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By Max Conroy
Living in Ann Arbor, it’s strange to have to purchase a European import that compiles a bunch of records recorded here, but I’m glad it’s available at all. The name of the label, A-Square, is a nickname for the city of Ann Arbor. It was created by Jeep Holland, a compulsive music and comic collector, DJ, manager, promoter, and manager of Discount Records, the store that Iggy Pop worked at as a teenager. Holland would stock import records that no other stores would carry, British Invasion records, and get a feel for what area kids would respond to in the store and while DJ-ing events. He met local musicians at Discount and eventually started promoting some of them. In 1965 he began producing records exclusively as promotional material to get gigs for acts that he was promoting and put them out on his A-Square imprint.
In five years, he put out records by approximately a dozen bands, including the MC5, the Rationals, the Scot Richard Case (SRC), the Up, and the Frost; all Detroit legends. By 1970, for a myriad of reasons, including his domineering personality, poor business acumen, lack of payment from distributers, and changing times, he left Ann Arbor for Boston, leaving behind A-Square records and a wake of debt. A lot of these records are very hard to find now, 40 plus years later, and the 45s have been the only way to hear most of these great bands.
A-Square (Of Course) was released this past May on Big Beat Records, distributed and marketed by the mega-reissue label Ace Records out of the UK. The title comes from a button issued by the label that read A-Square (Of Course). There are definitely some issues with this package, but the good greatly outweighs the bad. First off, there are no Rationals tracks on it, which seems odd since they were the biggest act on A-Square and the label’s flagship act, but Ace intends on releasing a compilation of their work on A-Square soon, to be named Think Rational! (again from a button). According to Scott Morgan of the Rationals, they’re still working on obtaining the rights to the masters. Secondly, this is by no means an exhaustive collection of A-Square’s catalogue, which would require a multiple-disc release. This collection contains 25 tracks by ten bands, 8 tracks by the Thyme and 5 by the Scot Richard Case. More than half of the compilation is music that was never released originally, which is great if you’re looking for really rare stuff, but not if you’re looking to have high fidelity copies of the famous records that were actually released on the label. Also, there are several bands that recorded for A-Square whose masters cannot be located and are not represented here; the Jagged Edge, the Children and the Gang most notably.
The bottom line, however, is that this anthology is filled with a ton of highlights and is most definitely worth the $19. It contains an early MC5 single, Looking at You/Borderline, which has been released a ton and isn’t that rare, but is great to have in this context with fantastic documentation in the liner notes. Apparently, Holland and John Sinclair didn’t get along that well for a variety of reasons, even though Sinclair managed the group and Holland was in charge of booking them. According to the liner notes:
Jeep: Sinclair went into United Sound and recorded that record with Danny Dallas, then just decided to use my label name. He designed his own A-Square label, designed his own package and just put it out. He finally got around to informing me as the record was coming out: ‘Oh, by the way, I put the record out on A-Square.’…My label was a success, and John thought it would get his record more attention… Danny Dallas told me some wonderful stories about that session. He said they immediately turned their amps up as loud as they could go. Danny kept trying to tell them, ‘You don’t have to do that. Get a good sound and I’ll boost it in here.’ But no, John Sinclair came into the control room, looked at the board and went like this [sweeping arm motion] pushing every one of the faders up all the way. Then he ate a big chunk of hash or something and lay down on the floor while the band played.
Let’s just say that it’s not the 5’s best moment sonically, but well worth hearing and a great addition to this collection. Also featured here is a rare live recording of the Prime Movers. The Movers were a highly respected blues outfit in the Ann Arbor area at the time that never released anything. The band included Michael Erlewine, the brain behind the All Music Guide, on vocals and harmonica and a young Iggy Pop on drums. The track here is a cover of the Yardbird’s version of I’m a Man that was used as a tape that Holland took to New York probably around ‘66 to promote the band. It actually features Iggy on vocals instead of Erlewine and might possibly be the earliest recording of Iggy singing. The Up’s Just Like an Aborigine is a raw-as-hell protopunk gem and another massive highlight on this disc. Everything else not mentioned here is good if not great, making this a must have for anyone even remotely interested in psyche, garage rock, the Detroit high energy sound, or Southeast Michigan culture.
The Up’s Just Like an Aborigine:
By Max Conroy
There are several definitions of the word scrummage. It is synonymous to a rugby play called a ’scrum’, but also means ‘a general row or confused fight or struggle’. A scrum can also, according to the Brits, mean ‘a place or situation of confusion and racket; hubbub’, which seems like the closest definition to the venue in Detroit. Here is their mission statement from their site (do not click on this link if you have or might possibly have epilepsy): A psychedelic loft in Detroit’s Eastern Market district. We achieve maximum fun. We have giant parties with totally rad music encompassing all generas. We teach you here at our university that no one is too stuffy to party. This is the place where all your wildest dreams can come true. There is apparently a market in Detroit’s Eastern Market district, but there’s no evidence of it at night; in fact, there doesn’t seem to be anything besides a graveyard, bombed out buildings, and the occasional liquor store and gas station…and this place.
Scrummage University is a huge warehouse that must have been a toy factory at one time, based on the painted signage on the front of the building. I drove by it a few times before coming to the conclusion that this must be the place. There were several flyers that mentioned that it’s the large building that has ‘Toys’ painted on the front of it, but not the flyer that I had. The flyers also stated that the event was to begin at 9PM, which is when I arrived, but there was no one there, except for a few people running the show and the performers. Also, there is no mention of the Silver Apples playing at Scrummage on the venue’s site, so I’d seek other verification that a band will be there before driving through post-apocalyptic Detroit to get there.
The Scrummage gate is barely wide enough for a car to fit through and is situated next to an operational junk yard; I deduced that it was operational based on the five rabid dogs hurling themselves at the fence, attempting to kill hipsters. The parking lot is huge with weeds thriving in the cracks of the asphalt, an active train line in back, and several huge bonfire pits. I walked around for a bit, soaking up the scenery, snapping photos, as other guests arrived. After awhile, I noticed that everyone had 40s of beer, and asked the door guy Ian if it was cool to bring beer here: ‘Sure, man. You should pick me up something.’ He gave me some shoddy directions to a liquor store, but I ended up finding a different one that had all the choice malt liquor and grabbed a 40 of Olde English and Ian a 24oz of Cammo XXX High Gravity for the shitty directions; he was thrilled.
By this time they were throwing huge pieces of furniture into the fire pit and igniting them. When the fire would get low, they, presumably ‘official’ events organizers, would politely ask some people to get off of the wardrobe they were sitting on and then drag it into the fire. This place is the ultimate in blind pigs, anything goes.
You enter the warehouse through a defunct loading dock and enter into a wide open concrete room, piles of debris in the corners and outsider art everywhere. There is a working bathroom that isn’t the worst that I’ve ever seen. From what I gather, people live at Scrummage, so they probably rent the space, or maybe even squat there. The electric hair trimmer in the bathroom also made me think that people live there.
The opening act Benny Stoofy is kind of Scrummage’s house band. They are some talented musicians that blend the low fi aesthetic with competence, much like Dr. Dog. I dug a few songs and then went back to the bonfire with my 40 to chat up some people and enjoy the evening.
The Lotto Ball Show went on next. They’re a synth-driven postpunk outfit from Chicago. They seemed good, but the vocals were noexistent in the mix, so I again headed out to the fire after about two songs.
I went back inside after the music stopped to look at the unattended merch table and to watch people climb dangerously onto makeshift trapezes hanging from the ceiling. Simeon, a perfectly normal looking fellow in his mid-to-late 60s, dressed in a bright green turtleneck, strolled across the floor to his rig and began calibrating or whatever one has to do to a pile of oscillators and beat machines to prepare them for a performance.
The Silver Apples are Simeon now. He manipulates bass and melody sound oscillators over drum tracks, and sings: that’s the sound of The Silver Apples in 2008. After listening to some of their records recently, I’ve come to really appreciate the late Danny Taylor’s drumming. He lays down a hardcore breakbeat jazz style that really propels the monotonous vocals and bleeps and bloops. But the music is essentially electronic music and the last thirty years of music has proven that a drummer isn’t absolutely necessary. The lack of a drummer has actually transformed the Silver Apples sound into what it inspired: electronic dance music. It’s fitting to see one of the pioneers of electronic music performing this way to the city that basically took what he was doing eons ago and went crazy with it.
Simeon played for exactly an hour and politely declined an encore; this isn’t exactly encore-type music. He performed a lot of the ‘hits’ like Oscillations and I Don’t Care What the People Say and did a handful of new compositions. In the middle of the set, about twenty people got on stage a danced their freaky, uninhibited dances. I went back to the merch table and bought the only Apples vinyl available: a limited press of 1000 called Selections from the Early Sessions. I then went up to Simeon’s rig and snapped a picture of it just before he went up to it to tear it down. I said, “Thanks, man.” “It’s a pleasure,” said Simeon.
Click Below for information about the Selections record, some audio of the show, and pictures.
By Max Conroy
The enigmatic and visionary electronic ‘band’ The Silver Apples will perform tomorrow night at Scrummage University. I don’t know anything about the venue and was handed a flyer for the show, which is a photocopy of a primitive pen and ink drawing, by a group of teenagers that I befriended at the Jandek performance in Ann Arbor.
The Silver Apples formed in New York in 1967, consisting of Simeon Coxe III (Simeon) and Danny Taylor, drums. The duo were in a band called The Overland Stage Electric Band prior to the Apples, where band members rapidly left the group as a result of Simeon’s incorporation of a 1940s vintage audio oscillator, leaving the two. Simeon developed a homemade instrument, the Simeon, consisting of “nine audio oscillators piled on top of each other and eighty-six manual controls to control lead, rhythm, and bass pulses with hands, feet, and elbows”(from the liner notes of their first album). They recorded a self-titled album, released in 1968 on Kapp Records that barely cracked the top 100 and the follow up, Contact, in ‘69. They toured to support Contact and recorded another album in 1970, but it was shelved when Kapp was devoured by MCA. This third record would eventually be released as Garden in 1998. The band dissolved as a result of Kapp folding and lay dormant for the next twenty-five years.
The Apples were brought back to life in 1994 when a German label TRC began issuing bootlegs of their first two records, causing a long-awaited rebirth of interest in their music. The original records eventually were officially reissued, they toured (Coxe and a multi-instrumentalist named Xian Hawkins), and released several singles and albums in the late 90s that received favorable press. In 1999 their tour van was involved in an accident that broke Simeon’s neck. He’s been recovering since, but will probably never fully recover the movement of his hands, so apparently his performance is a bit more direct now. Danny Taylor died of a heart attack in Kingston, New York in 2005. Simeon went back on the road as a solo version of the Silver Apples in 2007 and is supposed to still put on a good show.
This music must have been totally unpalatable in the late 60s, but it absolutely presaged the future of music and the advent of electronic music, from bands like Suicide and Kraftwork in the 70s to Detroit to Radiohead.
Oscillations:
I Don’t Care What the People Say:
From Pitchfork: Better bring some extra cash to these shows, as Mr. Silver Apples will be peddling both a tour-only ChickenCoop Recordings LP of remastered tunes entitled Selections and a new Gifted Children Records EP called Gremlins at the merch table.
by Max Conroy
I first heard about the Third Power on this site a long time ago when the Cousins did a write up about their bass player Jem Targal in response to finding a signed copy of his rare solo album Luckey Guy. I downloaded Believe, the only album released by the Third Power and didn’t feel too bad about it because of the album’s obscurity; I believe that it isn’t too hard to track down on CD though. The download that I got was ripped from a record and the guy recorded the second side first, which I didn’t realize till finding the vinyl a few weeks ago. It doesn’t get much better than this if you’re looking for an aggressive, Grande-era Detroit power trio. I’ve scoped this record every now and then for the past few years on EBay and it seems like every copy that I’ve seen was in Europe, which is odd since it only sold about 16,000 copies, mostly in the Detroit area.
Like the record itself, information regarding the band is pretty rare. For the most part everything out there is very basic and states that the band formed in Detroit in the late 60s, were very loud, had a cult following, released one record, it flopped, they went their separate ways, the guitarist Drew Abbott went to play lead for Seger’s Silver Bullet Band, and Jem recorded Luckey Guy in the late 70s. I did find an early biography of Jem Targal, their lead singer and bassist, on someone’s personal website. The biography reads a bit strange, almost like it’s Targal speaking in the third person (pardon the pun). According to the site, Targal was born in Ann Arbor, his father studied and taught at the University of Michigan, and when he was young his father accepted a position at the American University of Istanbul and moved his entire family there: ”There were seven families, all related, living in the house together. Targal’s grandfather, a retired general, was there. So, too, was Targal’s uncles. One had been the head of NATO forces for seveal years; the other uncle was a professional wrestler.” Sounds like a trip, man. His family moved back to the Detroit area in 1951 and eventually many years later he met Abbott at Oakland Community College in a speed reading class. Abbott taught Targal the bass and they formed several groups, met their drummer Jim Craig, a solid powerful drummer, and came up with the name the Third Power in the van on the way to their first show together at a club called the Fifth Dimension (a popular venue that had featured Hendrix and the Yardbirds). Power trio…trio…third…third…power…like to the third power, man…get it? The band moved into a farmhouse on Haggarty road, between 12 and 13 mile roads. They were known for having massive parties at their place where rock icons like Rod Stewart and Badfinger would hang out. The band kept playing around and became very popular in the Detroit area, playing shows with local acts like the Rationals, Seger, and the MC 5. They signed with Vanguard, who also featured another Detroit act of the era the Frost, in 1969. The album was produced by poet and blues scholar Sam Charters and came out in 1970.
I almost shit my pants when I saw it in the stack at Encore. They pile up their new arrivals on the floor against the bins, in front of the register. I was in there a few days prior to finding it and noticed that they had a massive pile of new arrivals and quickly paid for whatever I had gone in there to find, so as not to be tempted by whatever was in the new stacks. A few days later I was walking in the neighborhood and decided to go back to see what was left in that pile, and there it was, perfect, in the shrink, bronze Vanguard label. I bought that and Grant Green’s Alive! for $30 and the dude working there said bye to me using my name off of my credit card. Respect, mon. Irie! I got it for $20; the price guide says $30 mint, but Popsike lists anywhere from $50 to $250 previously on EBay.
by Cousin Geoff
Reissues are generally not my thing, I’d rather search for the original. It kind of feels like cheating, and it’s nowhere near the thrill of playing the real deal. That being said, there is no original album for Fugi’s Mary, Don’t Take Me On No Bad Trip. Tough City reissued this unreleased acid-funk record in 1996 from Detroiter Ellington Jordan, AKA Fugi, originally meant to be put out by Chess’s Cadet label in 1968, but deemed too trippy for them. When I came across this, not only was I put off by the fact that it was a reissue, but the cover was terrible. It looked like a late 1990s Cash Money rap album. But the writing on the cover was more than enough to convice me:
“From The Vaults of CHESS RECORDS…The legendary unreleased album by the blackballed acid-funkateer.” OK - sold.
When I put it on, I was absolutely floored. This is exactly the type of music I seek out. And this was, dare I say, better than the Detroit funk I had been listening to - early 70s Funkadelic and Temptations, even Dennis Coffee. The genre of funk that is uniquely Detroit - psychadelic, rootsy, Hendrix-like, but funk at it’s core. The first Funkadelic record can’t be touched, but this, if it had come out as planned, might be better. The thing is, I don’t understand why Cadet didn’t release this in 1968. Fugi was not some ordinary stoned funk musician trying to peddle an album to a top label. He was an extremely talented song writer who was good friends with Temptation Eddie Kendrix. In 1968, in addition to messing around with his own stuff while being backed by the band Black Merda, he wrote songs for Chess. Fugi rubbed shoulders on a daily with Muddy Waters, Howlin Wolf, Donny Hathaway, Jimmy Hendrix and Etta James. In fact, Fugi wrote the song “I’d Rather Go Blind” (his own version is on this album) for Etta James who turned it into a worldwide hit number one hit, selling 8 million copies.
Fugi did release a few 45s, but it is still puzzling why this album was never put out. I’m fully convinced that he could have become a star, with more albums following this one, plus tours and the whole shot. As for the excuse that I’ve heard that it was too trippy, Detroit psych-soul-funk was what was hot a few years later, around 1969-1970, with the pair of Westbound Funkadelic albums, and The Temptations Psychedelic Shack album, among others. And even if that was the case (which it’s not - it’s perfectly put together and more soul-based funk than psych-rock funk), what about the Cadet Concept label? This was created and put together by Marshall Chess, son of Chess records co-founder Leonard Chess, for the sole purpose of “concept” albums. Rotary Connection is maybe the closest and best known example, and they were way more out-there and, in my opinion, not nearly as good as Fugi. This would have been the perfect album to put on this label, and they flat out blew it.
It’s a crying shame that I had never even heard of Fugi until I stumbled upon this album, although I’m sure the crowd of more seasoned deep funk and soul seekers have known about him even before this was released in ’96. You can pick this up for like 8 bucks at Tuff City, in fact here is their ebay link for this album. Tuff City has lots more reissues, they’re based out of New York and are definitely worth checking out.
As for the record, it’s just amazingly good. I would say it’s worth it to invest the $8 to see for yourself. I’m just sort of pissed that I won’t be able to search for the original, but as long as I have the music, that’s the most important thing!
listen to “Mary, Don’t Take Me On No Bad Trip”:
listen to “I’d Rather Be a Blind Man”
by Max Conroy:
The Go’s latest album Howl On the Haunted Beat You Ride is a fantastic record that doesn’t seem to get much credit, and I live in the land where it was made. Shamefully, until I moved to back to Michigan this past August I’d never heard of them and the way that I heard of them was from a magazine published in the UK, Mojo. Mojo gave the record a four star review and the write up was good; garage, overlooked band, Detroit, etc. There was also a picture of the record’s cover accompanying the review that pretty much guaranteed that I’d look for it. It’s perfectly psychedelic: two huge hipster faces with lifeless hipster expressions, flanking the jacket; the entire band arranged vertically in the center of it, all wearing black or stripes; their far out logo in the upper left; a brown and orange, early mid 60s to early 70s, color motif; all of this on a hazy blanket of stars. I know being interested in a record because of its packaging might be a bit careless, but this record is so cool looking and feeling that I’d be happy to own it even if the music sucked, which it most certainly doesn’t. It’s on Cass records (Cass is a street/area in Detroit for all you non-local readers), which I’ve never heard of, but they totally knocked the ball out of the park on this one. It’s a gatefold with super heavy boards, it feels like it’s a record made in the 50s, and has great graphics pasted inside along with the lyrics.
The Go formed in Detroit in 1998. Jack White was an early member of the band and is featured on their debut Whatcha Doin’, playing lead guitar and singing back up. I had read somewhere that they kicked Jack White out of the band, which would be one to tell the grandchildren: Yeah, I was in a band back in the day…and we kicked Jack White out of the group…We could have been rich! I’m pretty sure that he just left the band because he didn’t want to be a sideman. I have no idea if there is any bad blood as a result of the split, but the Go wasn’t on the White compiled fantastic comp. Sympathetic Sounds of Detroit. There is footage the Go out there playing live during the JW era on an obscure movie called the Detroit Rock Movie, which also has footage of JW jamming Stop Breakin’ Down in his tiny Detroit apartment. If any of you out there have a copy of this movie, I’d be happy to receive one; please respond to this post. Anyway, Whatcha Doin’ was released on Sub Pop and is a great debut record on the noisy side of the garage. They made a follow up for Sub Pop called Free Electricity that was never released because it was allegedly too heavy, which has to be bull shit…too heavy for Sub Pop? I found a copy of it on Soulseek and it’s definitely worth finding. I think there were other reasons Sub Pop shelved it though; one song starts with the lyric, “Big cock angel”. They were ultimately dropped from Sub Pop and put out a more focused rehashing of 60s garage and 70s glam on Lizard King, called The Go. The group then waited four years to put out another record, the brilliant Howl on the Haunted On the Haunted Beat You Ride, which AMG has listed as coming out in April of 2007, but I’m pretty sure it was more like late summer and they still haven’t reviewed it.
Howl On the Haunted Beat You Ride represents the Go fully coming into their own. The music is derivative of 60s psych and 70s glam to be sure, but they certainly make it theirs. The production on this record is simply amazing and it was produced by Bobby Harlow, their front man, in Detroit. The album utilizes clean tones, trippy imagery, and classic CSN-like harmonies with great effect (and I really dislike CSN). The bizarro-poetic title comes from the song Yer Stoned Italian Cowboy, a romp about an irresitible character that “shoots directly from the Id”. Fucking brilliant! In my opinion, there’s only one bum track on this record and that’s the lead off song called You Go Bangin’ On, which was released as a single, so I might be missing something. But don’t listen to the first thirty seconds of this record and file it away. I bought this record seven months ago and the Go haven’t played around here since to my knowledge, until this past Saturday where they played at Gold: a fund raiser for the Museum of Contemporary Art Detroit.
by Cousin Geoff, featuring guest writer Ameritape John:
508 Maus Street in Ypsilanti, former home of Pathway label
I got an email the other day from a guy named John who said that he had read one of my previous posts about the Ypsilanti gospelgrass label Pathway. I’ve written about The Smith Family Sings Your Gospel Favorites LP, and Carl and Evert’s I Have Found The Way 45. John may be one of a handful of Pathway followers out there, excited as I was when I stumbled onto one of their records and became strangely obsessed with the 1960s lo-fi off-tune religious music from Ypsilanti, Michigan. John may be one of the few people in the world who is actually more into Pathway than I am. He gave me permission to publish this piece he wrote for a UK record collecting mag, where he attempts to explain the sacred/weird localistic significance and also provides additional info on other Pathway LPs.
Another concept to consider here is the idea of collecting and searching for “deep” gospelgrass, as opposed to the much more popular digging for rare funk, soul, garage, hip-hop, ect. This “Xian” genre that John refers to is something I’ve also taken an interest in, like my post on The Pathway Quartet out of Sandusky, Ohio. There’s something about this primitive religious music that takes on some sort of an intriguing local, cultural, and almost psychedelic aspect. The thing is, I’m not sure if I even want to publish this. I like being able to find an seemingly endless supply of these records at garage sales and local salvation armys, passed over and passed over, as few people are actually into it like me and John. Like he says, most people don’t even want to talk about it, much less search for it (although I can see some UK folks, some of our best customers and really the heavyweights of record collecting, start getting into it). Nevertheless, it’s a great concept to explore. As Max pointed out in a conversation today and John alludes to, Pathway seems to be very much the essence of what punk rock is, but instead of drugs or booze or fuck the man it’s about Jesus and getting into heaven. And all this coming from the homemade basement recording studio of 508 Maus Street in Ypsilanti.
by Max Conroy:
I have a copy of Dave Marsh’s The Heart of Rock and Soul, which lists his top 1001 singles, in my bathroom. It’s great. It was written in 1989 and includes a lot of doo wop, soul and early rock greats like Nathaniel Mayer and Nolan Strong that don’t get a whole lot of mention outside of fanatical circles. I’ve always been a fan of the first Cramps EP, particularly the song The Way I Walk and never knew who did it originally. Low and behold, there it is on page 530, Jack Scott. Flush.
The other day I was divining through the book much like Romans would do with Virgil’s Aenead and came to Something in the Air by Thunderclap Newman. You know the song. Tom Petty covered it on his greatest hits album, it was in Almost Famous and a shit-ton of other movies and TV shows (check Wikipedia for a more comprehensive list). I’ve heard the name Thunderclap Newman before and have heard the song probably once a year that I’ve noticed since I got Petty’s Greatest Hits album in junior high but never put the two together. The story of the band it turns out is an interesting paragraph.
The band was formed allegedly by Pete Townshend to help out former crony/roadie John “Speedy” Keen, who had written the leadoff track on the Who Sell Out, to record some of his songs. Townshend recruited a postal worker/jazz pianist Andy “Thunderclap” Newman and a fifteen year-old Scottish guitarist Jimmy McCulloch. The single Something in the Air went to number one in England and to twenty-five in the US. The subsequently recorded album Hollywood Dream, which was produced by Townshend and contained the brilliant single, received absolutely no support (the band played live five times) and peaked at 163 on Billboard. The band members really didn’t have that much in common and ceased recording together, leaving a top notch album for posterity. Speedy Keen went on to record a few solo albums and to produce Johnny Thunders’ Heartbreakers LAMF and had a heart attack in his mid fifties and died, Thunderclap recorded one in ‘71 and McCulloch went on to play with numerous bands, including Wings, and eventually died of a heroin overdose at twenty-six.
The album is one that I’d probably glance over if I saw it in a stack and didn’t know anything about it. It is truly great and I highly recommend picking it up. You probably won’t have any luck at Encore though.
Here’s the hit
Here’s another jam for some flavor, Look Around
The first thing that interested me about this 45 was that it was on Mira Records home of the garage band, The Leaves. This dosen’t have the same sound, but I could not immediatley find any info on it, which always intrigues me. After trying to research the songwriters I tried to learn more about the producers Clancy Grass & Bob Mahoney. I stumbled upon a website from Gary Brandts. Gary appears to be a producer himself and owner of some interesting credits. His site lists the members of the group as Himself Guitar-Vocals, John Gulack-Drums, Denny Shaw-Guitar, David Holeman-Keys, Brian Coffey-Bass. At the bottom of the page is a great article of his experience in a battle of the bands right after the Beatles came out. You can bid on the 45 HERE
I See You
THE LIFE YOU LEAD
My wife doesn’t like this record because she thinks it’s too weird, so I’m taking that as a good sign that this family gospel album recorded in Ypsilanti, MI at 508 Maus Street on the Pathway label is quite a find.
Rather than review it, I’ll just have you listen to the songs I selected and read what’s on the back cover:
I, Crit Smith, was born September 8, 1933, in Whitley County, Kentucky, near Williansburg, and there I met and married Beulah Brown, the daughter of Reverend Andy and Sarah Brown, in 1950.
I worked in a mill until 1952, then came to Detroit, Michigan, and worked in a factory until 1955. I then went into carpenter work, which I do at the present time. We are very proud of our family, all of which are saved and working for Jesus. We have three daughters: Loretta, sixteen; Barbara, fifteen; Linda, thirteen; and two sons: Eugene, eight; and Mark, two months. Mark is too young to do any singing yet, but we are trusting in the Lord that he will take part when he is older.
We want to thank everyone that has taken a part and helped us in any way in making this album, especially our pastor, Reverend Luther Gibson, of the Church of God, in Woodhaven, Michigan. We have had so many requests for records, that we felt God was inspiring us to make this album.
We enjoyed working with “THE CROSSMEN”: Roy, Evert, and Blaine; and praise God for them and their ministry.
THE SMITH FAMILY
listen, I Want To Be Robed And Ready:
listen, How Are You Raising Your Children:
jsREVIEW:
Before they became the SRC, the Scot Richard Case recorded three songs for the A-Square Records label: “I’m So Glad,” “Who Is That Girl,” and “Get The Picture,” (released as The Old Exciting Scot Richard Case).
This is before they were prog-rocking or guitar heroes, before Capitol scooped ‘em up and made ‘em stars in Europe (they never were too big around here). This is when they were covering Skip James by way of Cream and crooning to girls like they were the 1910 Fruitgum Company.
“I’m So Glad” was a local radio hit, with good reason. It’s got chops to spare and presages the rock monster that SRC would become, even if it’s a little too faithful to really stand up next to the Brits’ take on the blues. But the b-side’s a never heard gem of bubblegum pop. Oompa bass, guitar and keyboards reminscent of “My White Bicycle,” the song’s the psychedelic love story of the chick who may or may not have “turned on” the singer. A perfect snapshot of the days when teen idols started to trip, equal parts innocence and entendre.
