Try again

The links for the last few posts have been fixed. Sorry for the trouble.

Rittenhouse squared

By request, here’s an update on a post I did a while back.

Rittenhouse Square was a short lived band that featured Mitch Easter, Chris Stamey, Peter Holsapple and Bobby Locke. The band formed sometime in 1971, played a few shows, recorded some songs and then broke up in 1972.

Without the other members knowledge, Locke pressed up 100 copies of an EP containing 6 Rittenhouse Square songs on his R-Squared Records in 1972. The record was packaged in a paper sleeve. Peter Holsapple says the record is a “considered a collector’s item by people that have obviously never heard it”. I think it’s pretty good.

Related: Holsapple’s next band was called Little Diesel. Future dB Will Rigby was the drummer in the band. They really were a much better band than Rittenhouse Square. Chris Stamey recorded some songs and the band released an 8-track tape. There were only twenty tapes made at the time but Telstar Records just released a CD. I like it too.

Found all the parts

For me, this record signaled the end of Cheap Trick’s great years. The band still did some good stuff after 1980 but they never made another album as good as anything they did before this 10” was released.

Side one is two live (well…) songs. One of them - “Can’t Hold On” - is from the Tokyo shows that were recorded for the band’s breakthrough AT BUDOKAN album. The other live song is a cover of “Day Tripper” 'recorded' on Cheap Trick’s 1979 North American tour. It was really recorded in a New York studio.

The two studio songs are outtakes from ’76-’77 recording sessions with Jack Douglas, probably for the first Cheap Trick album. “Such A Good Girl” would have fit in well on the LP. “Take Me, I’m Yours” drags and would’ve slowed the LP down too much. I imagine both songs were left off for time reasons. Most late seventies LPs were 30 to 35 minutes long.

Interestingly, neither of the studio songs have ever been included on any Cheap Trick compilations. I wonder why? “Such A Good Girl” is a very good song, it’s one of my favorites by the group. The two songs from the live side of the record have been comped since the EP came out.

The 10” was also the first release in Epic’s Nu-Disk series. There were others but this one and BLACK MARKET CLASH were the only ones to get re-issued as Old-Disk 12” vinyl. The Cheap Trick record also came with a bonus 7” single of a song called “Everything Works If You Let It”. My copy was cracked. It was OK, I didn’t care much for the song anyway.

Nobody's fault

but mine

Stick out your can

here comes the garbage man

Tougher than stains

Here's a whole comp of 60's garage. The record is called TOUGHER THAN STAINS, I think it came out in '95. I've got a bunch of Sixties garage comps, this is one of the better ones. Definitely one of the best that's not part of a series like PEBBLES or BACK FROM THE GRAVE. Out of 16 songs, only a few are duplicated on other comps. All of the songs are rockers, it's hard for me to pick a favorite. Maybe "Red Cadillac" or "No Chance Baby". The Golden Catalinas or The Spats are probably the best known bands here but that's a relative term. None of this bunch are household names.

Side One
Side Two

Dunno who put the album together. It's on London Fog Records in case you know who that is. I've heard that it's the same guy that did the great CHOSEN FEW series that came out in the mid-Eighties. There weren't many made. You can occasionally find used copies on E-Bay for 20-25 dollars.

Enjoy!

All I've got

is beer and Golden Grahams

How sweet

the sound

Danny Boy(s)

Last night, I was looking for versions of "Danny Boy" and got distracted into posting the thing about Al & The Untouchables. Here's a couple more for your weekend.

Untouchable

Al & The Untouchables were a very popular dance band from Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Al Huntzinger and Larry Fountain started the band in 1960. The band played all over the midwest for the next few years and recorded this single in 1964. The band released their only on their own Hunt label.

Side one is the best version of "Church Key" I've ever heard. "Danny Boy" is on side two.

And then Al broke up the band to become a booking agent. One of the first acts he signed was a quartet of high schoolers that he christened Al's Untouchables. None of the new guys was named Al.

The new set of Untouchables made one 45 too. It's another winner and did well enough regionally that Liberty Records expressed an interest in signing the band to a national deal. Nothing happened though and the band split from Al Hunt's management company. Hunt owned the name so the ex-Untouchables became the Orphans and moved to San Francisco. I don't think they ever made another record under any name.

Happy birthday!

Sly Stone!

Playin' possum

Maureen Tucker was the last original member to leave the Velvet Underground. When Tucker left the band in ’72, she said that she had no interest in playing in any other bands and got a job working as a data entry operator. She got married and moved to Phoenix Arizona where she raised her family. She did play in a few local bands most notably Paris 1942, which included the Bishop Brothers of The Sun City Girls.

In 1980, Tucker decided it was time to do a solo album. Other than a 1974 recording with Jonathon Richman, this was Tucker’s first recording since she recorded some demos for the Velvet’s LOADED back in 1970. This is a true solo album, Tucker did everything herself – drums, guitars, singing, engineering, mixing – in her living room. Tucker says the LP was recorded in between diaper changes.

The album was recorded using two tape machines, a four track and a two track. Everything was mixed back & forth on those two machines which explains the muffled sound. One song needed a saxophone part so Maureen went out and got a sax then taught herself how to play the four notes she needed for the song.

The record is very good, much better than some of the things her old bandmates have done in real studios. Maureen released the record on her own Trash label.

All of the songs but one are covers, mostly old rock & roll. “Slippin’ & Slidin’” gets done twice. “Louie, Louie” gets a run-through (with the 4 note sax part), there’s also “Heroin” , a Bob Dylan song that sounds like Half Japanese and one by errr, Vivaldi. Really!

Best of all are the two Bo Diddley songs. One is a cover, the other is a Mo original. Diddley is Mo’s biggest influence and she sounds like she’s really having fun here.

Right after this, Tucker released a 7” of “Will You Still Love Me Tomorrow”/”Around & Around”. I don’t have this record, can anybody make me a copy?

If I can't have you baby

I'd rather be alone

Shine on us all

set us free

Yet another Popes update

Correspondent Doug S. reports that last week's Public Good in was well recieved and the Public Good was asked back. So if you're in Washington DC on St. Patrick's Day, crawl over to the Grog & Tankard. Have fun!

Also, Doug S. sent me a copy of the Stumble 45! Yeah Doug! Stumble is the band that the ex-Popes started in Atlanta after the dissolution of the first band. It's a fine record. The songs still sound Popes-ish of course and I'm not really sure what the songs are about. I hear some Big Dipper in there too. I wonder where that came from? The band seems to have picked up a few effects pedals along with the new name. These guys should have been a much bigger band.

Doug released the single on his Rockamundo label. Good job! I don't remember seeing the 45 back when it came out but I would've bought a copy. Esp. if I had known they used to be the Popes.

Oh yeah, the drummer was named Stumble too.

My oh my we can't compete

It's only heavy drinking that keeps us on our feet

But tomorrow

you'll be gone

Return of the Hindu Love Gods

Somebody asked me to repost this a few weeks back and I'm just now getting to it. I threw in a couple bonus songs to make up for the delay.

The Hindu Love Gods started out as a side band consisting of the instrument playing contingent from R.E.M. with Bryan Cook (from Time Toy) singing. If I remember correctly, the idea was to play parties and the clubs that R.E.M. had grown too big to play. In 1984, Warren Zevon achieved Love God-hood when he moved to Athens GA to do some recording. The band went into the studio with John Keane in 1984 and recorded some songs. That’s where this 45 comes from. IRS Records finally got around to releasing it in 1986. The songs are a good cover of an Easybeats song and an unreleased R.E.M. song about a guy with a Jacques Cousteau fixation. Dig the watery guitars! Warren Zevon is playing guitar, I guess. Otherwise, I don’t hear him it all.

In 1987, R.E.M. backed up Zevon on his pretty good SENTIMENTAL HYGIENE album. The Hindu Love Gods had been playing some of the songs since way back in 1984. The band (minus Cook) recorded some songs, mostly blues standards with a couple of notable exceptions, live in the studio during the SENTIMENTAL sessions. That batch of songs was released in 1990. If I remember correctly, R.E.M. did not know the songs were going to be released and wasn’t happy when the record came out. Some people think it’s great, I don’t. The band doesn’t sound like they’re having much fun and that’s not a good thing for a bunch that started out as a party band.

The original Hindu Love Gods 45 was included with some copies of the vinyl version of HINDU LOVE GODS, I guess to remind people about what they missed the first time around.

Boom shaka-laka laka

boom boom boom

Happy Birthdays!

Dave!
Joy!
Lou!

I got nothin'

Here's another mystery record. I've tried to find out who Johnny Warren was. There's nothing in any of the places I looked. There was an Australian soccer player named Johnny Warren, I don't think he made this record.

The 45 is on Occidental Records. Sounds like it was recorded in Nashville or Memphis around '65-'67. Tom Casassa produced the record. Ray Pennington wrote one song, I shouldn't have to tell you who wrote the other one. It's a great version of a song that I never get tired of hearing.

more moments

Here's one more Moments track to join the post below, this one with the Whatnauts:

Moments and Whatnauts: "Girls"