| As
rock'n' roll collided with the blues, bands like Them, The Rolling Stones and The Yardbirds absorbed blues
and rock'n'roll riffs (Bo Diddley and Chuck Berry for instance), dirtied
and speeded them up and appropriated the gruff mannerisms of black blues
singers to produce songs like 'Gloria'
and
'Satisfaction'. |
 |
|
|
|
 |
In a curious twist Jagger sang like a Yank
who in turn was exaggeratedly copied by US bands to produce those lovely
thuggish sneering acid vocals that The Standells (left) and others used
while mixing it up with rockabilly, the surf music of Dicky Dale and Link
Wray (right). Elvis, blues and rockabilly influenced The Beatles, Stones
and Yardbirds who in turn on visiting the USA became the catalyst for an
explosion of bands who sprouted up like psychedelic mushrooms. |
 |
| These bands popped up everywhere in a
garage scene that took the dirtiest elements, fuzzed them up and spiked it
with psychedelia. The music had a look and a sound. This really was a
golden period. Bands formed overnight and hundreds of singles were
released in an explosion of creativity.
Lets face it the Yanks thrashed us here . We started them off with the
Stones and they gave us a whole magical trip while we ended up with the
shite like Traffic,The Move and the bloody Beatles spewing their pap. Yep
the USA gave us Count 5 performing songs like
'Psychotic Reaction'
as covered by The Cramps and Radiators from Space ( and an early cover
version the Sex Pistols did), The Trashmen gave us
'Surfin Bird'
as covered by The Ramones. The 13th Floor Elevators lead by Roky Erikson,
who escaped a sentence for drugs with electric therapy and was made a
virtual veg, gave us the classic
'You're
Gonna Miss Me'.
Or The Seeds, featuring Sky Sunlight Saxon, doing
'Pushing Too Hard'.
|
Love |
|
|
 |
This period is just filled with numerous gems some of which were
collected by Lenny Kaye on the famous Nuggets
album and which should be in every persons collection. Other great bands
to watch out for include The Standells, Love, Chocolate Watch Band, The
Sonics and Electric Prunes (left). There's a lot of similarities with
punk 77 style... explosion of bands, small labels, a counter culture of
look, sound and teenage rebellion. These bands would heavily influence
later American punk bands. |
|
|
|
Having
influenced the Yanks we gave them some more to chew on. This time it was
fashion based culture and angry young men with the destructive power and
feedback of those sharp Shepherds Bush hipsters The Who, the distorted two
chord fury of The Kinks and the glorious Small Faces. The Pistols used to
include Faces and Who songs in their set and early rehearsals featured
covers from both bands.
>> Right - The Who >> |
|
Back To Top
|