Various - Pebbles, Vol. 9: Southern California 2
Originally released on BFD Records BFD 5026 in July 1980
This CD issued on AIP CD 5026 in December 1996
Pebbles 9 focuses on the California bands who were too greasy and nasty to make it through flower power intact. The Standells, represented with the unexceptional "Someday You'll Cry," enjoy practical superstar status. The real maniacs are Children of the Mushroom's "August Mademoiselle" and Starfires' "Cry For Freedom," an early anti-Vietnam protest song so rare it had to be mastered directly from an acetate, hence boasting that authentic scratched-to-fuck sound.
Now slowly assuming mammoth proportions on CD after its lengthy incarnation on vinyl, Pebbles reaches its ninth digital volume with a second trawl through the minor labels and lost stars of Southern California. That's Beach Boys territory, of course, but aside from some semi-serious vocal licks on Ty Wagner's "I'm a No Count," Pebbles 9 is decidedly short on harmony of any kind, let alone celebrations of sun and surf.
Like the rest of America in the wake of the Stones and Yardbirds, SoCal was filled with quartets of long-haired, angry young men, all of whom dreamed of following the Seeds or the Elevators into the Billboard Top 40 for one brief stab at immortality. But aside from the Standells, captured here in Merseybeat mood on 1965's "Someday You'll Cry," none of these contenders ever achieved a title shot.
Not that they didn't try: David borrowed the "Eight Miles High" bass riff, appropriately enough, for their "40 Miles," while the Magic Mushrooms shoved "I Know You Rider" and "You're Gonna Miss Me" into the blender and emerged with "I'm Gone." The Gypsy Trips reckoned they were just as good as Sonny and Cher (he was, she wasn't), while the Nervous Breakdowns took Eric Burdon and the Animals as their blueprint on "I Dig Your Mind."
Given that there's virtually no such thing as a bad garage-punk anthology, but all too many that fall short of real genius, what's on Pebbles 9 that demands your dollars? The murky acetate of the Starfires' "Cry For Freedom," for one, echoing the Animals' assault on "Tobacco Road;" the Hysterics, who lived up to the title of "Won't Get Far" by making the Pretty Things sound like Freddie & the Dreamers; the Good Feelins, whose "Shattered" overcomes its ice-thin sound quality, and the Children of the Mushroom (where did they get these names?), whose "August Mademoiselle" isn't so much punk as pop twisted through the mindwarps of 1967.
Some final curiosities: is that really Kenny Loggins snarling like a trapped rotweiler on the Second Helping's "Let Me In?" And were the W.C. Fields Memorial Electric String Band really the first to issue "I'm Not Your Stepping Stone"? They certainly deserved to be: their grungy guitars make this just about the definitive reading of this song. Other curiosities include the post-surf psychedelia of Velvet Illusions, featuring one Steven Weed, who became noted in the '70s as the boyfriend of celebrated kidnapee Patty Hearst.These kinds of discoveries make Pebbles 9 another garage gem.
01. Ty Wagner - I'm a No Count 2:26
02. Caretakers - East Side Story 2:11
03. Hysterics - Won't Get Far 2:06
04. Standells - Someday You'll Cry 2:31
05. Magic Mushrooms - I'm Gone 2:36
06. Fenwyck - Iye 1:59
07. Buddhas - Lost Innocence 2:10
08. David - I'm Not Alone 1:50
09. David - 40 Miles 1:53
10. Edge - Scene Thru the Eyes 2:57
11. Second Helping - Let Me In 2:51
12. Good Feelins - Shattered 2:19
13. Gypsy Trips - Ain't It Hard 2:30
14. Nervous Breakdowns - I Dig Your Mind 1:50
15. Mom Boys - Up and Down 2:06
16. W.C. Fields Memorial Electric String Band - (I'm Not Your) Steppin' Stone 2:20
17. Children of the Mushroom - August Mademoiseile 2:20
18. Velvet Illusions - Velvet Illusions 2:26
19. Perpetual Motion Workshop - Won't Come Down 2:18
20. Crumpets - Mama Baby 2:47
21. Sounds Unreal - Scene of the Crime 3:10
22. Mal-T's - Here To Stay 1:57
23. Thee In Set - They Say 2:24
24. Starfires - Cry For Freedom 2:38
AMG wrote:
Even though it's not quite as good as its predecessor, the second volume of the Pebbles series to focus on ultra-obscure sixties garage rock from Southern California is still a smokin' collection of tunes, stuffed with mean fuzz guitars and primal vocals, courtesy of a whole buncha bands that just never managed to make it big. A few songs that make this disc a blast o' joy are Ty Wagner's "I'm A No Count," a nasty two-chord outcast anthem that bristles with teenage agression, as well as Thee In Set's stomping caveman frat pounder, "They Say." There's also "Someday You'll Cry," a snotty garage-pop tune from the pre-"Dirty Water" Standells, and the Care Takers' funky soul-shakin' cover of Bob Seger's "East Side Story" (shut up, Bob Seger rules!), not to mention the Velvet Illusions' menacing "Velvet Illusions" (gotta love bands with their own theme songs). The Children of the Mushroom's "August Madamoiselle" is a psychedelic tune that manages to pull of the neat trick of being both dark and whimsical. Great stuff. The David's "I'm Not Alone" is a fuzzy, flailing, organ-propelled fuzz thumper and the Second Helping's "Let Me In" is just plain wonderfully creepy. There are plenty of other highlights (don't even get me started on the W.C. Fields Memorial String Band!), but this set falls a bit short of the five star rating, thanks to the inclusion of a few tunes that are little more than by-the-book garage rock (I'm lookin' at you, "Won't Come Down!"). Still, this is an excellent disc, a really good addition to the Pebbles series, and it deserves to belong in every garage fan's collection.
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