This is one of the top local garage lps of the 60’s along with the Rising Storm, the Savages, Bent Wind, the Fantastic Dee-Jays, the Contents Are and the Mystery Meat. Only 150 copies of this record were pressed and originals occasionally sell on ebay for thousands of dollars.

The band members came from the Chicago suburbs of Lake Forest and Lake Bluff. The Bachs existed for 3 years performing at school dances, teen clubs and private parties up and down the Chicago north shore and surrounding suburbs (usually making $150-200 a night). All of the songs were written by Blake Allison and John Peterman and the lp was released privately in 1968. After the release of the lp the band members decided to retire from a career in music and thought it was best to move on with their lives.

The recording quality is admittedly crude and unbalanced but by no means unlistenable. The unbalanced factor was due in part to the band recording instruments first and then laying down vocals over them. Tables Of Grass Fields is the one classic on the record that anyone into garage psych sounds must hear. Tables was an imaginative, bold song for the time and has an excellent no-nonsense intro and some great psychedelic era lyrics. But the Bachs deliver throughout the whole album and raw garage numbers like the blistering Minister to a Mind Diseased (listen to the unhinged, mind melting guitar solo) are mixed with jangle folk-rock downers. Diversity only makes a great album even better and most fans usually cite the middle-third of the lp as one of the seminal highlights in garage rock history. Answer to Yesterday, Nevermore, Free Fall, and My Independence Day are all superb as well and really dig deep down inside to produce dark jangle folk-rock from suburbia Chicago. You’re Mine opened the album, and is a hard rocker in a classic garage sense and definitely a solid example of prep rock. The last track, I’m a Little Boy, shows the band expanding their horizons into the world of psychedelia with wads of feedback and hideously sloppy vocals.

Originals are preferred over the recent cd reissue by Gear Fab, as they have more punch and separation. In any event, this is a great album full of teenage expression and high caliber angst.

“Tables Of Grass Fields”

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After the Outsiders delivered their super raw, half live half studio lp in 1966, they released perhaps one of the finest records of the mid 60’s, Songbook (1967). At the time, this record was viewed as a proper sophomore release. In recent years Songbook has been seen as a compilation, consisting of 3 compositions from the debut album along with 11 singles only tracks recorded throughout late 1966 to mid 1967.

Songbook showed that Wally Tax and the band within a years time, had grown substantially as musicians and songwriters. The first four songs of the album were out of the box classics. Bird In A Cage is a sizzling live cut with studio quality fidelity that opened the album. The excellent static fuzz blues of Bird In A Cage gives way to two classic folk-rockers, Keep On Trying and Lying All The Time. This is arguably the Outsiders at their peak, making tough engaging outlaw rock n roll that few have equaled before or since. Filthy Rich was one of the few cuts from the debut, a proto slice of pure punk rock and angst.

It’s been reported that they even upstaged and outplayed the Rolling Stones at around the time of these recordings.

Other killers on this classic Nederbeat record are an eloquent european folk ballad, Summer Is Here, a forlorning but stately I’ve Been Loving You So Long and the bitter Monkey On Your Back. The latest recording sessions yielded the above fruits and hinted at the direction the Outsiders would take on a future release, the immortal CQ. Monkey On Your Back is a catchy pop rocker with Tax’s soulful world weary vocals and it’s priceless stuff. Tax’s vocals were always so brutally honest and had a matter of fact quality about them. It’s what made the Outsider’s so special, along with Ron Splinter’s blazing fuzz leads. Touch was another frantic, brutal rocker that had a unique euro-folk bridge and wild guitar riffs.

The Outsiders were one of the best of a fertile Holland scene that produced great bands like the Q65, Ro-d-y’s, Group 1850, Sandy Coast, Focus, the Zipps, Brainbox, the Motions, and the Golden Earring amongst many others. In recent years I have seen quotes floating around the rock critic world claiming the Outsiders to be one of the greatest unknown rock bands of the 60’s that are from a non-English speaking territory. I believe them to be one of the greatest underground groups period, regardless of territory or timeframe.

“Summer Is Here”

Below, one of their earlier tracks, the great punk classic, Won’t You Listen:

“Won’t You Listen”

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There is no doubt that It’s Time was the best album from the early Guess Who. This 1966 LP was the first Guess Who record to feature the wild Burton Cummings. It’s Time was the third Guess Who album in 3 years, featuring mostly original/self-penned group compositions.

The album featured a nice balance of personalities: the original band leader Chad Allen, who favored a moody beat style tempered by a rough, hard edge Rolling Stone’s influenced Burton Cummings (future band leader along with Randy Bachman and vocalist on American Woman). Special praise must go to Randy Bachman as well: he conjures a very dirty, fuzzy guitar tone throughout the record. Every song on this album is well-crafted and one can hear the clear influence of the Who, beat era Kinks, Rolling Stones, Zombies, and Byrds. Songs like Clock On The Wall, Believe Me and Don’t Act So Bad are a long way from Guess Who radio classics These Eyes, Laughing, No Time, and Share The Land. Clock On The Wall is the killer undisputed classic on this record. At the time, Neil Young made special note of this single for it’s dramatic Cummings’ vocals and heavily reverbed guitars. Believe Me is also an excellent piece of Kink’s style garage grunge with some interesting keyboard work. Cummings’ vocals come thru again with the Animals influenced Seven Long Years and the raunchy Pretty Things-like Don’t Act So Bad. Chad Allen really shines on the acoustic beat downer Guess I’ll Find A Place while the Bachman penned And She’s Mine has an appealing rural folk-rock Byrd’s feel. And while the album cannot hide it’s influences, It’s Time really is a classic piece of Canadian rock music.

This album holds as one of the best ever garage albums because vocally and instrumentally the Guess Who were way ahead of the pack. They released plenty of excellent garage/beat era 45’s as well, track done excellent singles such as It’s My Pride or If You Don’t Want Me for more proof of their early raw sound. This would be the last Guess Who album featuring Chad Allan. After this, Allan would go on to form Brave Belt with Randy Bachman, who would release two albums in the early 70’s. Brave Belt’s debut record is a fantastic mix of country, folk, pop rock, and psychedelia. Fans of country-rock or of this website are strongly urged to track this record down.

“Clock On The Wall”

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This was their 10 inch 7 song debut, released in early 1968. Throughout their career the Flamin’ Groovies went through multiple phases though many feel that the Sneakers to Teenage Head era was the band’s finest. During this period the band produced some of the best proto punk hard rock records around.

In the late 70’s people started realizing the band’s importance and influence on the emerging punk scene. The band finally received an enormous amount of respect from the rock press during this period. This late 70’s version was led by Cyril Jordan, releasing a trio of superb British Invasion style garage albums. The Sneakers/Roy Loney led Flamin’ Groovies were a totally different animal. They resided in San Fransisco and played a greasy old fashioned brand of rock n roll that was also influenced by monster British Invasion bands such as the The Who, Rolling Stones and Kinks (started circa 1965/66). The Groovies played the same psychedelic ballrooms as Jefferson Airplane and the Grateful Dead, thus making them hopelessly out of step with the acid daze.

This little album will most likely appeal to psych fans though, as there are plenty of excellent fuzz solos traded through Sneaker’s seven songs. Some of the songs have a charming Lovin’ Spoonful folk-rock jugband influence as heard on Lovetime and Babes In The Sky. My Yada is somewhat similar and a definite highlight, being the strangest amalgam of jugband music and psychedelia ever recorded. Golden Clouds, I’m Drowning and Slider are the real highlights. The Groovies recklessly blast through these Roy Loney originals.

They are perfect mixtures of 1967 Rolling Stones and 50’s Sun label rockabilly sound spiked with a tinge of San Fransisco acid.

I have to point out Golden Clouds in particular. It sounds like a classic, the band in all their glory, something you would have heard late at night on underground radio. The guitar solo is positively brilliant, Loney’s vocals surge and strut with confidence and it puts to shame many of today’s more vaunted, though unoriginal corporate cheese acts like the White Stripes, Strokes, Black Keys, and John Spencer.

This 10 inch album was the first of four releases from the Roy Loney era Groovies. During this period their lineup also included Cyril Jordan, Danny Mihm, Tim Lynch and George Alexander. Although they would release two bonafide classics in Flamingo and Teenage Head, Sneakers remains their most honest, fun record to date.

“Golden Clouds”

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