Continuing onwards and upwards in my present search for musical anomalies, but all the while looking behind me; I stumbled over an album called "Simon Simopath." An extremely brief (25 minutes), but pleasant diversion by some band with the notion to call themselves "Nirvana" the very same year Kurt Cobain was born.

As soon as I dropped the needle, I thought I was in for yet another "Pet Sounds" progenitor, but no, that just seemed to be the introductory salvo. My dubious reaction quickly changed to near disbelief as the album exposed a decades long, deeply held prejudice of mine. The fallacy being- that SPARKS had no predecessors; other than The Kinks' brilliant blueprint "People take Pictures of Each Other. Simon Simopath begs to differ.

Ira Robbins once wrote, in one of his many thousands of album reviews, "rehabilitation sometimes comes in the form of strange packaging." Indeed.



Edited 2 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2021 01:20PM by STEVE.

Here's another one that caught me by surprise...

The New Colony Six - Breakthrough (1966)
Must be that Leslie amplifier, with it's "come up for air after holding your breath a long time, while a set of waves passes overhead" liquid sound.

A neat album, marred by two extremely lame cover songs.

I listened to some of that Nirvana album. Not bad, more interesting than good to my ears, but worth the time to hear at least once. Chris Blackwell was involved as executive producer. The wikipedia entry for the album is an entertaining read: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Story_of_Simon_Simopath

The New Colony Six...not as good.

Holy Modal Rounders!

Thanks for your take zoo.

A band from that era that I never heard of until this morning - Blossom Toes.
[www.youtube.com]

One of my favorite obscure tracks from that time, the manifesto of a fellow named Alexander Bell.
[www.youtube.com]

And of course, this gem from the Monocles:
[www.youtube.com]



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 11/20/2021 09:57AM by breno.

I've spun The Blossom Toes first album ('67) at least five times over the past year to see if it would grow on me. While there's some real high points and moments of attractive subtlety on the album, it never coalesced into a rewarding listen.

Alexander Bell Believes is bonafide.
Monocles - reminds me of an 11pm newscast I once watched, while on purple microdot.


But what do I know? I like Wally Tax' "Love In" album .
Now there's a warped schmaltzburger platter that I can really sink my teeth into!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/23/2021 05:10PM by STEVE.

Wally Tax! Ever heard his band The Outsiders? Insane garage punk, no wonder The Lyres were so influenced by him.

Hello Mr Fabulous,
I have only skimmed the surface of The Outsiders, (apparently, The Clash hadn't heard of them at all!) no more than a quick run through, say, less than a minute for each track on their album "CQ" because of time constraints. However, that was enough time for me to have a hunch that "there's something good going on here" and I look forward to hearing more of the band.

UPDATE:
So much so, that I'm listening to the "Strange Things are Happening" Singles CD right now.
Man, I'm really impressed.
I wonder if the Lyres took their namesake from the Outsiders song "Lying All the Time?" And, IF a couple of guitarists from The Church were not only, influenced by that same song as well, but also made a bloody career out of it!



Edited 3 time(s). Last edit at 11/24/2021 01:49PM by STEVE.

This thread has been reminding me of how much I loved the ‘Pebbles’ series, which collected ‘original punk rock from the psychedelic sixties’…. Kind of a poor man’s version of Lenny Kaye’s ‘Nuggets’ comp, I suppose? But what a way to discover the regional, underground bands of that era.

I’m thinking Wally Tax’s Outsiders are different than the Outsiders who had the hit ‘time won’t let me’… and who appear on Pebbles vol. 9.