Mid-West Spotlight: The Five Americans - I See The Light/The Outcast

Back with day six of On The Flip-Side's Mid-West Battle of the Garage Bands. 

The Five Americans hailed from Durant, Oklahoma, a ninety minute drive north of Dallas, Texas. The band was comprised of singer and guitarist Mike Rabon, guitarist Norman Ezell, drummer Jimmy Wright, bassist Jim Grant and organist John Durrill. The Five Americans scored a local Dallas hit on Abnak Records with I See The Light in November of 1965. It was the band's 5th attempt.  In swooped HBR to take the song national a month later. A pretty solid full length LP followed.

We give you, today, both sides of that first release on HBR, I See The Light/The Outcast. Both songs were written by Ezell, Rabon and Durill. I See The Light is a real rocker with dominant organ, tight harmonies and a great, great instrumental break. I'm particularly fond of the repeated guitar riff wrapping up the guitar lead at 1:11 as it gives way to a solo organ riff back into the raver before it all wraps up at a tight little 2:06. Curiously the song would be covered on the other side of the pond by Freakbeat mods, Simon Dupree and the Big Sound some 11 months later. 

The Outcast is quite different. The Flip-Side is a slower more somber number. The bass dominant song showcases the country influence of the Oklahoma band with nice harmonies and a harmonica solo. Enjoy both sides. I usually do.

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

Mid-West Spotlight: The Gestures - Run, Run, Run/It Seems To Me

Mid-West Battle of the Garage Bands rolls on. Today we welcome you to Mankato, Minnesota! 

Mankato is a small farming town about 90 minutes south of Minneapolis and about 90 minutes north of the Iowa border. Of the 24,000 residents living in Mankato in 1964, we're going to focus today on four of them: Gus Dewey, Tom Klugherz, Bruce Waterston and Dale Menten. Together the Mankato-four were known as The Gestures. They started off in high school playing surf music but quickly transitioned to vocal rock. In October of 1964 the band released their first single for the regional label Soma Records. That song, written by Menten, was the excellent Run, Run, Run. Believe it or not they had a real hit on their hands. The song went to number 44 nationally, number 1 in Minneapolis, number 1 in New York City and number 3 in Los Angeles. The small town band and the small local label couldn't keep up with production and the song began to fall from the charts as there literally weren't enough records to ship to the stores. At least Soma Records had the good idea to print a limited edition of the records in blue vinyl! How cool!

Now we get to flip that record over and dig on the brilliant It Seems To Me, also written by Dale Menten. It Seems To Me is a jazzy little number that really shows the maturity of Menten's songwriting. 

Sadly, after just two releases the band dispersed.

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

Mid-West Spotlight: The Cornerstones - You Rule Me

Day four of our Midwest spotlight takes us back to North Dakota. Grand Forks, right on the border of Minnesota and North Dakota to be precise. The band is The Cornerstones and their song, You Rule Me, was a major regional hit, making big waves over in Bismarck, North Dakota, and across the midwest.  The label, Metrobeat Records, was started by Trashmen member Tony Andreason and Mike Jann in 1966, with You Rule Me, the band's first of two singles on the label, getting its release sometime in early '67.

Those are the facts, while the song speaks for itself.  If its writer, lead singer Stephen Rood, had not been studying Joe Meek, and specifically The Honeycombs, prior to writing this, well, I'd be shocked. The production and vocal delivery scream Joe Meek, especially in the opening salvo. Once we get past the brilliance of that opener, we are guided through a series of tempo and rhythm changes - including a frenzied upbeat ska (polka?) section - that just make me wonder: 1. how this was ever conceived? 2. how a band could be convinced to get behind it? and 3. how the hell did they pull it off so brilliantly?  Listen to it in its full unadorned midwest greatness!

I'd appreciate any additional information out there. There's a highly regarded "Best of Metrobeat" featuring today's song put out by Sundazed in 1990 and I'm curious what its liner notes say about The Cornerstones.

See you on the Flipside!

Mid-West Spotlight: GONN - Blackout of Gretely/Pain In My Heart

After a brief hiatus, we are back today with another submission for our Mid-West region Battle Of The Garage Bands. 

GONN hailed from the tiny town of Keokuk, Iowa, located in the South East corner of the state where Iowa shares a border with Missouri and Illinois. 

GONN (all upper case spelling is intentional) was Craig Moore on intro vocals, scream and bass, Gerry Gabel on lead vocals keyboards, Gary Stepp on rhythm guitar, Rex Garrett on lead gutiar, and Brent Colvin on drums. The band recorded two singles in their brief time together. Today we feature their first single.

The legendary Blackout Of Gretely was released in 1966 on Emir Records and saw a very limited pressing of 600 copies. The title of the song was mutated from a Sci-Fi novel and the abstract opening line was inspired from a random comment from Peter Tork on an early episode of The Monkees. Seriously! Garrett and Moore get writing credit for the depraved number. 

The flip-side was a cover of Pain In My Heart. I don't own it, so here is a vid of it.

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

Mid-West Spotlight: The Litter - Action Woman/Legal Matter

More Midwest mayhem today with our 2nd entry for the region's Battle of The Garage Bands competition. It's The Litter performing the garage classic, Action Woman.

Action Woman was released on Scotty Records in January 1967 (with a Flip-Side of The Who's Legal Matter) and after all these years, feels just as fresh today as it did the day it was released. The song is so epic that it led off the first Pebbles record even though their copy of Action Woman skipped!

The Minneapolis hipsters who comprised The Litter were Jim Kane on bass, Tom Murray on drums, Dan Rinaldi on guitar, Denny Waite on vocals and the very talented Bill Strandlof on lead guitar. That said, we need to talk a little about Warren Kendrick here. Kendrick was a local math teacher who formed his own label (Scotty) in 1965 in attempt to get on the rock-n-roll bandwagon after watching The Beatles light the world on fire on the Ed Sullivan Show. The math teacher began writing and producing and releasing numbers for the local Minneapolis kids to perform. Action Woman has Kendrick's signature all over the number. He wrote it, produced it and distributed it himself. Another of his band's, The Electras, released this number on the same label, just a month after The Litter. It's pretty damn awesome, but we'll go with The Litter's version as the definitive take on the song.

The fine, fine flip-side is Pete Townshend's Legal Matter. This is certainly one of the better covers of a song from the hard to cover The Who. Incidentally, Action Woman got re-released 8 months later on a different label, this time paired with The Small Faces' Whatcha Gonna Do About It. These guys knew their UK mod bands!

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