Two sides of dreamy melancholic garage
Label: Target
Year of Release: 1969
Well here's a tricky conundrum. There have been an absolute ton of sixties acts called The Coachmen, which has naturally resulted in enormous confusion. In typical Spinal Tap-esque fashion, some of these Coachmen became aware of identically named acts and changed their names accordingly, but others seemingly didn't. Nobody had the Internet then and tiny garage acts from different parts of the USA often operated in blissful ignorance of each other.
So (*takes deep breath*) there was The Coachmen from Nebraska, The Coachmen from Memphis, The Coachmen from Milwaukee who changed their name to the Mourning Dayze after finding out there were some other Coachmen in the same area, and The other Coachmen from Milwaukee who didn't change their names at all, plus The Five Coachmen from Texas and The Royal Coachmen from Michigan. There may be even be others, and indeed the seventies saw yet more Coachmen emerging besides the ones I've just mentioned. It's confusing.
Luckily, it's very easy to establish that this lot are the original Milwaukee Coachmen (who didn't change their names) and if that turns out to be incorrect information, I'll happily get on an overnight coach myself from London to Glasgow as punishment. This group consisted of Jim Kaminski on lead guitar, Ray Johnson on vocals, Leon Kleckowski on drums, Rick Pries on organ and Jeff Greenthal on bass.
They managed two singles on the local Target Records in 1969 of which this was the first. Both sides here are a subtle delight, filled with dreamy vocal harmonies, droning organ sounds and lo-fi but nonetheless blissful and intricate arrangements. By the close of the decade there's no doubt that this kind of thing probably felt dated and more in tune with the boho scene of '66, but from a 2022 perspective its one to stick on your compilation of Autumnal heartbroken sixties garage sounds.
