Remembered chiefly as proto-punkers who reached the
top of the charts with the "caveman rock" of "Wild Thing" (1966), the Troggs
were also adept at crafting power pop and ballads. Hearkening back to a
somewhat simpler, more basic British Invasion approach as psychedelia
began to explode in the late '60s, the group also reached the Top Five
with their flower-power ballad "Love Is All Around" in 1968. While more
popular in their native England than the U.S., the band also fashioned
memorable, insistently riffing hit singles like "With a Girl Like You,"
"Night of the Long Grass," and the notoriously salacious "I Can't
Control Myself" between 1966 and 1968. Paced by Reg Presley's lusting
vocals, the group -- which composed most of their own material -- could
crunch with the best of them, but were also capable of quite a bit more
range and melodic invention than they've been given credit for.
Hailing from the relatively unknown British town of Andover, the Troggs hooked up with manager/producer Larry Page (who was involved in the Kinks' early affairs) in the mid-'60s. After a flop debut single, they were fortunate enough to come across a demo of Chip Taylor's "Wild Thing" (which had already been unsuccessfully recorded by the Wild Ones). In the hands of the Troggs,
"Wild Thing" -- with its grungy chords and off-the-wall ocarina solo --
became a primeval three-chord monster, famous not only in its original
hit Troggs version, but in its psychedelic revamping by Jimi Hendrix, who used it to close his famous set at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.
"Wild Thing" made number one in the States, but the Troggs'
momentum there was impeded by a strange legal dispute which saw their
early records simultaneously released on two different labels. Nor did
it help that the band didn't tour the U.S. for a couple of years. As a
consequence, the fine follow-up singles "With a Girl Like You" and "I
Can't Control Myself" didn't do as well as they might have. In Britain,
it was a different story -- they were smashes, although "I Can't Control
Myself" had such an open-hearted lust that it encountered resistance
from conservative radio programmers all over the globe.
The Troggs tempered their image on subsequent
ballads, which utilized a sort of pre-"power ballad" approach. These
weren't bad, and a few of them were British hits, but they weren't as
fine as the initial blast of singles which established the band's image.
"Love Is All Around," which restored them to the American Top Ten in
1968, was their finest effort in this vein. It was also their final big
hit on either side of the Atlantic.
But the Troggs
would keep going for a long, long time. In a sense they were
handicapped by their image -- they were not intellectuals, certainly,
but they weren't dumb either. They wrote most of their songs, and their
albums were reasonably accomplished, if hardly up to the level of the Kinks or Traffic,
containing some nifty surprises like the gothic ballad "Cousin Jane,"
or the tongue-in-cheek psychedelia of "Maybe the Madman." By 1970,
though, they were struggling. They continued to release a stream of
singles, most of which had a straightforward simplicity that was out of
step with the progressive rock of the time, all of which flopped, though
some were fairly good.
The Troggs' image as lunkheads couldn't have been
helped by the notorious Troggs Tapes, a 12-minute studio argument that
was captured on tape while the band were unawares. The Spinal Tap-like
dialog helped keep their cult alive, though, and as punk gained momentum
in the mid-'70s, they gained belated appreciation as an important
influence on bands like the Ramones and (earlier) the MC5.
They found enough live work (sometimes on the punk/new wave circuit) to
keep going, although their intermittent records generally came to
naught. In 1992, they rose to their highest profile in ages when three
members of R.E.M., which had covered "Love Is All Around," backed the Troggs on the comeback album Athens Andover.
These guys were a far better band than most peoples thought. They had a lot of great songs. Popsongs! And they were no way 'caverock'. I've never understand what this term mean. Never mind!
Enjoy this collection
Kind regards
Frank
mp3@320
Here is an other quote: The often perceptive dude from Badcat records had this to say about their debut album: "Formed
in 1978, Philadelphia's The A's featured the talents of bassist Terry
Bortman, singer Richard Bush, lead guitarist Rick DiFonzo, keyboardist
Rocco Notte, and drummer Mikey Snyder. The band's live shows quickly
garnered them a loyal local following (you can still find a slew of
fawning on-line reviews from folks who saw the band's early shows).
That in turn captured the attention of Clive Davis' Arista label which
was on the lookout for new wave talent. While The A's weren't really a
new wave act, they were close enough for Arista management which quickly
signed them to a recording contract. They were quickly teamed with
producer Rick Chertoff going into New York's The
Record Plant Studios to record 1979's cleverly-titled "The A's". So
leave it to a city like Philadelphia to spawn a bunch of guys who
thought they were punks, but had a repertoire full of songs that were
creative, lyrically intriguing, funny, and highly commercial. Judging
by the leather jacket drenched album cover, Bush (the only one member
not wearing Ramones-styled leather) and company seemingly thought they
were channeling English new-wave bands like The Boomtown Rats, or The
Undertones (I know they were Irish), but the fact of the matter is The
A's were really a first rate power-pop band. Yeah, there wasn't a great
deal of originality spread across these ten original numbers, but
propelled by Bush's tawny, raw voice tracks like 'After Last Night',
'Teenage Jerk Off' and 'Grounded' had far more energy and enthusiasm
than virtually all of the competition – imagine The Hooters with a
new-wave edge, or a more urbane, jittery version of The Dwight Twilley
Band, or a tougher version of The Cars and you'd have some idea of what
to expect" 
