The Earls of Suave by Bal Croce.

 

The Earls of Suave were created by accident, I had no plans on having a band as I was pretty busy running my video shop in London’s Camden Market.

At the weekends me and my partner in the shop Mike Delanian (bass player with Gallon Drunk) would head to the pub at lunchtime with whoever had dropped into the shop, but because of the popularity of the Market, pretty much every pub from Mornington Crescent to Chalk Farm would be absolutely jam packed full and it would take for ever to get served. We tried loads of pubs, but with no luck.

Then one fateful day we braved a rather seedy looking pub on the corner of Inverness Street and Arlington Road, the Good Mixer. Arlington Road was dominated by this massive Dickensian doss house for the down and outs, and a hard core of these residents would head next door to the Good Mixer and drink themselves silly until closing time, then crash out in their doss house next door before repeating the exercise all over again the next day. As a consequence the Good Mixer hardly had anyone in it other than a dozen scuzzy alcoholics. We walked in across the almost black sticky carpet to the bar where we served straight away, sensation! The embossed red velvet bamboo wallpaper with a gold background impressed me. There was a guy with one leg in a wheel chair trying to get into the toilet, but his chair was too wide. I watched as he repeatedly rammed his chair into the door frame until he pissed himself in the chair and rolled himself back to the bar to order another drink, nice!

However there was a pool table that no one was using and on an inspection of the jukebox revealed a wealth of Elvis, Tom Jones and Dean Martin discs. We started to frequent this pub all the time befriending the lovely Irish couple who ran it Mick and his wife Pat. They let us bring more cool records in and added them to the jukebox. The place became my second home and tons of people from bands I was friendly with started drinking there too, Johnny who was at the time in the Headcoats, Miki from Lush, all of Gallon Drunk, Bobby Gillespie, Andy Hurt from Food records etc.

One evening there was a bunch of us boozing away and I had just got a round in for 6 or 7 people (which was expensive) and I said ‘you play guitar, you play bass, you play drums, I can be the singer and we can play here and get some free beer” and so the Earls of Suave were born.

Mike had a great gold lamé suit, which he didn’t have the nerve to go out in, so I appropriate it, worked out a set list of the stuff I was digging at the time and we were off and running.

Nicking the name from a Billy Childish song, I just needed to work out who was going to be in the band.

The original line up was Mark (from the Sting-Rays and Ug and the Cavemen) on guitar, Johnny who was really Trash Royalty having played in the Cannibals, the Vibes and Purple Things and the Headcoats on a second guitar. I had quite recently met Max who I had suggested as a drummer for Gallon Drunk, but I knew he played piano too, he was up for it and on bass I had Paul, who had been in the original line up of Gallon Drunk, but at the time was bandless. The original drummer was Bruce Brand who was in the Milkshakes and then a Headcoat. But he dropped out and we briefly had Brian Nevill, followed by Debbie Green (X-Men, Headcoatees). Finally we had Joe Whitney on drums who had played drums with the Sting-Rays when Alec moved to guitar.

Everything fell into place, Roger Armstrong (who was a director at Ace records and Big Beat) and Nick Garrard (Nigel Lewis and the Milkshakes manager) had started Camden Town Records and had just released a single by Dave Vanian and his Phantom Chords. They offered to release a single by us.

We recorded this first single of Sandford Clak’s A Cheat b/w Charlie Rich’s Who Will The Next Fool Be? at Toe Rag studio (It was the first record released that was recorded there).

 

 

 

We did play lots of gigs at the Good Mixer and did get lots of free beers (don’t you love it when a plan pans out) but we also gigged quite regularly at other venues, playing with the Cramps, El Vez,  Suede, Johnny Legend and a lot of gigs with Dave Vanian’s Phantom Chords.

 

A second single of Screaming Jay Hawkins’ In My Dreams and Oscar Brown Jnr’s Somebody Buy Me A Drink.

We then returned to Toe Rag to record the LP you should now hold in your hands, 17 tracks of love, heartbreak, drinking and imprisonment.

Sadly all good things must come to an end and work commitments and the start of my marriage made me decide to knock gigging on the head.

However Max took the band, became the frontman, renaming them The Flaming Stars and they continued a highly successful career, with many singles and LP’s.

Starting as a drunken idea in a pub The Earls of Suave snowballed into a great band, we always had great fun playing, as did the audience watching us (with the possible exception of the French audience of our final gig which I was a tad inebriated, and did the last number bollock naked with a cardboard box on my head!). Suave or what?......

The Sting Rays covers, Part 2 by Bal Croce.

 
 

Cat Man - Gene Vincent & the Blue Caps

When Nick Garrard came up with the concept of the Rockabilly Psychosis LP, including the old tracks by the Phantom, the Novas etc, were obvious but who would Big Beat choose for the more contemporary bands?
Fortunately for us, they asked us to contribute a track. We put our heads together and decided to take a crack at this great Gene Vincent song. We had always loved it.

Gene and the boys cut their first two LP’s in 1957, just four months apart. Cat Man appeared on the second and stands out as a bit different from most of his other songs. Most of Gene’s repertoire consists of really fast screaming rockers (often with up to three guitar breaks, showcasing the wizardry of their great guitarist Cliff Gallup) or lovely ballads.

Cat Man was this weird spooky mid tempo shuffle with Dickie ‘Be Bop’ Harrell using brushes and a discordant jittery guitar. We felt it fitted right in to the Rockabilly Psychosis vibe. I don’t think we ever did it live. It was recorded at Pathway (where we did all our early stuff 1st EP, Bananamen, Cats Ain’t Nothing….) and was the last studio appearance of our original bassist Keith ‘MK’ Cockburn.

 

Panic - Reparata and the Delrons

One of the great advantages of being signed to Ace/Big Beat was they had so many labels releasing all types of cool music. One of their subsidiaries was a label called Kent, reissuing great American 60’s soul.
Alec and I got really into soul. The stuff was predominantly compiled by collector/dealer/DJ Ady Croasdell, a really nice guy (we used to go down to his Northern Soul all-nighters at the 100 club, and Alec later ended up running the cloakroom there, after Shane MacGowan gave the job up for fame and fortune with The Pogues). Panic was one of the classic Northern Soul songs that we discovered and it was in our set around the time we did our first live LP.
Reparata and the Delrons were a white all girl group. They started at a New York, Catholic girls school in 1962. The line up would changed with head spinning regularity and the act would recorded for a dizzying array of labels including Laurie, RCA and Kapp. Their first release was in 1964 they carried recording material right through the 60’s, 70’s and 80’s. Panic was the b side of their 13th single released in the U.S. on Mala records. Alec came across it on an LP called Casino Classics.
Ady originally hailed from the town of Market Harborough (he wrote the sleeve notes for the Kent records releases under the non de plume Harboro Horrace). He booked the Sting-Rays into a gig in his old home town, which I remember ended in a massive punch-up! Sorry about that Ady.

 

I’m Rowed Out - the Eyes

The Eyes started out life in their native Ealing (West London) as typical suburban British beat boys, firstly as instrumental group the Renegades, then adding a singer and continuing as Dave Russell & the Renegades, then the Heartbeats. But by 1965 with the advent of the Who and mod culture they togged themselves out in pink parkas (with scooter tire marks down the back) and weird rugby shirts with massive eye logos on the front and relaunched themselves as the Eyes (the rugby shirts always made us laugh, as we associated those with the hooray henrys we knew at school - “with your rugby shirts you all look f*****g stuffed” copyright Croce/Palao). But more importantly they wrote some cracking good tunes (check out When The Night Falls, You’re Too Much and My Degeneration). They were signed to Mercury and created a real buzz around the clubs in London.
Sadly fame eluded them and after three singles (and an EP with a great picture sleeve), they just had time to pocket £180 to record an LP of Rolling Stones material, which came out on the budget Wing label A Tribute To The Rolling Stones by The Pupils.
We covered the B Side of their first single which was I’m Rowed Out. It’s got a great opening lyric “You’ve got a grey suede coat and a soul like fire”!

 

Inside Looking Out - The Animals

The Animals were of course one of the biggest British Beat bands, scoring number one hits both here and in the U.S. Following in the wake of the Beatles they were in the vanguard of the British Invasion of the U.S. charts.
Hailing from Newcastle they quickly established themselves as one of the hottest local bands, so in 1964 moved down to London and were signed and immediately enjoyed major chart hits such as We Gotta Get Out Of This Place, Don’t Let Me Be Misunderstood and of course House of the Rising Sun. Eric Burdon possessed one of the most powerful voices on the scene at the time. Other band members such as Chas Chandler, Alan Price would go on to form their own successful bands and in Chandler’s case bring Jimi Hendrix to the UK and manage him and later on Slade!
We rehearsed the Animals track I’m Crying but I don’t think Alec thought our version was up to scratch, so we never played it live. But later he proposed we try Inside Looking Out, which we did play live (it is also on our first live album Live Retaliation).

 

Double Decker Bus - The Count Five

The last couple of songs are not stuff we covered, but inspirational starting points for our first two singles. As Alec was quoted in the sleeve notes for the Klub Foot CD, on how he wrote songs “I’d find a song I really liked and try to figure it out and learn it, and in the process of doing that I’d come up with some weird combination of things that together made something original”.
In the case of Alec’s composition of our first single Escalator it was the Count Five’s Double Decker Bus.
The Count Five were another way cool 60’s garage band whose sole hit was the great Psychotic Reaction (which we covered and recorded - as a bonus Bananamen track). They (like pretty much every garage band) were huge fans of the British invasion bands. On their 1966 album they included this ode to London’s iconic route master bus, the band formed in San Jose, California in 1964 and signed to the L.A. Double Shot label. They had a great look sporting boss Beatles mop tops and wearing cool black capes! Shortly after we released Escalator, the Vibes (who played with us a lot at that time) started to do Double Decker Bus live, Alec wasn’t too happy!

 

Feelin’ Lost - The Rationals

For the blast off for our second single Don’t Break Down, Alec was inspired by the 1966 single of Michigan’s Rationals ‘Feelin’ Lost’.
The Rationals never really broke nationally (they had one single creep into the bottom end of the top 100 in late 1966), but were really hot in their local state of Michigan, where they had a rabid following for their great live sets, and classy and unique discs.
They gigged extensively, appearing on local tv and radio and releasing a large selection of discs on a variety of labels including stints signed to Cameo and Capitol.
Despite the lack of chart success, their popularity and local fame kept the band gigging until late 1970.

Time Is After You The Peanut Butter Conspiracy

Alec was a a real fiend for the West Coast 60’s Psych Scene ( he eventually moved there and producing a fanzine on the scene and compiled a whole stack of CD’s charting the bands and labels).
The Peanut Butter Conspiracy (like the Byrds) crossed over from the folk circuit to the flourishing psychedelic rock scene. They were produced by legendary producer Gary Usher who also worked with the Beach Boys, the Byrds and Dick Dale. Time Is After You comes from their second LP The Great Conspiracy, although an earlier more garage-y version was released as single in May 1967. They also went on to record music for some biker movies and Russ Meyer’s Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls!
Weirdly the song’s format adapted really well for our sound and it became a fave with the Klub Foot crowd.

 

 Down On Me - Big Brother and the Holding Company

Big Brother were one of the top bands on the West Coast Psychedlic rock scene. Initially they were an instrumental act, playing as the house band at the legendary Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco. They decided they wanted a singer, but it had to be someone with real power who could compete with their heavy sound.
In Texas a young Janis Joplin was hanging out with the 13th Floor Elevators. Word of her powerful full throated blues style reached San Francisco and she was invited to audition for the post by the band’s first manager, Chet Helms of the Family Dog. It was a marriage made in rock and roll heaven and soon they were blowing away audiences across the country, including a legendary appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival. Down On Me was their second single released in 1967.
Musical differences, poor management, probably drug fuelled disputes and financial squabbles split the band up. They later reformed without Janis, who proceeded as a solo act until a heroin overdose terminated her career in 1970.
We included it in our live act around the second year of playing, and thrashed through a take of it at the tail end of a session at Pathway studios. It turned up on the vinyl retrospective Big Beat released in 1987 ‘The Essential Sting-Rays. Ironically, Big Brother’s bass player Peter Albin is now Alec’s neighbour (and yes, he has heard our version!).

 

Loose Lips Sync Ships - The Hogs (aka The Chocolate Watchband)

The CWB were formed in 1965 in the south of the San Francisco Bay area, by a bunch of guys who had all played in a variety of blues and rock and roll bands. The name was originally chosen as a bit of a joke but it grew on them and they stuck with it. They were playing a lot of British Invasion type sounds, and were particularly influenced by the Kinks and the Rolling Stones (later their punky, snarly,  bluesy rock and roll sound had the Watchband often cited as the American Rolling Stones).

They quickly started becoming popular in the Bay Area, but there were a lot of early line-up changes and even a temporary hiatus when a couple of guys swapped to another band. It was not until the spring of 1966 that original line up member, guitarist Mark Loomis revived the name the Chocolate Watchband and recruited Bill Flores, bass (of the Shandells, who they had both been playing with) and Gary Andrijasevich on drums, Sean Tolby on second guitar and David Aguilar on vocals. They were red hot and soon started getting loads of gigs and offers. The band signed with Green Grass  Productions in LA ran by Ed Cobb and Ray Harris, who in turn  got them on Tower Records.

It was whilst they were recording material for their first Tower album in late 1966 that Harris came to the studio with a copy of Davie Allen and the Arrows fuzz drenched classic Blues Theme (which had been recorded as the theme tune for the forthcoming Roger Corman biker flick the Wild Angels). Harris had heard it wasn’t going to be released as a single (just included on the Wild Angels soundtrack LP). He thought it was a hit and got the boys to learn and record it, there and then. Once this had been achieved they needed a b-side Dave Aguilar told Alec in an interview conducted for his magazine Cream Puff War “…we took a break, figured something out, came back and just jammed through it”
And so Loose Lip Sync Ship was born. Alec loved it’s off the wall weirdness, it’s cool minor key ethereal sound and it’s disjointed middle and end sections.
Harris and Cobb didn’t take the single to Tower but to Hanna Barbera records (an off-shoot of the cartoon company). It was released as  by “the Hogs” (because of the bands Tower deal). A “hog” being biker’s slang for a motorbike. Sadly it wasn’t a smash hit but if it had been that could have been a bit awkward. So the Chocolate Watch Band could get on with their day job of being the Chocolate Watchband!
We used to open with Loose Lips in the early days and later recorded our version for the b-side of our first single Escalator (along with an instrumental version of Escalator). I am pretty sure the a-side was recorded at a studio in Camden Town but the two b-side instrumentals were done at our favourite studio Pathway.
Ironically many moons later when Alec actually played with the CWB they rehearsed ‘Loose Lip’ but couldn’t get it to work!

 

Psycho - The Sonics

The Sonics probably need no introduction here. Their shit kicking, no nonsense stomp made them a big favourite of the ‘Rays.
From Tacoma, in Washington State, they originally formed in 1960, but went through a myriad of members until their definitive line up came together in 1964 with keyboard player Gerry Roslie tackling vocal duties with his screaming, fog horn delivery.
They released the Witch in in 64 and followed that with Psycho the following year. They initially recorded 3 LP’s in the early Sixties but later reformed and continued to record and gig over the years.
We rehearsed some Sonics stuff but never got around to playing any live until a tour of Europe in 1986 found us in Switzerland. Playing on a stage made up of two barn doors balanced on beer crates we belted out Psycho and tried to copy the antics of the Beatles in 1960’s Kaiser Keller; where they had a competition with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes as to who could stomp a hole in the stage first. The Hurricanes won!

 

I Can Only Give You Everything - Them

Belfast’s Them came together to to play a residency at the Maritime Hotel in Belfast in 1964. Previously Van Morrison had sung with a band called the Golden Eagles, and the new group he joined had been called the Gamblers, but switched to the moniker of Them (inspired by the 1954 horror/sci-fi movie of that name featuring giant killer ants!).
They recorded some monster garage anthems including Van’s Gloria, a definitive version of the blues classic Baby Please Don’t Go and I Can Only Give You Everything. All of which were covered by a multitude of U.S. garage and U.K. beat bands.
Whilst Van was (and is) an accomplished song writer he was happy to record stuff by other people as long as he thought it was up to standard, As was the case with I Can Only Give You Everything, brought to him by the producer of Them’s 2nd LP (Them Again), Tommy Scott who had co written it with Mike Coulter.
The Sting-Rays loved Them but as far as I remember we only played I Can Only Give You Everything once live, at a gig at Gossips in Soho, run by Creation’s Alan McGee; we were supporting the Pogues. It was after Keith had left and we were searching for a new permanent bass player. At this particular gig Alec switched from drums to a play a fretless electric bass, Tom Cullinan who at that time was the drummer for the X-Men, sat in on the skins.

 

So You Say You Lost Your Baby - Gene Clark

Alec really started pushing the envelope with his choice of songs we covered once he moved from drums to playing guitar with the ‘Rays. Around 1987 we incorporated Gene Clark’s So You Say You Lost Your Baby into our live set.
Gene was born dirt poor in Tipton Missouri in 1944. His dad was a musician and taught him harmonica and guitar, Gene was soon writing songs and performing locally. He cut his first single at the age of 14 and by his 18th birthday he was spotted by members of the New Christy Minstrels, who were riding high on the folk scene; they asked him to join them. Very popular at the time the New Christy Minstrels were a frankly a cheesy, clean cut folk novelty act doing stuff like 3 Wheels On My Wagon. He joined and recorded and performed with them for a while but eventually left them and moved to L.A. where he pursued his own vision of a band.
Combining the influence of his folk roots, and the new emerging popularity of the Beatles and Bob Dylan, Gene formed the amazing Byrds. They soon found massive success with hits like Bob Dylan’s Mr Tamborine Man and Gene’s penned I Feel A Whole Lot Better and Eight Miles High.
However tensions developed within the group, as Gene had written so much of their material he was getting more money than other members and they fell out with each other. So he went on to a solo career, the first LP from which this track comes from. Despite his prodigious talent he never really found  success as a solo artist.

 

They Walked In Line - Warsaw

I always maintained the ‘Rays were a punk band, we were just the right age to be part of the punk scene, and we all had stuff like the Buzzcocks, the Sex Pistols and Dirk Wears White Socks era Adam and the Ants records in our collection. I then argued that Rockabilly was the first wave of punk and 60’s garage punk the second, and that was what we were about, the punk DIY ethos very much a part of who we were.
So it shouldn’t come as a big surprise when we started playing Warsaw’s They Walked In Line as part of our live set.
Warsaw formed in Salford in 1976 after a bunch of mates witnessed the Sex Pistols playing live at Manchester’s Free Trade Hall. They recorded an early LP for RCA but were dissatisfied with it and never released it, and bought themselves out of the contract. They then released a self financed EP which brought them to the attention of Factory Records Tony Wilson, who signed them up.
Changing their name to Joy Division (as there was a London based band called Warsaw Pakt). They went on to become really popular, and at the vanguard of the whole Manchester scene
Sadly their lead singer Ian Curtis suffered epilepsy and depression and with the additional problems of a complicated love life he sadly took his own life in 1980. The rest of the band regrouped as New Order.

The Sting Rays, What they covered tune wise ! By Bal Croce.

 

1. Theme from Stingray - Barry Gray Orchestra

When we were planning to start a band the name was really important, and we spent weeks endlessly trying different monikers.

The Gerry Anderson puppet TV show Stingray (along with Thunderbirds, Captain Scarlet etc.) had been a childhood fave for all of us, and so the name the Sting-Rays was finally agreed upon.

 The classically-trained musician Barry Gray was hired as an in-house composer for Gerry Anderson’s AP films, working on a variety of puppet shows for television that developed into the Fireball XL5, Stingray and Thunderbirds franchise. Barry wrote and recorded all of the theme tunes.

Stingray was first aired in 1964 and ran for 39 episodes.

We opened with the theme for a few shows very early on, and part of it appears backwards on our first E.P.

2. Drive-In Movie - Mickey Gilley

 ‘Drive-In Movie’ was written by Ron Hargrave, who had a deal with MGM working on films and making records. He recorded the original version.

Mickey Gilley grew up in Ferriday, Louisiana, alongside his cousins Jerry Lee Lewis and Jimmy Swaggart (later an infamous TV evangelist). When Jerry found fame with hits on Sun records Mickey, who had grown up playing piano with Jerry Lee, decided he’d have a crack at rock’n’roll stardom. He recorded a handful of singles (including ‘Drive-In Movie’) for a variety of obscure labels in the 50’s and early 60’s. Gilley later found fame as a country artist and successful nightclub owner.

It was his faster and more driving version from 1961 that inspired us to cover this great song.

 3. Psychotic Reaction - Count Five

In 1965, a group of guys from San Jose, California worked up a song idea based on a lecture one of them had attended in their health education class, on psychosis.

They had formed a band called the Squires, who were to become Count Five. Under that name, they recorded it for a newly-formed label, Double Shot. Released in the summer of 1966 at the height of the fuzz guitar craze (such as the Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’), the record clicked and became a hit.

It was always a fave on our turntables, and we included the song on our very first studio demo in early 1982. Later, we recorded a version at the tail end of our ‘Escalator’ recording session. It was released on the first Blood On the Cats compilation, credited to the Bananamen.

 4. You’re Gonna Miss Me - The Spades

This timeless classic was written by a 15-year old genius from Austin, Texas – Roger “Roky” Erickson. He first recorded it in 1965 with his early band the Spades for the cool Zero label (which is the version we include here). Two other local musicians thought Roky was great and they persuaded him to join their band, and the new ensemble was christened the 13th Floor Elevators. They re-recorded ‘You're Gonna Miss Me’ with the new line up (including Tommy Hall playing an amplified jug) for the Contact label in early 1966. The single was picked up a few months later by International Artists, who gave it a nationwide release. Reaching number 55 on the Billboard Hot 100 in October 1966, it was their only hit.

Like ‘Psychotic Reaction,’ we all knew ‘You’re Gonna Miss Me’ from its inclusion on Nuggets. Our mate Ski had painted the sleeve of the Elevators first LP on his bedroom ceiling, and we used that as the background for the photo shoot for our first EP sleeve, which included our cover of this great piece of Texan garage.

5. Blue Girl - The Bad Roads

After Alec started raving over 60’s garage music when he discovered Lenny Kaye’s original Nuggets compilation, our next stop was Greg Shaw’s Pebbles compilations of cool 60’s garage. These feature thousands of classic tunes, but on Volume 9 we came across the fuzz-drenched classic ‘Blue Girl.’

The Bad Roads were from Lake Charles, Louisiana, and grew up digging New Orleans-type music. In 1965 the members had formed an instrumental band called the Avengers, but with the advent of the British Invasion - and particularly for them, the Rolling Stones - they added a singer and renamed themselves the Bad Roads (after the Duane Eddy hit ‘Forty Miles of Bad Road,’ cool cats indeed).

They cut ‘Blue Girl’ in August 1966, which was released on Floyd Soileau’s Jin label (which otherwise featured Cajun music). It was a local hit but didn’t cross over into the national charts.

6. I Want My Woman - The Emperors

Alec came across this killer track on the International Artists anthology Epitaph for a Legend - which was a bit weird because they actually hailed from Long Beach, California! (turns out it was on that comp because it was produced by Texan garage guru Lelan Rogers, brother of Kenny, who worked for International Artists).

They cut a couple of singles before nailing this totally boss tune as the B-side to their fourth single, released on the obscure Sabra label in 1965.

They looked really cool too, all sporting peroxide blonde Beatles mop tops.

7. The Cat - Rod Willis

Our guitarist Mark had a younger brother, Tim (who would later play bass in the X-Men), and a couple of his mates from school ran a little record hop in the Wolsey Tavern in Kentish Town, which we would often go to. One night they spun ‘The Cat,’ and we were all so knocked out, we immediately decided to cover it (along with the aforementioned ‘I Want My Woman’) for a forthcoming Big Beat compilation These Cats Ain’t Nothing But Trash – this was before our first EP had even come out.

Rodney Earl Willis was born in Milton, Florida in 1934. After high school he served in the US Marine Corps. A keen music fan on his return to civilian life, he signed to Chic Thompson’s Chic label and recorded a couple of singles written by Thompson to little acclaim. His third and final release ‘The Cat’ (also penned by Thompson) appeared on the NRC label, with which Thompson had merged. It did little business.

Rod married, had a family of five kids and left the music business behind to work in local government, he died in June 2013.

(thanks to John Marcus, of Sting-Rays support act the Huns, for his research on Rod’s story).

8.Wedding Ring - The Easybeats

We all loved Antipodean rock’n’roll (Johnny O’Keefe a fave), but it was from The Easybeats’ catalogue that Alec plucked ‘Wedding Ring’ as a B-side to our ‘June Rhyme’ 12” single.

The Easybeats became one of the biggest and most successful bands of the mid-1960s from Australia, despite all of them having emigrated there from Europe: three from the UK, two from the Netherlands. They wrote and recorded their own material, and were almost as big as the Beatles downunder.

‘Wedding Ring’ was their third single, released in 1965, and doing well in their home charts. The band went on to have a worldwide best seller with ‘Friday On My Mind,’ recorded in London and produced by the legendary Shel Talmy (whom Alec now works with).

 

9. What More Can I Do - The Zombies

 Alec’s musical obsessions are as diverse and multifarious as anyone’s. From Jonathan Richman to the Byrds, Creedence to the Mystery Trend, but perhaps one of his overarching passions has always been the Zombies.

The Zombies were still at school when they first got together, based in St. Albans (not a million miles where we were all at school together).  After winning the “Herts Beat” competition, they secured a deal with Decca Records and their first single, ‘She’s Not There,’ became a huge international hit (reaching number 2 on the U.S. top 100). They toured the UK and the US, where they appeared on TV shows like Hullabaloo.

Sadly, at the time none of their subsequent records lived up to the chart success of ‘She’s Not There,’ but they continued to tour and record, releasing singles and two albums. They switched CBS later in their career, but ironically, the band enjoyed another huge chart success with ‘Time Of The Season,’ which topped the US charts in March 1969 - a year after they had split up.

Alec later compiled, curated and wrote the extensive sleeve notes for a fantastic overview CD box set of the Zombies, Zombie Heaven.

 We did this track live, and also made a demo of it at our fave studio Pathway, which remains unreleased.

10. How Much More? - Terry Knight & The Pack

Michigan-based Terry Knight started his career as a hip DJ and made many good show biz contacts. He really got into the sounds of the British Invasion, particularly that of the Stones. His next move was a plan hatched to emulate his heroes and cash in on some babes and beer by becoming the front man of a boss beat band.

Knight persuaded an established local band (the Jazz Masters) to let him re-launch their career with a new name, and himself as the lead singer. He rechristened them ‘The Pack,’ taking the name from the Shangri-La’s ‘Leader of the Pack’. They worked up a set of cool Stones-style rhythm and blues and rock ’n’ roll.

‘How Much More’ was the A side to their first Terry Knight & The Pack single. They issued a total of eleven 45s, and did a couple of LPs too, along with numerous TV appearances. The band evolved into Grand Funk Railroad.

We found ‘How Much More’ on a great garage sampler called The Chosen Few. Our own version was recorded for Mike Spenser’s compilation LP on his Hit Records label, Garage Goodies Volume One. It featured Mike on a raucous harmonica (the version on our later From The Kitchen Sink compilation is an alternative take without the harp).

 11. My Flash On You - Thee Sixpence

‘My Flash On You’ was originally written and performed by Arthur Lee and his band Love, a seminal and hugely influential L.A. based outfit at the cutting edge of the switch from gritty rock’n’roll flavoured garage to the more psychedelic, freaky change in the music scene taking place in the mid-60s. Arthur was a regular face in the clubs on Sunset Strip, describing himself as the first black hippie (he came from mixed Afro-American and Native American ancestry).

Alec loved Love, but it was when he heard the Thee Sixpence version of ‘Flash’ that he decided it could work as a Sting-Rays number.

Thee Sixpence were ‘neighbours’ of Love, coming out of Glendale, California. They covered ‘My Flash On You’ on the All American label in 1966. Shortly afterwards, most of the group morphed into the much more commercially successful Strawberry Alarm Clock in 1967.

Sadly, our recorded version on our first LP doesn’t really do the song justice.

12. Come On Kid - Kenny & the Kasuals

Garage music was always a huge influence on the Sting-Rays, and Texas seems to have had more than its fair share of great acts.

Kenny & the Kasuals were a Dallas-based band formed in 1964, digging the Brit Invasion sounds. Local hustler Mark Lee took over management duties, dressed them in suits and made them play Vox amps, just like the Beatles. He got them touring around the country and secured them support slots opening for the likes of the Stones, the Beach Boys and the Buckinghams.

There are great stories on their website involving hair-straightening disasters, hearse drag races with rival band the Chessmen, and being escorted out past the Houston City limits by the Texas Rangers.

Alec suggested we cover it for our appearance on Channel 4’s The Tube, great idea Alec. We had no bass player at the time, so Alec played a fretless bass (with great fuzz break), as well as drums on the recording.

 13. You Got A Hard Time Coming - The Remains

OK, I just said Texas had lots of outstanding bands, but Boston’s the Remains were a revelation when we grabbed the Eva reissue of their stuff in 1983 - we seldom had it off the turntable. Absolute killer band.

The Remains all met at university in Boston, where they rocked the socs sox off, becoming a hugely popular live act locally.

They were signed to Epic and tried to break into the big time by moving to New York, where they scored an appearance on the Ed Sullivan Show, but the big breakthrough didn’t happen, so they tried again, this time moving to the West Coast and appearing on the legendary 60’s music show Hullaballoo.

At last it looked like they might get that break when the Remains were chosen as one of the support acts on the Beatles’ last U.S. tour. But a change of drummer caused a rift in the band and they split soon after.

There is a video floating around of us doing this, taken from the filming of the Pretenders video (for ‘Middle of the Road’), where we appear briefly at the start. Chrissie even put us on the bill with them at the Hammersmith Odeon, bless her.

14. Satisfy You - The Seeds

 We are back to another of Alec’s obsessions: Sky Saxon’s band the Seeds. Now he’s ended up playing with them!

The Seeds formed in Hollywood in early 1965 when Sky relocated there from his native Salt Lake City, and having failed as a teen idol, put out an advert for some other guys to get a band together. They quickly worked up a set and started gigging, getting a rep as a great live act.

Their first single ‘Can’t Seem To Make You Mine’ was a small local hit. The follow up, ‘Pushin’ Too Hard,’ after several months, eventually broke nationally in late 1966. The Seeds then became proper music stars, appearing on the NBC sitcom The Mothers-In-Law and the B-movie Psych-Out.

Their first two albums were strict garage; the third one in 1967 offered a more psychedelic groove. ‘Satisfy You’ comes from a fourth “live” LP which was much more back to their garage roots, and the song was released as a single too.

It was one of the four live tracks released on the first Stomping at the Klub Foot LP, while a studio demo was included on the retrospective The Essential Sting-Rays compilation.

 

The second part of this will appear mysteriously some time in the near future !