Eagle - Kickin' It Back To You/ Come In It's All For Free

Label: Pye International

Year of Release: 1970

Boston's Beacon Street Union are old friends of this blog, actually being one of the first American psychedelic/ underground acts we covered in 2008.  Arty and odd to the last, they're an example of one band (among many) you can wave around when your most boring friends waffle on about only being interested in The Velvet Underground or The Doors where "challenging" sixties American rock music is concerned.  Coming up with sinister, chilling singles about inner-city paranoia and bizarre, jittery songs that chimed in at either excessive or minimal lengths, they have failed to retain the levels of cultish appreciation they enjoyed at their height.  Sometimes they crossed the line, tried too hard and made themselves sound slightly silly - but that still makes them preferable to all manner of other acts who used the late sixties as an excuse to don some paisley shirts and stick some swirly sound effects over bog-standard pieces of pop.

After the failure of their second album "The Clown Died In Marvin Gardens" to have any impact outside their fanbase, guitarist and vocalist Paul Tartachny left the group, leaving the rest to decide to carry on under the name Eagle.  Much of their output from that period seems less angular and altogether harder and more abrasive, but - certainly in the case of the two sides on offer here - it's still thrilling despite that.  "Kickin' It Back To You" is a killer A-side which, despite bearing a faint resemblance to The Rolling Stones' "Gimme Shelter", actually enjoyed some plays on the Northern Soul circuit. All horns and soulful backing vocals combined with garagey sneers, it's the absolute best of both worlds, Wigan Casino colliding with a lost Nugget at a party everyone can enjoy.  Radio Luxembourg apparently had this at the top of their playlist for some time, but that didn't translate into sales in the UK, and nor did it really take off in their home country either.

If that weren't enough, the B-side "Come In, It's All For Free" dispenses with the boogie and is a furious, spittle-filled garage rocker with lyrics seemingly focusing angrily on people who refuse to accept hippy ideologies.  Whilst we as listeners can appreciate the message, sonically it's a very late punker (this kind of sound wasn't all that common in 1970).  Still, it's a gem of a flip which has perhaps been rather too buried over the years.

After Eagle's album "Come Under Nancy's Tent" failed to register with US audiences, it would seem that the band gave up entirely.  It's at this point that I have to confess I haven't heard all of that record, but I will be keeping a very close eye out for a copy.  

Re-upload: Beacon Street Union - Speed Kills/ South End Incident

Label: MGM
Year of Release: 1967

The Boston-based Beacon Street Union were a psychedelic rock band who achieved some moderate and very culty success in America in the late sixties, and pop up on compilations rather less frequently than you'd expect for some baffling reason. They weren't half bad in their arty, hippy-ish ways, as the "Speed Kills" side of this single proves, whose 1:45 two chord rush actually predates some of Wire's more interesting miniatures by a whole decade.

According to other online sources, the band used to enjoy throwing bags of flour around on stage to create a low budget "fog" effect (is this what Fields of the Nephilim were also trying to do, then?) and messed with the audience's ears where expectations of volume were concerned, blasting eardrums out frequently without warning. They had enough of a following to get a few albums out in their career, and they certainly had their fans, but ultimately never achieved much in the USA apart from some very low-rung Top 75 placings.

In Britain it's safe to say they achieved even less, although somebody clearly cared enough to get this single imported - the hole through the middle of the label indicates that this was shipped over rather than purchased on holiday. Perhaps they were a Southend-on-Sea resident who had their own interpretation of the "South End Incident" side, which is drenched in sheer paranoia and foreboding, very much like the Honeycombs "Eyes" track I placed on this blog not too long ago.


(This blog entry was originally posted on 9 October 2008.  Since that time, somebody has left an anonymous comment to suggest that Beacon Street Union only used flour on stage once.  Presumably that's once more than is strictly advisable).  

Beacon Street Union - South End Incident/ Speed Kills

Label: MGM
Year of Release: 1967

The Boston-based Beacon Street Union were a psychedelic rock band who achieved some moderate and very culty success in America in the late sixties, and pop up on compilations rather less frequently than you'd expect for some baffling reason. They weren't half bad in their arty, hippy-ish ways, as the "Speed Kills" side of this single proves, whose 1:45 two chord rush actually predates some of Wire's more interesting miniatures by a whole decade.

According to other online sources, the band used to enjoy throwing bags of flour around on stage to create a low budget "fog" effect (is this what Fields of the Nephilim were also trying to do, then?) and messed with the audience's ears where expectations of volume were concerned, blasting eardrums out frequently without warning. They had enough of a following to get a few albums out in their career, and they certainly had their fans, but ultimately never achieved much in the USA apart from some very low-rung Top 75 placings.

In Britain it's safe to say they achieved even less, although somebody clearly cared enough to get this single imported - the hole through the middle of the label indicates that this was shipped over rather than purchased on holiday. Perhaps they were a Southend-on-Sea resident who had their own interpretation of the "South End Incident" side, which is drenched in sheer paranoia and foreboding, very much like the Honeycombs "Eyes" track I placed on this blog not too long ago.

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