Wave That Freak-Flag High – Column

Wave That Freak-Flag High

The Pleasures of Sixties Psychedelic Garage-Punk

by Chris Adams
illustration by Chris Adams

When Patti Smith Group guitarist Lenny Kaye unearthed a bucket fulla forgotten ’60s garage-punk classics and re-released them on his now legendary Nuggets collection in the mid-’70s, I’ll betcha he had no idea the kinda precedent he was setting. Since that fateful day, countless now-generation no-hit wonders have been exhumed and made immortal on various compilation serials aimed at documenting by-passed reverberations of the psychedelic underground. The Pebbles series has always been my personal fave because it generally eschews most of the obvious lesser-knowns (The Chocolate Watchband, The Music Machine, Electric Prunes, etc.) for the truly demented obscurities – I’m talking records that had a total circulation of maybe 500 copies. (In fact, a lot of the tracks featured on Pebbles are so rare that the versions on the CDs are mastered directly from vinyl copies of the originals.) To understand the music, put yerself in this scenario: you’re a strait-laced high school or college kid in the summer of ’66 who suddenly finds himself caught up in the revolutionary countercultural fervor created by the likes of the Beatles, Stones, Dylan, etc. Suddenly, graduating, marrying your high school sweetheart, and working at Dad’s plastic factory don’t seem like such appealing options. You realize that you are among the luckiest people on Earth – a young person in America, the land of the free, in the midst of the most massive cultural/sociological upheaval in recorded history. And, fuck it all, you’re gonna be part of it! So you grow out your hair, trade in your class ring for love beads, your Arrows and Brooks Brothers for paisley and drainpipe Levi’s, and your hush puppies for a pair of black pointed Chelsea Beatle boots (the definitive rock and roll footwear, incidentally). You forego martinis before dinner (strictly squaresville) for more heady cocktails of bathtub acid and marijuana, quit the church choir and the glee club, buy a Vox practice amp and teardrop guitar and start a band. The fact that ya can’t play a note don’t mean shit, man – you’ve “got the vibe,” you’re just gonna “freak out” and “do your own thing,” etc.. So you and your saucer-eyed caveman companions come up with a suitably “turned-on” band name (i.e. “Children of the Mushroom, ” “Velvet Illusions,” “Perpetual Motion Workshop”) rehearse for a coupla months, and decide to press a record. You have no fucking clue as to what you’re doing in the cheap-shit 8-track studio, so you just end up blasting the same two or three chords over and over, layering them in fuzz and trippy effects while the singer does his best Jagger, Dylan or Lennon impersonation, the hapless bassist fumbles along, the drummer bludgeons his skins like an animal and your hip-chick organist in the thigh-high go-go boots and miniskirt lays down the swirling mystic vibes on the farfisa. You imagine that rock stardom is imminent, but, because you’re all so hopelessly inept and/or drug-addled, the record sounds nothing like the Stones or the Beatles, or even the friggin’ Seeds. It’s badly recorded, the lyrics are beyond ludicrous, and everything is outta tune. Your band goes absolutely nowhere. Eventually, you give up on the group and either a) put your “lost weekend” behind you, start as a junior partner in dad’s business, and embrace yawnsville, b) actually learn to play, do way too much acid, don flowing white robes and a wizard’s hat and start a prog-rock band called Uriah Heep, forcing anyone with any taste whatsoever to hate you for the rest of your miserable life, or c) become a heroin addict and die. And the record you made with “The Caretakers of Crystal Deception” or whatever is totally forgotten until it’s released on one of the Pebbles albums, where it’s hailed by hacks worldwide for its pure primitive raw righteousness, its endearing combination of attitude and ambition coupled with a total lack of palpable talent. Granted, by its very nature, any Pebbles record is a hit-or-miss affair, but they pile 24 tracks on each release – that’s over two regular albums’ worth of material – which more than justifies its existence.

Each volume boasts lovingly created artwork and information on each band (which I’m sure in many cases was far more difficult to obtain than the actual recording). I can’t tell you that Volumes 9 and 10 are any better or worse than any of the others – like the rest, there’re a few duff tracks and a few classics, and they run the gamut from blissed-out hippy-dippy flower power anthems to strutting speedfreak street-punk kissoffs – but I can tell you that each one should be cherished with all your heart and, should you score a windfall, I recommend you go out, buy the entire collection and set yourself up for years of wigged-out punkadelic pleasure.

When ya look at the cover of the Ear-Piercing Punk reissue, everything indicates that it’s straight from the school of ’77. Printed in garish pink, black, and white is a picture of one of Sid’s kids – i.e. spiky hedgehog haircut, studded dog-collar choker, Catwoman makeup, and the ubiquitous safety-pin through ear and lip. In fact, this record ain’t no Mudd Club, or CBGB’s – this is another Pebbles-esque collection of ’60s psychedelic pstompers. The album was originally released at the height of the ’70s punk rock phenomenon, so I think the idea was to grab the youth of the blank generation with the cover and then turn ’em all on to the groovy sounds of the sixties. My bet is that it all backfired hopelessly on the original label and all they succeeded in doing was pissing offa buncha already pissed-off Sham 69 fans – not a very wise move in anyone’s book. But, despite the misleading cover, it’s a solid 20-song collection (10 bonus tracks!) – albeit patchy, like any other in this genre – with some killer garunge-psychosis by the likes of Bohemian Vendetta, Guys Who Came Up From Downstairs, and Creations Disciple.

Another great by-product of Lenny Kaye’s Nuggets album is that it inspired a lotta modern groups to assimilate the best elements of the sixties punk records and re-create them with better recording techniques and a firmer grip on fundamental musical skills, without sacrificing the energy and attack of the originals. The best of these groups include the Fuzztones (their versions of Love’s “My Flash on You” and “I’m a Living Sickness” by the Calico Wall are pure lysergic psychosis), the Vipers (check out their outtasight Outta the Nest LP) and The Nomads, who hail from Sweden. Generally, most rock and roll from the continent sounds fucking awful, but, for whatever bizarre reason, Northern Europe has always been really good at mimicking ’60s stuff – there’s a few excellent compilations of farfisa-fuelled Dutch rave-ups, and The Creeps Enjoy the Creeps is an absolute classic. On The Cold Hard Facts of Life, The Nomads pay tribute to the best Canadian garage-screamers with searing, throbbing versions of Teenage Head’s “Picture My Face,” Luke and the Apostles “Been Burnt,” and The Jury’s “Who Dat?,” among others. (Not that the groups I mentioned are actually household names or anything.) Although there’re only eight songs on the album, it’s still an essential purchase for anyone tuned in and turned on to the primitive, primal throb and ooze of the sixties underground, expertly distilled and rebottled for modern consumption. Take the hallucination invitation and get wicked, get wyld, get weird, and get down.