Ebay Scoundrels and Fiends - with Marylebone Ensemble and The Square Pegs

Exhibit 1
Artist: The Square Pegs
Song: Love Me With All Your Heart b/w The Song Is You
Label: Decca
Year of Release: 1962

Despite the fact that I started this blog to promote the sheer fun you could have wading around second-hand record shops for obscure and unloved records, I freely admit that I'm a keen ebay user as well.  It's an irresistible site due to the sheer quantity and variety of material available - I could wait all year for a copy of Shocking Blue's "Send Me A Postcard" to turn up in my local Music and Video Exchange, or alternatively I could just bid on one of the many copies available that turn up online.

However, proper record stores are preferable if only because you can actually see what's being offered, and even if your view of what constitutes a disc in "Excellent condition!" differs from the owners, you can see the wear and tear with your very own eyes.  And also, if the shop dares to describe an Easy Listening LP as a "psychedelic must hear!!!" God help them the next time you're passing that way.  Ebay sellers do occasionally have tendencies to be a little less discerning in this respect, and whether it's because they're cloth eared or because they're just trying to make a quick buck, well, you be the judge.

Take this Square Pegs record as an example.  It was advertised as having a "Freakbeat B-side" by the seller, and given that it was starting at a low price I put a hasty bid on it.  In doing so, I completely failed to check the release date (1962) which would have given me a clue as to how searing the guitar-work on this number was likely to be.  I had let myself get over-excited by a faintly rebellious group name, and when this admittedly minty fresh demo 45 arrived in the post, I was dismayed by the noise I heard.  "The Song Is You" is almost odd in its decidedly straight approximation of a beat sound, consisting of vocal stylings Harry Secombe would doubtless have approved of on top of some very measured playing.  The A-side is a very ordinary ballad.  It's not the worst record I've ever bought in my life, but it's certainly not freakbeat, and I find it very hard to believe anyone could mistake at as being such.

(Scroll down for Exhibit B...)

Exhibit 2
Artist: The Marylebone Ensemble
Song: Porcelain/ Transplant
Label: Beacon
Year of Release: 1969

If the seller was to be believed, this effort is "psychedelic pop".  And again, I beg to differ.  What it actually is - on the A-side, at least - is a piece of easy listening which is sweet and sleepy, but a very odd choice for a 45.  Normally tracks such as these were buried on the many parent-attracting easy LPs that cluttered up the racks at Woolworths, not released as A-sides in the hope that they'd enjoy some radio play.

The B-side has possible leanings towards the mod side of things, however, in that it's an organ instrumental, albeit one that's so slow and steady in its tempo that it certainly wouldn't ignite much dancefloor movement.  It's not clear who the Marylebone Ensemble are, but my guess would be that it was a group name given to a bundle of session musicians who were hired on the day.

And that's as much depth as I'm prepared to go into on these two, I'm sorry to say.  As we approach the end of 2012, let's collectively hold both of them up as cautionary warnings, signs that we should take a deep breath, stop and think before we bid.  If that ultra-obscure 1966 single is going for a paltry sum in Excellent condition, it's usually not worth owning.  In my case, both of these will probably be charity-shop bound  in the New Year - I would put them up for sale again on ebay, but if I were actually honest about the contents I doubt they'd get off the block.

Merry Christmas!

I'd like to wish a very merry Christmas to all "Left and to the Back" readers.  This has (almost) been the fifth year of people humouring this faintly ridiculous and often questionable idea, but it's been a pleasure to keep the fires burning.  As to whether we make it through a sixth year, let's hang on and see.

If you're still hungry for other Christmas-themed entries, these ones from 2010 are still live online:

El Vez - Feliz Navidad
Marty Feldman - A Joyous Time Of The Year
The Snowmen - Nik Nak Paddywack

Enjoy Christmas.  We'll be back before the end of the year with a bog-standard entry (no more YouTube videos, I promise) before continuing a normal service at the start of January.  

Countdown to Christmas Party Time - Christmas In The Garage (The Sonics, The Blues Magoos)

Whilst British sixties pop artists were always bound to be fully into the idea of a chirpy, cheery Yuletide, their low-budget North American cousins in their garages occasionally took a dimmer and more irritated view.  The Sonics in particular recorded two tracks which snarled against the empty-handed disappointments of the season on this single - "Santa Claus" delivered them "nothing", and on the other side "Don't Believe In Christmas" they groovily outline similar stocking echoing let-downs.

Even if they can't quite get in the spirit of the season, they still sound a lot more rocking and exciting than any other sixties related Christmas efforts I've managed to dig up, proof positive that the outsiders to the whole event have the most fun.  If the buzzing guitar riffs here don't get you up on the floor, there's something horribly wrong.

The Blues Magoos got in there as well with two covers, "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town" (which is a bit too messy for its own good) and this wildly different take on "Jingle Bells" above.  Less cynical and  poverty-stricken in its themes than The Sonics efforts, this still has a lot more spirit and energy to it than most Christmas covers and shows what can be done with a minimal budget and the right degree of enthusiasm.

Kick your boots off and dig those organ sounds, kids. 

Countdown to Christmas Party Time - Solid Gold Chartbusters - I Wanna 1-2-1 With You

Label: Virgin

Year of Release: 1999

The lists bookies produce on possible Christmas Number Ones aren't necessarily as accurate as one would often believe. For every nail-on-the-head prediction they make, there are a few that are hopelessly wrong - and today's "Left and to the Back" entry focusses on a KLF-related front-runner which nobody in the real world gave much of a stuff about.

"I Wanna 1-2-1 With You" really, really should have been a big deal. The people behind it were Jimmy Cauty of the KLF, who obviously had a track record for producing hits of some note and had a huge fanbase hanging on to his every release, and Guy Pratt, sometime session man with Pink Floyd. It promised up-to-the-minute jokey novelty satire about that very new (at the time, obviously) phenomenon the pesky mobile phone ring, combined with the finest rhythms, dance diva vocals and a comedy video. Given the pedigree of the track, the major label backing - something the KLF never really had in the UK, incidentally - and the public's appetite around Yuletide for daft ideas, surely we were looking at a sizable hit a la "Doctorin' The Tardis" here?

Whilst the Bookies obviously thought so, sales were actually tremendously sluggish and the single scraped an embarrassing number 62 in the charts. Despite being one of the very few people who rushed out and bought this during Christmas week, I have to say that the end result wasn't too surprising. There are several things wrong with the track - firstly, it is far too irritating for the sane consumption of just about anyone, making "Crazy Frog" seem like a soothing baroque masterpiece. The grating, bleeping mobile phone ring the entire track hangs on is horrendously sharp and ear-bothering, and could ruin even the greatest groove or riff. And as it happens, the beats per minute here were very dated by 1999 - whilst the KLF in their prime had put out records of a similar tempo, clubland had moved on to faster, more frantic noises, and this sounded like something from another era to many people. Even if you isolate these drawbacks, the tune itself is, to be frank, minimal, and the joke essentially a Trigger Happy TV out-take and little more. It's a huge shock to find myself writing this sentence - and I feel it may be the only time I bother to do so in my life - but Dom Joly did this whole schtick just so much better.

So then, this is an example of how sometimes people hopelessly fail to "design" Christmas Number Ones, not even with the right personnel in the studio. Westlife won the race with "Seasons in the Sun" in the end, if anyone's interested, and "I Wanna 1-2-1 With You" has become something KLF fans tend to forget ever existed. I apologise for bringing the topic up again, but it is an interesting exercise in novelty wrongness at the very least.

(This blog entry was originally uploaded in December 2009). 

Countdown To Christmas Party Time - Have Yourself a Psychedelic Christmas

I know what a lot of the regular readers are thinking at this point. "This is all very well, but most of us have a strong interest in sixties output. We haven't really had any Christmassy sixties offerings so far, have we?" It is to those people that I say "Bring on the biggest Christmas cracker in the world!" "Well, try these little nuggets for size..."

Band: Two and a Half

Track: Christmas Will Be Round Again

Label: Decca

Year of Release: 1967

This is an almost ridiculously chirpy piece of sixties pop from an utterly obscure group who, despite having five singles out in the sixties, have been impossible to track down or identify since.  Generally releasing tracks with a strong Simon & Garfunkel feel to them, "Christmas Will Be Round Again" deviates from that particular template to over-enthusiastically embrace Yuletide - truly, this is the noise of Christmas Eve and the excitement of the presents waiting for you in the morning (if you're about eight years old, and if you're reading this you're possibly not...)

Oddly, this was actually the Christmas B-side to the distinctly non-festive but much-fancied Two & A Half track "I Don't Need To Tell You", which was their final release before they disappeared off the face of the planet.  

Artist: The Outer Limits

Track: The Great Train Robbery

Label: Instant

Year of Release: 1968

Again, not strictly speaking a Christmas song, but this has a distinct wintery feel, chiming melodies and close harmonies as well as referencing "A cold and windy evening in December", so it's getting in by default.

"Great Train Robbery" has a distinct Bee Gees feel and asks the listeners whether they remember an audacious near-Christmas steam train hijacking from the late part of the nineteenth century - apparently five men and a woman with a shotgun were responsible, though they do add the disclaimer "so the papers say", which in these cynical "perhaps David Icke has a point" times takes on a new layer of meaning.  This is beautifully produced and shot through with mystery, constantly hinting at a bigger story but never quite disclosing the full details.  It's possible to visualise the incident as the song plays, making this an incredibly filmic single many years before such efforts became commonplace.

The Outer Limits are most famed for having Jeff Christie in their line-up, who eventually hit the big time with "Yellow River".  This is a much bigger achievement than that track, but sadly flopped, possibly due to cash-flow problems at Immediate (whom Instant were a subsidiary of) or perhaps the fact that this doesn't sound like an obvious 45.

Band: The Majority

Track: All Our Christmases

Label: Decca

Year of Release: 1968

Sometimes you can just tell that a record company has no real interest in attempting to promote a song or scheduling it properly, and is just "going through the motions" with it - this is a prime example.  Instead of taking the logical decision to release "All Our Christmases" in late November or early December, Decca decided that 12 January 1968 might make a more appropriate release date, causing the disc to predictably plunge into obscurity.

A shame, because this Bee Gees composition isn't half bad and deserved a better crack of the whip.  It's frothy and chirpy and would have made a perfect mid-table festive hit.  As things stood, Hull's Majority had already had seven singles out prior to this one, and the industry seemed to decide that their distinctly non-Christmassy goose was cooked.  This proved to be their final hurrah.

And finally... "Question of Childhood" by Adam and Dee isn't on YouTube, which would fit this list perfectly.  Nothing much I can do about that at the moment, but it might be something we have to return to at a later date.