INCREDIBLE SOUND SHOW STORIES, VOL. 17: CLAP HANDS, DADDY COME HOME! PART 2
Needle-drop of Dig The Fuzz (DIG 045), 2002.
01. The Snappers - She's A Lover
02. Ian & The Zodiacs - Na-Na-Na-Na-Na
03. The Rainy Daze - What Do You Think
04. Don Fardon - Sunshine Woman
05. John Smith & The New Sound - Just A Loser
06. The Hi-Fi's - Grade A Girl
07. Tony Ritchie - Comin' On Strong
08. John Deen & The Trakk - Friends
09. Casey Jones & The Governors - All You Wanna Do
10. The Deejays - What'cha Tryin' To Do
11. The Renegades - Can't You See
12. The Arthur Brown Set - Don't Tell Me
13. The Top Ten All Stars - Hey Daddy
14. Jimmy & The Rackets - I Want To Tell You
15. Dave Anthony's Moods - Fading Away
16. Same D. - How Do You Break A Broken Heart
LP liner notes:
You have here another collection (gathered together again by more hideous phone bills, headaches, loft insulating records & of course the sheer love of it all!) of stupidly rare & obscure discs from foreign shores featuring lost & long forgotten British bands from the mid to late sixites.
In this latest instalment of the delicious & Incredible Sound Show Stories, we present 16 God almighty blasts of guitars, organs, drums, harmonicas & while we're at it, general MOD and R&B mayhem from 16 no-hit wonders now back in the land of Union Jack.
CLAP HANDS! DADDY COME HOME!
Since we last exposed a host of British 60's groups who laid there sound across the world and not in their homeland, a vast amount of new contenders have come and lead us to a sequel to this story and more information has graced out eyes and ears. So before we kick off, here's some words for the first part of CLAP HANDS! DADDY COME HOME!
THE SCENERY who delivered a real kick ass mod gem 'Thread Of Time' went on to become THE VOICE of 'Train To Disaster' fame, THE VOICE were also the musical voice of a late 60's sexual liberation sect based in London!!! (True!!).
THE HIGH SPIRITS were finally discovered to be of German origin... sorry!
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THE SNAPPERS consisted of four Brits and a frog (Pierre Dupree on drums!) and after quitting the UK for Germany in '67, Steve Douglas, Ricky Champion, Geoff Rich, and Roger Montgomerey joined Decca releasing two 45's, Hideaway / Hold Tight and Upside Down, Inside Out / Memories, respectively. ('Upside Down' was licensed to CBS for a UK release in '67).
Their 1st LP was DDDBMT styled. Their 2nd and final LP didn't inspire anything much, but offered two standouts, 'She's A Lover' being one of them. Steve Douglas, real name Steve McIntyre, went onto work in Germany as a DJ after the group disbanded in '69.
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Famous for their Star-Club appearances and for some pretty ferocious recordings, IAN & THE ZODIACS have turned up trumps again with another killer second time around. This Easybeats-influenced frenzy appears on the flip of their final 45, an awful cover of 'Any Day Now'. They returned to Blightly in '67.
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THE RAINY DAZE bring mystery to the fore as the flip to this brilliantly crafted beat-pop classic completely stinks and has a blatantly different production, making it sound like a different and not so clever group attempting a hit. This was licensed to the UK from the Frankfurt studios of CBS. Famed for their sike lovely 'Tread Softly For Sleepers'.
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DON FARDON was of course the front man of THE SORROWS before they relocated to Italy. As part of the Miki Dallon catalogue you could expect his releases to be found anywhere and everywhere, but he stayed with Pye International from 1967 to 1969 and Dallon's Youngblood label up until 1975. This classic piece of psychedelic beat-pop with its enthusiastic phasing on the production amazingly escaped any UK label's attention and appeared across the continent only, in 1969. The flip, a version of *Gimme Gimme Good Lovin'' serves no justice to this Coventry born singer (or the great content of its flip). An identical version of this has also turned up on an Emidisc acetate, credited to the PLAYBOYS! (Miki Dallon Music).
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Not sure which area of the UK JOHN SMITH & THE NEW SOUND came from or where they were based, but they had two releases on the Spanish Hispavox label. This and another 45, True Fine Mama b/w Newspaper Man, from 1968 were released on Germany's Vogue label although all releases may have appeared on both (and other labels at the same time!). The Spanish Hispavox releases contained cover versions of popular hits from the time; Winchester Cathedral b/w Wait For Me Baby (a straight copy of The New Vaudeville Band's 45 on Fontana), Night Of Fear (The Move) b/w Matthew And Son (Cat Stevens). Both 45's were released in 1966 and '67 consecutively. This is the flip to their Birthday 45 (The Beatles) from 1968 and is definitely their best, with a raw, grinding Hammond driven R&B sound that's ear-splittingly splendid! Their 45 output suggests there could have been an LP recorded somewhere but that's somewhere else and we're not going there just yet!
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THE HI-FI's made it from Croyden, Surrey, to the Star-Club in Hamburg where they stayed 'til '68 with a final 45 on German Decca, London Look b/w McKillroy Was Here, in '67. 'Grade A Girl' is from the 'SNAKES & HI-FI's' LP which mixes tinges of psychedelia with a variety of pop.
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Being a charismatic vocalist was a good outlet for the song writing talents of Miki Dallon, whose own songwriting and production talents are given plenty of spotlight on this LP! 'Comin' On Strong' was issued only in the US on the GNP Crescendo label, it hammers home with some seriously cool fuzz action and mind blowing wah wah licks... It kicks! TONY RITCHIE was also responsible for penning a fair share of releases on Miki Dallon's Youngblood label as the Ritchie/Spence team that also crops up on another fair share of British beat gems, including 'How Do You Break A Broken Heart', a solid Mod dancer that also appears here.
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JOHN DEEN relocated to Germany in favour of saurkraut (yuk) and more recognition then he received as Johnny Dean & the Deacons who had a non mover released on CBS in 196?. The German budget label Europa offered an LP contract for his newly formed outfit THE TRAKK, with whom he released a version of The Beatles' 'Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da' for German CBS in '67 (sic). The LP contains 14 ? group originals of which there are at least four beauties. 'Kavind' is a classic slice of UK sounding mod psych. If it appeared on a 45, it would be demanding nice sums of cash! 'Friends' is a small but perfectly formed beat number that ends side one graciously and tickles your tastes for side two.
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CASEY JONES started life on the pop trail as CASS & THE CASANOVAS in 1960, then being asked to leave the band before they became the more familiar BIG THREE. Casey then joined THE ENGINEERS with Eric Clapton in 1963, but stayed longer than Eric and long enough to record a single for Columbia. In 1965, CASEY JONES and the newly-named GOVERNORS became an instant smash in Germany where 'Don't Ha Ha' even managed to knock the Beatles off the top of the charts in '65! They also kept the small European budget label Golden 12 alive with a successful string of hits throughout Europe, but none of these hit the UK shores. 'All You Wanna Do' is taken from their second album (the rarest) which also contains an incredibly Freakbeat-heavy version of 'Hall Of The Mountain King'. Casey Jones had a reputation for being difficult to work with and so was again removed by the rest of the band in '67 who carried on in Germany as Gaslight Union. Casey carried on regardless with four solo singles for German Vogue of which 'Sands' in 1968 was his best.
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Famous for their freakbeat talents on 'Blackeyed Woman' from 1966, THE DEEJAYS had already based themselves in Sweden two years prior to this release where they had a successful string of single & EP releases on the Polydor label. A very rare compilation was released in Germany only on Polydor International.
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Here at home, this brummy four-piece were complete unknowns so as soon as their cut of Vince Taylor's rocker 'Cadillac' hit the No. 1 spot in several countries across the continent, it was goodbye Albion, hello Europe! THE RENEGADES were actually bigger than most other British groups treading the shores at that time in Finland, Italy, Germany and Holland, recording a wealth of material especially in Finland and Germany with occasional licensing to four different UK labels, resulting in a 2-5 year delay between recording and releasing, creating a very complex discography! Their supposed trade mark was a "crystal clear fuzz free high-pitched guitar sound", funny as their most amazing and documented moment was drenched in fuzz and fury with Bill Haley's '13 Women' which they were last seen lashing out in Munich, 1983... The mind surely boggles! Although they couldn't repeat the success of 'Cadillac', they had numerous 45's and various LP's released in six different countries.
* * * * *
A year after recording 'You Don't Know' with the DIAMONDS for a Reading University flexi in 1965 (Featured on I.S.S.S., Vol. 1), ARTHUR BROWN recorded a further two tracks, this time backed by THE SHARKS for the soundtrack LP to a Roger Vadim movie entitled 'La Curee'. The LP was released in the US and France. The two tracks featuring Arthur Brown, 'Don't Tell Me' and 'Baby You Know What You're Doing', also appeared on a French EP (Barclay, 71 026). 'Don't Tell Me' is a pounding R&B scorcher, but suffers from a not so dynamic production quality.
* * * * *
THE 'TOP TEN ALL STARS' were the resident house band at the Top-Ten Club, situated off the Hamburg Reeperbahn, some kind of a poor mans' Star-Club, but a welcome way of earning bread for all the Tommies stranded in Germany's centre of hedonism who didn't want to go back to the dear old prude and pride of England. Their line up changed weekly, depending on who was available, including the legendary visiting rowdies like Tony Sheridan, Herb Gellar and Howie Casey. They usually booked local talents or second division singers visiting with a Tutti-Frutti routine! Two LP's and a couple of singles came out on Decca, documenting the mediocre live amusement on offer at the club that itself couldn't afford the bigger names. In 1966 a young British organ player called Les Humphries joined the All Stars and wrote this for the flip of their last 45. 'Hey Daddy' is by far the finest moment from this outfit that looked and sounded dated compared to the upcoming trend of Mod bands. Humphries went back to England soon after and released two great singles on Columbia with his short lived band THE SUMMER SET. When both flopped, he went back to Hamburg and joined German band WONDERLAND, who had a hit with 'Moscow'. In the 70's he sacrificed his promising career as a musician in favour of selling millions of records as THE LES HUMPHREYS SINGERS!
* * * * *
Jimmy Duncombe had earlier been in THE HEARTS who released 'Young Woman' / 'Black Eyes' on Parlophone in 1964. After a name change to JIMMY & THE RACKETS they moved off to Germany to become one of the most popular British bands around with versions of Rock & Roll standards being well received. Success faded however when they concentrated on original material and when their fabulous version of the Beatles' 'I Want To Tell You' failed to chart in '67 it was time to call it a day. Jimmy Duncombe married and settled in Switzerland where he tried to establish the New Rackets, but time had moved on and nobody wanted to listen anymore. Nice trivia: Under his real name Jimmy Duncan, he produced a number of UK issued 45's and one of the finest moments in British Freakbeat THE ANSWERS' 'It's Just A Fear'!
* * * * *
Found roaming the Mediterranean shores were DAVE ANTHONY'S MOODS, an obscure bunch of ex-pats originally from Bournemouth who released a lone 45 for Parlophone in 1966 whilst still in the UK, which hints at modbeat but doesn't quite hit the right spots. This is from the flip of their 'My Baby' 45 on the Italian Joker label from 1967. God knows what happened to the Moods after that and Dave Anthony may well have gone solo for a single on Mercury a year later back home, or disappeared before...?
* * * * *
Unfortunately, there are no real clues as to the indentity of SAME D., but one can only guess and continue to guess as it's another recording from the ever mysterious Miki Dallon production team! Tony Ritchie also released a version of the flip to this, 'Anybody At The Party Seen Jenny' (Beacon Records), a riotous mod-pop novelty!
Hats off to: Ben Bloik & the Rubber Biscuit, Kraut Daddy Vorvan, Dr. Who?, Harry and Lewis, XX.
Dig The Fuzz Records, P.O. Box 7088, Clifton, Nottingham, NG11 7WB.
E-mail: digthefuzzrecords@yahoo.com
Web site: Currently under reconstruction!
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TRANSFER INFO:
Dual CS 505-3 (w/ Ortofon OM20 Super) -> Cambridge Audio 640P
SB Audigy 2 -> WAV [48 kHz, 24-bit] -> ClickRepair -> WAV [44.1 kHz, 16-bit] -> FLAC (lvl 8)
ClickRepair: DeClick: 40 (30 for stereo tracks), DeCrackle: Off
No other processing (no EQ, no noise reduction).
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This is the last volume of the Incredible Sound Show Stories, but I suppose - and hope - there will be further volumes in the future. Someone (wink, wink) might have noticed that I haven't done I.S.S.S. #16 (the latest one issued, released in 2003). That's one of the few in the series that I don't own (yet!), but I have FLAC's of it. Unfortunately it was done by someone using some really nasty noise reduction software and doesn't sound too good. I can upload those files if someone would like to complete the set (although I have a vague feeling I threw them away as the quality left a bit to be desired) OR I can upload my needle-drop as soon as I've secured a copy of the LP. Anyway, it's been a fun trip and there'll be loads more Dig The Fuzz LP's and various vinyl-only comps of rare 60's pop/prog/psych soon... Unless someone tell me to stop, that is!
ENJOY!
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