Tuesday, February 17, 2015

Mid-West Spotlight: The Trenchmen - Chains On My Heart/Travel With Me


We are moving to another region for our Battle of the Garage Bands. The Mid-West. America's breadbasket. We'll include Minnesota, Iowa, Missouri, Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska, South Dakota and North Dakota.

Let's start in bustling North Dakota. It's true, we scan the globe to bring you good, rare music! And today we found a real nice and super, super rare record from the middle of nowhere. Only 1,000 of these were ever pressed. The Trenchmen hails from the tiny farming community of Minot, North Dakota and they released this one and only single. The Trenchmen recorded the number in Minneapolis with engineer Tom Jung at the controls back in 1967.

Soon after the record came out, the four members graduated high school and turned to other interests. Singer and bassist Jim Mackey joined the Navy while the others went off to...well, the things you do when you are a teenager in North Dakota. Greg Jordahl, the group's guitarist was 15 when the band recorded his original composition, Chains On My Heart. The single was released on their own made-up label, Impact Sound. Alan Mattson plays the freaky-ass dominant organ and Ken White is on drums.

Jordahl also wrote the flip-side, Travel With Me. It's a trippy number where that hipster holding the book in the picture below promises some good farm girl that he can show her exotic far off places, far beyond the confines of Minot, North Dakota. The opportunities are endless. Fargo, Bowman, and of course, the Capitol, Bismark!

We'll see you next time On The Flip-Side!

9 comments:

  1. Brilliant! And what about the freaky bass under the guitar solo? Awesome.

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    1. In the interview I saw with Mackey (on some ND chamber of commerce-like site), he talks about how the bass was too loud. I disagree. It's perfect.

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  2. That bass line is pretty damn wicked. And from Minot, North Dakota. I got this record at a store in California. As always, I wonder how the hell it got all the way from Minot to San Diego? Jim Mackey taking one with him when he was stationed in San Diego in the Navy? (I have no idea where he was stationed, but I like that narrative...)

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  3. sweet, thanks for dropping a comment. we love it.

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  4. North Dakota garage band? I love. it. Never heard this record on any comp. And I have a lot of them.

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  5. Hey, anon. I really didn't appreciate this record until I ran across it in my collection about a month ago. One builds up a memory, prejudice and goes with it. I played it and it was much better than I had remembered. Did a little research and found an interview with Jim Mackey that gave me all the info in my article including only 1k pressed.

    Thanks for stopping by our little corner of the net.

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  6. Cool record. That there is some whacky busy and bubbly organ, makes it stand out and unique. The off key vocals near the end are distracting but overall I dig this.

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    1. It is some real bubbly organ. A young Allan Mattson must have thought "hey, this is MY chance to be heard in life. Damn it, I am not holding anything back!" I should post the flip too.

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  7. So good. And that fuzz on Travel With Me? It's some of the best I've heard. Should have used it less sparingly

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