Marc Reid - For No One/ Lonely City Blue

Faithful but slightly baroque styled cover of The Beatles track

Label: CBS

Year of Release: 1966

I've often wondered why there hasn't been a volume of Rubble - or a similar series - dedicated entirely to obscure Beatles covers. God knows there are enough of them to pick from, and despite the record label or the artist's manager's best hopes, the vast majority seemed to be complete flops.

Perhaps one reason such a project has never seen the light of day is the fact that very few of these releases messed with the original template much. For every track like The Score's "Please Please Me" (better than the original, in my controversial yet humble opinion) there are dozens if not hundreds of carbon copies of Fabs tunes - especially their album tracks, which record labels loved to take a punt on, hoping to repeat the success of Marmalade's "Ob La Di Ob La Da" or St Louis Union's "Girl".

Marc Reid's version of "For No One", then, isn't an especially radical reworking, but it does feature a thrumming harpsichord, woodwind arrangements and Reid's polite, rounded, considered vocals. As such, it's astonishing it hasn't featured on a "Fading Yellow" or "Piccadilly Sunshine" compilation yet, where it would be completely at home. It's a very pleasant listen indeed. If the data I have on its release date is correct, it was issued on exactly the same day (5th August 1966) as The Beatles "Revolver" LP, which would suggest that someone at CBS or his management heard an advance demo of the album and whisked him into the studio as quickly as possible to record a cover - such opportunism sometimes paid dividends for artists in the sixties, but it didn't work in this instance. 

The Glass Menagerie - Do My Thing Myself/ Watching The World Pass By

The final, harder edged single by the cult Burnley popsike merchants. 

Label: Polydor

Year of Release: 1969

The Glass Menagerie are probably most famed among obsessive buyers of sixties compilations for their bursts of light psychedelia. From their cult classic "Frederick Jordan" to their cover of the Rolling Stones "She's A Rainbow", their output tends to litter popsike mixes the length and breadth of the land despite the fact (*lowers voice*) that they really weren't that "way out" at all. 

After they were dropped by Pye in 1968 following their failure of their cover of Harry Nilsson's "I Said Goodbye To Me" (which some have suggested David Bowie must have heard), Polydor took them on for two more singles. Their first effort for their new employers was the haunting "Have You Forgotten Who You Are", which was more of the same sound. Their second and final release for the label, though, was this little stormer. Judging by the contents of both the A-side and the flip, they were trying to go for a harder rock sound in the hope of a winning a new audience. Suffice to say, it obviously failed and they disappeared into oblivion not long afterwards.

Reupload - The Fuckers - Sexy Roy Orbison

Incomprehensible Finnish punk rock courtesy of Bill Drummond and Mark Manning

Label: Kalevala
Year of Release: 1997

You might remember that some time ago, I talked about Bill Drummond and Mark Manning (aka Zodiac Mindwarp) and their peculiar mission to create a series of fictional Finnish bands whose singles they could release in quantities of 500 copies each. From ambient brilliance to garage rock to techno stupidity, the singles were varied in style and tone.  Ultimately though, I doubt anyone was quite prepared for the non-existent Finnish punk band The Fuckers.  Drummond writes in his excellent tome "45":

"They are the only Lapp punk band in the world.  They have been together for over ten years, no line-up changes, thousands of gigs, no success and no selling out.  They always get drunk before they go on stage.  Once on stage they fall over, break strings, get in fights with each other or members of the audience.  The night always ends with them being ripped off by the promoter.  They hate everyone and everything, but especially Helsinki.  To them, Helsinki is full of soft, southern, disco-loving, homosexual, rich, arty wankers, and full of girls they want to shag but never can, things they want to own but never will.  The Fuckers are the eternal dispossessed outsiders, failures and fuck-ups.  All of their own doing, though of course they'll never see it that way.  As far as I'm concerned, The Fuckers are the greatest band in the world".

Jefferson - Spider/ Can't Get You Out Of My Mind

Fantastic version of the creeping, vaguely psychedelic Kenny Young track

Label: Pye

Year of Release: 1971

"Spider" is one of those songs which really should have been a smash. First released by its writer Kenny Young (of "Under the Boardwalk" fame) on the CBS label in July 1969, it contained all the drama and raunchiness the hit parade needed. After nobody bit, Clodagh Rogers covered it, but decided to relegate it to the B-side of her hit single "Biljo", where it was later rediscovered in charity shops by delighted people like me.

For my money, though, the 1971 attempt by Jefferson is the one to go for. On this disc, you get to hear everything being thrown at the wall in an attempt to make the record a hit - wailing guitars, thundering orchestral arrangements, rip-roaring vocals and a general air of sultriness combine to create a record which drips with atmosphere. A slightly sleazy atmosphere, admittedly, but one with such a powerful punch that you almost don't notice. 

Erasmus Chorum - Oh Lord/ Holy House (On Sunday)/ Mary Jane

Earnest early rock single from future glam rockers 

Label: Chapter One

Year of Release: 1972

A curious one, this. An epic, overloaded three track single with two meaty rock tunes on the A-side and a six minute organ-driven slice of angst called "Mary Jane" on the flip, its tight grooves at 45rpm result in a horribly crap and under-powered sound (especially on my scuffed copy) but will probably gain some fans nonetheless. 

The A-side appears to be two separate, unconnected rock gospel pieces with an optimistic sheen, and its possible that the odd decision to put two tracks on side one confused the hell out of radio stations. Certainly, the fact that copies of this are near-on impossible to find now indicates a general lack of interest. Nonetheless, both show off a group who were clearly polished performers, and only a slightly limp production lets the side down.

John D Bryant - Mr. Tambourine Man/ Lady Came From Baltimore

Lush, adult orientated 70s take of the Dylan/ Byrds classic. 

Label: Private Stock

Year of Release: 1978

John D Bryant has been on this blog before, and it's difficult to find much more to say about him. Beginning his career as a rather Dylanesque beatnik figure in the mid-sixties and gradually progressing into brighter, more tightly produced singer-songwriter fare, he managed to issue tons of records without once scoring a hit. Of these, debut 45 "Tell Me What You See" is the most abrasive, having a raw, garage feel, whereas the rather Jeff Lynne-esque "I Bring The Sun" is much fancied by psychedelic pop pickers.

By 1978, he'd been taken under the wing of Private Stock Records and "No Strings" and "Mr Tambourine Man" were his last singles. It has to be said, this one is an unusual release, being a smooth-as-silk AOR take on the Dylan classic, feeling strangely like "Rumours" era Fleetwood Mac in places. Clearly it was an attempt at harnessing the nostalgic pangs of an adult hippy audience who had since moved on to rather slicker fare. It has to be said, The Tremeloes' Alan Blakley does a good job in the producer's chair - the strings, female backing vocals and soaring arrangements give the track a yuppie euphoria it almost certainly didn't have before.

Reupload - Cockpit (Featuring FR David) - Fifi/ Father Machine

The "Words" songsmith in an earlier, slightly more psych/ garage phase

Label: Butterfly
Year of Release: 1971

If you're a British person reading this blog entry, it's reasonably safe to assume that you know FR David for one thing and one thing only - the colossal global 1983 megahit "Words". A slightly fey, flowery and despairing ballad about one man's mammoth struggle to write a slightly fey, flowery and despairing ballad, its strangely meta subject matter clearly struck a chord with 8 million record buyers on Earth. "Well, I'm just a music man," shrugged David by way of explanation, "my words are coming out wrong". It was hard not to feel sorry for this gentle fellow, like some sort of parallel universe Elton John who was not only humble rather than arrogant, but had also failed to meet his Bernie Taupin. Not picking moss off a roof and getting "cross", just apologising... a lot.

Way, way before "Words", however, the Tunisian-born David (born Robert Fitoussi) had a long career in France with several records which are surprisingly overlooked by sixties pop aficionados. He began his career in 1965 as a member of the garage band Les Trefles who changed their name to Les Boots after one EP. Success was not forthcoming, so he split to go solo and issued, among other singles, the somewhat startling minor French hit "Symphonie". A berserk, hyperactive approximation of orchestral psychedelia, "Symphonie" is a single I've longed to own for years, but despite its hit status copies are irritatingly difficult to track down, and nor do mp3s of it seem to be readily available. Someone, somewhere needs to sort this out.

Seemingly restless, FR David shortly formed the rock group The David Explosion, who were known as Cockpit in some territories for reasons I can't fully fathom out. "Fifi/ Father Machine" was their first single, and it still has the spirit of the sixties coursing through its veins. The A-side sounds like his own garage days revisited with a three-chord roughness spearing its way through the middle of the track, whereas the B-side is faintly psychedelic in a solo McCartney way and slightly bizarre. His vocals encased in a tune riddled with mellotron noises, David exhorts "Father Machine" to allow humanity and emotions to return to a cold, logic-infested planet once more - it's not hard to form a clear line in your mind from this to "Words", but unlike his best-known work, "Father Machine" wobbles just on the right side of oddness. Hell, the Super Furry Animals have released worse slabs of sci-fi psychedelia than this one (you can imagine Gruff singing this, I swear).

John Davidge - Fear Of Love/ Cold Road

'The British Lenny Bruce' on a gloomy Leonard Cohen tip

Label: Polydor

Year of Release: 1972

The British Alternative Comedy boom of the late seventies/ early eighties seemed to explode out of nowhere, but as key figures such as Alexei Sayle have noted, some of the elements were already in place. Out on the folk circuit, keen story-tellers such as Billy Connolly, Mike Harding, Jasper Carrott and Richard Digance delivered observational material a world away from the punchy gagmeisters on the working man's club circuits, and formed an interesting (and increasingly popular) splinter group of their own. This helped shift expectations of what could and could not be accepted by live audiences. 

On the working man's club circuit itself, there were also weird outliers, performers such as John Cooper Clarke who understood how to keep their audiences onside while also going in unexpected new directions with their material. John Davidge - aka John Paul Joans - was, however, possibly the biggest fish out of water in these venues; a man who, if the video evidence we have is anything to go by, couldn't have given a fig whether the audience 'got him' or not. Prowling around the stage menacingly while talking about 'wars, IRA and all this nonsense' (according to Bernard Manning), he had long hair and was also prone to hippified musings on love, peace and 'the bomb'. Understandably, while a few young people in the audience appreciated his stance, others didn't enjoy their meal of pie and peas being disrupted with such heavy topics of conversation, and were even openly shocked by his material. 

Davidge's left-wing leanings, wild, anarchic behaviour and ghoulish delight at being heckled or dismissed by audiences feels, while rough around the edges, very ahead of its time for the early seventies, and indeed he himself predicted it was the comedy of the future. He openly boasted to a Granada documentary crew: "Audiences are more aware now... and somebody has to provide the new jokes." His forward thinking nature didn't go entirely unnoticed, with Bob Monkhouse enthusiastically praising him as "Britain's answer to Lenny Bruce" and a "brilliantly bitter and hilariously tasteless comedian".  

John Drummond - Break My Mind/ Molly Bye Bye

Much-covered moody country rocker taken on by Irish showband star

Label: Page One

Year of Release: 1968

It's interesting how many low selling singles by Irish showband artists got pressed up in the UK throughout the sixties. While the artists behind these records were often heroes of the gig circuit back in Ireland, they usually struggled to pick up attention and airplay in this country, and seemed to mainly sell to Irish ex-pats in the big cities. 

Certainly, smaller labels like King (covered in the previous entry) seemed to understand that there was a niche market for this stuff, just as much as the Jamaican ex-pats wanted to be able to buy certain records in their new home country. Pye also seemed to churn out endless Showband acts for UK distribution, and while copies are tough to track down, they usually turn up for 99p in the local Oxfam rather than £100 on Discogs. 

John Drummond - occasionally known as Big John Drummond - was a bass player on the showband circuit in his home country, and "Break My Mind" was a fondly received solo release on the Dolphin label just across the water. In the UK, somewhat predictably, it did nowt, and that's a shame. While Loudermilk's "Break My Mind" is a much-recorded country track, with versions being attempted by artists as varied as Roy Orbison, Linda Rondstadt and Gram Parsons, Drummond's take has its own particular snap and swing, and might have brought the track to a wider UK audience.