Song of the Week: The Daily Flash - Green Rocky Road

Today we have The Daily Flash performing their original song, Green Rocky Road. The band was Seattle-based but the lads soon made the trek to Los Angeles and San Francisco to find their illusive glory. Green Rocky Road was the Flip-Side of their final of three two singles (actually 3, as their previous single was released two different times). At the time of recording the band was Doug Hastings, Steve Lalor, Don MacAllister, and Jon Keliehor. After this record they called it a day and moved on to other things in life.

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

Video Diary: Lucius perform on NPR's Tiny Desk Concert

Four songs from the newly formed Brookly-based band, Lucius: Go Home, Don't Just Sit There, Turn It Around, Genevieve. I'm most struck by Turn It Around, which can be found at 8:11. Jess Wolfe and Holly Laessig are on vocals. Danny Molad and Peter Lalish are on the cheap 60's era Sears Silvertone guitars (one made by Danelectro and the other made by Harmony) and Andrew Burri is on drums. Enjoy.

Busker Days: The Jonah Kit - Pancho and Lefty

The Jonah Kit was playing down in the BART station on Thursday. The band, for today consisting solely of Jonah Watchman, caught my attention with an upbeat, raucous take on the Jim Carroll tune People Who Died. The Kit also has an upright bass and drums. Jonah who grew up in San Francisco's Mission district and now resides in Oakland, was nice enough to let me record him even though I told him I didn't have the requisite, self-imposed $5 per recorded song. The sign in his guitar case stated No One Turned Away For Lack Of Funds, so....

Listen above to his strong rendition of Townes Van Zandt's great, enigmatic Pancho and Lefty.

Interestingly, The Jonah Kit has recorded with Craig Ventresco and two songs on the Kit's cd feature his masterful guitar work.  I gotta pick up a copy of that cd! You can hear a couple Busker Days recordings of Craig here and here. Also, all Busker recordings can be accessed on this site's handy Jump Station.

Album: Here Are The Chesterfield Kings - Side 2

Today brings us the original versions of the songs that grace side 2 of Here Are The Chesterfield Kings. The first installment, side 1, can be seen here.

The Chesterfield Kings knew these garage masterpieces intimately and understood the period that gave birth to them, and in compiling this diverse blend of nascent and obscure rock and roll, they created a kind of cross-section garage masterwork that never did, never could, materialize in the heyday of this music. It was the fate of any number of excellent acts that rose to the top and produced an album, such as The Chocolate Watch Band or The Sonics, that their album's integrity would become compromised as a result of some pressure to record a popular song or two, or an overzealous manager with studio musicians on the side, or any of the other multitude of pitfalls that assailed these productions. And the obscure acts, like today's The Mourning Reign or The Exotics or yesterday's Painted Ship or The Rogues, who all released seminal garage creations worthy of close study, had to settle with the publishing one or two singles, if they were lucky. So, with an exceptional ear and uncanny taste, The Chesterfield Kings mined this quarry and infused their findings with craftsmanship and attention to detail -- infused it with their own sound -- and served it all up on Here Are.

I hope you enjoy!

The Chocolate Watch Band - No Way Out

The Exotics - Come With Me

The Shades of Night - Fluctuation

The Mourning Reign - Satisfaction Guaranteed (see more here)

The Moving Sidewalks - 99th Floor

The Harbinger Complex - Time To Kill

Little Phil and the Night Shadows - 60 Second Swinger

Album: Here Are The Chesterfield Kings

Sometime in the fall of 1984, while spending a year in England, I was thumbing through a record store in Guilford, south of London, when to my astonishment I came across a copy of Here Are The Chesterfield Kings.  Having just been introduced to this album – and 60’s garage in general – by a friend back in the States, I knew this album was gold.  Isolated from my friend’s and my collection of records back home, I found myself studying this and a few other albums in my lonely little high-schooler bedroom.  The songs Little White Lies, Sixty Second Swinger and Come With Me got special attention.  They gave insight into this other kind of music - unruly, menacing vocals set to a raw pounding beat and inventive instrumentation.  Other songs such as You Better Look Now, Time to Kill or Outside Chance showed the more melodic side to the mid-‘60s music I craved to hear.  As a whole the music on this album was so charged that at times I literally couldn’t believe what I was hearing; and the album was so faithfully presented in the vein of a mid-‘60s era release, from the actual recordings to the picture of the band on the front of album, right down to the images and layout on the back of the album, that I must admit to not knowing for some time in which era this was initially recorded.  This just added to the allure.

The Chesterfield Kings formed in 1979 in Rochester, New York, and were one of the earliest ’60s revival bands as they rode that first crest that included The Lyres out of Boston and The Crawdaddys out of San Diego. In the next few years the Chesterfield Kings – Greg Prevost, Doug Meech, Rick Cona, Andy Babiuk and Orest Guran – released several singles and played locally, and all the while several influential garage-specific compilations – Pebbles and the Pebbles offshoot Highs In the Mid-Sixties - entered the mix. By the time of the Chesterfield King’s 1982 release of “Here Are”, ‘60s garage or otherwise ‘60s-inspired music had a foothold, albeit a distinctly underground foothold, on both coasts and the garage revival was well on its way.  While many of these early acts embraced the ‘60s garage ideal with a zeal, and some frankly nailed it – see The Unclaimed’s Primordial Ooze EP or The Tell-Tale Hearts' eponymous LP – if you wanted the blueprint at a granular level it was Here Are Chesterfield Kings.

Today we look not at Here Are but at the original versions of the songs behind the album.  The album is all covers, something I didn't really get only until recently, such was their ownership of the material. Although the ‘60s garage comps were hitting their stride by 1982, as of the date of release of this album as far as I can tell only one song on it had been comped.  In the pre-internet, pre eBay days, the general awareness and availability of some of these songs, let alone the actual wax, must have been pretty slim indeed, which makes this album all the more stunning.

Today - Side 1.  Stay tuned for Side 2 in the coming days. Enjoy!

The Sonics - The Hustler

The Rogues - You Better Look Now

The Turtles - Outside Chance

Painted Ship - Little White Lies

Zakary Thaks - Won't Come Back

The Choir - I'm Going Home

The Chocolate Watch Band - Expo 2000