Chad And Jeremy - (OST) Three In The Attic 1968 Flac

This is the third album i highly recommend if you like light psychedelic pop. The album is a six piece. All six songs are written, composed and arranged by Chad Stuart. It's the soundtrack of the American International Pictures film 3 In The Attic. I never saw the film so please excuse me that i can't tell you something about the story line. The album's running time is around 30 minutes. Song number 6 alone have a running time of 13min 22 sec.

All i can say this is a very fine album and all six songs are real good imho. Give it a try you will not be disappointed.
Cheers
           Frank  Flac

Chad & Jeremy - Sing For You - A Golden Classics Edition [Collectables] 1993 Flac

Of the many British Invasion acts that stormed the charts in the wake of the Beatles, Chad & Jeremy possessed a subtlety and sophistication unmatched among their contemporaries, essentially creating the template for the kind of lush, sensitive folk-pop embraced by followers from Nick Drake to Belle & Sebastian. Chad Stuart (born in Windemere, England, on December 10, 1941) and Jeremy Clyde (born March 22, 1941, in Buckinghamshire, England) met while attending London's Central School of Speech and Drama. The two became fast friends, and after Stuart taught Clyde to play guitar, they formed a folk duo as well as a rock & roll group, the Jerks. Because he graduated a year ahead of his bandmates, Clyde relocated to Scotland and performed with the Dundee Repertory Theatre.
When the Jerks dissolved, Stuart dropped out of school, studied arranging, and wrote songs with composer Russell Franks. Clyde returned to London soon after, but in the face of an actors' strike, he resumed his music career, reunited with Stuart, and the duo landed a residency at the local coffeehouse, Tina's. Chad & Jeremy quickly earned a fan following, and in mid-1963 composer and producer John Berry signed the duo to the small independent label Ember Records. They released their debut single, "Yesterday's Gone," that autumn and it entered the U.K. Top 40. Remarkably, it would prove their only British hit of any real substance.
By the time their sophomore effort, "Like I Love You Today," was released in early 1964, Chad & Jeremy were headlining the West End landmark Hatchett's. Despite the increased exposure, the record flopped, and Berry bought out his Ember contract, relegating the duo's planned LP to producer Shel Talmy in the process. Soon after the release of Chad & Jeremy Sing for You, the Daily Express published a photo of a young Clyde (a graduate of the prestigious private school Eton and a descendent of the famed Duke of Wellington) in royal garb at the 1952 coronation of Queen Elizabeth.
Given the credibility afforded the working-class backgrounds of rockers like John Lennon and Paul McCartney, the publicity proved a near-fatal blow, effectively branding Chad & Jeremy upper-crust nancy-boys merely pretending at careers in music. But, as the album tanked at home, Chad & Jeremy's U.S. label, World Artists, scored a Top 20 American hit with "Yesterday's Gone," followed in August of 1964 by "A Summer Song," a gorgeously nuanced and pastoral folk-pop masterpiece that cracked the Billboard Top Five. When "Willow Weep for Me" also charted in the U.S., Chad & Jeremy relocated to California and signed with the infamous manager Allen Klein, who negotiated a buyout of their World Artists contract and landed the duo a new deal with Columbia.

In late 1964, Chad & Jeremy made their American television debut on The Hollywood Palace. William Morris agent John Hartman was so impressed with their performance that he offered his representation, which resulted in appearances on the sitcoms The Dick Van Dyke Show and The Patty Duke Show. Chad & Jeremy were television fixtures for years to come, additionally appearing on The Danny Kaye Show, Shindig, and Hullabaloo. Between tour stops and studio dates, the pace was relentless and, in the spring of 1965, Stuart was leveled by mononucleosis. When Clyde accepted a role in the London musical Passion Flower Hotel (a nine-month commitment), he and Stuart quickly recorded an LP, I Don't Want to Lose You Baby, while the latter continued his rehabilitation.

The duo maintained they were not breaking up, but rumors reached a fever pitch when Clyde failed to return to the U.S. for a scheduled Chicago performance and forced Stuart to take the stage alone with a cardboard cutout of his partner under his arm. Stuart next released a record called "The Cruel War" with his wife, Jill, while Clyde cut a John Barry-produced solo single, "I Love My Love." Neither earned much attention, and at year's end Chad & Jeremy reunited to make a new album, Distant Shores, and film a proposed pilot for NBC. The show was rejected (in favor of another project with a rock & roll theme, The Monkees) and Chad & Jeremy instead guested on two episodes of the blockbuster Batman.

Chad & Jeremy spent close to a year in the studio with producer Gary Usher to create 1967's Of Cabbages and Kings, a dense, ambitious record dubbed "a soundtrack without the film" by Clyde. The album served to alienate much of the duo's core fan base, however, and sales proved dismal. Usher nevertheless produced the follow-up single, "Painted Dayglow Smile," followed in early 1968 by "Sister Marie." Tensions between Chad & Jeremy continued, prompted in large part by the latter's burgeoning acting career, and after completing The Ark -- a project so expensive it led Columbia to terminate Usher's contract -- the duo split, although the soundtrack to the film Three in the Attic, essentially a Stuart solo effort, appeared in 1969 under the Chad & Jeremy aegis. Clyde turned to acting full-time and appeared alongside ex-Manfred Mann vocalist Paul Jones in the long-running stage production Conduct Unbecoming. Stuart, meanwhile, signed on as music director for The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, followed by a stint as a staff producer with A&M Records. Chad & Jeremy reunited in 1977 to record a handful of unreleased demos, and five years later, they signed to RCA's Rocshire subsidiary to release a comeback LP, Chad Stuart & Jeremy Clyde. The record went nowhere, but their partnership continued, first in a London production of Pump Boys and Dinettes and then as part of the 1986 "British Invasion II" package tour. Chad & Jeremy continued touring intermittently well into the 21st century.
This is a different work as ''Of Cabbages And Kings'' is.
Enjoy
          SB1 Link 1    You need both links! New 2nd link (fixed)

Chad Stuart And Jeremy Clyde - Of Cabbages And Kings 1967 2006 Sony, Japan (Flac)

Chad and Jeremy had done three albums who sound different to their common folk sound. I will post these albums here in the next days. The first s here OF Cabbages And Kings, the second one is called The Ark and the third one is called 3 In The Attic. All three albums were produced by Gary Usher and reflect the more pop oriented psychedelicism of the duo. Hope you will have fun with the albums. First here comes Of Kings And Cabbages.

I will later post ''Sing for you - A golden classics edition'' who shows the more folk sound of the guys.
Enjoy
         Frank   Flac

Cheepskates - It Wings Above (1988) 1989 Music Maniac (Flac)

Led by singer/guitarist Shane Faubert, the Cheepskates were a big part of the '80s revival of the garage rock scene on the East Coast. They released two albums with their first lineup, a four-piece that concentrated more on the retro side of the sound. By 1987, Faubert was ready for a new direction and scaled the band down to a three piece for the power pop releases Remember and It Wings Above.

After a live album and a covers EP, they returned to the studio for one last time. The result, 1990's Confessional, was disappointing to listeners and the band alike, leading to the eventual dissolving of the group. A post-breakup album of Residents' songs found its way onto shelves in 1992, while Faubert continued in the same musical vein on his solo material.

 The Cheepskates' fourth album is rooted in some of the same 1960s rock that informed their early work, but also has a somewhat more modern power pop and alt-rock sensibility. One of the chief traits distinguishing this from other retro-sounding groups is the light and winsome tonality of Shane Faubert's lead vocals, which contrasts heavily with the generic snot-brat garage attitude many revivalist-style combos adopt. There's a little bit of a surf thrust to the tempo and percussive drive of some of the tunes, which are generally airy and peppy love tunes. It's not a major accomplishment, but it's fairly pleasant pop-rock that's neither insipid nor crude. The CD version includes an extra track, the "electric version" of "Everytime You Change Your Mind."

Shane Faubert is a culpable underrated musician of the last 30 years in pop music. This album is in my opinion the best of the Cheepskates.
Have fun
               SB1  Flac

The Shakers (Los Shakers) - Por Favor (1965 - 1968) 2000 Big Beat mp3

Los Shakers: Por Favor (Big Beat). No doubt this will stand as the most definitive single-disc compilation of Uruguay's Shakers (referred to as "the Shakers" on some releases and "Los Shakers" on others, including this one). There are 32 tracks, and 79 minutes, taken from all three of the LPs they issued in South America between 1965-68, along with three cuts from 1966 singles, almost everything sung in English. It cements, as if any further proof were necessary, their well-deserved reputation as the top Beatlesque '60s band from South America, and indeed one of the most uncannily Beatlesque bands from anywhere, at any time.

Does that mean that this is as good as, or nearly as good as, the Beatles themselves?

No, but it's good fun all the same, even if much of the disc sounds like inverted, or at times barely altered, ideas from Beatles riffs and arrangements. They were at their best, perhaps, when mimicking the A Hard Day's Night-era fab four, as they did on their 1965 debut LP Los Shakers, most of which is here. They did, however, evolve to some degree artistically, albeit rather in tandem with how the Beatles' own records changed in 1965-67, adding some (but not much) native rhythmic styles and riffs here and there; putting Revolver-type vocals and meters into cuts like "Picking Up Troubles" and "Got Any Money?"; putting some downbeat jazzy riffs into the fine "Too Late"; using freaky backwards guitar and drones in "I Hope You'll Like It," their most advanced cut; and adopting the march-beat midtempo and sunny harmonies of many 1967 Beatles tunes on numbers like "On a Tuesday I Watch Channel 36."

This anthology is not, incidentally, the last word on the Shakers' output: there are no tracks from their US-only 1966 LP Break It All (which featured re-recordings of their early South American sides), and a handful of other numbers show up on the Brazilian EMI CD All the Best.(Richie Unterberger)

Try it if you like the Liverpool sound (this came from Uruguay lol) and you will not regret it
Have fun
               SB1  mp3@320

The Shambles - Reviving Spark 1996 (Japan Release) (mp3@320)

The Shambles are a Power Pop band with a garage style and mod influences. ''A common love of 60's pop music and culture served as a unifying influence and this diverse mix of mod, garage, power pop -- and even a touch of folk -- would become The Shambles' own unique sound.''(taken from the band's page). Thats what the band says about themself.

Reviving Spark is a compilation of the band and shows the band from the best side.
Enjoy
         SB1 mp3@320

 

More mp3! A little more of mp3 files

Hello Friends and Folks , first i wish all of you a good morning and a relaxed free weekend.
I want to announce that i will post a little more of mp3 files in the future because a lot people wrote me they would love to see more mp3 here on the blog. Also i see there are a big number of downloads at the mp3's i posted in the past. I am very surprised by myself about that. I thought always people like more the ''lossless'' files. I know there are a lot of arguments and reasons 'pro' Flac and 'against' mp3 and reverse. I think we don't must discuss it here once again. But if it possible for me i don't want to ignore a part of the blog audience. I  share music for the reason of spreading this music that we all love.
It won't change a lot and i will post the Flac files furthermore. But the amount of mp3 postings will get a little more. In some cases it will make it a little easier for me because it is no fun to make two or three archives for one album. I love what i do here with the blog and i hope you like it, too. Because this only can be functional with you, the listeners. Okay, no panic because just a little will change and i hope you all understand it.

Kind regards
                     Frank

Classic Power Pop From Ohio: Blue Ash - No More No Less 1973 (2008 Collector's Choice) Flac

Hailing from Ohio just like the Raspberries, Blue Ash are the great forgotten power pop band of the early '70s. Actually, "forgotten" may be too strong a word, for any power pop fan worth their salt knows of Blue Ash even if they've never to score either of their two LPs, whether in their original pressing or traded on cassette or CD-R. They were known as one of the key early power pop bands, standing alongside the Raspberries and Badfinger in how they drew equally from the Beatles and the Who. If anything, Blue Ash leaned on that Who influence harder than the Raspberries, rocking a vigor rarely heard in power pop and also opening themselves up to the lyrical vistas of Bob Dylan by covering the rarity "Dusty Old Fairgrounds," a move rarely made by power poppers. All this indicates that Blue Ash were a rock band first and foremost, placing the sheer rush of sound over hooks, something that a lot of their progeny never did. That's what gives their debut No More No Less -- finally reissued by Collectors Choice in 2008, a full 35 years after its release -- such a punch: they are one of the few groups that truly put some power in their pop.

This much is evident by the raucous album-opener "Abracadabra (Have You Seen Her)," a song with all the melodic rush of "Go All the Way" but leaner and meaner. Not all of the album keeps up at this same furious pace, as the guitars jangle as much as they roar and the group occasionally dips into a loping country-rock groove -- not on the Dylan cover, which again sounds a bit like the Who, but on "Just Another Game" -- and they do get sunbleached and mellow on "What More Can I Do." But most of No More No Less filters old-time rock & roll (the big-time boogie "Let There Be Rock") and '60s guitar pop ("Plain to See" evokes the Searchers, "I Remember a Time" the Byrds, and "Anytime at All" is a Beatles cover) through the outsized amplification of '70s hard rock. It's an addictive sound -- and one that hinted at the power pop that was to come even if it didn't directly influence it -- and it still carries a mighty punch all these years later.

I think most of you know the album and the band. The reason why i post it is to show it people that don't know the band. It is for sure an important album for the development of Power Pop in the first half of the seventies. Hope you like it and wish you a lot fun
Cheers
           Frank  Link 1   You need both links!  Link 2

The Dandy Warhols - Thirteen Tales From Urban Suburbia (2000) Flac

Though they still tend towards pastiche, the Dandy Warhols' third full-length, Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia, presents a bakers' dozen of their most focused and cohesive songs. Where their earlier albums were eclectic to the point of being scattershot, this release manages to limit the band's style-switching to dreamy, sweeping epics like "Godless" and "Nietzsche," sussed, sleazy power pop like "Horse Pills" and "Cool Scene," and country and gospel ventures like "Country Leaver" and "The Gospel."

The group's increasingly strong songwriting makes most of these experiments successful and distinctive, though the Dandys fall into their old habit of appropriating sounds they like wholesale with "Shakin'," a "tribute" to Elastica's uptight yet sexy riffs and rhythms. Not surprisingly, the most successful songs on Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia are the least derivative ones, such as anxious pop songs like "Solid," "Get Off," and the delicate, lovelorn ballad "Sleep."

On those tracks, as well as the satirical single "Bohemian Like You" -- this year's model of their hit "Not If You Were the Last Junkie on Earth" -- the Dandys reveal themselves as a savvy pop band with a voice of their own. Though they're not all the way there yet, Tales From Urban Bohemia is a worthwhile step in their developing creativity.

I'm a fan of these guys and girl since i saw them on her first german visit. Great band !
Enjoy
         SB1  Link 1   Link 3  You need all 3 links! Link 2

Tom Robinson Band - Power In The Darkness (1978) 2004 EMI Remastered (mp3)

This is the album by which Tom Robinson's works have been measured; its consistency is all the more remarkable, since he'd written several keynote tracks while toiling in the go-nowhere folk trio Café Society (such as Robinson's defining anthem, "Glad to Be Gay"). Power in the Darkness is proudly defiant as the era that inspired "Up Against the Wall," "Ain't Gonna Take It," "Long Hot Summer," or "The Winter of '79," which level fierce disdain for social hypocrisy. So does the nearly five-minute title track and funk-rock tour de force, while Chris Thomas' production is as razor sharp as the band itself. Guitarist Danny Kustow's go-for-the-throat style is the driving force; it's storming on the rockers yet suitably restrained on quieter fare like "Too Good to Be True," Robinson's lament for oft-delayed social change. Keyboardist Mark Ambler is equally assertive on colorful Hammond organ swashes, while Robinson plunks down simple, legato basslines, and Brian "Dolpin" Taylor keeps the beat pouncing, where others might let it loiter.

The live/studio bonus EP, Rising Free, demonstrates the band's explosive nature. The Ambler-Kustow interplay works to thunderous effect on "Don't Take No for an Answer," Robinson's bittersweet account of a soured publishing deal with the Kinks' Ray Davies; the hit "2-4-6-8 Motorway," one of rock's great drive-all-night numbers; and a searing rearrangement of Bob Dylan's plea for a wrongly accused inmate, "I Shall Be Released." The forceful tone is sometimes undermined by a strident sloganeering streak, as typified by "Right On Sister" or "Better Decide Which Side You're On," but that's a minor complaint amid the music's unflagging strength. Think music and politics don't mix? Listen to this album, and then decide.(allmusic.com)

Definitely the strongest album by Tom Robinson and he never reached musically the power of this album. Highly recommended!
Enjoy
         Frank   mp3@320