Yesterday I finished up a semester interning at a lit agency, and as a going-away present I was allowed to take a couple of promo copies of books they have in stock from publishers. One of those books is Rolling Stone’s now out-of-print Alt-Rock-A-Rama. So far, I’ve only read through a few of the pieces compiled in the book, but I was inspired by one of the features, “The Original Punks: The Greatest Garage Recordings of the Twentieth Century,” by Robot A. Hull (no joke, guy goes by Robot), to do a post on a great garage-rock group of whose history and musical output I know almost nothing. They’re called The Loved Ones, and they’re from Melbourne, Australia.
I got the following track, “Surprise, Surprise,” from a blog post over on Aquarium Drunkard, a cool blog based in LA, that was part of a series on rare garage rock from the 1960s. Dig the metalic fuzz of the song’s opening—it’s a bit like the Rolling Stones’ early singles, but it doesn’t have any of the big corporate rock connotations they’ve gained by being stars for almost half a century. The Loved Ones aren’t nearly as obscure as some of the stuff Robot Hull talks about in his piece, such as The Memphis Goons (who sound pretty awesome, considering they referred to themselves as “Xavier Tarpit, Jackass Thompson and Vanilla Frog”), The Godz, or the Shaggs, but their material also isn’t as widely known as their more successful contemporaries such as ? and the Mysterians (“96 Tears”), The Kingsmen (“Louie, Louie”), or the Troggs (“Wild Thing”).
For these reasons, I thought I’d post “Surprise, Surprise” for your listening enjoyment. It’s got elements of the Kingsmen, the Beatles’ early releases, and the Stones for sure, but ultimately it’s just a damn good nugget of garage rock greatness. It might not be as perfect as the Trashmen’s cacophonous “Surfin’ Bird,” (“B-b-b-bird bird bird, bird’s the word") but it’ll be stuck in your head for at least the rest of the day.
“Surprise, Surprise” – The Loved Ones
Check ‘em out on Amazon.
No comments:
Post a Comment