The Beeds - You Don't Have To/ Run To Her

Label: Team

Year of Release: 1968

This record has already been covered by a number of other blogs focussed on sixties obscurities, but given the quality of the contents on offer I felt I couldn't easily bypass it.

This is, as I believe the kids say, a nice double-header of a single, offering two sides of equal quality but distinctly different flavours. "You Don't Have To" is straight-ahead high-energy bubblegum bordering on garage, with the usual fizziness and buzziness you'd expect from such a track in this era. It's furiously catchy, determined and has the feel of a surefire hit. Unfortunately, it didn't receive much airplay in the USA and subsequently failed to chart.

Of much more interest to me is the moody folk-rock B-side "Run To Her", which is a breezy autumnal mope in one person's relationship break-up angst. So accomplished is it that it's astonishing it seemingly hasn't found a place on a sixties obscurities compilation yet - it's clearly on a par with numerous Nuggets of the same period, and is widely acclaimed across the world wide web. 

The Beeds were originally called The Cat's Meow, and hailed from Staten Island, New York. They consisted of Richard Martinis on guitar and vocals, John Ventura on lead vocals, Lester Margolies on bass, Jay Clied on drums, and Pete Carver on guitar. Their debut single "La La Lu" inched into the US Top 100, but the follow up "True True Lovin'" failed to capitalise on its interest, and the group jumped from Decca to the Buddah subsidiary Team for this 45. 

Their stint on Buddah - which forced them to change their name to The Beeds for contractual reasons - was equally brief, with only one other flop single ("Love Hurts") to their name on that label. The band seemed to have operated primarily as a live act, mostly performing covers on the thriving New York gig circuit, and once dropped by Buddah, pressing plants never heard from them again.