Southern California Spotlight: The Lyrics - So What!!/They Can't Hurt Me

Day 2 of the Battle of the Garage Bands for the SoCal region takes us to San Diego, California.

From November of 1965, we present to you The Lyrics. What we have here is the greatest record to ever -- EVER -- come out of that fine, sunny city of San Diego. Both sides of this Era Records single are filled with teen angst, anger and bravado.

The composer of both numbers is Chris Gaylord, the singer and harmonica player. Chris apparently dated a girl who lived in swanky-ass Rancho Santa Fe in San Diego's north county. As you can hear from the lyrics to The Lyrics' songs, she had tons of nice things (yep, an electric typewriter!) for which she was particularly proud. Then the girl turned on poor Chris. (Abstractly speaking, this is always a key thing for any good 1960s garage band song. If the singer hasn't been dumped by a no-good, scheming girl, then we just don't get great songs.) Lucky for us, Chris took his anger out on the girl in a constructive, creative and generally healthy fashion - he wrote two songs about her and published them for the whole world to hear. 

Our A-Side, So What!!, tells the tale of Chris being toured around this little Jezebel's house.

Well, now everything you got is in excess
And it goes without saying, it's got to be the best
From your swimming pool, to your daddy's racing car
To that senseless, useless bomb shelter in your back yard
Well, I guess there ain't too much you haven't got
But all I can say to you about that is So What!!

This is actually the second release of So What! as the number was released months before as the flip-side to Why'd He Go?, written by band leader Craig Carll, on the local, Feather Records label.

The Flip-Side of this Era Records release is the fabulous They Can't Hurt Me. For some bizarre reason, the girl that Chris had been going with started to think that maybe this was not the guy for her. Maybe it was his condescending, judgmental words that he regularly spewed out at her. Apparently she starts talking trash on our poor broken down, stomped upon protagonist. What's an angry young guy to do? Well, he writes a song saying that her venomous words can't hurt him. 

Chris got booted from the band shortly after this record came out and he moved on to other great things.

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side!

The Decades - I'm Gonna Dance/On Sunset

I'm Gonna Dance

On Sunset

I don't know a whole lot about this fuzzed out pop-raver. The Decades probably hailed from the Los Angeles area and released their one and only single in 1967 on Era Records. The Decades, whoever they are, get writing credit for both sides. To be honest, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that this band was a studio creation doing a one-off.

The catchy A-Side, I'm Gonna Dance, has a classic duel between a flute and a fuzz guitar. Fluzz Rock? Doesn't every song have that?

The Flip-Side is real interesting. Probably not for everyone, but I love it. On Sunset has that abstract feel to it that reminds us of some of The Chocolate Watchband's more exploratory work or the work of early Frank Zappa or the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band. 

Until next time, we'll see you On The Flip-Side! 

Song of the Week: The No-Na-Mee's - You Gotta Hold On

[Ed. Note - Please see comments section after the article for a band listing and confirmation that this WAS a real band and they were from Modesto, California.]

Not too much known about this stomper entitled Gotta Hold On. An online ERA Records discography shows this as coming from 1966. The listed producer is a cat named Billy Cardenas. Cardenas apparently specialized in East LA bands and had a penchant for working with hispanic bands. The songwriter is listed as one Doug Wareham. He also wrote the Flip-Side, Just Wanna Be Myself.

Other than that, nobody seems to know who the cryptically named No-Na Mee's really are. Both the name and the fact that nobody has come forward to say, "yeah-dat-mee's" makes me believe that this two minute and twenty eight second gem could well have been a studio band. Perhaps Cardenas himself. The only thing arguing against that, and I don't mean this in a bad way, is that the musicianship and production remain pretty amateurish. Say, unlike The Shindogs or some of those records labeled as The Chocolate Watchband. One internet source I found claimed they were from the rock-n-roll mecca of the California Central Valley of Modesto. 

I pulled this one off of Highs In The Mid-Sixties Volume 2. Anyone with info on this song, please let us know by dropping a comment below.