If the Jook gets you off then this should really take your head off. What am I saying - it'll take anybody's head off. Starting out with a crazy siren-slash-pickslide that bounces left and right in stereo. It's brutal glam in the Hammersmith Gorillas vein with some tremendous Keith Moon frantic drumming. It wouldn't sound out of place on Bowie's Pin-ups because the basic track has this 60's Troggs/Kinks brutality to it but the spacey effects, blistering Ronson lead guitar and Bowiesque singing are undeniably 70's. This group has nothing to do with the Big Wheel that ended being comp'ed on the Velvet Tinmine CD. This one is Dutch is related to the band Unit Gloria.
Ricky Wilde is a favorite here at pop45. He is the son of pre-Beatles British rocker Marty Wilde and the younger brother of Kim Wilde. He made records on Jonathan King's UK label before he was even a teenager.
I Am An Astronaut/Hertfordshire Rock UK Records #18 - 1973 Ricky was only 11 when this record was released. The A-side is a really catchy novelty song with lots of bizarre sound effects and an inventive arrangement. The tune reminds me of "Neanderthal Man" by Hotlegs with the sounds from "Space Oddity". Dr. Demento has played this one on his novelty radio show.
Hearing the B-side, "Heretfordshire Rock" for the first time is an intense experience. The arrangement is really vicious, with feedback, crunching guitars and drums and loud handclaps. Ricky sounds like a teenie Suzi Quatro on this one. the lyric "Heretfordshire Rock" sounds more like "I'll Treat You Rough".
Mrs. Malinski/Cassette Blues UK Records #59 We have never heard this single. Somebody please send us a copy!
Teen Wave/Round & Round UK Records #63 "Teen Wave" is a (pre)teenage rock n' roll anthem in the vein of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues" or the Jook's "Crazy Kids". The arrangement sounds like a Giorgio Moroder/Chicory Tip song because of the early use of synthesizers. It really has a great Glitter chorus with the backup singers yelling "NO!"
"Round and Round", the B-side, is a cool little song with acoustic guitar, tom tom drumming and bells.
I Wanna Go To A Disco/Bad Boy UK Records #70 "I Wanna Go to A Disco" sound even more like Chicory Tip than "Teen Wave' does. The synth upfront and like the Chicory Tip song "Good Grief Christina", it sound like an updated Beach Boys surf song. The "Oo Ba Ba" backup vocals emphasize this. I can really relate to "Don't cut my hair..." part.
I have the DJ promo, so it doesn't include "Bad Boy", which is a cover of Marty Wilde's biggest Fifties hit.
April Love/Round And Round UK Records 45-49013 "April Love" is a cover of Pat Boone's hit song. They probably thought that Donny Osmond's revival of "Puppy Love" made this a good idea. It wasn't.
And speaking of Curt Boettcher, how could we let a Discoveries column go by without the mention of another Boettcher effort? This time it's Song on MGM, a group that featured Mickey Rooney's son. These two sides were produced by Curt and Keith Olsen, and are quite delightful. "Like We Were Before" is the real standout sounding like Badfinger, the Nazz and Merry-Go-Round all rolled into one. Strong melody, excellent vocals and fine instrumentation throughout. "Sugar Lady" is a bit heavier, without any real melody to hook you, but there still are a couple of nice touches. Look for the review of the Song Lp in these pages next issue! - Alan Betrock, The Rock Marketplace no.4 December 1973
"Like We Were Before" is a perfect song and a perfect record - a mix of heavy guitars and melody with tremendous phased drumming. Just like the Nazz, Song was a band of Anglophile Americans playing powerpop before there was such a thing. That makes "Like We Were Before" both behind the times and ahead of the times.
I don't think Alan Betrock ever got around to reviewing the Song Lp in TRM. I had the single for a year or so before I found the Lp. The first time I brought it home, I had such high expectations, hoping for an album's worth of "Like We Were Before". What I found was closer to an album's worth of "Sugar Lady" - not horrible, but much too wanky. Apparently, this is one of the productions that Curt Boettcher did under duress. He was under contract as a producer, and was doing this album to pay the rent. The good news is that "Like We Were Before" is on it. But so is "Sugar Lady". I shelved the album, thinking Song was only good for one song on one side of one single. Mickey Rooney Jr. was the main songwriter and singer as well as rhythm guitar player. I don't know if this was a vanity project for a Hollywood brat or what.
I came back to the album a year later, though. I found a really cool song called "Eat Fruit" that sounds like an early John Lennon solo track, kind of like one of those Hudson Brothers songs where they sound more like Lennon than he did at the time. There's also a track called "Whenever I Think Of You" that is really catchy and melodic - a mellow Merseybeat sound for the 70's, again like what the Hudson Brothers, the Wackers, Badfinger and Rockin' Horse were doing. The tracks I thought were awful before aren't that bad after all. "Banana High Moon" is really melodic and has great harmonies inbetween frantic bongo-handclap breaks. "10 x 10" is sort of a husky Creedence boogie with some nice jangly Badfinger guitar. On a whole, the first side is great.
Some overly husky vocals on "I'm Not Home", which has a bit of an English Isles folk sound like Fairport Convention. "Wife" is a beautifully understated ballad, like Bread or Paul McCartney's "Mother Nature's Son". "Sugar Lady" and "Meatgrinder" are unexceptional midtempo rockers and "Medicine Man" is a progressive jazz-rock jam complete with a drum solo. So that make's 3 great tracks, 3 good ones and 4 duds. I've read that Mickey Rooney Jr. made some solo records later on. Has anyone out there heard 'em?
Song - Album Lp - MGM SE-4714
Clark Garman: Lead Guitar Mickey Rooney Jr.: Rhythm Guitar Rob Lewine: Bass Shelly Silverman: Drums
Side One 10 x 10 2:28 (Garman - McDonald) Like We Were Before 2:05 (Rooney Jr. - Covington) Eat Fruit 2:28 (Garman - McDonald) Whenever I Think Of You 2:06 (Rooney Jr. - Blanchard) Banana High Noon 6:00 (Garman - Rooney Jr.) Side Two I'm Not Home 3:42 (Rooney Jr. - Sardo) Wife 1:42 (Rooney Jr.) Sugar Lady 2:45 (Garman - Rooney Jr. - McDonald) Meatgrinder 2:58 (Garman - Rooney Jr. - McDonald) Medicine Man 7:19 (Garman)
Produced by Curt Boettcher & Keith Olsen for Portofino Productions
A&R Coordinator: Michael Lloyd Recorded at Sound City
This one's a bit Twilley and a bit Eric Carmen. Caspar Giles McCloud is American but this single was recorded at 10CC's Strawberry Studios. My friend Andy found this one a few years back. I have Caspar's Lp on Atlantic from a few years later and it's not very good. Notice how the intros to the two tunes are virtually identical...
