Mid-Atlantic Spotlight: The Young Rascals - You Better Run/Love Is A Beautiful Thing

Day 4 of the Mid-Atlantic Battle of the Bands has us looking at a band that scored big on the national stage with their second single, a cover of Good Lovin'. Today we feature their third single, released on Atlantic Records in the Summer of 1966. It's the double A-Side of You Better Run with a Flip-Side of Love Is A Beautiful Thing. Both songs are originals. You Better Run composed by keyboard player/singer Felix Cavaliere and singer Eddie Brigati. Love Is A Beautiful Thing, written by Cavaliere and guitarist Gene Cornish. Drummer Dino Danelli rounded out the group.

You Better Run is a great tempest of a song boiling with anger and frustration. Gene Cornish's rhythm guitar work harkens back to that of their previous hit, Good Lovin'. Pat Benatar would score a hit with a unintentionally comical cover of this song in 1980, thirteen years to month after this was first released. In fact, Benatar's cover was the second video ever played on MTV!

Love Is A Beautiful Thing is a great Flip-Side! Cool organ, soulful delivery, back and forth vocal leads a la Sam and Dave, and that patented, fast rhythm guitar work growling under it all. Garage legends, We The People would curiously cover this song very faithfully late in 1967.

All in all, the Rascals hit the big time, but it doesn't mean they weren't still just a garage band at heart!

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

New York Spotlight: The Groupies - Primitive

Our final Battle of the Bands in New York. Today we feature the Greenwich Village band, The Primitives. The primordial quintet's only release was Primitive/Hog on Atco Records in January of 1966. We're spinning the A-Side today, the band composed, Primitive. It's a clear tip of the hat to Howlin' Wolf's Smokestack Lightnin' but with a decided garage bent and some real 'don't screw with me' lyrics.

The things that I do
You'd never try
What I get free
You gotta Buy
I'm proud of my life
Don't ask me why
Because If I told you
I'd probably...
Primitive, that's how I live
Primitive, I take what you give
Because I love
and I live,
Primitive

That wraps up our New York Spotlight. We'll announce the winner of the 10-band Battle Of The Bands tomorrow.

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

New York Spotlight: The Blues Project - No Time Like The Right Time

We're in our final three days of being in an Empire State of Mind. We started in the big mean city with The Blues Magoos who made a name for themselves in Greenwich Village. Now we turn to another Greenwich Village band. The Blues Project. The band only lasted two years but put out an amazing amount of music in that brief period. Today we focus on their fifth single, released in March of 1967 for Verve Folkways Records. The song is the Al Kooper penned, No Time Like The Right Time. Other members are Danny Kalb, Roy Blumenfeld, Steve Katz and Tommy Flanders.

Al Kooper had been playing as a session guitarist when he was called into a session with Bob Dylan. Mike Bloomfield was also at that session and Kooper saw he had little chance. He switched to organ for the Like A Rolling Stone session and then joined The Blues Project as an organ player. He should also be lauded for being the person who pushed The Zombies and Columbia Records to finish their swan song of an album.

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

New York Spotlight: The Third Bardo - I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time

Back to New York city for our Battle of the Bands - New York edition.

The Third Bardo hailed from the big city. The band was Jeff Monn on guitar and vocals, Ricky Goldklang on guitar, Bruce Ginsberg on drums, Damian Kelly on bass and Richy Seslowe on guitar. The group only recorded one single. But what a single it was. The single was released in May of 1967 on Roulette Records and featured two songs written by R. Evans-V.Pike. I don't know who they are but their two compositions are killers. Particularly the prescient A-Side of I'm Five Years Ahead Of My Time.

The band grabbed their name (allegedly) from a Tibetan Book Of The Dead. The Third Bardo apparently references the experience of reality.

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

New York Spotlight: The Humans - Warning

More New York Battle of the Bands! Today we have a record from the tiny hamlet of Albion, New York, located between Rochester and Niagra off the shores of Lake Ontario. The Humans were a sextet of High Schoolers: Jack Dumrese, Gar Truselle, Dick Doolan, Marty Busch and Danny Long. They called themselves the very non-Animal name of...The Humans.

Today's song was the Flip-Side of their only single, released on Audition Records in 1966. Lead guitarist, Bill Kuhns wrote both the folky A-Side, and this, the rip-roaring Flip-Side. Warning tells the tried and true tale of a love gone bad. Dick Doolan and Danny Long trade vocals as the two throw up the caution sign for this girl. 

Well that's the last I'm gonna tell you

You better listen to me

I got something to say child.

You better listen to me

Yeah, I'm giving you the warning!

Yeaaaaah baby!

According to comments left at garagehangover.com, Danny Long died in a car crash not long after this number was recorded. The band struggled along before the draft started to eat at The Humans like a Zombie-Apocalypse Now.

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

New York Spotlight: The Left Banke - She May Call You Up Tonight and Barterers and Their Wives

We are back after a couple of days off with more garage rock from the Empire State. Today we take a classical turn with The Left Banke. The Left Banke are one of those bands that lived largely in the studio. The band was Michael Brown on keyboards, Tom Finn on bass, Steve Martin on vocals, George Cameron on guitar and Warren David-Schierhorst on drums. Michael Brown's father was an established symphony violinist and he was instrumental in producing and managing his son's band. So it was, the Left Banke went straight from rehearsals to the studio.

Considering the father who was mentoring the band, it is not surprising that the band's first song was a string laden number with violin at the fore. That number, Walk Away Renee, turned into something of a hit for the music collective in the Summer of 1966. The number was co-written by the band's bard, Michael Brown, who also composed the band's wonderful follow-up hit that same year, the symphonically arranged, Pretty Ballerina. Then the management got cocky. Did they really need the band? The third single, released in the Winter of 1967 only featured Michael Brown who co-wrote both numbers with professional songwriters. Steve Martin's delicate, stuffy-nose styled vocal lead would be replaced with a falsetto vocal by Bert Sommer. Occasional On The Flip-Side visitor and comment-maker, Michael McKean (Best In Show, Spinal Tap, Laverne and Shirley) would serve as the guitarist for both tracks. The "Left Banke" sounded nothing like the previous two singles and deservedly flopped. The other four members of The Left Banke went into revolt filing suit against Smash Records, Michael Brown and his father.

Smash Records got jittery and withdrew that ill-fated single and instead released a single taken from the band's album. That fourth single, released in June of 1967, is what we feature today. She May Call You Up Tonight/Barterers And Their Wives. The A-Side was composed by Michael Brown and singer, Steve Martin (left and second from left in the photo below). It follows the time-tested Left Banke theme of a love triangle (Renee, the ballerina was a real person and was dating another member of the band). But the number doesn't have the strings of the previous hits. It was supposed to have them, but time was tight and the number was finished without them.  The Flip-Side, the quizzical, Barters And Their Wives, is composed by Brown and a professional songwriter. It's a beautiful number that plays up the band's baroque style nicely.

We're lifting a cool photo from the cool folk at Nitro-Retro Blog.

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

New York Spotlight: The Brigands - Would I Still Be Her Big Man?

New York Battle of The Bands takes us to the Brill Building. I think.

I've always loved this song. And, I've always had a suspicion that this band is not really a band. Quite frankly, the song is too well structured to be your typical 60's garage band kicking out one lonely single after the lads pooled all their money together to go down to the big city to record that song that makes everybody get up and dance. And a major label like Epic? And, the Resnick brothers? Didn't they write Yummy, Yummy, that god-awful bubble gum pop song? All the circumstantial evidence points to "studio" band. Add to that the fact that nobody has ever come up with a band flier or a story of playing with the Brigands at the Battle of the Bands at some high school in Yonkers and it is pretty clear that the Brigands were but only a Tin Pan Alley creation.

But that shouldn't stop us from giving Would I Still Be Her Big Man? a big wet kiss. Mwuaa! Released in 1966 (of course!) on Epic Records, Would I Still Be Her Big Man? details the double life and troubled mind of our hero who finds himself sweating from 9-5 in a factory during the day and dressing in top-notch suits at night just to give the girl he loves the things she wants. But if she finds out that he is just a hard working blue collar chump, then what? Like us, our protagonist is only left to wonder:

Ahh, baby likes to eat in fancy restaurants. Well she's always had the things she wants. I'm afraid she'll say goodbye when she finds out I'm just a poor guy. I wonder, I wonder, would I still be her big man?

Dude. Man up! If this she-devil doesn't love you for your cool guitar-riff that repeats throughout the song, then you need to dump her. Not only is that guitar riff nicely fuzzed, you have great tambourine work and a bitchin' little key change to keep us snapping our fingers and shuffling our feet. You are a 7" record, nicely rounded, on a great label. You need to realize that you are loved. If this gold-digger doesn't love you for that and that alone, then someone else will. And that person will still treasure you 45 years later. They may even covet you on eBay. And maybe -- just maybe -- someday they will write about you on their way cool music blog.

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

New York Spotlight: The Blues Magoos - We Ain't Got Nothin' Yet and Gotta Get Away

Our regional Battle of the Bands turns to the state of New York. And we start today with a group that actually was able to make some waves nationally. 

The Blues Magoos hailed from The Bronx in New York City. The band was Ralph Scala, Emil "Peppy" Thielhelm, Ron Gilbert, Mike Esposito and Geoff Daking. The band's first release was on Verve Records (as Bloos Magoos) but did little. Mercury Records swooped in and signed the band and took them into a studio to record an LP in 1966. The second single from the album, released in October of 1966, was their biggest hit, (We Ain't Got) Nothin' Yet. The song was written by the lead guitarist, the organ player and the bassist and lifted a riff from Ricky Nelson's unique version of Summertime. But they took that riff and made it front and center of a musical explosion that simply soars. Somewhat improbably, the song became a national hit, reaching #5 in the US and getting The Blues Magoos a spot opening for The Who and Herman's Hermits as well as a spot on the very important Smothers Brothers show. 

The Flip-Side of We Ain't Got Nothin' Yet is the strong number, Gotta Get Away. Both sides demonstrate just how talented this band was. In particular, the guitar work of lead guitarist, Mike Esposito (second from left in the photo below), is more than a cut above the competition.

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