The Victors - Take This Old Hammer/ The Answer Is No

 

Label: Oriole

Year of Release: 1965

While other labels splashed slogans like "Where The Stars Are!" or "The Place The Hits Happen!" across their company sleeves, Oriole were arguably an early example of a label taking the outsider indie approach, opting instead for "Young - New - Exciting". With no exclamation marks, a daring surfeit of hyphens, and a simple statement of fact, Oriole's company bags were bright yellow, used modernist typography and pushed a hipper approach. "We're where it's at", they seemed to say, "whereas EMI, Decca and all those old showhorses are way back where it used to be".

It's a fascinating label, featuring material which was sometimes way ahead of the marketplace, albeit often licensed (they were the first UK label to press up records by Stevie Wonder, for example, thanks to an early deal with Motown) and quaint, clodhopping attempts to capture that fast-moving youth market, through Joe Meek produced novelty singles to under-produced beat based fare.

They actually scored a number of hits during the fifties and at the turn of the following decade, but by the mid-sixties were beginning to look neither young, new or exciting, but rather middle-aged, weary and distracted. Besides the main label itself, their Embassy subsidiary (providing Woolworth department stores with cheap, knock-off cover versions of the day's hits) was a good cash cow, and their pressing plant was often hired out to the likes of EMI for pressing over-runs of Beatles records and other major singles where their plant in Hayes was struggling to keep up with demand. With all this going on, it's perhaps inevitable that marketing of the main label began to seem half-hearted by comparison. 

Oriole's approach to master tapes was also unbelievably cavalier, with label bosses believing that they should be continually be wiped and reused, even for hit recordings, rather than waste money keeping a library of tracks to reissue or license to others. It's enough to make a pop music historian's ears bleed with shock.

So then, nestling somewhere in the "missing believed wiped" file is this 1964 beat single from the mysterious Victors. The A-side is a cover of the blues standard "Take This Old Hammer", which in the manner of a lot of Brit Blues of the period is drenched in harmonica and nasally lead vocals. It probably didn't put the fear of God into the Rolling Stones, but it's as good as many of the UK beat-blues efforts of the period.

The B-side "The Answer Is No" is also a neat, jogging example of sixties beat, lacking any production frills and feeling spare and spartan as a result, but showing a solid group with a bit of a swing and punch behind the catchy melodies. 

This record seems to have sold unbelievably poorly despite its plus points, to the point where copies are absurdly hard to come by - I had to wait ten years before I found one for sale - and as a result it appears to have been (I assume?) accidentally missed by compilers of sixties rarities albums and even left off of some Oriole discographies in the past. 

Its low sales and scarcity have probably also contributed towards the group's absurdly low profile since. Unless they changed their name, this appears to have been their only 45, and none appear to have been smoked out of their hiding places since. While it's reasonably safe to assume that the Raymond Mallett credited on the B-side was a group member, he hasn't been successfully traced yet. If any of you know the identities of these masked men, please do let me know.

As for Oriole, the label continued in its existing form until March 1965, at which point they were bought out by CBS, mainly for their pressing plant facilities rather than their roster. CBS kept the brand until the end of the year, after which it was discontinued along with its subsidiary. For some unearthly reason, though, CBS saw fit to resurrect the Embassy label in 1973 for budget catalogue reissues, perhaps remembering the pocket money appeal it had near the Pick n Mix counter.

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