If You Like The Beatles Please Welcome... Joey Molland - This Way Up (2001, Independent Artists, USA) Flac & mp3

Joey Molland's group Badfinger was one of the great power pop bands of all time. Before the Raspberries, the Dwight Twilley Band, and other tunesmiths found the magic of energetic car radio melodies, Molland and crew led the way. This Way Up continues that work and is one of the best solo discs that ex-members of the Beatles never made. It bears repeating -- This Way Up contains the essence of what was great about those early solo Beatles albums, not surprising because Molland played on some of them. The surprise is that a sideman from those sessions has created a mini-masterpiece rivaling, and on some songs equaling, those classic and important recordings. As good as Molland's power trio is live, why it doesn't perform originals onstage the way they are presented on this disc is a mystery. Molland is an excellent guitarist, and in concert he can veer off from the hit material and rival Pat Travers.

That isn't always what his audience wants -- what his audience wants are the pretty guitar lines and vocals in a song like "The Bust," a slice of the stuff that made everyone into Badfinger fans, still alive and well and current. This is a very, very excellent recording, make no mistake about that. From the opening track, "Mirrors," to the bounce of "Happy," and from the cool John Lennon-ish "This Must Be Love" to the final production, a moody and melancholy "Isn't That a Dream," 13 perfectly constructed songs by Molland do more than just carry on a tradition -- they combine to give proof that this style of music is still so very vital.

This CD can satisfy the fans of discs like Plastic Ono Band, Mind Games, Ram, and All Things Must Pass. It has flavors of the song "Free As a Bird" and it has Molland presenting tremendous pop; just listen to the exquisite "Moonlight" to get that thrill the first McCartney solo project gave you. This album is everything a fan of those wonderful early solo Beatles albums is looking for -- great lyrics, pretty melodies, and elegant sounds. If you want to know where Tom Petty could go with his music, listen to "A Way to Be." Molland should've been in the Traveling Wilburys, and if that venerable "supergroup" did this album with the Badfinger guitarist, this amazing stuff would have had a fighting chance. In a perfect world, music directors would seek out superior sounds no matter if released on an independent, a major label, or the Internet.

This entertaining record deserves airplay wherever people like and want to hear the music of the Beatles. "What Else/Nothing" is just an incredible Beatles-style track from the man who played on the Imagine album, on All Things Must Pass, and on Concert for Bangladesh, a musician who the Beatles themselves signed and brought to the attention of the world. "Tell Me" could be the Traveling Wilburys, while "Three Minute Warning" is reinvented Chuck Berry by way of Marc Bolan before T. Rex. The final track is majestic, with a vocal like Ian Hunter and suspending guitar lines that chug along slowly. This Way Up is an incredible work of art that deserves worldwide exposure.(allmusic.com)

I heard the album years after its release. And it blew me away. I don't want to say too much about it. The Badfinger fans here will know the album. To all others: Listen! Absolutely. A brilliant album, Mr Molland.

Enjoy
          Frank

                                                              Flac  & mp3@320

VA - Nederbeat 1963 - 1969 Beat, Bluf & Branie (5 Disc Box Edition 2001 Hunter Music) Flac & mp3

Hi folks, I don't think I need to present this composition in a big way. The name says it all, and most of you are already familiar with the ''Nederbeat'' releases. Disc 5 is called ''Beat Behind The Dikes - Nederbeat Rarities'' and introduces some not so well-known artists. All in all 125 tracks of great sixties pop music from the Netherlands.
Into the flac files the artwork is included.








I hope you have fun
be fast
          Frank

mp3 disc1  &  mp3 disc2  &  mp3 disc3  &  mp3 disc4  &  mp3 disc5  &  Artwork


        Flac 1   &  Flac 2  &  Flac 3  &  Flac 4 &  Flac 5   

Wreckless Eric - Wreckless Eric 1978 (1991 Repertoire Records) Flac & mp3

Wreckless Eric's eponymous debut is a ragged, endearing collection of crude rock & roll. In a way, crude doesn't even begin to describe Eric's music. A muddle of scratchy guitars, pounding drumming, and snarled, indecipherable vocals, the record is pure, primal garage rock in the old-fashioned sense. Although Wreckless Eric has the demeanor of a punk, his music is straight-out rock & roll in the old-fashioned sense -- there's even saxophones and organs popping out of the mix. What makes Wreckless Eric such fun is its combination of catchy hooks, spirited playing, and downright rudeness.
 

Only a handful of songs are fully formed, and those -- "Whole Wide World" and Ian Dury's "Rough Kids" -- are punk-inflected pub rock classics, pure pop songs in every sense of the term. The remainder are off-kilter, idiosyncratic pop songs -- about everything from "Personal Hygiene" and "Waxworks" to "Telephoning Home" and "Brain Thieves" -- performed with sloppy, drunken abandon. Too punk for pub rockers, too straightforward for punk, and too weird for everybody else, Wreckless Eric's debut album is one of the small gems of the punk era.(allmusic.com)

This guy have done a lot of fine albums with a very own kind of pop songs.

Enjoy
          Frank

                                              Flac   &   mp3@320

Psychedelic Pop from the Netherlands: Zen - Hair 1969 (2002 Rotation) Flac & mp3@320

Zen was a band from the Netherlands. They released their only album, called ''Hair'' in 1969. It is a beautiful album of psychedelic pop/rock. I highly recommend it if you like this kind of nederbeat or nederpop. This is the ''Rotation'' release from 2002 with eleven bonus tracks.

                                                                 Flac  &   mp3@320

Garage Pop, Rock, Folk: Those Guys - Behind The Glasses 1967 ( 2009 60sgaragebands.com) Flac & mp3@320

Realizing a good thing when one came along, Those Guys David Owens, Jimmy Owens and Bill Dabbs hooked up with Bob Barnes and Eddie Deaton shortly after that duo's own rock band--the legendary Elite--broke up. This line-up of Those Guys would soon become one of the most popular groups in the Dallas/Ft. Worth area. The band scored a regional hit in 1967 with their version of 'People Say' but reached their peak behind the incredibly strong songwriting of David Owens. Over forty years later, their 'Stereopis Of A Floret' and 'Lookin' At You Behind The Glasses' have become recognized as garage rock and psychedelic classics.

This collection of Those Guys recordings includes the complete recorded output of the core group, including their four single sides, six unreleased recordings enginnered by T-Bone Burnett and four bonus tracks recorded for the Sump'n Else TV show.

Very nice 60's popfolkpsychedelicgarage album. The band deserved more attention and success in my opinion. If you like it you can buy it here

Frank

                                                           Flac  &   mp3@320

Sunshine/Harmony Pop The New Colony Six - Treat Her Groovy 1968/69 (2005 El Records) Flac & mp3@320

Though it's not obvious from the cover, this 22-track CD compilation is basically a reissue of the New Colony Six's third and fourth LPs (1968's Revelations and 1969's Attacking a Straw Man), presenting the albums one after the other with their original track sequences. This was the era in which the Chicago band, which started off with a rawer garage pop sound, softened its approach considerably and found some modest national commercial success.

Those who swear by the group's earlier work (particularly the excellent 1966 debut, Breakthrough) are likely to be disappointed by the far more mainstream harmony pop/rock of these records, though on the other hand, fans of groups like the Association might favor this era more than the previous one. Including the hits "I Will Always Think About You," "Can't You See Me Cry," "Things I'd Like to Say," "I Want You to Know," "Barbara, I Love You," and "I Could Never Lie to You," it's on the mild and indistinctive side of the style, sometimes incorporating light orchestration and brass, and making an unlikely venture into country on "Just Feel Worse." 

On Revelations, there's perhaps a slightly brasher, less slickly produced feel than numerous somewhat similar California sunshine pop acts had, as well as a greater British Invasion influence, though the baroque touches common to much late-'60s baroque rock are present. The British rock elements recede and jazzier ones (especially "Ride the Wicked Wind") rise more to the fore on the more middle-of-the-road Attacking a Straw Man, concluding with the maudlin recitation "Prairie Grey."(allmusic.com)

Although I like the band's first album very much, I am more a fan of the band's more pop-oriented stuff. This is also due to the fact that the later works of the band were arranged much more sophisticated than the early stuff. In any case it is undisputed that there was a band at work here with an environment who knew exactly what they wanted. I really like this compilation very much and all of you who are into sixties pop music should give it a listen.

Have fun
               Frank

                                                           Flac  &  mp3@320

British Invasion From The Netherlands: The Golden Earrings - Just Ear-Rings 1965 (2009 RPM) Flac & mp3@320

Golden Earring were hailed as one of the hottest new bands in America when the song "Radar Love" from their album Moontan was released in 1973. Funny thing was, Golden Earring were hardly a new band; while they weren't well known outside the Netherlands, in their native Holland they were major stars who had been scoring hits for eight years. 

Just Earrings was their first LP, recorded in 1965 when they were still billed as the Golden Earrings, and it's fine British Invasion-style beat music that suggests the group was still formulating a sound of its own, but had absorbed the influences of the Who, the Rolling Stones, the Kinks, the Zombies, and the Hollies and had fashioned the bits and pieces into a sound that was powerfully tuneful and engaging. The Golden Earrings wrote nearly all their own material at a time when even the U.K. bands they modeled themselves on performed a fair percentage of covers, and "Now I Have" and "Lonely Everyday" show they knew how put together a potent rock & roll number, while "I Am a Fool" and "When People Talk" are effectively moody downbeat tunes and "I Hate Saying These Words" is a light but effervescent pop song. George Kooymans and Peter De Ronde were a great guitar team, bassist Rinus Gerritsen and drummer Jaap Eggermont push the music forward with energy and imagination, and Frans Krassenburg's vocals show both attitude and aptitude, especially since he's singing in English (though the lyrics don't always survive close scrutiny).

If Just Earrings had been recorded by a British band, chances are good the group could have scored that first hit in America a lot sooner -- the album is certainly on a par with the work of most of the U.K. bands that were storming the U.S charts at the time, and if it took longer for America to warm to rock & roll from Holland, this is fun stuff that swings in any time zone.(allmusic.com)

The music on this album is completely different from what the later renamed Golden Earring played. This is a really strong album of so called ''british invasion'' sounds. You hear the influence of the Beatles, the Hollies, Kinks and all the british big bands of the time then. And the Ear-Rings have done it very well and i recommend this album to all of you who loved and love the british sounds of the mid sixties.
Have fun
              Frank

                                                                               New Flac   &  mp3@320

Psychedelic Pop of the '70s - Michael Angelo - Michael Angelo 1977 (2009 Big Pink Records, Japan) Flac & mp3@320

Michael Angelo’s self-titled 1977 LP is an earnest fusion of post-Beatles psychedelia and “out there” lyrical incantations, but reflecting on its 2015 re-release by Anthology Recordings, the Kansas City songwriter would like to clear up one popular misconception: “To this day, people hear the album and they say, ‘Were you doing LSD?’ And no, I didn’t do LSD. I don’t do any of that stuff. No really — I was absolutely straight on that record. A couple of beers and that was it,” Angelo says with a chuckle. 

It’s not hard to hear why inquisitive heads might wonder. In addition to the album’s prominent placement in the late Acid Archives editor Patrick Lundborg’s favorite private-issue albums list, Angelo does have a penchant for fantastical sounds – hear the swirling synths of “Field of Lonely Eyes” and cosmic folk of “Flight of the Pegasus” and “Oceans of Fantasy. But it’s not just the trippy textures that make Michael Angelo a rewarding listen 38 years after its release — it’s the songcraft, the Beatles-esque chord progressions of “Lost in the Pain,” the cresting lo-fi power pop of “The World to Be,” and the strident piano pop of “Checkout.” 

The album was recorded at the Liberty Recording studio in Kansas City, Missouri, where Angelo worked as a session musician. He and drummer Frank Gautieri cut the album, during off-hours when the studio wasn’t booked throughout 1976. “The studio itself was in, believe it or not, inside of a cave,” Angelo says. “This cave had been cut out and they had put in these offices. You’d drive through this cave and you’d get to this one door and that was Liberty Recording.” 

Upon completion, it became clear that Liberty wasn’t going to release the unmixed album, so Angelo took the recordings to another Kansas City record company studio, Big-K Records, to see about mixing there. “One thing led to another and before I knew it I was a studio musician up there, too,” Angelo says. He completed the self-titled album at Big-K, which released it via its Guinn Records label in 1977 in the limited quantity of 500 copies. 

Angelo cites standard rock influences on the album’s fuzzy, tuneful sound — Beatles, Cream, Beethoven, the Moody Blues – but says that the lyrics, about disenfranchised youth and mystical headspaces, were drawn from his own mind. “I was getting into Greek mythology, The Iliad, that affected me a lot,” Angelo says. “But a lot of it was just my own imagination. At the time I just didn’t want to be boxed in to “She loves you, yeah, yeah, yeah.” That was too earthbound. I wanted to be somewhere else in my head, to some sort of magical place. It’s kind of hard to describe, but when I got there I got some pretty far out lyrics and music, I know that.” 

After years of bootleg pressings, the Anthology Recordings’ reissue finds Michael Angelo finally benefiting from its sales, and while he’s not complaining about the money, it’s the recognition of the record that excites him the most, a sort of validation of his lifelong dedication to playing music. “This whole thing’s been a weird ride. I’ve probably written a thousand songs in my life, and I’ve done a bunch of albums under different bands, different names,” Angelo says. 

The debut marked the start of his musical career, capturing a youthful spirit that was present in the caves of Liberty Recording. “I remember sitting at the grand piano, and above me there was these cave walls, and the whole atmosphere of the thing, and I’m sitting there playing ‘Checkout’ and I’m going, ‘This is just way too cool,’” Angelo says. “To this day I remember the feeling of that. There was something magical going on, something up there in the ether. It was nice for sure.” words …………..The Aquarium Drunkard Interview…………. 

A very very nice album and i hope you will enjoy. Sorry, no artwork :-(

Have fun

               Frank

         Flac   &  mp3@320      

Two powerpop/pop rock albums by John Dowler's The Zimmermen - Rivers Of Corn (1986)mp3@224 & Way To Casual (1989) Flac &mp3@320

A pun on Bob Dylan's real name, Robert Zimmermen, John Dowler's Australian country-rock outfit Zimmermen are best remembered for their standout hit "Don't Go to Sydney." After working with several bands during the late '70s and early '80s, John Dowler formed Zimmermen in June 1983. They found immediate success on the Melbourne pub-circuit where they supported such acts as the Hoodoo Gurus and the Sunnyboys.
By the end of 1984, bandmembers Steve Connolly and Michael Barclay had left to join the Paul Kelly Band (which became the Coloured Girls the following year). Guitarist Peter Tulloch and drummer Graeme Perry replaced them for the group's debut single, "Don't Go to Sydney," released in January 1985. It became one of the most successful Australian independent singles of 1986 and, after Neil Osborn joined the band as permanent drummer, the band released their debut album, Rivers of Corn, which contained the single "Ordinary Man."

The recording of their follow-up stalled in 1987 when Peter "Pedro" Bull was replaced by Alan Brooker and Neil Osborn by former drummer Graeme Perry. Unsatisfied with the recording by the former lineup, Dowler took the band back into the studio in November 1988. The single "What Really Hurts" was released in February 1989, followed by the album Way Too Casual in April. A final national tour followed before Zimmermen disbanded in 1990. Dowler went on to release a solo album in 1993 titled Low Society.(allmusic.com)

Some of you will know John Dowler from the fantastic band Young Modern. Here awaits you catchy pop songs with a feel of eighties power pop and fine pop rock.

Enjoy .
        Frank          Rivers Of Corn @224        &  Way To Casual Flac   -  Way To Casual@320

Teenage Fanclub - Grand Prix (1995 Creation Records) Flac & mp3@320

For all of the brilliance of records like Bandwagonesque and the underrated Thirteen, at times Teenage Fanclub seemed little more than a showcase for the laconic melodic genius of Norman Blake -- fairly or not, the songwriting contributions of bandmates Gerard Love and Raymond McGinley suffered mightily by comparison, mere filler when stacked alongside Blake-penned marvels like "The Concept" and "Norman 3."

That said, the superb Grand Prix is perhaps the truest group effort in the Fannies' catalog -- more than ever before, their democratic approach truly bears fruit, and it's indicative of the disc's uniform excellence that the first Blake composition, the lovely "Mellow Doubt," doesn't even surface until track three, by which time McGinley's "About You" and Love's harmony-rich "Sparky's Dream" have already firmly established the set's ragged-but-right tenor. While new drummer Paul Quinn fails to recreate the buoyantly reckless abandon of the sacked Brendan O'Hare, Grand Prix otherwise captures complete creative synergy -- in particular, "Don't Look Back" is Love's watershed moment, a gorgeously wistful love song highlighted by wittily lovelorn lyrics like "I'd steal a car to drive you home," as good a pick-up line as anything in the annals of rock & roll. Not everything works (McGinley's "Verisimilitude" goes nowhere fast) and Blake's contributions are still the highlights ("Neil Jung" and "I'll Make It Clear" are simply perfect pop songs), but Grand Prix is ultimately the product of a band at the peak of its collective powers, not as much a landmark as Bandwagonesque but every bit as good on its own terms.(allmusic.com)

A brilliant album from a brilliant band. And those of you who know the band also know it was not the only one brilliant album by the Teenage Fanclub. Just wonderful!

Enjoy
         Frank

Flac  &   mp3@320

 

At Request! The Sweet - First Recordings 1968 - 1971 (1991 Repertoire Records) Flac & mp3@320

Sweet's earliest recordings -- the clutch of 45s issued in the U.K. and Europe between 1968 and 1971 -- made it out in a variety of forms in the years following the band's initial breakthrough. Strangely, however, it was not until 1991 -- a full 20 years after "Funny Funny" gave them their long-awaited first hit -- that the entire canon was pulled together, as Repertoire raided the vaults not only of Fontana and Parlophone, the band's first two labels, but also visited some less-familiar directions as well. The bulk of First Recordings 1968-1971 -- tracks one through eight -- comprises all four original singles, a mixed bag that ran from the unadulterated pop of "Lollipop Man" and "Slow Motion" to the convincing harder rock of "The Juicer." None have much in common with anything that Sweet would become -- Andy Scott had still to join the band at this time, leaving guitar duties on the first three singles to predecessors Frank Torpey and Mick Stewart.

The enjoyably lightweight "Get on the Line," meanwhile, was the first band release on which Connolly's vocal was accompanied by sessionmen. Of course, it would not be the last. Of the remainder, the quintessentially late-'60s bubblegum pop of "The Spider," "I'm on My Way," and "My Little Girl From Kentucky" also feature Connolly alone, having been recorded as mere guide vocals for a now-forgotten band he met in the studio around 1968, while "Question" dates back to Connolly and Tucker's stint with Wainwright's Gentlemen and is most notable for its songwriting credits.

Connolly's predecessor in the band, Ian Gillan, composed the song with bandmate (and fellow future Deep Purple stalwart) Roger Glover (under the pseudonym R David). It's an intriguing collection, then, and a grand value for the committed Sweet collector. Less-specialized tastes, however, will probably find a lot more interesting collections to pick up before turning their attention to First Recordings 1968-1971.(allmusic.com)

Some really enjoyable stuff here if you like Bubbleglam.
Have fun
               Frank

                                         Flac    &   mp3@320