Reupload - Time Machine - Summer of Love/ Another Scene (In Black and White)

Label: Bam Caruso
Year of Release: 1986

From the original press release:

"It's Summer Time again - and to mark the occasion Bam Caruso are releasing what is sure to become this summer's most played record...

THE SUMMER OF LOVE by THE TIME MACHINE.

A catchy tribute to summers gone, this tune is a medley of hits from the summer of '67. Included are such gems as 'Paper Sun', 'Flowers in the Rain', 'San Francisco', 'Whiter Shade of Pale', 'California Dreaming' and 'All You Need Is Love'.

THE TIME MACHINE faithfully reproduce these hits with amazing accuracy and skill (you can't see the joins!)

A MUST for all beach parties this year!!.. and not a chicken in sight".

Now, Bam Caruso were a fantastic label in the eighties, unearthing and issuing tons of hidden sixties gems for the general public's enjoyment, and their crowning achievement was unquestionably the Rubble series of albums. Seldom will I hear a bad word said against the organisation.

This single, however, baffles me. Its purpose was surely to lampoon the Stars on 45 styled discs which cluttered up the charts at one point, but their time had come and gone when "Summer of Love" was issued, and Jive Bunny had some years to arrive. More to the point, the comment about "seeing the joins" - whilst clearly ironic - also jangles on the nerves a little when you consider that the joins are so apparent on this single in places that it sounds like an ITV Chart Show rundown rather than a medley. At least Starsound and Jive Bunny kept a consistent rhythmic flow going, for all their obvious faults.

It is a thoroughly bizarre part of their catalogue, and does have a curiosity value of sorts, but more worthy of your attention is the flipside "Another Scene (In Black and White)" which is eighties psych revival pop to a tee (or perhaps that should be 'to an English tea'), with squeaking Casio keyboards switched to a sixties setting, vocals delivered in a Robyn Hitchcock style, and mystical guitar lines. The eighties psychedelic revival material somehow could never quite escape the decade of its origin, and - as is also apparent on the Syd Barrett tribute album "Beyond the Wildwood" - always had a smoothness and clarity to it the original material lacked.

I doubt that many people will seriously regret missing this first time around, but it's a nice enough addition to your mp3 playlist, and may prove to be a party talking point should you ever feel like digging it out for that purpose.

The Time Machine - Summer of Love

Label: Bam Caruso

Year of Release: 1986

From the original press release:

"It's Summer Time again - and to mark the occasion Bam Caruso are releasing what is sure to become this summer's most played record...

THE SUMMER OF LOVE by THE TIME MACHINE.

A catchy tribute to summers gone, this tune is a medley of hits from the summer of '67.  Included are such gems as 'Paper Sun', 'Flowers in the Rain', 'San Francisco', 'Whiter Shade of Pale', 'California Dreaming' and 'All You Need Is Love'.

THE TIME MACHINE faithfully reproduce these hits with amazing accuracy and skill (you can't see the joins!)

A MUST for all beach parties this year!!.. and not a chicken in sight".

Now, Bam Caruso were a fantastic label in the eighties, unearthing and issuing tons of hidden sixties gems for the general public's enjoyment, and their crowning achievement was unquestionably the Rubble series of albums.  Seldom will I hear a bad word said against the organisation.

This single, however, baffles me.  Its purpose was surely to lampoon the Stars on 45 styled discs which cluttered up the charts at one point, but their time had come and gone when "Summer of Love" was issued, and Jive Bunny had some years to arrive.  More to the point, the comment about "seeing the joins" - whilst clearly ironic - also jangles on the nerves a little when you consider that the joins are so apparent on this single in places that it sounds like an ITV Chart Show rundown rather than a medley.  At least Starsound and Jive Bunny kept a consistent rhythmic flow going, for all their obvious faults.

It is a thoroughly bizarre part of their catalogue, and does have a curiosity value of sorts, but more worthy of your attention is the flipside "Another Scene (In Black and White)" which is eighties psych revival pop to a tee (or perhaps that should be 'to an English tea'), with squeaking Casio keyboards switched to a sixties setting, vocals delivered in a Robyn Hitchcock style, and mystical guitar lines.  The eighties psychedelic revival material somehow could never quite escape the decade of its origin, and - as is also apparent on the Syd Barrett tribute album "Beyond the Wildwood" - always had a smoothness and clarity to it the original material lacked.  

I doubt that many people will seriously regret missing this first time around, but it's a nice enough addition to your mp3 playlist, and may prove to be a party talking point should you ever feel like digging it out for that purpose.

Garagelands Volumes One and Two

Label: Bam Caruso
Year of Release: 1999

Bam Caruso were well known for putting out lorryloads of compilation CDs focussing on obscure sixties pop and psychedelia, but the "Garagelands" duo of albums - which they might possibly have intended to turn into a fully fledged series, but I'm none too sure - were the rummest of them all. It was almost as if the people behind the label started off purely with the intention of releasing a lot of hard hitting, messy American garage rock, then ran out of records to choose from and began throwing on bits of soul and pop on there as well.

The liner notes are non-existent and so leave us none the wiser, but the scrappy nature of these albums is actually enormous fun if you're in the right frame of mind. Alongside The Cascades brilliant cover of Buffalo Springfield's "Flying On The Ground" sits The Stereo Shoestrings beserk garage version of The Pretty Things "Defecting Grey", retitled "On The South Road". Then there's The Epic Spleandor's superb take on The Smoke's "It Could Be Wonderful" which has the same clumsy soul about it as The Orange Juice would have two decades later, and Gene Vincent of all people screeching through "Bird Doggin". Questionable research rears its head on the same volume by the inclusion of The Polistyrene Jass Band's "Drano in Your Veins" - they were actually an experimental seventies punk outfit, and not a sixties one, but as it was on a white label and it sounds as if it completely belongs to the previous era, I suppose we can forgive all concerned.

Volume One is less diverse in its nature stylistically, but somehow less pleasing to my ears, although the psychedelic soul of The Sunliners "Land of Nod" is a curious and worthy inclusion, and early tracks involving Alice Cooper and Todd Rundgren (in The Spiders and The Nazz respectively) mean it focusses itself more on collector's curios, and less on high quality music.

Still though, both albums have returned to my stereo frequently over the last decade, and the fact that they were rushed out and then disappeared off record store shelves quite quickly would suggest that either there were copyright issues with one or two of the tracks, or else they were just a couple of limited edition runs which were never supposed to hang around forever. That means that you, the listener, have been missing out on a lot of great music for quite some time now, though, so please do at least download Volume Two below. You won't regret it.

Also, in case you were wondering, the Steve Davis singing "She Said Yeah" is definitely not the professional snooker player. I have frequently imagined it might be him, though, and that the accompanying promotional video would feature him singing down a snooker cue... but I'm sure you all have your own particular flights of fantasy which trouble you daily.

Volume One Tracklisting

1. The Leather Boy - On The Go
2. Corporate Image - Not Fade Away
3. The Third Booth - I Need Love
4. Jokers Wild - All I See Is You
5. The Wanted - Here To Stay
6. The Grim Reapers - Two Souls
7. The Plastic Blues Band - Gone
8. Gasoline Powered Clock - Forest Fire on Main Street (Run, Run, Run)
9. The Leather Boy - Soulin'
10. Peabody - Days of Rest
11. The Beckett Quintet - No Correspondence
12. The Spiders - Don't Blow Your Mind
13. The Peppermint Trolley Company - 9 o'Clock Business Man
14. The Gentrys - You Make Me Feel Good
15. Fountain of Youth - Don't Blame Me (For Trying)
16. The Nazz - Lay Down and Die, Goodbye
17. Mystery Track
18. The Sunliners - Land of Nod
19. Era of Sound - Girl in the Mini Skirt
20. The Wanted - Midnight Hour
21. The New Yorkers - Mr Kirby
22. The Cincinnati Music Co - Let's Do The Thing
23. The Household Sponge - Second Best
24. Vinnie Basile & The Staccatos - Gypsy Girl
25. The Shades - Ballot Bachs
26. The Household Sponge - Scars
27. The Onion Rings - She's Gonna Cry
28. The Grim Reepers - Joanne
29. The Wylde Maniacs - Why (Ain't Love Fair?)
30. 5 Americans - Don't Blame Me
31. The Shy Guys - We Gotta Go

Part one:

http://sharebee.com/ca3f0d1a

Part two:

http://sharebee.com/76abd5fe

Volume Two

1. Painted Faces - Anxious Colour
2. Velvet Illusions - Velvet Illusion
3. Painted Ship - Frustration
4. White Light - William
5. Stereo Shoestrings - On The South Road
6. Power - Children Ask
7. Polistyrene Jass Band - Circus Highlights
8. Polistyrene Jass Band - Drano In Your Veins
9. The New Life - Ha Lese (Le Di Khanna)
10. The Jefferson Handkerchief - I'm Allergic to Flowers
11. The Cascades - Flying on the Ground
12. C.A. Quintet - Doctor of Philosophy
13. The Barracuda - The Dance at St Francis
14. Cyrus Erie - Sparrow
15. Beacon Street Union - Four-O-Five
16. Iron Butterfly - Evil Temptation
17. The Accents - You Don't Love Me
18. Sid Herring and the Gants - Another Chance
19. Sid Herring and the Gants - Whats Your Name
20. Peter Fonda - November Nights
21. Randy Fuller - Temptation
22. The Epic Spleandor - It Could Be Wonderful
23. Steve Davis - She Said Yeah
24. Yellow Hand - Down To The Wire
25. Gene Vincent - Bird Doggin'
26. The Vita-Men - Frogs Legs
27. The Unclaimed - Memories Of Green Eyes
28. Noony Rickett - This is the Time

Part One:

http://sharebee.com/e9791ee1

Part Two:

http://sharebee.com/a075141f

Circus Days Volumes One and Two

Label: Bam Caruso
Year of Release: 1998

Compilation time again, folks... although when it's a compilation like this one, I need not feel guilty about the slight lack of personal effort on my part.

You see, Circus Days was a project by the editors of the sixties fanzine "Strange Things Are Happening", and they dug up for everybody's pleasure obscure acetates, some of which had apparently never seen the light of day anywhere before. For the most part, these "popsike" tracks explore the moments when psychedelia bled into rather Denmark Street sounding tunes with one eye on the charts - there are no equivalents to "See Emily Play" on the CD, then, and certainly no examples of freaked-out improv numbers, but plenty of peppy tracks with frequently faintly absurd lyrical content. Some of the inclusions like Steve Hillage and The Wire Machine don't quite fit their plans, but on the whole it's a thematically coherent effort.

Among the best on offer here are Blonde on Blonde's fantastic, blissed out version of the Simon Dupree and The Big Sound cast-off "Castles in the Sky", Head West's deeply lethargic and moody "Someday" (which Blur's comeback single "Out of Time" always faintly reminded me of, despite the fact that tune-wise the two have little in common), Nimrod's proto-glam "The Bird", a fairly early Vashti Bunyan appearance before her whole career underwent a giant resurrection, and The Fingers slightly skewed pop. I'm not even going to bother to add how fantastic Cook and Moore's "Bedazzled" is - but it looks as if I just did.

Rather unfortunately, the "Circus Days" series of compilations appeared to waste most of their good material on the first two volumes, and subsequent issues declined in quality to the extent that Volume Six is hardly worth owning. Additionally, the series lost credibility amongst many sixties buffs when it transpired that a lot of the sleeve credits were just plain wrong. For example, the original compilers credited an unknown sixties act known as Clover for "Ice Cream Man" and another act known as Stars for "Auntie Annies Place". In reality, both recordings were by a studio-bound project called Kidrock*, and the purpose of their work was not to create psychedelic pop but make records which appealed to the pre-secondary school market. It's an easy mistake to make, certainly - a lot of psychedelic inspired stuff is decidedly childlike - but when you add the fact that they didn't even record the tracks until well into the seventies, a lot of red faces occurred. Perhaps it should be more shameful to admit that even though as a grown man I'm not supposed to enjoy either tune, I'm afraid I actually like both...

Additionally, the Pure Pop blog (link in the left hand menu) recently revealed that Johnny Burton's "Polevault Man" was a 1972 release rather than a 1969 one as stated on the sleeve of "Circus Days". There's a distinct sense that the compilers were scrabbling around a bunch of scratchy old unlabelled acetates and indulging in an enormous amount of guesswork about the artists and eras, then printing their guesses on the sleeves rather than admit to their ignorance. This is a shame, as ultimately it wouldn't have detracted from the quality of the material offered one iota, and it's doubtful anyone would have cared much about a few more "Mystery Artist" credits. After all, who could argue with a record which features a song about somebody falling to their death at a funfair in Great Yarmouth (Nick Garrie's "Wheel of Fortune")? Not I for one - take "New York Mining Disaster" and shove it up your collective arses, Gibb brothers.

Track listing:
1. Kidrock - Ice Cream Man
2. Los Brincos - Nobody Wants You Now
3. Rhubarb Rhubarb - Moneylender
4. Peter Cook and Dudley Moore - Bedazzled
5. Lomax All Stars - Honey Machine
6. Kidrock - Auntie Annie's Place
7. Head West - Someday
8. Waterloo - Why May I Not Know
9. Johnny Burton - Polevault Man
10. Tandem - Shapes and Shadows
11. Penny Peeps - I See The Morning
12. Jon Plum - Alice
13. Nick Garrie - Wheel of Fortune
14. Dry Ice - Running to the Convent
15. Arzachel (aka Steve Hillage and Friends) - Garden of Earthly Delights
16. Vashti - I'd Like To Walk Around In Your Mind**
17. Mystery Track
18. Green Scarab - Psychedelic Wilderness
19. Fruit Machine - Follow Me
20. Orange Peel - I Got No Time
21. Smoke - Dreams of Dreams
22. Nimrod - The Bird
23. Fingers - Circus With A Female Clown
24. Blonde on Blonde - Castles in the Sky
25. The Wire Machine - Doves (1944)
26. The Eggy - You're Still Mine
27. Blonde on Blonde - Circles

Part One:

http://sharebee.com/2e75aa64

Part Two:

http://sharebee.com/fc21159e

* Whilst I had a Soulseek account, Kidrock would regularly get download after download from fans of the American star. They never did respond to tell me precisely what they thought of the song, but I do hope they enjoyed it.

** Vashti Bunyan has gone on record as saying that she doesn't know how anybody obtained this acetate, since only one copy was ever pressed and then given to an elderly lady Vashti stayed with on her travels. One can only assume that it then worked its way back into the public domain after the old dear shuffled off this mortal coil - or perhaps it was an unwanted gift. Neither option is a particularly pleasant thought.

For more information about the compilations and "Strange Things", go here:
http://www.marmalade-skies.co.uk/strange.htm