hip, Columbus and Prebles Aves, Pittsburgh, PA 15233, USA)

Get Hip's archive series have come up with the goods. 'Free Flight' is a grab-bag of rarities dug out of the Dove Records vaults. Unreleased Calico Wall material, (they of 'Flight Reaction' see Pebbles vol.3) make it essential listening for us Terrapeople. One treasured Calico track is called 'I'm a Living Sickness,' Richard Hell couldn't have named it better. The F.B.I Idiots' 'Shot Thru Grease' is a basic rockin' instrumental tinged with Ray Charles' warm R'n'B sound, but what I'd say (pun) is that it far transcends this basic description. There's a warmth to it, it tickles the subconscious: You'll all know what I mean. Two cuts from an unknown artist hauled out of god knows what obscure cupboard has hurt you-left-me lyrics backed with an out of context evil/virile tune. I only wish I knew his name, I'd begin constructing my shrine to him immediately. A cover of The Yardbirds' 'The Nazz are Blue' from Roger the Engineer is also a standout track. What really tops it off though is two insane little ditties from Michael (bonkers) Yonkers. They're, erm, interesting. And they left me not being able to tell the intrinsic difference between a shoelace and an old folks' home. Unearthed compilations are usually swelled to album size with sub-standard offcuts. Take it from me, there's no filler on this. Baltimore's Teenbeat a Go Go second-guessed Pebbles, Nuggets and Rubble by compiling a load of obscure local talent and putting it out on an LP way back in '66. Somewhere deep down in their hearts they must've known it'd come to this. That it'd travel this far, (and it's travelled very well indeed) they saved future compilers the job. All this stuff is linked by (and to) so many strands of the youth movement web. Return to the 60's, go slightly forward to full blown psychedelia, then hang twenty years ahead (and left) to punk.
(Steve Hanson)

THE REGULAR FRIES - ACCEPT THE SIGNAL
(CD on JBO, [Junior Boys Own], The Saga Centre, 326 Kensal Road, London, W10 5BZ)

Getting (for once) deservedly good mainstream press at the moment are The Regular Fries. Comparisons with the Happy Mondays, Primal Scream and Spiritualized abound, but ex-hack Paul Moody intends this to be a "23rd century amalgam of Roxy Music, the Deviants and Soft Machine." Their nearest contemporaries to my mind are Delakota and Arthur. (There are rumoured links with the 'Fries and the Target label that Arthur were on). The Fries sound like Funkadelic would have if they were from a hip, urbane part of London, and their live shows are full-on experiences. Think of the Roundhouse circa 1967. Eye peeling projections, (which they refuse to play without) and a ton of opium incense assault the senses.

After the opening drone of 'Agar,' the funky 'Dust it' starts with bongos then breaks out in rashes of Moog, funky Rhodes and Madchester guitar. Vocals are whispered, and to use a 1989 music press cliche, "blissed out." The Soft Machine comparisons are underlined by the slightly Robert Wyatt-ish accent. Single 'King Kong' starts in on a slowburn with acoustic guitar, piano and the phased keys of 'Ogden's Nut Gone Flake.' Then the weird shit lyrics kick in: "Better be a monkey if you like King Kong, if you can't get it right then you better get it wrong." 'Dream Lottery' starts with the 'Get Carter' theme played backwards on ultra-delayed space guitar, then wanders off into the singers' mumbling medicined head. "Tonights' numbers are mine", he sings. An elated metaphor for chemical bliss, or just waking up sharply after finding yourself naked, live on the lottery draw? It could be you. 'Welcome to the Brainwash' is a cover of the Twin Peaks' bar band from 'Fire Walk with Me', the sonic equivalent of scraping your nails down a blackboard. There's lots here to satisfy any addled head, musings on postmodern pre-millenial life: "Got my life on remote control," "nothing's ever built to last," "am I a figment of my imagination or am I a part of yours," and enough positive groove to nourish us throughout the summer. After their recent Homelands performance Paul Moody said: "We've come from the stars, but the earth machines couldn't deal with us." Fried, not regular, the signal is accepted.
(Steve Hanson)

KENNELMUS - FOLKSTONE PRISM THE NEXT MORNING - THE NEXT MORNING
(CDs on Sundazed, PO Box 85, Coxsackie, NY 12051 USA)

The story of the Next Morning is one of what might've been - in the late 60s guitarist Scipio Sargeant left the relatively restrictive confines of the Trinidadian scene to flex his chops in the Big Apple. His head was exploding with the sturm and drang of Hendrix and the pyschedelic wave of sounds that came in his wake, and the word soon got round that there was a new hot-shot six-string strangler in Brooklyn . Scipio linked up with another refugee from the Caribbean beat scene, Bert Bailey and pretty soon they had a band going, the Next Morning with Bert's bro', Herb on drums, keyboardist Earl Arthur and Lou Phillips on lead vocals. Trouble was they needed a bassist so Scipio deferred to Bert and went down to four strings - they were soon packing the clubs with a wild stage act - Jimi, the Who and Led Zep were obvious touchstones, they dug Sly and the Chambers Bros too, whilst Phillips' was blessed with a pair of leather tonsils that could've turned him into a black Jimbo Morrison. It was all going well and Ted Macero at Columbia had the hots for them - for a minute they thought they were going to be as big as the Beatles, but Columbia never got their act together and the band ended up on Roulette Records subsid, Calla. By then their creative fire had all but sadly vanished. Released with little fanfare back in 71 this is a straight re-ish of that eponymous one and only record - it holds up pretty good, an exceptionally tight band with some off-the-wall playing from Earl Arthur. Nowhere near as proficient a player as the others, Earl's completely wild and improvisational organ playing adds the real icing on the cake here. A shame that time ran out for them - that second album which would've allowed all their Caribbean influences to bubble out might've been a cracker.

Meanwhile down in the desert Arizona way, strange things were happening as Kennelmus crawled from under the giant saguaros blinking into the fierce daytime heat. As Prof Cost in his liner so perceptively observes, Tucson-Phoenix bands like Giant Sand & Black Sun Ensemble have their very own weird idiosyncrasies probably brought on by the harsh local ecology. Kennelmus were no exception. Starting out life as a combo playing British invasion type stuff - as the 60s wore on, they became progressively stranger, becoming more of a surf band tho God only knows to which dried out waterhole they'd drive their 'woody'! Taking their name from multi-instrumentalist leader Ken Walker, christened Kennelmus Edward Walkiewicz, the band's aim was to produce a sound something akin to the Beach Boys, Alice Cooper and the Moody Blues without strings! Indeed their one album 'Folkestone Prism' (a wonderful bastardisation of the English gaol Folkestone Prison!) independently released in 71 and reproduced here contains not one synthesised note and the tympani heard on 'The Raven' is in fact somebody playing bass strings with a spoon! And the way most of the album was written and produced was for Ken to go into the studio with the chord charts and just tell the other guys the kind of sound/beat he wanted. Not present for the overdubs the others wouldn't even recognise the finished performances at the playbacks! The result is one of the most disarmingly psychedelic albums yet dug up from the heap. Walker was a big dreamer with a great vision. If your palate's been getting just a mite jaded with the non-stop flow of recent 'archive' material, this'll act as a pleasurable panacea.
(Nigel Cross)

THE SOLARFLARES - PSYCHEDELIC TANTRUM
(CD on Twist Records: Levanto, Le petit Clos, Rue De Marais, Vale, Guernsey, GY6 8AZ, Channel Islands.)

In the grim grey 80's The Prisoners were groovy targeted modsters taking their name from the 60's TV series. They were a rare taste of colour to those being schooled at the time. They featured a pre-JTQ James Taylor tinkling the ivories of not a Hammond, but a Vox Continental. A template for the current Charlatans and (eek!) inspiration for the Inspiral Carpets, The Prisoners plied their trade on the indie circuit with little success. Retro sound wasn't considered chic enough until the Stone Roses and their baggy mates made plundering the past a positive virtue, instead of an accepted vice. Opening their gigs, Graham Day would announce: "We are The Prisoners, you are not" before launching into a piece of melancholic mod pop. The Prisoners' greatest achievement was 1983's 'TheWiserMiserDemelza' with such gems as 'Hurricane' and 'Here Come the Misunderstood,' a reference to the 60's group whose 'Find a Hidden Door' is resplendent on this outing. The instrumental 'Go Go' pointed James Taylor to his future on Acid Jazz and here we have 'Apollo Go Go' updating the idea with a JTQ cop show spin. Taylor helps out here on 'Hold Your Head Up.' (I said my prayers for it not to be an Argent cover and they were answered.) It's a composition worthy, and reeking of, a Marriot-Lane. It's all bluster and soul over some tremendous organ, with a backing band using wild Billy Childish's rhythm instruments (literally) and a lash-carrying slave master to keep the momentum up. This gives 'TheWiserMiser' a good playground scrap for it's place as a classic. Graham Day hasn't lost a micro-millimetre of edge. Album opener 'Mary's' Who style drum/guitar pyros go off like a chain of firecrackers one by one, each explosion miked up to an old valve amp in an echo chamber. A fine return from an under-acknowledged root of retro.
(Steve Hanson)

DINKY DAWSON WITH CARTER ALAN - LIFE ON THE ROAD: THE INCREDIBLE ROCK'N'ROLL ADVENTURES OF DINKY DAWSON
(Billboard Books pbk 0 8230 8344 6)

Though he's hardly a household name in the annals of rock'n'roll Stuart 'Dinky' Dawson has worked with the best of them - and this is his story, a roadie and soundman's perspective. And for the most part it's a rip-roaring, side-splitting account of his involvement with some of the biggest names in rock from Steely Dan to Jeff Beck, Joni Mitchell to Joan Baez. Dinky got his first important foothold in the music biz when he applied for the job as road manager for Fleetwood Mac, fulfilling his first gig for them at the tiny Nag's Head in Brixton in late summer 68. It wasn't just Dinky's debut for the Mac that night, young Danny Kirwan was also facing his baptism of fire. They both passed with flying colours. If you thought Martin Celmins' Peter Green biog lost the plot and left out all the good bits, Dinky'll tell you all the stories that were missing. Between 1968 and 1970 Fleetwood Mac were a cross between a Shakespearian tragedy and a touring rugby club. Dinky nursemaided the Mac every step of the way as they embarked on their domination on the world of rock'n'roll. For fans of Peter Green's FM, this is priceless fly-on-the-wall stuff, that'll have you laughing and crying page by page, the highs and the lows are all loving catalogued. After Green's departure, Dinky whose quick thinking had salvaged the Byrds appearance at the rain-swept Bath Festival in June 1970, was approached to roadie for them. The Byrds might no longer have been at their creative peak but were a fabulous touring band, and Dinky relocated to LA - there he had the awesome task of keeping tabs on wives, mistresses and groupies for Messrs. McGuinn, White, Parsons & Battin, ensuring they were never all in the same room at the same time! After that looking after the London sessions for Lou Reed's 'Berlin' was a piece of cake! However by the time his tale had led to his sound-engineering for Orleans, my enthusiasm was flagging and I was happy to see the last page was in sight. Fortunately his involvement with the Mac and the Byrds makes for over half this book and for anyone interested in these acts this is an unmissable read! And Rykodisc will provide the perfect accompaniment for you - Dinky's over 300 tapes of live gigs he engineered, the Mac's Jan 69 'Live at the Shrine' is the first to come out, hopefully the Byrds will soon follow.
(Nigel Cross)

ALPHASTONE PLASTICATED - WAVEBAND
(CD on Enraptured, 134 Replingham road, Southfields, London, SW18 5LL UK)
EXPERIMENTAL AUDIO RESEARCH - PESTREPELLER
(CD on Ochre records, PO Box 155, Cheltenham, Glos, GL51 OYS UK)

Thirteen years after the first Spacemen 3 album the Rugby sound continues. Pete Bassman, ex of the Spacemen 3 and Darkside submits his latest band name: Alphastone. It's a thickly distorted guitar sound very similar to the Darkside's but it throws in some jazzy vibes sounds at the end of 'Lose Your Mind,' which updates it a little. 'Dans Le Jardin Avec Alphastone' sounds like Suicide, always a major influence, and the slide blues and electronic pulse of 'Theme to the Leafblower' is a sublime guitar piece. A mysterious black plastic square in the sleeve turns out to be a liquid crystal picture. The Rugby psychers have always tried hard with their packaging. Spiritualized did their luminous covers and pill packets and Spectrum had water in a bubble sleeve and a turning colour wheel cover. Toys for addled minds.

Engineered by Pete Bassman, EAR's 'Pestrepeller' continues Sonic Boom's lab-coated noise experiments. And true to the ethos there's a run in limited glitter vinyl. 'Pestrepeller' is a rechanneling and reshaping of artist Savage Pencil and friends' 'Ultrasonic Attack Wave Pestrepeller' released on Sympathy for the Record Industry. It's an amorphous scientific manifesto of drone, transforming the original feedback frenzy into, well, Sonic Boom. Hypnotic. These two releases show that the Rugby archive is still of worth, mind-expanding and worth expanding.
(Steve Hanson)

TANK - UPWARDS AT 66 DEGREES N.
(CD on Earworm, 29 Deeside Road, London, SW17 0PH, UK.)

After the search for the lost chord of the 1970's one notable NME hack believed we were heading off on a search for the lost beat. Prog and jazz had noodled itself into the oddest corners imaginable trying to break formulas of harmony and melody. Post-Punk, the dense polyrhythms of dub set its aims at the skies, dropping the beat in and out of the mix in a mash of complex herb navigated pounding. (Of course they were doing it all through the 70's but Punk championed reggae to new popularity amongst rock audiences.) Tank have actually just produced an album which benefits from both of these quests.

'Abaton' is well crafted electronica to lead us in gently. It gives way to 'Kino Art' which has dubby basslines and outerspace bleeps with well thought out keyboard patterns. Music to return to your natural pace with on a Sunday. Make with the origami and just let it happen like it's supposed to. Yep, Saint Julian went upwards at 45 degrees, but this lot get higher on a steeper trajectory. (Is that really wise?) The drums lack a certain spice present in black dub. In say, Sly and Robbie or Keith Hudson. They just don't have that edge. However, what they lose in bite they make up by being simple and effective timekeeping. A solid skeleton for the rest of the music's flesh to hang upon. 'C'est Un Jolie Matin/Austur' is a reverse hoovering noise over an organ's pull. More tribal sounding percussion rears afterwards on 'Drangar,' breaking out in avantisms, with again, a dubby undertow to the reprise. Crashing drum/cymbal fills build it to a climax compounded by Casiotone harmonic interest. Final track 'Nord : Sud' sounds like a live band covering Banco de Gaia's entire Glastonbury set in precis. It's totally fucking relentless. 'Gunar Reverse' has more inverted bass dynamics, and the ultra-delay back pedalling effects of Mad Professor's dubs. It all reminds me of Killing Joke's 'Requiem (A Floating Leaf Always Reaches the Sea Dub Mix.)' Progressive punk experimentalists pushing their own low frequency needles into the red with the blueprints of Jamaica's late Black Ark studios. Holger Czukay suddenly and involuntarily blurting out "Irie!" Lee Perry impulsively deciding he wants to make records like Neu! and not quite getting it, yet the end result still makes for compulsive listening. Highly recommended.
(Steve Hanson)

V/A - DELPHONIC SOUNDS TODAY
(CD on Del-Fi, 8271 Melrose Avenue, Suite 103, LA, CA, 90046.)

This is the legendary Del-Fi label's current stable of misfits covering the tried and tested classics, and some Del-Fi oddities. The general public will have touched upon Bob Keane's wonderfully eclectic label at two main points, most notably with Bobby Fuller's staple 'I Fought the Law,' well covered here by the Brian Jonestown Massacre, and more famously by the Clash. Quentin Tarantino is a fan and used The Centurions and Lively Ones' surf instrumentals on the Pulp Fiction soundtrack. The Lively Ones' 'Surf Rider' is covered here by Los Straitjackets. Easton Eliot's Tiki Gods (Easton Eliot of the Cars who turned in a track for Tarantino's 'Jackie Brown') here take 'Bullwinkle Pt.2' by the horns and turn it inside out, sprinkling it with Hollywood exotica a la Les Baxter. Speaking as a man who lives opposite the birthplace of Geoff Love, I'm no stranger to the ironic pleasures of the easy and cheesy. Bob Keane's alter ego played the rakish back door man with LA suave; no surprise that he nurtured the early career of Barry White. It's the Bobby Fuller story, and his appropriately Tarantinoesque death (recorded as suicide although it's rumoured that he was forced to drink some hideous industrial chemicals after dancing with the wrong girl), which hangs over this album though. No less than four of the covers here are Bobby Fuller originals.

As an introduction to the label's treasures, from all eras, this is unbeatable. It pits the strange against the familiar, new against the old. And in the immortal words of Bob Keane, "why the hell not!"
(Steve Hanson)

THE MYSTERY TREND - SO GLAD I FOUND YOU SHE - SHE WANTS A PIECE OF YOU
(CD's on Ace Records, 42-50 Steele Road, London, NW10 7AS)

More archive dust-offs from the Ace label offshoot Big Beat offering us something a little out of the ordinary - two west coast groups who only ever put out two singles between them.

Named after a misheard Dylan lyric, ("mystery tramp" from 'Like a Rolling Stone') the Mystery Trend themselves were also not listened to as attentively as they should have been. They played alongside the Charlatans and Jefferson Airplane, but never really made much impact, releasing only one single. They were too cynical to even go to Haight Ashbury, they were boozers not trippers, with a tight song based approach. In-fighting with Bill Graham and Big Brother and the Holding Company led to them getting a bad rep among the Bay Area hot shots and the band split when it stopped being fun. The irony is, here were older art student types creating crafted pop where they usually would do acid rock. Like the Big Beat Sons of Champlin release 'Fat City' (reviewed last issue), this is more Burt Bacharach than brain buggering. A cover of the Who's 'Substitute' has lost its balls, the line "I look pretty young but I'm just back dated" is appropriate. Psych classic 'Johnny Was a Good Boy' isn't naive though - far from it. Inspired by Charles Whitman's University of Texas shootings the story of clean cut kid next door turned nasty could have been dreamed up by David Lynch. And we never find out what Johnny did, like any good suspense story. The single though, like Johnny himself, is the black sheep of the flock. Mostly it's sunshine and flowers and west coast optimism. Airplay friendly. The title track reminds me of the Monkees, TV show and all. It makes me think of being young an innocent. (Distant days indeed!) Next up is a compilation of mostly unreleased material by the sixties girl group She. 'Outta Reach' on the Kent label pulsed with Doorsy organ and the sound of five young women who practised Girl Power before Baby Spice was even born. They wrote all their own material and operated at a time when rock'n'roll was definitely a man's, man's world. Nancy Ross was given the task of lead vocals, and with sister Sally Ross-Moore they formed the female equivalent of the Davies' brothers. OK, there were great girl groups around in the form of Martha and the Vandellas and the Supremes, but few feminine incarnations of bands like Love and Moby Grape existed. Nancy has a vocal style which owes a lot to Grace Slick, and the track 'Hey You' even has the weird jazz-time lilt that Spencer Dryden added to the Jefferson Airplane equation after Skip Spence left. Originally named 'The Hairem', they played the presumably mutually exclusive venues of love-ins and air force bases, where they were, unsurprisingly perhaps, a great hit. 'Not for Me' recorded as The Hairem is anti-trend-setter. It's a don't-follow-fashions-set-them manifesto. "Don't wanna dress like the girl livin' down the street . . . the in-crowd's not for me." 'Bad Girl' is unapologetic, "I had my first man a little after I was ten and I've been a mover ever since then." Clearly, here was a group not doing what they should within the hippy ethos, yet enjoying its benefits. For sixties enthusiasts, this will represent yet another interesting stone unturned.
(Steve Hanson)

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