TheCellarTapes

The Bruthers - Bad Way to Go
(2003)




Tracks



This was my first 60's Garage album I ever bought, I bought it from the now lost but not forgotten, Vox Pop in Manchester's Northern Quarter a few years back. My eyes were drawn to it because the good folk at Vox Pop had stuck a label on it saying "Awesome 60's Garage" and a price tag of £4.99, so why not I thought..... and I was not disappointed.

The Bruthers, who actually were brothers, a bit like the Bee Gees but with better dress sense and better music obviously, were from a town on the east coast of America called New York. They only ever released one single, the marvellous organ enduced stomper Bad Way to Go in 1966, despite the undenying talent, the band were dropped by their label due to the low commercial impact of this initial single, as is always the way with these sorry tales.



In 2003 the good people at Sundazed looked back at The Bruthers, cobbled together some lost tapes and released this album. But this isn't your typical makeshift lost and found. Sundazed have done a quality job with this collection and you can be forgiven in thinking that The Bruthers themselves released this album back in the day.

It contains some pure 60's Garage gems, the only single Bad Way To Go, is snarling and raw as nature intended. The album also features other gems including The Courtship of Repunzel whose ending screams of "Repunzel!" is marvellous to say the least. Other songs which will feature on your play list within an hour of your purchase arriving though the door include, Bad Love, Don't Forget to Cry and Just Had to Laugh similarly following the Bruther's format of snarling vocals, raw guitar, organ accompaniment, and an underlying fury.

Also on the album are your typical Garage treatment towards more well know songs, including covers of The Who's My Generation and The Beatles' I Wanna Be Your Man.

This album proves that just because you have never heard of a band or their music, mearly proves that you're just missing a few CDs from your collection and nothing more. If you are interested in Garage or just want to have your ears opened to the possibility that a few 60's pop compilations were not the only thing to come out of the 1960's, buy this album, like me, you wont be disappointed.

TheCellarTapes

Mark Wirtz - A Teenage Opera
(1996)



Tracks

1 Theme from a Teenage Opera 2:33
2 Festival of Kings 2:45
3 Grocer Jack [Excerpt from a Teenage Opera] 4:40
4 The Paranoiac Woodcutter, No. 1 1:25
5 Mr. Rainbow 2:32
6 Glory's Theme (All Aboard!) 4:51
7 On a Saturday 3:11
8 Possum's Dance 2:36
9 Auntie Mary's Dress Shop 2:45
10 Love & Occasional Rain 4:44
11 Grocer Jack (Reprise) 1:08
12 Sam 5:12
13 Farewell to a Broken Doll 3:22
14 (He's Our Dear Old) Weatherman 4:01
15 Shy Boy 2:36
16 Grocer's Jack Dream 3:34
17 Barefoot & Tiptoe 2:44
18 Kinckerbocker Glory 2:23
19 Dream, Dream, Dream 2:14
20 Colonel Brown 2:51
21 Cellophane Mary-Jane 2:31
22 Paranoiac Woodcutter, No. 2 1:10
23 Theme from a Teenage Opera [End Titles] 2:44

Mark Wirtz from Cologne in Germany was a member of the EMI production staff in 1960's London, working predominantly with the marvellous band Tomorrow; a partnership which resulted in their rather excellent debut in 1968. But during this period both Tomorrow and Mark Wirtz were working on a far grander project. The vision, a musical, either a full on stage production or even an animated film similar in scope to The Yellow Submarine, this work was entitled A Teenage Opera.

Work began on the project during the summer of 1967 and would continue for a good year before EMI execs pulled the plug on the project, despite several quality songs and purpose made singles being released. It would then take another 30 years for audiences to be given just a hint of the scale and quality of this concept, and here it is, A Teenage Opera - The Original Soundtrack, released on RPM Records in 1996 with the full support and collaboration of Mark Wirtz himself.

On this album are tracks from an array of talent, including works by Tomorrow and in the case of the rather splendid song Grocer Jack, Tomorrow's front man Keith West. There are also works from Steve Flynn, Kippington Lodge and even from Mark Wirtz himself on the triumphant He's Our Dear Old Weatherman, which as a song probably deserves a review of its own.



This album has pop songs, psychedelic songs, full blown musical theatre with children singing choruses and even orchestral delights, which all in all some would find as a whole quite pretentious but I seriously cannot get enough of it. Many of the songs on this soundtrack are beyond catchy so please do not be afraid, trust me its well worth a listen.

I think this album will be of interest to a lot of people. It certainly is yet another example of how much creativity was coming out of England between 67 and 68. I also quite like the fact that despite its quality singles and its creation being slap bang during the concept album wonder years, as a project it still found itself disregarded by the EMI bigwigs, who lets be honest, weren't exactly shy of sanctioning grandiose works during this period, its really quite staggering, for that reason there is definitely an air of loss treasure about this album, and that's very much the case for me.

Definitely one for the curious and most definitely one for those already initiated, buy today.

TheCellarTapes

Johnny Cash - At Folsom Prison
(1968)



Tracks


Johnny Cash was born in Arkansas in 1942. Formerly in the United States Air Force, Cash made his name in the vibrant American country scene of the 1950's, but it would be wrong to pigeon hole the man, if anything I would try to stick him between Rock N Roll, Folk and maybe half way towards Tennessee, but certainly Cash's sound was very much of his own with a voice unmistakably his.

Hit after hit would be very prominent throughout his output in the 1950s and early sixties; however by 1963 his excesses caught up with his, and his career was most definitely on the wane, a brief come back in 1964 did nothing to halt this slide.

After a turbulent few years, Cash, thanks to new wife June Carter had managed to compose himself and gathered some direction and in 1968 recorded one of the greatest live albums ever made.



Live at Folsom Prison funnily enough was an album recorded in Folsom Prison, a prison situated in California. You can imagine the looks on the faces of those Record Company Executives at Columbia when he pitched the idea for this album. In essence what this album was is Johnny Cash playing golden oldies which now seemed awfully dated, to an audience of thieves, rapists and murderers, as well as these issues, Cash by this point was a forgotten artist and very much irrelevant, but someone at CBS must have owed him a favour or something.

The first time you play At Folsom Prison you're met with the now iconic greeting of "Hello, I'm Johnny Cash", followed by a huge roar, at this point you think..... well I certainly thought anyway, "oh my", and as the first notes of Folsom Prison play out it suddenly dawns on you that what you are listening to here is simply one of the most definitive moments in musical history.

18 tracks follow the opener, 18 tracks about love and loss, imprisonment and escape, poverty and death, and for all their faults in life, the imprisoned at Folsom Prison really are what makes this album what it is. The energy from the crowd which you can literally feel oozing from the record is soaked up by Cash and his band and is relayed perfectly to the listener at home

There are many highlights on this record, too many in fact, ones that stick out for me as I write this are 25 Minutes to Go, a song about a man waiting to hang, the story telling and imagery created by Cash for this song really is quite something. There are also some undoubtedly foot tappy numbers too, Cocaine Blues is a glorious song with some memorable lines (see what I did there), as well as Orange Blossom Special which is also a cracking song which does get repeated quite often on the old radio show.

This album will forever make Johnny Cash a legend and ensured that he was not like the typical 1950's artist who only your Gran fondly remembers. It spawned a follow up live album, At San Quentin, which like Folsom Prison had some landmark moments which will live on long after Cash's death in 2003. In short, glorious, glorious, glorious.

lucifer_sam

This is a great thread. I haven't heard of a few of these, and I have half a mind to get them as soon as I can.

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first.am

euphoria z

Get the Picture is my favorite album of The Pretty Things. That Turquoise album is good stuff also. Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake is pure brilliance and so is There Are But Four Small Faces.The Electric Prunes: I Had Too Much to Dream (Last Night) is good as well. The Village Green Preservation Societyis, obviously, awesome, as is Face to Face, Something Else by the Kinks, and Arthur (Or the Decline and Fall of the British Empire) [Bonus Tracks]. Bad Way to Go is pretty good, not great though. A Teenage Opera: The Original Soundtrack Recording is good stuff as well.At Folsom Prison is an undisputed classic. Your thread gets a thumb’s up from me!

TheCellarTapes

The Montanas - You've Got to Be Loved
(1997)



Tracks

1 All That Is Mine Can Be Yours 2:38
2 How Can I Tell? 2:21
3 That's When Happiness Began 2:12
4 Goodbye Little Girl 1:52
5 Ciao Baby 2:41
6 Anyone There 2:35
7 Take My Hand 2:22
8 Top Hat 2:07
9 You've Got To Be Loved 2:53
10 Difference Of Opinion (97 Remix) 2:47
11 A Step In The Right Direction 3:15
12 Someday (You'll Be Breaking My Heart Again) 2:46
13 You're Making A Big Mistake 2:50
14 Run To Me 2:30
15 Roundabout 2:47
16 Mystery 3:03
17 Let's Ride 3:05
18 I Need To Fly 2:20
19 Hold On 3:18
20 Sammy 2:37
21 Tear Drops 2:49
22 You Got Me Wrong Girl 2:06
23 One Thing Or The Other (Version 1) 3:18
24 One Thing Or The Other (Version 2) 2:54
25 Hold On (Instrumental) 3:18
26 Difference Of Opinion (Instrumental) 2:44


Like many of the bands that will feature in this journal, The Montanas were a band who had all the makings of a quality band but alas were missing the breaks to get them to that level of God like genius that so many of their counterparts enjoyed.

The Montanas were formed in Wolverhampton in 1964 and were known predominantly for their hits Ciao Baby which was big in Italy, as you might expect, and You've Got to Be Loved which charted well in the UK and US; this despite it not even being promoted across the Atlantic. Other then that they were very much a band flying below the radar, which I'm sure you'll agree is most definitely no measure for how good a band actually is or were.

Thankfully though we can review this bands output whilst they were with the Pye Record Label here with this compilation, You've Got To Be Loved was released in 1997 on the Sequel Record Label, and once again a heart felt thanks to these record labels for producing such compilations after the band's material had not seen the printers after so many years. Contained here are some beautiful songs, some belting songs, some Freakbeat songs and in a couple of cases a combination of all three.



Highlights on the album are of course the songs The Montanas were remembered for by mainstream audiences, the mainstream are not total fools after all; however there are some lost treasures to be had here. A Step in The Right Direction's failure to reach a significant chart position I think we could judge as a criminal offence for example, there are also songs that weren't even released at the time The Montanas were at their "height", the best of which is Hold On which is such a brilliant song I am taken a back that it was not released until this compilation.

These are of course the stand out tracks, but throughout this compilation there are some strong songs which it would be a crying shame to think that you will never get to hear them other then on this compilation, but that's life I guess, so why not give this album a go, it's very much a pleasurable listen.

jackhammer

This is a superb thread and kudos for highlighting bands that are more obscure. I would'nt mind hearing that Montanas album some time.

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TheCellarTapes

The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Are You Experienced
(1967)



Tracks



Born in 1940's Seattle, Jimi Hendrix would go on to be the ultimate guitar Legend in both his native America and more crucially here in the UK. In the mid sixties, Eric Clapton was God having given the blues sound a complete overhaul, however in the late sixties Clapton was revealed to be just a mere prophet for Hendrix had arrived to save us all.

It's well documented that Hendrix had a gift for creating noises from his guitar that only he could create, this much is true, problem is he raised the bar to a level which has not even been sniffed at since the time of his tragic death in 1970, which certainly has left a big hole on mankind's ability to create.

Despite Hendrix's ability and obvious talent, it was only in the last 5 years of his life that he managed to have the huge impact his talent deserved. In 1966, The Animals were on the verge of breaking up, and their bassist Chas Chandler decided he would try his arm at management. Luckily for us, a chance viewing in New York of Hendrix playing blues in a club convinced a gob smacked Chandler that he needed to get this guy over to England.

In England, a rhythm section was forged around him, arguably one of the best rhythm sections ever created. Mitch Mitchell, possibly one of the greatest drummers ever to pick up a pair of sticks and Noel Redding on bass, both had the key ability to keep up with Hendrix and produce the glue needed to make the songs sound the way they did. This new three piece would be called The Jimi Hendrix Experience.



Their first record in the UK was a triumph, released in 1967 on MCA, Are You Experienced was a stunning debut, incorporating at its base the fundamentals of Blues, Rock and Soul with the addition of a more futuristic fuzz sound trying to kick out from all angles, there was also an undeniable jazz influence coming from Hendrix's rhythm section, which probably allowed all these elements to gel with such wonderous results.

Nothing more demonstrates the power in Hendrix's fingers then Foxey Lady, imagine if you will just sitting there having placed the needle on the record to hear that guitar slowly marauding its way through your amp and breaking through to produce one of the most hypnotic guitar riffs ever created, brilliant. Yet more Psychedelic wonders and memorable riffs follow with Manic Depression and Purple Haze, but there is much more then just that. There's a mental instrumental with Third Stone From The Sun, and even a tender side being demonstrated on the album, with beautifully poetic songs like The Wind Cries Mary and Hey Joe

This is album is frenzied and raw yet at the same time is beautiful, this album was responsible for launching Hendrix onto a stage much bigger then those days where he was in the Isley Brothers backing band a few years earlier, the clamps were now off and he was loose, this was where the legend began.

Thanks to later issues, there is now no missing links between the UK version of this album and the US version, its now all available on one album, if you're one of those collector types, you might want to buy both versions, but if not, I'm sure the 17 track version will do you fine.

Gavin B.

Your reviews are quite insightful. I find it hard to believe you are so young.. you've definitely done your homework.

I share your love of the Kinks. They were the true survivors of the first wave British Invasion. Ray Davies never rested on his laurels as a songwriter and many of his current songs reflect a man who is still in touch with the world and his own sense of rebellion. The fact that Ray Davies, at age 62, can write a song like Things Are Going to Change (the Morning After) ... a ruthless reassessment of his own personal failures, is evidence of his fierce committment to confronting his own artistic demons.

I think a lot of Americans missed the humor and the double edged social commentary of Ray Davies' songs, which were uniquely British observations about the rigid and oppressive system of class relations in England.

TheCellarTapes

Os Mutantes - Os Mutantes
(1968)



Tracks



Os Mutantes were formed in Sao Paulo, Brazil, in 1965, and were the forerunners of the Brazillian culture phenomenon known as Tropicalia. But what is this Tropicalia you speak? Well Tropicalia was a cultural revolution in Brazil in the mid to late sixties which not only affected music, but all areas of the arts, giving pieces a more deeper meaning and giving its creators a reason to push the boundaries for what was possible to out shine dictatorship.

There is no bigger example of the Tropicalia movement then Os Mutantes' debut in 1968, their self titled album is little known outside of Brazil, but I only had the album a couple of hours before I became absolutely smitten by it. It has left me thinking that if this was an English speaking album, this would probably be heralded as a masterpiece by all and sundry.



For starters it is unbelievable how flexible and open-minded Os Mutantes actually were with this debut, the level of experimentation with their songs featured on this album is far superior to anything coming out of England or America at the time, an experimentation that has made the songs something quite remarkable, and this really cannot be said enough.

There are of course your typical carnival side to the sound, which you would expect from a band from Brazil. But not just that, they've decided that fuzz from a guitar is good, and fuzz in any guise is indeed good I think we can all agree.

They've also managed to get the orchestra in on most of their songs, with beautiful string and brass accompaniment throughout, but this is a Tropicalia album, you don't think it just stops there do you?

We really are not just talking about a Sgt Pepper Samba album here. The harmonisation of the vocals, the poetic quality of the songs (which are in Portuguese obviously but which transend the language barrier) and of course the fact that you have no idea where the album can take you next, brilliant.

Like with most albums which successfully fly close to the wind and by rights are one offs, some listeners may find a couple of the more far out pretty songs a little hard to get your head round. But seriously, this album is compelling and is jaw droppingly good at times which makes the album actually an addictive listen. This isn't just a first rate Pychedelic album or an advert for World Music....whatever that means; this is a masterpiece pure and simple.