Five For Friday

The Twilights - Once Upon A Twilight

The Twilights - The Way They Played

The Bee Gees - First

The Easybeats - The Definitive Anthology

Various - Peculiar Hole In The Sky

Australia week here at Tulloch Towers, inspired by the wonderful Twilights (see previous post). The Bee Gees is an old vinyl flavourite that I've recently upgraded to the 2CD reissue and the Easybeats is one of the first CDs that I ever bought (being a late starter to the little silver buggers). Peculiar Hole In The Sky is an interesting comp of Aussie beat, pop and psyche. Not every track is a winner but it does serve as a good introduction. It's been blogged here:

http://feintoperation.blogspot.com/2007/10/various-artists-peculiar-hole-in-sky.html

The Twilights

I've just discovered this wonderful Australian band, initially through one track on the Pepperisms Around The Globe comp. Their second LP, Once Upon A Twilight.., is an absolute classic to my ears. Great songs, gorgeous harmonies and lots of groovy psychedelic sound effects. You can find it here:

http://indie-pop-heaven.blogspot.com/2008/09/twilights-once-upon-twilight-1968.html

There's also an excellent compilation which charts their development from beat group beginnings to psych-pop heroes (mine anyway!)

http://faintlyblowing.blogspot.com/2008/03/twilights-way-they-played-1966-69.html

I really can't recomend The Twilights enough - my new flavourite band!

Five For Friday

The Tages - Tages! Tages! Tages! (Fabulous Swedish '60s band)

Various - Pepperisms Around The Globle

Various - Chilean '60s

Various - Venezuela A Go-Go

Various - Colombia A Go-Go

Four of these five came from the ever wonderful Dive Into Yesterday blog - cheers, Aldo!

http://diveintoyesterday.blogspot.com/

The Koobas

I've been fascinated by the Koobas ever since the age of 11 or 12 when I was given a Monkees annual which had the picture of the band that you see above. It wasn't until many years later that I actually heard their music when I got the CD reissue of their sole album but I wasn't disappointed! It's an excellent pop-psyche record full of great tunes, strong vocals and great musicianship. You can get it, plus a compilation of their earlier singles at the wonderful Dive Into Yesterday blog;

http://diveintoyesterday.blogspot.com/2008/10/koobas-re-charged-and-re-uploadedand.html

There is also some excellent footage of the band (wearing the floral trousers!) up at You Tube;

http://uk.youtube.com/results?search_query=koobas&search_type=&aq=f

Ray Lowry RIP

("Bad news, I'm afraid - there ain't no cure for the Summertime Blues")

Very sad to hear of the death of Ray Lowry whose cartoons were a highlight of the NME in the late seventies. I couldn't find my flavourite of his which shows two figures in sunglasses walking down a street with the caption "My manager thought I was getting out of touch with the street, so he bought me this one". Here's a link to the BBC report on his passing:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/entertainment/7672448.stm

Five For Friday

Various - Real Life Permanent Dreams (4CD set of UK psych)

Wreckless Eric & Amy Rigby - s/t

Anton Barbeau & Sue Jordan - The Automatic Door

Lloyd Cole & The Commotions - Rattlesnakes

Various - Brace Yourself; A Tribute To Otis Blackwell

Anton Barbeau

One of my flavourite live acts is Sacremento native Anton Barbeau. Luckily for us in sleepy North Berkshire, he regularly spends extended periods in Oxford so there are plenty of chances to catch his original, eccentric and anarchic shows. He's great on record too and I'd reccommend his latest, The Automatic Door, as a good place to start, or his psychedelic magnum opus, In The Village Of The Apple Sun. You can get a taster of his skewed pop genius on his My Space page:

http://profile.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=user.viewprofile&friendid=9229185

Try You Can Move A Mountain which features former Soft Boy Kimberley Rew on guitar, and then go to Anton's website and order his back catalogue...support your local cult hero!

http://www.antonbarbeau.com/entry.html

Five For Friday

The Who - BBC Sessions

The Beatles - The Alternate Abbey Road (Pear Corps version)

George Harrison - Best Of Dark Horse 1976-1989

Rainbow Ffolly - Sails Fforth

The GTOs - Permanent Damage

After last week's somewhat disappointing Alternate Abbey Road, a very kind friend sent me a copy of the far superior Pear Corps version which has no Anthology tracks or faked mono mixes. The sound is mostly crystal clear and all in all it's a much more pleasant listen. Grateful thanks go out to a certain gnome...

I was delighted to find the George Harrison CD the other week in a charity shop for one of our English Pounds. I'm not that familiar with the Quiet One's eighties output, but this is a very nice comp with some of his strongest songs.