freakbeat: s/d

Amateurists suggestions are the first three things I thought of too, they're damn essential

That's as good a description as any. I'd class some of the harder edged fuzzed up mod and beat from 65 and even late 64 as freakbeat too.

Dr. C's Freakbeat Hall Of Fame :

* The Mark Four - 'I'm Leaving' Menacing R+B Freak hybrid before they became The Creation.

*The Buzz - 'You're Holding Me Down' Joe Meek's wildest production.

*The Poets - 'Wooden Spoon' .

*The Birds - 'Say those Magic Words' Ron Wood's finest moment

*The Wimple Winch - 'Rumble on Mersey Square South' - intense! A great band before they totally lost it in fop-psych whimsy in 1968.

*The Open Mind - 'Cast A Spell' Late, late freakbeat - I think it's 1969 - and nearly heavy metal.

*The Craig - 'I Must Be Mad'. Fuzz-fest with a thundering phased drum break and an attitude and a half.

*The Dakotas - 'Spider and The Fly' Without Billy J Kramer, they let rip into a slice of thrashing R+B. Mick Green's guitar shows Wilko Johnson and Andy Gill the way.

*The Chances Are -'Fragile Child' At the pop end - a great chorus "You shouldn't do that, you shouldn't do that"

*The Koobas - 'Barricades' - Slow burning scouse freakbeat.

*The Kirkby's - 'It's a Crime'. More Scousers! They twist the 'Satisfaction' riff until it's totally f@cked.

*The Movement -'Tell Her' You know the one 'Tell her, tell her, tell her, tell her right now'. Glam before its time.

*The Kinks -'I Need You' Crunchy B-side from 1964. You Really Got Me backwards

*The Bumble Bees - 'Girl of My Kind' The Dutch were good at freakbeat, damn good, and this bonkers brass-driven stomper is the best example.

*The Onyx -'You Gotta Be With Me' Mod attitude with a freakbeat edge.

*Les Fleur De Lys - 'Circles' Far better than The Who's original

*The Primitives -'Help Me'. No, not *those* Primitives. These were purveyors of primal fuzzed-up R+B.

*Cherry Smash - 'Fade Away Maureen'. Best band name EVER! Best song title EVER!

*The Plague - 'Looking for The Sun'

* Rick and Sandy - 'Lost My Girl' A freakbeat Everley Brothers!

*The Attack - 'Colours of My Mind'

*The Human Instinct - 'A Day In My Minds Mind' Kiwis!

*The Sorrows - 'Take A Heart' A rumbling, tribal precursor to the likes of The Glitter Band and Adam and The Ants.

*The Creation - 'How Does It Feel To Feel' A slo-mo trip with *that* chord change on the chorus. Wild!

*Edwick Rumbold -'Shades Of Grey' Mod/Cream hybrid. Nice.

*The Pretty Things - 'Midnight To Six Man' This is just fantastic - easily their best, although 'Walking Through My Dreams' pushes it close.

*Jason Crest -'Black Mass' Mad as a chair.

*The Living Daylights -'Let's Live For Today' Full-out pop really.

*Van Morrison - 'I Can Only Give You Everything' Incredibly, he was good once.

All for now

how about the eyes - when the night falls? too much beat and not enough freak for the category maybe but it's so perfect.

have you fellas heard The Chants R&B? I keep hearing about em

Most are on various Rubble albums, there's a few from Hen's Teeth, That Driving Beat, Haunted and that series of Deram/Decca comps (The Beat Scene etc...)

The Eyes >>>>>>>>>> most of the generic freakbeat garbage.

"Children of Tomorrow" - Mike Stuart Span
"Buffalo Billy Can" - Apple*
"Snow White" - Winston's Fumbs
"She's Got Eyes That Tell Lies" - Him and the Others
"Cold Turkey" - Big Boy Pete
"Grey" - The Hush
"Subway (Smokey Pokey World)" - The Tickle*
"14 Hour Technicolor Dream" - The Syn*
"With Love from 1 to 5" - State of Micky and Tommy*
"Boy Meets Girl" - Paper Blitz Tissue
"Colours of My Mind" - The Attack
"My Friend Jack" - The Smoke
"Gong with the Luminous Nose" - Fleur de Lys
"Maze of Love" - Dave Clark Five
"Floatin'" - Vamp
"Save My Soul" - Wimple Winch*
"Defecting Grey" - Pretty Things
"Walking Through My Dreams" - Pretty Things*
"Talking About the Good Times" - Pretty Things
"Mr. Evasion" - Pretty Things
"10,000 Words in a Cardboard Box" - Aquarian Age
"He's Our Dear Old Weather Man" - Marc Wirtz

Not to mention tons of shit by John's Children, Tomorrow, the Creation, Kaleidoscope, etc.

* My extra special picks for the day.

Everything I've heard by Gary Walker and Rain is good, too, though I haven't ever heard the whole album.

But yeah, I hear you, Carl. Sometimes freakbeat comps seem to have a lot of mediocre stuff on 'em.

Without sending all of my money to Sundazed or Bomp or something, is there a comp you'd recommend? I don't even know why I posted to this thread.

The Poets were good; there was a thread about them. Their stuff on Rubble Vol. 5 is the nubs. And more songs by the Attack. Add "Neville Thumbcatch" to my list of picks for the day.

hmmm... are we *sure* this is the same Human Instinct as the NZ group? I'm not so sure. I've often wondered about this; I don't think they are the same band...

"Originally from New Zealand, they arrived in England in September 1966 and since the above 45s were all recorded here I've decided to include them. They'd previously been known as The Four Fours back in New Zealand and were originally signed to Mercury. Indeed their first two 45s were leased to Mercury before they arrived here.

Human Instinct's best work however was for Deram. A Day In My Mind's Eye was quite a powerful song, notable for its electronic bleep. It's flip, Death Of The Seaside is poppier with summery harmonies which mourn the passing of Summer and has a few interesting tempo changes. The follow-up was a fine cover of David Crosby's Renaissance Fair to which they added a string arrangement. The flip side, Pink Dawn, sounds a little like The Small Faces.

The band later returned to New Zealand where they cut a series of albums, which are now rare and sought-after but that's another story, although the three albums concerned were repackaged on a three album set 1969-1971 (Little Wing LW 4002/3/4) 1988. The work of an entirely new line-up, assembled by drummer Maurice Greer, they fall very much into the power-rock category. Also repackaged with a booklet and poster is The Zodiac Years (Little Wing LW 4014/15) 1990, issued on a German label, which originally appeared on the Zodiac label. It's a double set.

Compilation coverage has included:- A Day In My Mind's Eye and Pink Dawn on Rubble Vol. 12: Staircase To Nowhere (LP); A Day In My Mind's Eye on Rubble Vol. 6 (CD) and The Psychedelic Scene (CD); Pink Dawn on Rubble Vol. 7 (CD) and The Freakbeat Scene (CD); Death Of The Seaside and Renaissance Fair on British Psychedelic Trip, Vol. 3 (LP); Death Of The Seaside on Great British Psychedelic Trip, Vol. 2 (CD) and Psychedelic Unknowns, Vol. 7; Renaissance Fair on Great British Psychedelic Trip Vol. 1 (CD) and Deram Dayze (LP)."

The US version: http://web.archive.org/web/20030604151918/borderlinebooks.com/us6070s/fuzz.html

yo Ian, that Past & Present label recently rereleased the excellent Perfumed Garden series (three volumes), which are a great introduction (but lots of overlap w/ newer stuff like the Nuggets II box etc..):

http://www.forcedexposure.com/bin/search.pl?search_string=perfumed&searchfield=title

Man, I just looked at the track listing for Nuggets II. They should have just made it a British comp. Kind of dumb to put token So. American tracks and token European tracks on there. And putting Canadian tracks on there makes no sense at all stylistically.

Wimple Winch had more good tracks, too, of course. "Atmospheres," etc. I even like those few later tracks that were just demos or something that were on Rubble - "Bluebell Wood" and "Marmalade Hair" and those tunes.

I've never heard the Birds - the Ron Wood band! Thought I was getting a copy of that comp CD of theirs for a dollar there for a moment with that amazon.com screwup a while ago ...

Wimple Winch's "Save My Soul" is almost MC5-like ballistics. It seems like Wimple Winch was one of the main things inspiring the Rubble series in the first place- three tracks on the first volume. That first volume might be the best Rubble.

And a run through of the Who's "Run, Run, Run"
http://s62.yousendit.com/d.aspx?id=0XXR5S589QX34329M2VK0TY1J8

Anybody want to YSI something by the Eyes?

"Faster Than Light" - The Mirror
"Always With Him" - The Living Daylights
"Kid Was a Killer" - Keith West
"William Chalker's Time Machine" - The Lemon Tree
"Barricades" - The Koobas
"House of Love" - The Flies
"Hold On" and "Daughter of the Moon" - Sharon Tandy and the Fleur de Lys
"On Love" - Skip Bifferty
"The Madman Running Through the Fields" - Dantalion's Chariot
"I'm Flying" - Serendipity
"A Step in the Right Direction" - The Montanas
"Riding on a Wave" - The Turnstyle

Plus all four sides by the Fairytale!

And I don't have the second Rubble box or the particular volume this track appeared on, but "Magic Rocking Horse" by Pinkertons Colours is a great one.

i'd really like to know more about les goths, the french band who are on 'in a perfumed garden'.

Just picked up the DECCA Freakbeat Scene comp, which is ace, and have also been bouncing off the walls to the Perfumed Garden and Chocolate Soup vinyl reissues I picked up a month back.

I know a lot of the more obscure bands were singles acts at the time, but have had CD collections - any particular recommendations on Freakbeat acts who had enough songs for a solid album?

the attack compilation is great, as is the eyes. the wimple winch one on bam caruso is not bad but a bit unsatisfying beyond the compiled singles. the les fleur de lys comp has its moments but again the non-comp'd stuff is nowhere near as good as the well known a-sides etc..

Might be obvious, but the two Kaleidoscope albums.

I'll probably get this :

http://www.amazon.co.uk/Real-Life-Permanent-Dreams-Psychedelic/dp/B000EPF8L2/ref=wl_it_dp/202-9993517-6331026?ie=UTF8&coliid=I1BVENVEACVHPF&colid=90NHE53UJAW0

Don't need it, but you know....it exists.

wooden hill have just put out a compilation of one in a million (of fredereek hernando fame) including seven unreleased cuts! nice

http://www.forcedexposure.com/artists/one.in.a.million.html

fredereek/double sight is of course one of the greatest double siders in history

wimple winch compilation is back in print. i have no idea if the sound has been upgraded but being cherry red at least there's a good chance they've done it legally

http://www.cherryred.co.uk/rpm/artists/wimplewinch.htm

Is that Wimple Winch compilation good? Only heard their songs that were on the various Rubble compilations etc

I always thought The Smoke were the archetypical freakbeat band.

God bless the internet - I finally managed to chase down The Factory on MP3 - I hadn't heard them properly since the scratchy old tape my ex boyfriend made me in the early 90s died.

tbh the only WW track not on rubble that i really dig is 'what's been done'. the rest is decent to mediocre. though i don't hate 'typical british workmanship' like some do - it's not like the execrable 'waterloo road' by jason crest

WW were pretty fantastic early on (Save My Soul, Rumble etc), but they blew it when they went for full-on whimsy (Marmalade Hair, Bluebell Wood) later on. They were great when they had a bit of snarly attitude, not so great when they started wearing kaftans.

That Real Life Permanent Dream box that I mentioned upthread is really great btw.

went for full-on whimsy (Marmalade Hair, Bluebell Wood)

OK, this totally sounds like the. thing. for me! Will have to look for this.

There's better full-on whimsy out there

Dude, I like Mr. Small The Watch Repair Man by Kaleidoscope UK, and it doesn't get much more whimsical than that.

That's what I mean, it's not as good as Mr. Small The Watch Repair Man!

i find this the most whimsical part of the Rubble

Not whimsical enough!

yeah there's much more whimsical than that!

OMG, is the boy in the lower left hand corner Carlos Barat or what?

actually *the* most whimsical shit on the face of the earth is Flowers Never Cry by the Mystic Astrologic Crystal Band but I can't even find that on YouTube. (They claimed to have it on last.fm but the actual track turned out to be Kaleidoscope when I played it, dammit)

couldn't think of a better place to post this

les fleur de lys reforming for a gig! with sharon tandy! wish i could go!!

http://www.modculture.info/2009/09/fleur-de-lys-gig---tickets-on-sale.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BWE26yk6a4s

http://www.numerogroup.com/products/the-creation-action-painting

The first time? Would have thought all their tracks would have been long since fully gathered. Looking forward to it in any event!