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Monday 6 December 2021

Various Artists - 1983 - Ugly Things #2 FLAC


 Bobby and Laurie - Jump Back/Derek's Accent - Ain't Got No Feelin'/Barrington Davis - Raining Teardrops/The Birds - Dust in My Pants/The La De Da's - Little Girl/The Blue Beats - She's Comin' Home/The Jet Set - What Did the Man Say?/The 5 - There's Time/Grandma's Tonic - Lost Girl/The Sunsets - The Hot Generation/The Atlantics - It's a Hard Life/The Purple Hearts - Just a Little Bit/The Throb - I Need You/The Clefs - I Can Only Give You Everything/Vyt - Why Do I Cry?/Laurie Wade's Cavaliers - To Win Your Love/Tony Worsley - Talk About Love/Tony Cole - Beat It/The Cherokees - I've Gone Wild/Ray Columbus and The Art Collection - Kick Me (I Think I'm Dreaming)

 

 

  Premliminary studies of the unique garage dwelling Antipodean marsupial mutant known commonly as UGLY THING (Uglidendrom Thingamibob) were commenced with volume one of this folio (Raven RVLP-02). This second volume, representing further study of the species by the Ugly Things Unit of the Raven Institute of Advanced Rockology, is the culmination of two years of extensive research, excavation and restoration. Though by no means a definitive thesis on the subject, it does shed educated light upon the species' habitat, lineage, behaviour and mating.

By close perusal one can build up a composite picture of this rare and precious creature which failed to survive foreign substances introduced into its diet during the later stages of the nineteen sixties and subsequently tumbled into oblivion and extinction. Nocturnal, congregational, given to bursts of intense excitement bordering on frenzy, remarkably hirsute, carnivorous, barely intelligent but surprisingly cunning, the mysterious Ugly Thing takes its place alongside the Unicorn, Dodo, Kiwi, Honest Politician, Dinosaur, Self-Programming Disc Jockey, Teenage Virgin and Pterodactyl on the
World Heritage listing of extinct creatures. Denied its presence in this decaying world, we can glean much for our own survival from the remnants of its brief reign of existence. Accordingly, further notes are provided hereunder regarding the choicest examples of the species.

The tempestuous duo BOBBY & LAURIE hold a revered position in Australian rock. Their January 1965 recording of I Belong With You, produced by Englishman Roger Savage (engineer of the Stones' Come On) was the very first, real 'beat' recording done in Melbourne, following swiftly upon Sydney's ground breaking effort- Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs' Poison Ivy. After a string of vibrant, boot-stomping hits on the Go!! label, Bright and Allen were snapped up by Sydney's Albert Productions and became stablemates to their good pals the Easybeats. This pulverising version of Rufus Thomas' Jump Back (also recorded in NZ by the La De Das) was included on their second album, the first for Alberts.

And speaking of the LA DE DAS, New Zealand's finest r&b/beat exponents of the centre sixties, this humble platter is pleased to present their very first single, issued on the long-evaporated Talent City label in April 1965. Penned by guitarist Kevin Borich and bassist Trevor Wilson, Little Girl is as exhilarating as garage rock came in that amazing year ...

But to get back to our opening act, Melbourne guitarist Laurie Allen (now a leading country performer), before he joined up with Bobby Bright and after he played with Malcolm Arthur & The Knights, was guitarist-cum-organist with Brisbane instrumental combo THE BLUE JAYS, the group chosen by entrepreneur Ivan Dayman to back wild Sydney singer TONY WORSLEY. With outrageously long hair and a gruff sensuality, Worsley became a hot teen idol and supported the
1965 Kinks/Manfred Mann tour. Talk About Love is perhaps the most strenuous of his handful of fiery beat recordings (five more of which can be found on Raven album RVLP-03).

The Blue Jays are of course not to be confused with the Blue Streaks, Blues Syndicate, Blues Rags & Hollers or Sydney's most interesting BLUE BEATS, remembered for the world's finest version of Summertime Blues and a support gig to the Rolling Stones when they came to town in 1965. Comprising Wayne Poll, Brian Patterson, Mike Gibbons, Barry Dessaux and John Petro, they were managed by hotshot Sydney OJ John Melouney, whose influence did nothing to stop their three singles stiffing. Just to confuse matters, Patterson was once a member of the Blue Jays.

Some parallels can be drawn with Brisbane's THE FIVE, who also cut three thumpin' singles for the Sunshine label in 1965-66. Like the Blue Beats, their exemplary efforts were very much in vain, so far as the charts were concerned. After bombing with a killer rendition of Jimmy Reed's Bright Lights, Big City and the steaming original There's Time, the band dissolved, with members Andy Paradise and Pete Thompson joining up with ex-Loved One I an Clyne in Excalibur. The Five were of course mere apprentices compared to the northern city's Princes of Punk, the ferocious PURPLE HEARTS. Led by
revolutionary guitarist Lobby Loyde, their impact upon Australian rock is still being realised. Full biographical notes can be found on the jacket of Raven album RVLP-05, which does not include the riff-laden Just A Little Bit, also recorded by the aforementioned Tony Worsley and by England's The Undertakers.

In terms of hierarchy, Sydney's THE ATLANTICS, who made an appearance on Ugly Things Vol. 1, are definitely upper echelon. Having previously recounted their credentials, might we point out that the original It's A Hard Life is another killer example of their post-surfbeat recording work, and that a detailed anthology of the group is currently in progress. THE SUNSETS are also a return booking, having impressed greatly with I Want Love on volume one. Their soundtracks for the surf movies A Life In The Sun and The Hot Generation were as innovative as the flicks themselves. The title song
for the latter appeared on a soundtrack album in this and a much longer (6 min.) version.

From Newcastle a direct south western tangent takes us to Adelaide, home of the hard drivin' CLEFS, sort of a southern version of the Purple Hearts. These dance haunt heroes were Tweed Harris, Barrie McCaskill, Les Turner, Bruce Howe and Vince Jones. Suburban thrush Bev Harrell sometimes guested with them, as she did with the Harts and Vibrants. I Can Only Give You Everything, first cut by Them, has also been committed to vinyl over the years by The MC5, Little Boy Blues, Iguanas, Troggs and Spitballs, among others. Not long after the Clefs' version appeared the group disintegrated, with McCaskill forming the soulful Levi Smith's Clefs with Les Stacpool and Gil Matthews. Organist Tweed Harris became part of supergroup The Groove and is now a leading MOR arranger.

Venturing over the Nullabor to the far flung western city of Perth, best known for swans (in cans or on lakes), we encounter THE BIRDS, a fascinating cul-de-sac of Anglo-Antipodean rock. The discerning ear will possibly note that Dust In My Pants was recorded sometime after the other tracks on this album, though it possesses the same manic energy. The story is: two British musicians, guitarist Terry Clarke and bassist Brian Curtis, emigrated downunder in 1969 and, laying claim to being members of (Ronnie Wood's) Birds in the Old Dart, signed up to Clarion Records, with Aussie drummer John Goldsmith. They even cut the real Birds' No Good Without You for a debut single. The original track included herein was the flip of the third and final single by this highly questionable entity.

GRANDMA'S TONIC were questionable in a different way. This Melbourne outfit were lightweight all the way down the line, for a time backing Peter Doyle in straw boaters and tweeds. The. closest they came to a hit was with a cover of the dipsy Hi Hi Hazel, and yet, to their credit, they managed to leave behind a much raunchier Troggs cover in Lost Girl. Fellow Melbournites THE CHEROKEES are also rather unexpected guests on this disc. A solid all-round pop outfit who first formed in 1961 and supported the Monkees on their 1968 Australian tour, their singles were covers of songs by Cab Calloway, The Crests, The Impressions and Beau Brummels. The ripping I've Gone Wild was the flip of their seventh and final Go!! label single, by which time the line-up was Doug Trevor, Marty Van Wynk, Max Sliney, Peter Tindal and Kevin Ross. (Five more Cherokees chestnuts can be found on Raven album RVLP-09).

Beat It! is the obscure but dynamite first single by Melbourne schoolteacher TONY COLE, who resurfaced in 1972 in London with two David McKay produced albums, released in America by 20th Century Records, which sounded, in parts, remarkably like Leo Sayer, a couple of years before anybody had ever heard Mr Sayer and which featured the musical contributions of Terry Britten from the Twilights, Kevin Peek and Alan Tarney from Kevin Broome & The Handels, and
John Farrar from the Strangers.

BARRINGTON DAVIS was a popular Sydney beat singer around 1966 who recorded on the Down Under label out of the St. Clare Studio in Hurstville, home base of the young Bee Gees and their producer Nat Kipner. Raining Teardrops was one of a handful of songs penned by Kipner and Maurice Gibb, who at that time was vainly trying to match the achievements of older brother Barry. The POWER PACT was a fairly impermanent unit which boasted whizz guitarist Dennis Wilson and eventually evolved into Mecca. The Down Under stable also included such obscure notables as The Mystics, Rick & The Bad Boys, The Second Thoughts, Kevin Bible & The Book, The Soul Agents and DEREK'S ACCENT, led by young Derek Lee, whose entire vinyl output was one single - the A side of which is included herein. And if that data seems sketchy, it is positively voluminous compared to what we have been able to muster concerning Sydney band THE JET SET, who embody the true garage ethic of obscurity and brash enthusiasm.

However, on two other Harbour city entities, we can shed some light. LAURIE WADE'S CAVALIERS first recorded in 1964 for the Linda Lee label (home of Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs, Johnny Noble & The Mods/Incas, Jackie Weaver), as a surf instrumental act (Cloudburst). A year later they turned up on CBS complete with vocals and a definite 'beat' approach. This was the second of two CBS singles, their third altogether.

VYT & THE WORLD, best remembered for the delightful Flower Children also recorded at the St. Clare Studio and in fact recruited the young Brothers Gibb for backing vocals on this killer cover of the Remains' Why Do I Cry? Vyt, whose real name is about three miles of Lithuanian and best left undisturbed, faded from sight, but not so guitarist Chris Eggleton, who surfaced recently as a producer/writer/performer of considerable talent, with a single on Parole and an album, recorded in LA, for WEA.

Before we leave Sydney, we must check out the grimy 'n' gungy THROB, who were represented on an earlier Raven EP (RV-05). Sadly, this brain-numbing quartet left behind just two singles. Happily, two unissued tracks have recently been unearthed, of which the pulverising Kinks cover I Need You is one. To keep the family tree intact, member Marty Van Wynk was also in the Cherokees, as heard elsewhere on this pleasant platter.

Finally, we move over the Tasman once more to New Zealand for a curio of considerable delight. Kick Me appeared on the flip side of a 1967 American reissue of Ray Columbus & The Invaders' 1964 Australasian number one single She's A Mod. Totally out of context with the familiar body of Columbus' work in the sixties (i.e. fine beat pop), it is a blitzkreiging effort long overdue for attention.

Until next time.

Wednesday 1 December 2021

Various Artists - 1980 - Ugly Things #1 FLAC


 The Missing Links - You’re Driving Me Insane/The Black Diamonds - I Want, Need, Love You/The Elois - By My Side/The Moods - Rum Drunk/The Easybeats - Goin’ Out Of My Mind/The Vince Maloney Sect - No Good Without You/The Sunsets - I Want Love/The Wild Colonials - Get The Picture/The Creatures - Ugly Thing/The Cult - You’re Just My Kind/The Atlantics - Come On/The D-Coys - Bad Times/Trev Gordon & The Bee Gees - Little Miss Rhythm & Blues/The Four Strangers - Sad & Lonely/The In-Sect - I Can See My Love/The Jackson Kings - Watch Your Step/ Running Jumping Standing Still - She’s So Good To Me/The Vacant Lot - Wake Me Shake Me/The Hergs - Style Of Love/Jeff St.John & The Id - Sunaroid ’67

 

 

 The writing of liner notes for this album is a task of relative ease. Though we are most desirous of conveying illuminating data and succinct facts, there is really not a great deal that can be told about most of the 20 Australian rock groups of the mid-60's inhabiting this album.

To be sure, this is not a greatest hits album. Nary a track contained within was every in sneezing distance of any top 40. Rather, these tracks are the final remnant of a vast surging third-level of Australian beat groups. These are (in most cases) the garage and church hall bands who somehow wrangled a chance to cut a solitary single. When it went nowhere, so did they.

Recording was a much easier and cheaper process in the days before 24 track desks, $100 an hour studios, 'star' producers, and phasers, flangers, noise gates, aural exciters and digital delays. In 1965, a record company or a studio could whip a new band in a 2 track studio with a resident engineer, cut a stack of tracks and stick a couple out on a single -without expending a great deal of money, effort or concern at all. Chances could be taken.

In a commercial sense, most of the chances taken on these artists were failures. In a musical sense, they render the financiers as patrons of the arts. For this is where the howling, seething, fang-bared face of Australian rock is to be found. Music which was executed with scant regard for the dictates of commerciality. Rock for the sake of rock itself-the only truly productive climate. It seems that the further removed from the source 'beat' rock was, the more primal it emerged. New Zealand's R&B Chants probably represent the white r&b outfield, with the acts on this album skirting the same boundary. Despite Australia's predilection for 'cover hits', only a fool would deny the existence of a truly unique indigenous antipodean rock 'sound'. Less polished and harmonic than the US & UK strains, it was a gruffer, harsher, more working class handling of the basic rock principles.

So little seems to be known of the hundreds of non-hit Australian recording acts of the 60’s both in and out of the country. Our damned national inferiority complex led us to believe that it was all weak, derivative fluff .....until albums/EP's like Nuggets, Pebbles, Psychedelic Unknowns, Boulders etc left us smirking at the frankly unimpressive quality of so many tracks deemed as 'classics of their era' in foreign lands. The rock on this album can hold its head loftily in the company of any non-hit English or American rock.

Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide, Brisbane and Newcastle acts are represented here; each carrying the unmistakeable stylistic markings of their locale. The internationally famous Easybeats, represented here with a track from their Volume 3 album, are the only really 'national' act.

You're Driving Me Insane is from the second lineup of Sydney's Missing Links(Baden Hutchens, Ian Thomas, Chris Gray, John Jones, Doug Ford, Andy James) and has been revived twice (for the 1976 'Oz' film soundtrack and by The Saints). Guitarist Doug Ford went on to Running Jumping Standing Still and The Masters Apprentices. The Black Diamonds hailed from the NSW Blue Mountains area and comprised Colin McAuley, Glenn Bland, Brian Wilkinson, Alan Oloman and Banzai Keogh. This snarling piece of plastic was actually out of character for a fine pop act who went on to have two records in the charts at once - as Tymepiece and Love Machine.

Melbourne's Elois are an unknown entity who cut but one extraordinary single for W&G Records .....The Moods were formed by three schoolchums inthe Melbourne suburb of Richmond, around 1965. With a Stones/Kinks/Pretty Things approach,a carefully cultivated (almost mod) visual appearance, and management by Go-Set founder Peter Raphael, they swiftly arose as a major entity on the inner-city discotheque circuit (Berties, Biting Eye etc). Rum Drunk was one of their two mighty non-hit singles and today commands a sizeable value among collectors. It was penned by 15 year old guitarist John Livi. Other Moods were Kevin Fraser, Carl Savona, Mick Hamilton and Peter Noss. Hamilton joined up with The Vibrants when they moved over from Adelaide in 1967.

Pioneering Sydney rock guitarist Vince Maloney had recorded with The Vibratones, Billy Thorpe & The Aztecs and The Blue Jays before forming Vince & Tony's Two with fellow ax-Aztec Tony Barber in 1965. This unit cut one (never issued) single for Alberts and then evolved in The Vince Maloney Sect, with a lineup of Vince, Jimmy Thompson, John Shields and Billy Taylor. Resident on Melbourne's Kommotion TV show, the group scored one moderate hit with She's A Yum Yum, though their cover of Ron Wood & The Birds' No Good Without You was easily their best recording. Thompson & Shields formed the Little Bits to back Peter Doyle, Taylor went on to Flake & Blackfeather. and Vince was summoned to England to become a Bee Gee.

After two singles as The Four Strangers, Lindsay Bjerre, Danny Davison, Zac Zytnik and Eric Connell became The Sunsets -Newcastle's number 1 band. Regular trips to nearby Sydney for gigs at Surf City, the Star Club and Ward Austin's Sunset Disco commanded them a loyal following and their five singles. though not hits, were solid sellers. Their soundtracks to the surf movies A Life In The Sun and Hot Generation were simply excellent, establishing Bjerre as a major writer/musician - a promise which he later fulfilled in Tamam Shud and Albatros. Davidson went on to Kahvas Jute and Band of Light.

Melbourne's Wild Colonials were a much-worked discotheque band comprising Dave Panther, Lindsay Shah, Peter Nicol (from The Flies) and Mick Flynn (later in The Mixtures). They cut three fine r&b-styled singles, highlighted by this 1966 rendition of The Pretty Things’ Get The Picture ..... If the white suburban r&b boom came to a natural end around 1966, nobody told Sydney's Creatures about it because they regurgitated this piece of sublime mania toward the end of 1967 -complete with an opening grunt which defies translation. At a time when moderate long hair was becoming acceptable, these guys dyed their tatty locks to bilious pastel shades and invited the media to react with appropriate horror. Keith Matcham, Greg Laurie, Richard White, and Herman & Rudolph Marcie first recorded for the tiny Sound 66 label, before coming to RCA for this highwater mark in Australian rock recording. Lawrie went on to play with Carson and Daddy Cool.

All attempts at uncovering even the tiniest piece of information concerning The Cult have failed. All we know is that You're Just My Kind was cut as a private demo acetate in a Newcastle suburban studio around 1965. Come out, come out who/wherever you are ..... Known generally as the CBS surfing instrumental band who made global impact with the classic Bombara, The Atlantics were one of the most extraordinarily talented rock groups Australia has ever produced. Unable to shake their original image, they cut one staggeringly original tough-rock single after another for Festival around 1966-67. During this period the lineup of Peter Hood, Thea Penglis, Bosco Bosonac & James Skiathitis was augmented with (50's rock hero) vocalist Johnny Rebb. The group went on to form its own record company and recording studio.

The De-Coys, from Adelaide, were led by a fine songwriter called Alistair Innes. The makers of three EMI singles, they were remarkably adept at producing both great pop and great punk on either side of the one single- more will be heard from them at a later date ..... Brisbane TV host Tevor Gordon was a firm friend of the Brothers Gibb, who lent their names, voices and songs to some four recorded tracks in 1964/65 - all now impossibly rare Miss Rhythm & Blues was also recorded by Steve & The Board, Bryan Davies, April Byron and Judge Wayne . As detailed a little earlier, Newcastle's Four Strangers (not to be confused with John Farrar's Melbourne Strangers) became The Sunsets around 1965. Before the change they cut one highly regarded surf instrumental single for Astor (The Rip/Pearl Diver) and this vocal track for Festival. Sad & Lonely sports a screaming falsetto in the Larry Henley (Newbeats) mould.

Melbourne's In-Sect have the rare distinction of having cut an actual, whole, complete album - with the clever-as-shit title In-Sect-A -Sides. They comprised Frank Sebastyan, Phil Wooding, Peter Manuel, Allan Sands & Geoff Pretty, and left one obscure but classic track - I Can See My Love on W&G ..... Apart from this one killer single A side, The Jackson Kings are remembered for little else than providing Brian Cadd (Caine) & Ronnie Charles for The Groop. However, it is known that members Chas Brown and Neville Ray went on to play in Issy Di's Treo + 1 .. Feedback kings Running Jumping Standing Still were a wild, uninhibited offshoot of the equally anarchic Missing Links-instigated by Doug Ford & Andy James. Over just two (stunning!) singles, the ever-changing lineup included Jamie Byrne (Black Pearls, Groove), Denny Burgess (Throb, Masters Apprentices), Peter Newing (Pieazers) and Doug Lavery (In Focus, Valentines & Axiom). After disintegration midway thru 1967, Andy
formed The Andy James Asylum. Worth hearing is the RJSS's Diddy Wah Diddy (on ·so You Want To Be A Rock & Roll Star Vol 2' LP).

Like the Elois and The Cult, the origins and activities of The Vacant Lot (Sydney) and The Hergs (Adelaide) are outside of our grasp at this time - any illuminating information would be most eagerly accepted . . ... Like Max Merritt's Levis advertsing jingle. the Jeff St. John & The ld super-cool scat-rock Sunaroid '67 sunglasses ad-track proved so popular that it was issued on a promo disc by mail order. The ld, resident group at Here -Sydney's first licensed rock disco, were David Bentley, Peter Anson, John Helman and Don McCormack. Anson was an original Missing Link,while Bentley went on to lead Python Lee Jackson and pen 'In A Broken Dream'.

Side One
1. THE MISSING LINKS You're Driving Me Insane
2. THE BLACK DIAMONDS I Want, Need, Love You
3. THE ELOIS By My Side
4. THE MOODS Rum Drunk
5. THE EASYBEATS Goin' Out Of My Mind
6. THE VINCE MALONEY SECT No Good Without You
7. THE SUNSETS I Want Love
8. THE WILD COLONIALS Get The Picture
9. THE CREATURES Ugly Thing
10. THE CULT You're Just My Kind

Side Two
1. THE ATLANTICS Come On
2. THE DE-COYS Bad Times
3. TREVOR GORDON & THE BEE GEES
4. THE FOUR STRANGERS Sad & Lonely
5. THE IN-SECT I Can See My Love
6. THE JACKSON KINGS Watch Your Step
7. RUNNING JUMPING STANDING STILL She's So Good To Me
8. THE VACANT LOT Don't Let Me Sleep Too Long *
9. THE HERGS Style Of Love
10. JEFF ST. JOHN & THE ID Sunaroid '67

* Please note that this track is mis-labelled as “Don’t Let me Sleep Too Long” on the cover. It is really a cover version of “Wake Me, Shake Me” by The Blues Project (which uses some lyrics from the song of the same name by The Coasters.