Beau Brummell Esquire (and his Noble Men) - I Know, Know Know

Label: Columbia
Year of Release: 1965

In the same way that the ghost of psychedelia still haunted record stores in the early seventies (just ask anyone who bought a Hawkwind single) and leftover punks made their presence felt in the early eighties, Elvis Presley's particular brand of rock and roll could still be observed in the clubs and dancehalls long after Merseybeat changed the mainstream settings of the pop scene.

Beau Brummell Esquire's vocalisings on this record are, to all intents and purposes, rather akin to the kinds of professional sneering Elvis-isms we can all hear these days from performers in certain restaurants up and down the land where birthday parties and stag dos are welcomed. "I Know, Know, Know" isn't necessarily a retread of the old fifties discs and has enough sixties swing to have made it sound reasonably contemporary - but still, the swaggering confidence behind the main performance belongs sounds as if it belongs underneath a major quiff, and the record even comes complete with an Elvis cover version on the B-side. Despite the similarities to the King of Rock and Roll, though, this record doesn't half pack an energetic and addictive punch, and Brummell should be applauded for the self-penned top side.

Beau (if I may call him that, although his real name is Mike Bush) was a South African who was attempting to launch his career in Britain in the early sixties. Backed by the Noble Men, a band previously known as The Detours, his live performances were apparently the subject of much discussion throughout their career, being invariably described as charismatic and energetic. With that force of personality apparently also came a major flaw, according to many internet rumours. Stories abound to the effect that whilst the club venue PAs of the day could cover up his shortcomings with their distorted and indistinct sound, his lack of vocal prowess was more noticeable in the studio. One estimate suggests that "I Know, Know, Know" took a hundred takes as a result of his flat delivery, which sounds like an exaggeration, and you certainly can't hear that struggle in the grooves. The final product sounds as if it could have been a hit, and surely would have been had it been released a few years earlier.

Success did not come Mr Brummell's way with this single or any others, and in the end he returned to South Africa to set up a naturist valley in the Northern Transvaal, whereas The Noble Men became The Penny Peeps who have been featured on this blog before. You can see an unbelievably detailed timeline of the group's history over on the impeccable "Garage Hangover" site, which provides biogs of sixties bands the official rock biographers never really cared about.

Penny Peeps - Little Man With A Stick/ Model Village

Label: Liberty
Year of Release: 1968

Sometimes, just sometimes, life could be difficult in the sixties if you were a hard-edged rock band.  The reality is that whilst The Kinks, The Rolling Stones and The Who had a vast number of snarling, R&B derived singles, the majority of their rivals just didn't sell records in convincing quantities.  They may have had cult live followings, but The Downliners Sect, The Eyes and The Primitives (to name but three examples) couldn't translate their live energy into enough units to please the record companies.

If a record label wanted to sign a full-throttle act, then, they were faced with a dilemma - either sweeten the sound a little in the studio, or else just buy them a cute song off the peg in Denmark Street and say to them "Here chaps, see how this fits on your amphetamine slimmed little bodies".  This is largely what happened to Simon Dupree and the Big Sound with "Kites", and it's what the Penny Peeps are doing here as well.  "Little Man With A Stick" is a gentle piece of carefully arranged pop which - like "Kites" - is commercial fare, but that doesn't stop it from being good.  The band have since stated that they despise it, but "LMWAS" is at turns absurd, charming, sweet and endearing, focussing on the mystery of a stick-wielding man lurking around in some Autumn mist.  "What are you doing there?" the band harmonise in a manner which would seem frankly disturbing in real life, only for him to reply with various unlikely scenarios.  He's conducting an orchestra.  He's a knight about to go into battle.  Except of course he's not really, you daft sillies.  You get the picture.

"Little Man With A Stick" hasn't been talked about much, probably as a result of the band's dismissal of it, which is a shame as this is, let's face it, prime toytown psych.  But a quick listen to the admittedly superior B-side should cause any casual listener to realise why the flip has become a dancefloor filler at certain sixties nights.  The lyrics are no less twee, focussing on somebody's fantastic model village - hey, Frank Sidebottom could have written that - but the track rocks like nobody's business, and you'd think the model village in question was a euphemism for something related to sex or drugs.  Or both.  It's a mini-explosion of celebration about nothing in particular apart from some scaled down rural architecture.  If only there had been more of this sort of thing, how different would rock's landscape be today?  Spinal Tap wouldn't have been mocked for their mini-Stonehenge for a start.

"Model Village" is available online through all the usual commercial outlets, and can be listened to on YouTube here.  Cheers Johan Ventus for the upload.