V.A.: Garage Beat `66 Volumes 1, 2, 3, 4 & 5

by popular demand...(reup)

old links...here

new link for VOLUMES 1, 2 & 5:
HERE
&
volume 3-4
HERE

Garage Beat '66, Volume 4: I'm in Need! (jolly great)

ALBUM INFO

Sundazed picks up its Garage Beat '66 series where it left off, with the fourth volume, subtitled I'm in Need!, following the same pattern as the first three, serving up 20 garage rock sides from the latter half of the '60s (1966 is ground zero for this comp, but it features tracks recorded between 1965 and 1970). While this series does have something to offer serious collectors — primarily excellent sound quality and a handful of previously unreleased tracks — it isn't intended for garage fanatics: it's designed as the next step for listeners who love Nuggets but don't have the time, inclination, or patience to sort through the various Pebbles and Rubble series. It's also for listeners who have a fairly strict definition of garage, preferring American bands inspired by the Rolling Stones and Yardbirds bashing out blues-influenced primitive rockers, not the psychedelia that runs rampant through Nuggets, because there's precious little of that to be found here. Which isn't to say that Garage Beat is monotonous (well, no more than any other garage rock comp, but anybody interested in this music knows that going into the disc). There's a good variety of sounds and attitudes on I'm in Need!, from the snide, harmonica-fueled opener of the Haunted's "1-2-5" and Rob Kirk & the Word's minor-key, trippy "Girl Talk" to Nobody's Children's fuzzy, sneering "Good Times" and the Torquays' tense, Yardbirds-styled "Harmonica Man (From London Town)." There are three previously unissued cuts here, all noteworthy: the Counts IV's dense, wordy "Discussion of the Unorthodox Council," the Groupies' version of Willie Dixon's "Down in the Bottom," which is a rowdy barnstormer, and the Rahgoos' "Do the Rahgoo," an exhilarating manic two-minute blast of chaos. While there are no big hits here and a couple of cuts don't rise above the appealingly generic, this is a tight, compulsively listenable collection of some of the best second-tier garage rock singles. Much of this can be found elsewhere or is well known to hardened collectors, but for those listeners who don't want to amass a large collection of garage comps, this volume of Garage Beat, like the others, is an excellent distillation of some of the best lesser-known sides of the genre.

GARAGE soul.

LINK: DONT LOSE YOUR MIND ! ! ! (WITH THIS ALBUM)

Garage Beat '66, Volume 3: Feeling Zero... (Delightful)

ALBUM INFO

The third volume in Sundazed's Garage Beat '66 follows the same format as the preceding installments, the 20 tracks hailing from all over North America, most of them quite rare, all of them sourced from the original masters. Mid-'60s garage rock is the main course here, but it does allow for some different shades than the stereotypical snarling fuzz-laden pounders, including some psychedelic and pop-influenced productions. The Music Machine is the only group here that had a big hit (though they're represented by a non-charting 1968 single, "Mother Nature/Father Earth"), and while some of the other songs and artists will be fairly familiar to '60s collectors who specialize in this area, most listeners who've only just digested the Nuggets box set will find most of it virgin territory. It occupies a somewhat peculiar niche, though, in that collectors who dig this stuff might be apt to already have the better cuts here — Southwest F.O.B.'s pop-psychedelic "Smell of Incense," the first-rate harmonized pop/rock of the E-Types' "She Moves Me," the Preachers' fierce version of "Who Do You Love," the Brogues' Pretty Things-inspired "Don't Shoot Me Down" (with a couple of future members of Quicksilver Messenger Service), and the Mourning Reign's moody "Satisfaction Guaranteed." The other songs are mostly below the standard of the aforementioned items, but a few goodies do lurk here, particularly the mix of stomping rhythms and tag-team harmonies in the Answer's "I'll Be In" and the Mile Ends' "Bottle Up and Go," a galvanizing slice of blues-pop-garage that's one of the best such efforts not to show up on too many compilations.

THIS IS JUST GREAT

LINK: CRYSTALIZE YOUR MIND ! ! ! (WITH GARAGE MUSIC)

Garage Beat '66, Volume 2: Chicks Are for Kids! (2nd part,Beautiful)

ALBUM INFO

The second volume in Sundazed's Garage Beat '66 series follows much the same format as its predecessor: 20 garage rockers from all over America, though generally from the rawer end of the spectrum rather than the poppier side. There's a slightly higher concentration of names that'll be at least somewhat known to some of the less specialized listeners, though, including the Guess Who (their 1966 single "Believe Me"), the Remains, the Barbarians (with their crude Merseybeat-influenced debut 45, "Hey Little Bird," which was their best recording), the Litter, the Five Americans (with their 1964 single "I'm Feeling O.K."), We the People, the Spiders (who evolved into Alice Cooper), the Ugly Ducklings (with a previously unreleased version of "I'm a Man"), and the Sonics. That alone is enough to make it a better than average '60s garage compilation, and the sound quality (mastered, unusually for a garage anthology, from original sources) and detailed track-by-track annotation by Ugly Things publisher Mike Stax are other bonuses. As for the rarer, less-anthologized items here, some of these tend toward the more run-of-the-mill garage rock of the era, though the Bold's lewd "Gotta Get Some" (which recalls Paul Revere & the Raiders' toughest moments) and the weird ringing guitar of the Go-Betweens' "Have You for My Own" are ear-catching. The Jynx's 1965 cover of Them's "Little Girl" isn't nearly as exciting as the original, but does possess historical interest for featuring future Big Star member Chris Bell on lead guitar.

LIKE I SAID : BEAUTIFUL

LINK: DONT BLOW YOUR MIND ! ! ! (WATCH OUT ! ! !)

Garage Beat '66, Volume 1: Like What, Me Worry?! (Great and essential)

ALBUM INFO

Sundazed's Garage Beat '66 series of mid-'60s garage rock takes much the same approach as hundreds, if not thousands, of such compilations that have been issued since the late '70s. Each volume has an assortment of tracks from all over North America, many of them rare, none of them national hits, and most of the acts known only within their region, if at all. The emphasis is on raw, fuzzy outrage, often inspired by (but not as polished as) the more R&B-aligned end of the British Invasion. It's not as good as the Nuggets box set (in part because it's lacking in pop hooks as strong as those that made many of the Nuggets selections actual hits), and not as good as the best of the many sub-Nuggets comps of '60s garage. It's better than the average '60s garage rock anthology, though, in part because unlike virtually all other such animals, the tracks are mastered from the original sources, and the liner notes include copious commentary on each selection by garage rock authorities. So if you're the kind of fan likely to collect such stuff, although you may well already have items like 006's "Like What, Me Worry," the Fe-Fi-Four Plus 2's "I Wanna Come Back (From the World of LSD)," and the Sparkles' "Hipsville 29 B.C. (I Need Help)" elsewhere, you may well not have them in as good fidelity as they boast here. While the songs do tend toward basic bluesy teen rants, there's room for some eclecticism, particularly in the inclusion of John Hammond's cover of Billy Boy Arnold's "I Wish You Would" from a 1966 single (with Bill Wyman on bass and Robbie Robertson on guitar, and a different version than the one that appears on his album So Many Roads); Matthew Moore Plus Four's garage-folk-rock cover of Buffy Sainte-Marie's "Codyne (She's Real)"; and Words of Luv's version of an obscure P.F. Sloan folk-rocker, "I'd Have to Be Outta My Mind." The no-holds-barred absurdity of the aforementioned "I Wanna Come Back (From the World of LSD)" and the crunching soul-rock-pop of the Sparkles' "No Friend of Mine" stick out as the highlights, however.

BANDS IN THIS COMPILATION

1. 006 2. Country Gentlemen 3. Fever Tree 4. Sparkles 5. Century's 6. The Kreeg 7. The In 8. The Ban 9. Executioners 10. The Odyssey 11. Matthew Moore Plus Four 12. Words of Luv 13. The Five of Us 14. John Hammond 15. Just Two Guys 16. Olivers 17. Neal Ford & the Fanatics 18. Somestack Lightnin' 19. Sparkles 20. Fe-Fi-Four Plus 2

DONT YOU HAVE IT ? ? ? WHAT ARE YOU WAITING ? ? ? ! ! !
A GARAGE MUST.

NEW LINK: I Wanna Come Back (From The World Of LSD) ! ! ! !