The South Spotlight: The Bad Roads - Blue Girl/Too Bad

We're deep into our regional Battle of the Garage Bands series now with three US regions down (New England, New York, Mid-Atlantic). Today we start our 10-day run way down in the deep South. 

Some of the best garage records from the 60s came out of the middle of nowhere. Or maybe just to the left of center of nowhere. That's the case with today's wonderful double sided gem.

The band known as The Bad Roads hailed from Lake Charles, Louisiana. The band members were Buz Clark on vocals/harmonica, Terry Green on lead guitar, Briant Smith on guitar, Mike Hicks on bass and Danny Kimball on drums. Sometime around the Summer of 1966, five hipsters in white pants drove to Ville Platte, Louisiana to record two original compositions at Floyd Solieu's Jin Records studio. The label had released a ton of Cajun music, but The Bad Roads were going to come out of that little studio with two snot-nosed rockers to unleash on South-Western Louisiana. 

The A-Side is the band composed, Blue Girl, a two minute scorcher about a "groovy chick with a way out style". Buz gives us the requisite sneer and Terry Green adds some particularly good guitar work with enough fuzz to make a peach smile. 

For my money, it's the Flip-Side that really steals the show. The band composed Too Bad tells the story of a not so groovy chick who didn't know a good thing when it was staring her right in the face. A great recurring riff, great drum work and a really unique set of middle sections that have Buz talking his way through his plea with this girl. Not to mention some great lyrics. 

The Bad Roads are still playing and have a website set-up with some great photos. Check it out here.

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

The Kinks - She's Got Everything

Here is a peculiar single from The Kinks. The single Days/She's Got Everything was released in the Summer of 1968 both in the UK (on Pye Records) and the US on Reprise Records as a desperation move by management. The previous single, Wonderboy, had bombed and Ray Davies had not yet completed his work for the album, The Kinks Are The Village Green Preservation Society. Days is an unlikely candidate for an A-Side, for sure. A good track, but more of an album track than a lead single. But it is the Flip-Side we are looking at today (of course we are).

The Flip-Side of the single was a song recorded more than two years prior, in the Spring of '66. The Ray Davies composition, She's Got Everything, was recorded during the sessions for the album Face To Face. Why the tremendous She's Got Everything was left off that fine album is up for debate. Some have said it was too dated for 1966. It was certainly dated (in a good way) by the time it saw the official release in June of '68. Rock at the time was getting hard and heavy and She's Got Everything is light and poppy. doot do-do, doot do-do-do. Thank goodness Ray decided to reach into the way-back machine for this one.

On a side note, I just picked this one up on a road-trip through Kentucky. Who woulda thunk?

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

The Lionhearted - Too Bad

A follow-up to yesterday's post on the 1966 release by The Bad Roads. Today we come back with an ultra low-fi cover of the Flip-Side of The Bad Roads' single, Too Bad. The band is The Lionhearted and the unreleased recording of Too Bad was made in a garage outside of Davis, California during the Summer of 1988. The brief-lived band was Greg Baxter on vocals and a 1952 Silvertone guitar, Jack Hayden on an Epiphone Sheraton guitar, Morgan Young on a 1967 EB2D bass and a guy named Greg on drums. Yeeha!

You can hear another Lionhearted recording from the same rehearsal, this time of The Yardbirds' Honey In Your Hips, here. 

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

The Lionhearted -- Honey In Your Hips

Okay, you garage rock freaks. Here is one you haven't heard before. It is an unreleased track by a garage rock band out of California in the mid 80s. The band is The Lionhearted and they are covering the very early Yardbirds track, Honey In Your Hips. We're told that this was recorded in "dad's garage" and fueled by copious amounts of RC Cola and Animal Crackers. How's that for authentic?

Let us know what you think.

The hipster flipsters.