The Top Three Greatest North American Garage Singles Ever Are...

You know the story by now. If not, it goes something like this. Back in October of 2014, On The Flip-Side innocently undertook a region by region Battle of the Garage Band singles. At that moment we failed to understand the scope of our endeavor.

Twelve regions in all. Generally 10 singles per region (more in So Cal, less in Canada). That means that roughly 120 singles got a digital spin on the turntable. Then each region winner went head to head with another region winner. A panel of 7 judges - from the Rockies to the PNW, to So Cal to NorCal to the South - each weighed in on the final 12 singles as they went into a bracket system against each other. The final votes have been tallied by On The Flip-Side's San Francisco accounting office and we can now announce the Top Three Podium winners of the North American Battle of the Garage Bands.

Coming in at No. 1 is The Chocolate Watchband's swan song of a single, Are You Gonna Be There on the A-side and No Way Out on the Flip-Side. The single was released in October of 1967 on the Tower Records label. The Chocolate Watchband represented the Northern California Region in the battle on their way to the Gold Medal.

Coming in at the number 2 spot is the winner of the hard fought Texas region, The 13th Floor Elevators. Their debut single, recorded in '65 and released in '66 for IA Records, of You're Gonna Miss Me on the A-side and Tried To Hide on the Flip-side was a very close 2nd. A slightly stronger flip probably would have put them at the number one spot overall. But the Silver Medal is not so shabby folks. 

And taking the bronze medal is the most controversial of them all. Some thought they shouldn't be considered in America since they recorded in the UK. Others thought they shouldn't be considered garage because they sounded so different. Others still thought that the record shouldn't be considered at all since it wasn't released until three years after the band broke up. But we hold the keys to the car, so we get to drive it as we see fit. The Misunderstood, from Riverside, California beat out Love and the Music Machine and The Grains of Sand to lay claim to the crown of what we consider the most competitive region, Southern California. Their 1966 recording (released in '69) for the UK version of Fontana Records is a mind blower. Children Of The Sun on one side and I Unseen on the Flip-Side. 

It's been fun. 

Round 2 of the Battle of the Garage Bands: The Blues Magoos v The Misunderstood

Round 2 is officially underway in our 10-month long Battle of the Garage Bands to determine (very subjectively) the greatest US garage band single ever. This round kicks off with The Blues Magoos of New York going head to head with The Misunderstood of Riverside, California. 

On one side of the ring we have The Blues Magoos who landed a major record deal and put out multiple singles and multiple albums, performed on national TV shows and shared the stage with the likes of The Who. On the other side of the ring we have The Misunderstood who had to leave their Sun drenched Southern California homes to travel to the rainy UK to record a song called Children of The Sun. The single was shelved until well after the band had succumbed to the unbearable heaviness of obscurity and the boys never even saw a release of their material in their homeland. Two very different paths to this moment. Both deserving of it. 

Original Blues Magoos article can be found here.

Original post on The Misunderstood can be found here

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

Battle of the Garage Bands: The Litter v The Misunderstood

Well, well, well. We have the first showdown in the books and it surprised me. Big time. This is why we have all these celebrity judges helping out. I flat out expected The Squires to make it deep into the brackets. Not even close. The Blues Magoos took their New York power and ran rough-shod over their New England Brethren.

So now we spin the winner of the Midwest region, Minnsesota's The Litter, against Southern California's hotly contested winner, The Misunderstood. The seven judges, who Donald Trump has described "as the most classy, opulent judges in the world", will now settle the score with these two bands and their powerful releases from 1967. Don't forget, both sides count in the consideration of the greatness of the record.

Original post on The Litter can be found here.

Original post on The Misunderstood can be found here

To put this into better context, here is a look at some of the competition that these cats bested as they claimed their regional victory.

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

Southern California Spotlight: The Misunderstood - Children of the Sun/I Unseen

Our fourth entrant in the SoCal Region of the Battle of the Garage Bands is a bit of a misunderstood band. Too often The Misunderstood get tagged as a UK band. But they were not. Yes they recorded their only two singles in the UK. Yes their only two singles were only released in the UK. Yes they had one member of their five piece band that was from the UK. But all the other cats were from Riverside, California. 

Five years ago we wrote extensively about The Misunderstood (specifically the flip-side of their debut single for Fontana, Who Do You Love) and that gained attention from two of the members of the band who, in turn, left great comments. For detailed info we suggest you read that post here. 

We turn today to their second single, Children Of The Sun/I Unseen. The single was recorded in 1966 upon the band's arrival in the UK. However, the record was not released until much later in 1969 when Fontana Records got around to realizing what they had on their hands. 

The A-Side, Children Of The Sun was written by singer Rick Brown and rhythm guitarist Tony Hill. Note that Brown's name is misspelled on the label. There is just so many great things to say about this 100% perfect song that I am left scratching my head as to where to start. I guess I'll start with the wonderful guitar work of Glenn Ross Campbell and his very unique pedal steel guitar riffs that lift this song to unique and brilliant heights. Rick Brown growls away as he and Campbell battle it out and Rick Moe propels the song at break neck speed with his full drumming. Brilliant. 

The flip-side, I Unseen, gives writing credit to Brown and Hill again. But the reality is that the lyrics of a post nuclear haunting are from a poem by Turkish writer, Nazim Hikmet. That aside, I Unseen is as powerful as the A-Side. A blistering lead guitar riff backed by a really nice rhythm laid down by Tony Hill give way to a couple of great music breaks where the whole band just owns the song. And bassist Steve Whiting is never forgotten as he has laid down some of the best bass work of anybody to ever record on a rock record in the 60s.

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

Mid-Atlantic Spotlight: The Mad Hatters - I'll Come Running

Day nine of the Mid-Atlantic Battle of the Bands takes us to Annapolis, Maryland where we spin the second, and last, record from The Mad Hatters.

The Mad Hatters were Dave Vittek, Tom Curley, Alan Fowler and Richard Kumer. The band released their first single, a great original, on Ascot Records. They promptly were dropped and then picked up by Fontana Records. Their second single, released in April of 1967, is this blistering cover of Lulu's I'll Come Running, written by Bert Berns. (You can hear and read about that here). The lads from Maryland's quaint state capitol gave the number quite a rewrite, however. Changing the tune to a blistering fast 4/4 beat with a cool lead guitar riff throughout, a farfisa organ and a whimsical musical punctuation mark.

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

The Pretty Things - You'll Never Do It Baby

The same year that The Cops N' Robbers released their original composition, You'll Never Do It Baby, on the Flip-Side of a French only EP, The Pretty Things recorded the number for their second album. The number leads off side 2 of the Get The Picture LP. The Pretty Things modified the chorus structure and removed the piano and harmonica. The beat is slightly modified as well, making it less jazzy and more of a straight ahead, on the downbeat rock-n-roll number. Interestingly, The Pretty Things' drummer, Viv Prince, is not playing on this. A cat by the name of John Adler took over on this track as Viv was on his way out of the band at the time. 

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

Song of the Week: The Pretty Things - I Can Never Say

This is the third time we've featured The Pretty Things here at the best music spot on the web. The first instance was a feature on their song My Time. That post has some of the fewest hits in the history of this website. And by few, let me just say that if you took every person who hit on that post, you still couldn't field two baseball teams. Then we featured The Pretty Things doing Come See Me as part of our "Under The Covers" series. That one did better. Much better. We could field many, many baseball teams with that post. And even have enough people left over to serve hot dogs and popcorn.

Today we're back at it with one of The Pretty Things' lesser known tunes, I Can Never Say. In the United States it was The Flip-Side of two of their obscure singles: the April 1965 release of the radio unfriendly Honey, I Need and the Flip-Side of the July 1965 release of their cover of the Garnet Mimms and Solomon Burke standard, Cry To Me. Both singles were released on Fontana Records. I Can Never Say has a simple, but great shuffle to it as singer Phil May sings with a great raspy restraint. The song never takes off into anything else. Just that simple shuffle with a real understated feel. May's harmonica being the only lead instrument. Nice.

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

Under The Covers: Come See Me by The Pretty Things and J.J. Jackson

The Pretty Things

We have an odd twist on today's Under The Covers. That's because the "cover" was published before the "original." Come See Me is perhaps The Pretty Things' single greatest recording (with apologies to Rosalyn and Midnight To Six Man). The Pretty Things released the pounding number in April of 1966 for Fontana Records.

J.J. Jackson

Come See Me was written in part by soul singer J.J. Jacson, but his recording of it wasn't released until April of 1967 for the Strike label in the U.K., as featured here.  Another version was released in March of '68 on the Warner Brothers down label, Loma Records, under the title Come And See Me (I'm Your Man). It's more than likely that a demo was shopped around by the publisher and The Pretty Things picked up on the so-rare-that-it-wasn't-even-recorded soul number, and made it their own. I'm willing to bet that this is a new one to most On The Flip-Side readers. This writer MUCH prefers The Pretty Things take on Come See Me, but I'll let you decide.

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

Song of the Week: The Who (High Numbers) -- Zoot Suit and The Dynamics - Misery

We're back with the overly-hyped day three of our look at a few covers by The Who and their origins. Without further ado, I present to you...

In the earliest days of The Who, the band was largely generic and directionless. The Who's manager at that time, Pete Meaden, was trying to find a hook for The Who and endeavored to make the band "more mod." As a result he changed their name to The High Numbers (a "high number" being a term to refer to a person having a relatively high social rank in the movement) and took Pete Townshend to a mutual friend's house to listen to American soul and blues records to build out the band's repertoire. In the early Summer of 1964 the two Pete's settled on four songs they would lay down for their first recording session: Eddie Holland's Leavin' Here, Bo Diddley's Here 'Tis, Slim Harpo's Got Love If You Want It, and, perhaps the most obscure of these, The Dynamic's Misery. But Pete Meaden really wanted the records to be mod anthems. So, rather unscrupulously, Meaden rewrote the words to two of the songs in an effort to capitalize on the mod lifestyle. Got Love If You Want It became I'm The Face (the highest rank a Mod could achieve) and Misery became Zoot Suit.

Meaden claimed writing credit for both "originals". The record saw a tiny release on July 3, 1964. I believe about only 1000 were pressed on the Fontana label but without a recording contract. Meaden shopped it to record companies and the band sold or gave away the record to the mods who crammed into the Railway Hotel on the weekends to see their boys play. Not much came of it and it hardly sounds anything like the band who would go back into the studio a few months later to record Pete Townshend's first ever original, I Can't Explain.

The little known original song from which this number was pinched, as already noted, was called Misery performed by a Detroit group called The Dynamics. It was released in the US on Big Top records in October of '63. It even saw a release in the UK the next month when London records picked it up.

Back in 2010 we wrote an article on this record. Much to our pleasure, the original guitarist, Chris Bramlett, found the article and left us some nice comments, including information on the equipment he used. Please see that article here for more information. It says more than I need to in this space.

Disclosure note, I picked up the picture of the handwritten High Number's Zoot Suit from White Fang's fan page. A great resource run by one of the mods that inhabited that Railway Hotel in the Summer of '64. Note that the name The Who was crossed out on the label and replaced with The High Numbers!

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