Pop/Power Pop by Dwight Twilley - XXI (1996 Shelter Records) Flac & mp3@320

Despite critical raves at the time and the undeniable high quality of the songs, the Dwight Twilley Band never quite achieved the success they so sorely deserved. XXI collects the finer moments of the band's brief recording career, which only ran from 1976 to 1978, as well as highlights from Twilley's solo work, spanning from 1979 to late 1995.

This 21-track compilation offers a good sampling of album favorites, the hits ("I'm On Fire" and "Girls" -- both peaked at number 16), some lost should-of-been hits ("Shark" and "Somebody to Love"), a never-before-released song from an aborted 1994 album and a newly recorded track, "That Thing You Do."

For fans, the rarities and song-by-song commentary by Twilley make XXI an essential addition. For those unfamiliar with Twilley and company's perfect pop, there is no better place to start.( allmusic.com)

Dwight Twilley is one of the great artists in power pop who is (despite his few hits) with his work very underrated. He never achieved the success he deserved with his music. Most of his songs have a special depth, not only in the ballads. There is no other power pop artist where you can hear that obviously what was the musical favourites (except the Beatles) of Twilley as a young man. No one carried the original Rock'n'Roll, how it sounds in the fifties, into power pop music like Twilley. And that's audible in a lot of his songs. Little Richard, Eddy Cochran, Elvis - they all are in the music of Dwight Twilley.

Enjoy
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Various Artists - Garage Beat '66 Vol.6 ''Speak of the Devil'' (2006 Sundazed Records) Flac & mp3@320

The garage band era of the mid-'60s was the modern equivalent of a folk movement as seemingly every town in America had a half-dozen or more energetic, ragged and often musically challenged young rock combos vying for weekend gigs and small independent record deals.

These bands frequently made up for what they lacked in ability and originality with an abundance of verve and self-perceived panache, and if they did manage to make a record, it was usually derivative and crude, but often fascinatingly so, even if few of these releases ever so much as dented a regional play list.

These are the kinds of musical artifacts that Sundazed has collected in its Garage Beat series, of which this is the sixth volume. Subtitled Speak of the Devil, this installment features a heavy dose of sneering, attitude-laden garage gems recorded between 1965 and 1967, including the William Penn Fyve's wry "Swami" (the organ player from the band, Gregg Rolie, went on to greater fame with Santana and then later still with Journey), Neal Ford & the Fanatics' "Good Men (Are Hard to Find)," the Road Runners' "Goodbye" (this one could have easily been a big pop hit in a world with a fair and equitable music distribution system) and a spirited version of Bo Diddley's "Who Do You Love" by the Druids of Stonehenge.

Nothing here would have toppled the Beatles or the Rolling Stones back in the day, but now, some forty years on, these tracks still sound wonderfully snotty and free of annoying finesse. What a time it was.(allmusic.com)

Hello Folks, here come the sixth part of Garage Beat '66 with more great songs from the sixties.

Enjoy it
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The Rich Kids - Best Of The Rich Kids (2003 EMI Records) Flac & mp3@320

History has taught that the Sex Pistols didn't do themselves many favors by sacking bassist Glen Matlock in favor of public spectacle and heroin poster boy Sid Vicious, especially since it soon became obvious that without Matlock, the Pistols didn't have an especially strong songwriter onboard (or a bassist with a working command of his instrument). However, left to his own devices, Matlock wasn't in much better shape; after leaving the Pistols, Matlock formed the Rich Kids, and while he brought his knack for a hook with him, his new band wasn't nearly as exciting (admittedly a tall order). Featuring former Silk kid and future Ultravox frontman Midge Ure on vocals, drummer Rusty Egan (whose future resumé would include stints in Visage and Thin Lizzy), and guitarist Steve New along with Matlock, the Rich Kids had chops and enthusiasm, but a rather lopsided sense of direction, wavering between punk and glam without ever landing comfortably in either, and while the band managed a few stray tracks that worked -- most notably their self-titled debut single and the title cut from their sole album, Ghosts of Princes in Towers -- most of their output was goopy and overdone (Mick Ronson's production on the album didn't help one bit), with Ure's highly theatrical vocal style more than a bit irritating in large doses.

Best of the Rich Kids collects practically everything you could want from this band -- it features the Ghosts of Princes in Towers album in its entirety (and in sequence), along with a dozen single tracks, live cuts, and unreleased tunes, which means you get the handful of career highlights along with everything else that cluttered up this group's catalog, all in cleanly remastered form. If you want a Rich Kids CD, Best of the Rich Kids is doubtless the one to get, but it's an open question how often you'll ever bother to listen to the disc all the way through after cherry-picking the three or four obvious gems and putting them on your homemade "punk also-rans" compilation.(allmusic.com)

Like all in music this is a matter of taste. I found a lot more gems here.

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Sunshine/Baroque/Pop & a little Bubblegum: Thomas & Richard Frost - Visualise 1969/70 (2002 Rev-Ola) Flac & mp3

Visualise, the long lost album by Thomas & Richard Frost (ex-Powder), is not only available -- 33 years after it was originally recorded -- for the first time on compact disc, but for the first time in any format. In some ways, the album represents that rare occurrence when a genuine obscurity actually turns out to be better than expected after such a long wait. Indeed, Visualise turns out to be not just a lost classic from the late '60s, but a sublime and stunning "soft pop" wonder. The discovery of this "lost masterpiece," in fact, should create the kind of fervor that Billy Nicholls' long sought after and legendary Would You Believe album created when it was finally released on CD in 1999.

In 1970, Thomas & Richard Frost had already recorded a handful of classic pop singles for Imperial and Liberty, including "She's Got Love," which charted at number 83 on Billboard's Top 100 singles chart. Each subsequent single was a step further toward what was sure to be their artistic tour de force, Visualise. Unfortunately, plans to release this album were inexplicably aborted in the 11th hour by Imperial's decision-makers, even though the master recordings were already in the can and the album had already been assigned a catalog number (LP-12450). Imperial was in disarray, and the Frosts were, unfortunately, victimized by what was going on behind the scenes.

(In 1968, the Transamerica Corporation, the company that owned United Artists, bought the Liberty/Imperial labels and merged them with UA, but by 1970 UA transferred most of Imperial's artists to Liberty for future releases -- by 1971, Imperial had essentially ceased to exist as a distinct new-product label.)
Fast-forward to 2002: Rev-Ola's Joe Foster discovers the album and negotiates the release of Visualise in its entirety -- tracks one through 12 were the originally planned album, from the introductory "Prelude" to the album's "Outro" -- but Foster also thankfully includes the duo's original mono singles. For these fantastic 1969 recordings, the duo was backed by Kim Fowley's usual Imperial session gang -- including Skip Battin (ex-Skip & Flip, the Byrds, the Flying Burrito Brothers, and the New Riders of the Purple Sage) and Steppenwolf guitarist Mars Bonfire -- along with the cream of the crop of L.A.'s "Wrecking Crew" session players, including Barney Kessel, Larry Knechtel, and legendary drummer Hal Blaine (Allen Breneman also contributes drums).

The album sessions, incidentally, were produced by Ted Glasser, who also co-wrote "If I Can't Be Your Lover" with singer Vic Dana. This excellent reissue's liner notes -- by archivist and renowned West Coast music expert Alec Palao, who also produced this amazing reissue for Rev-Ola -- were provided with input from Tom Martin, who also supplied various photographs and other memorabilia to expand the planned original sleeve. This release is sure to be praised far and wide by fans of West Coast psych-soft pop and bands like the Millennium, Sagittarius, or any other Curt Boettcher-produced releases from the same time period.(allmusic.com)

Marvelous pop album from the late sixties. It never was released till 2002 Rev-ola released it. Some things i will never understand. But...better late than never, right?! I hope you will have fun,

Cheers
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Various Artists - Garage Beat '66 Vol.5 ''Readin' Your Will'' (2006 Sundazed Records) Flac & mp3@320

Sundazed's excellent Garage Beat '66 series doesn't lose momentum on its fifth volume, Readin' Your Will! Where the previous four installments focused almost exclusively on bands that aped the Rolling Stones and Yardbirds, this set digs into the trippier, psychedelic side of garage rock with a set of 20 tracks recorded between 1964 and 1968. There's still some straight-ahead rock & roll here, such as the Arkay IV's "Little Girl" or the Heart Beats' take on "Little Latin Lupe Lu," but there's a heavier dose of spacy harmonies, jangling guitars, fuzz tones, and swirling organs here than on previous installments of the Garage Beat '66 series.

After four volumes of pile-driving garage, this comes as a welcome change of pace, particularly because there are a lot of quite excellent singles here. A lot of this leans toward the menacing side of Texas garage rock, à la 13th Floor Elevators, but there are gentler moments like the Thingies' "I'm Going Ahead" that helps make this the most musically diverse and enjoyable disc of the series.

Like the other Garage Beat '66 discs, this does contain a bunch of songs that will be familiar to hardcore garage-psych collectors -- and it does contain such cult favorites as Unrelated Segments and the tremendous Zakary Thaks -- but while those collectors will love the excellent sound and liner notes here, this isn't intended solely for collectors.

This, like the other entries in Garage Beat '66, is for garage-psych fans who love Nuggets and want to dig deeper without resorting to sorting through the Pebbles and Rubble series, or listening to all of the Trash Box. For those listeners, Readin' Your Will!, like the rest of Garage Beat '66 series, is an irresistible addition to their library.(allmusic)

Vol.5 starts with the ''Unrelated Segments'' (I will post them in the next days alone) and shows from the beginning it fits for 100% into this fine box of seven volumes by great sixties american garage bands. You will like it

Enjoy
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US Garage: The Mourning Reign (USA) - Satisfaction Guaranteed (Vinyl 24/96) 1966-1967 (2013 Beat Rocket) Flac & mp3@320

Formed in San Jose, California, USA, the Mourning Reign were garage band peers of the Chocolate Watchband and the Harbinger Complex. Initially known as the English, they comprised Frank Beau Maggi (vocals), Johnnie Bell (lead guitar), Steve Canali (rhythm guitar), Charlie Garden (bass) and Craig Maggi (drums). They were highly popular in the suburbs of south and east San Francisco, playing punk-styled material derivative of the Rolling Stones and Yardbirds. The group recorded a cover version of ‘Evil Hearted You’ as their debut in 1966, before completing a compulsive original song, ‘Satisfaction’s Guaranteed’, as its follow-up. Thomas O’Bonsawin then replaced Bell, but although two further tracks were completed for a third single, it remained unissued as the Mourning Reign split up in 1968 when several members were drafted to Vietnam.(allmusic.com)

This San Jose band from the mid-1960s has had a cult following for quite some time based on a tiny handful of local sides that passed from one collector to another, enhancing their rep by word of mouth. This ten-song issue on Sundazed's vinyl only subsidiary label captures them raw 'n' nasty, blasting through some studio covers of Who, Cream and Yardbirds tunes and a brace of their own stuff. Lead singer Beau Maggi was one of the best garage-band Jagger soundalikes, and the band had that nether ground between British fuzztone band and coming psychedelia down pretty darn well; it's all here to enjoy.(Cub Koda, allmusic.com) 

A band who is also on the ''Garage Beat '66'' series. This guys played a very good style with different influences.

Have fun
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Harmony/Sunshine Pop by subsequently Bread members: The Pleasure Fair - The Pleasure Fair 1967 (1997 Universal Japan) Flac & mp3

Vocalist Michelle Cochrane, singer/keyboardist Robb Royer, bassist Tim Hallinan, and drummer Steve Cohn formed harmony pop quartet the Pleasure Fair in Los Angeles in 1966. The group signed to Uni Records the following year, and on the recommendation of session ace Leon Russell, pop maestro David Gates was installed to produce their self-titled debut LP, headlined by the single "Morning Glory Days." "(I'm Gonna Have To) Let You Go" followed in 1968, and the Pleasure Fair soon dissolved; Gates then recruited Royer to join his fledgling soft pop group Bread, and the rest is AM radio history -- Hallinan is also among the musicians credited on the first Bread album, and later enjoyed a career as a mystery novelist. (allmusic.com)

Short lived project of harmony pop with some very fine vocal arrangements. Maybe you give it a try if you like well arranged vocals with slight folk influences.

Have fun
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Various Artists - Garage Beat '66 Vol.4 ''I'm In Need'' (2006 Sundazed Records) Flac & mp3@320

Sundazed picks up its Garage Beat '66 series where it left off, with the fourth volume, subtitled I'm in Need!, following the same pattern as the first three, serving up 20 garage rock sides from the latter half of the '60s (1966 is ground zero for this comp, but it features tracks recorded between 1965 and 1970). While this series does have something to offer serious collectors -- primarily excellent sound quality and a handful of previously unreleased tracks -- it isn't intended for garage fanatics: it's designed as the next step for listeners who love Nuggets but don't have the time, inclination, or patience to sort through the various Pebbles and Rubble series.

It's also for listeners who have a fairly strict definition of garage, preferring American bands inspired by the Rolling Stones and Yardbirds bashing out blues-influenced primitive rockers, not the psychedelia that runs rampant through Nuggets, because there's precious little of that to be found here. Which isn't to say that Garage Beat is monotonous (well, no more than any other garage rock comp, but anybody interested in this music knows that going into the disc). There's a good variety of sounds and attitudes on I'm in Need!, from the snide, harmonica-fueled opener of the Haunted's "1-2-5" and Rob Kirk & the Word's minor-key, trippy "Girl Talk" to Nobody's Children's fuzzy, sneering "Good Times" and the Torquays' tense, Yardbirds-styled "Harmonica Man (From London Town)."

 There are three previously unissued cuts here, all noteworthy: the Counts IV's dense, wordy "Discussion of the Unorthodox Council," the Groupies' version of Willie Dixon's "Down in the Bottom," which is a rowdy barnstormer, and the Rahgoos' "Do the Rahgoo," an exhilarating manic two-minute blast of chaos. While there are no big hits here and a couple of cuts don't rise above the appealingly generic, this is a tight, compulsively listenable collection of some of the best second-tier garage rock singles.

Much of this can be found elsewhere or is well known to hardened collectors, but for those listeners who don't want to amass a large collection of garage comps, this volume of Garage Beat, like the others, is an excellent distillation of some of the best lesser-known sides of the genre.(allmusic.com)

Here we go with vol.4 and i hope you will have fun. The american garage bands were excellent back then in the sixties. Enjoy!

Cheers
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Psychedelic Rock: The Illusion - The Illusion (CD) 1969 & Together (As A Way Of Life) (vinyl) 1969 (TRC Records 1994) FLAC ONLY!

This Long Island quintet tried to simultaneously fly their freak flag and sweet-talk the teenyboppers, and the results were lopsided but strong enough to shine years later. The Illusion scored a Top 40 hit in 1969 with a truncated version of the opening track from this debut LP, "Did You See Her Eyes."

It's a tough, swaggering number with a simple theme (skirt watching) and a basic structure, but the album cut is expanded with an obtrusive drum solo, assorted echo/wah-wah effects, and an uncredited cop from Sly & the Family Stone's "Sing a Simple Song."

Such unnecessary tampering proves that the Illusion were hip to the new directions that rock was taking at the time and had grander plans for their music than mere hit singles. Regardless, these guys sound best when they get straight to the blue-eyed soul without any prog rock side trips. "Talkin' Sweet Talkin' Soul" should have been the hit, a rambunctious power pop number that bounces around the ears with an irresistible wordless vocal hook. The medley of "Run, Run Run" and "Willy Gee (Miss Holy Lady)" combines both tendencies, pairing the aggressive hard rock of the former ("I'm gonna get shot/This girl is hot!") with the bubblegummy singsong of the latter ("One, two, three/Push out Willy Gee/Four, five, six/Beat him with a stick"). Most of the remaining track time strives for a slightly more psychedelic soul sound, at times reminiscent of the Rationals or a bluesier Byrds. Of these songs, "I Love You, Yes I Do" and "Charlena" stand out, but all the material on this now-rare LP has serious spirit and period charm.(allmusic.com)

Hello Folks, yesterday or the day before yesterday i saw these both albums on the wonderful ''Down Underground'' blog ( link ) and i thought it could be a good idea to post them here in Flac. If you prefer mp3 please go to the Down Underground blog, i post it in this case only in Flac.
Hope you will enjoy
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The Cribs - Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever (2007 Warner Bros.) Flac & mp3@320

With each album, the Cribs have gotten a little sharper and more focused, and nowhere is this clearer than on the brilliantly named Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever, the band's major-label debut. The Cribs enlisted Franz Ferdinand's Alex Kapranos as producer, and it's a good match: while he doesn't impose too much of Franz's clockwork precision on the band, Kapranos reins in the Cribs' more shambling tendencies just enough to make Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever their most listenable, and diverse, work yet.

 The album kicks off with a slew of bouncy, angular songs about awkward relationships and killer crushes that sound like state-of-the-art British indie circa the late 2000s -- in particular, "Our Bovine Public"'s ridiculously catchy melody and punchy drums feel like the results of an experiment to fuse together Maxïmo Park, the Futureheads, and Good Shoes in some secret lab. "Girls Like Mystery" and "I'm a Realist" (which states, bluntly, "I'm an indecisive piece of sh*t") follow suit with more witty lyrics, sweet harmonies, and big, rousing choruses. As good as these songs are, they're so much in the template of this kind of British indie that they run the risk of sounding like caricatures. However, as Men's Needs, Women's Needs, Whatever unfolds, the Cribs expand their sound. Interestingly, they distinguish themselves from other like-minded British bands by adding influences from American acts like Weezer and the Strokes.

Ryan Jarman often sounds like a British Rivers Cuomo, especially on "Moving Pictures," while jaunty, vulnerable songs about emptiness like "I've Tried Everything" and "My Life Flashed Before My Eyes" would fit right in with the work of Julian Casablancas and company. "Be Safe" boasts a poetic rant by Sonic Youth's Lee Ranaldo and sounds, in the best possible way, like some great lost alt-rock song from 1995. It's easily the best song on the album, which is kind of a shame since the Cribs (probably) can't recruit Ranaldo to be their full-time frontman. Fortunately, the tracks that follow it -- especially "Shoot the Poets," the pretty, slightly twangy acoustic song that closes the album -- show that the Cribs' music can't be typecast quite as easily as earlier songs suggested. The Cribs aren't strikingly original -- yet -- but this album sums up where they've been, and where they could go, nicely.(allmusic.com)

2007's ''Men's needs...'' opened a lot new ways and possibilities for the cribs with their signing to major Warner. In front of this background it makes more sense (for Warner) that Johnny Marr came in the band in 2009. Back then i couldn't understand the decision of the band because everything was very well for the band. They were on the way to the top (at least in UK and other european countries). I don't think the band loved it really. Sure they were good pals with Marr but the guys had a lot of pals, lol. I believe it was more a label thing. And it don't really worked well. Not more record sales and a lot of the fan base thought ''why the hell is Marr in my favourite band now?'' In 2011 Marr left the band and everybody was happy again. The band and the fans as well.
Two words about the album: Grab it!
Have fun
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Sunshine Pop by Wichita Falls - Life Is But A Dream 1968 (2011 Tune In Records) Flac & Mp3@320

Liberty Records evidently had great hopes for this obscure late 1968 LP, seeing it as an attempt to fuse classical and rock into a concept album that told, if obscurely, "the story of a life" (as guitarist/singer David Roush remembers in the liner notes to the 2011 CD reissue). The label even put $50,000 into the recording budget, a high sum by 1968 standards, using the string section of the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra and arrangements by the respected Artie Butler. Heard many years later, you have to wonder what Liberty was thinking. For this album (a commercial flop, and the only one Wichita Fall would make) is a pretty tepid attempt at making an ambitious pop masterwork. Wichita Fall's songs were only average material to begin with, perhaps falling on the earthier side of the sunshine pop then in vogue among much of what was being produced in Hollywood.

However, the compositions are not just overwhelmed, but almost subsumed, by the dainty orchestration, which is more appropriate for links on a TV variety show than it is for an album with any connection to rock. It was too much for the original drummer, who left the band rather than play on the album, which made the Moody Blues' Days of Future Passed (a possible influence on Liberty taking this approach in the first place) sound evil and gritty in comparison. While you can hear a potentially decent harmony-oriented pop/rock group in the mix, their strengths are smothered by the settings, and by the time of the infuriatingly cloying closing title track (a variation on the "row row your boat" chant), you might be rolling your eyes at the excess.

[The CD reissue on Tune In adds two bonus tracks from a non-LP 45 that show their strengths as a fair pop-folk-rock group to much greater advantage, especially on the country-influenced "Ginger Blue," though the other side ("Lovely Love") is still a little overproduced. The reissue also has extensive historical liner notes, with quotes from bandmembers, that tell the fascinating story of the flawed album's creation well.](allmusic.com)

Digitally remastered and expanded edition of this achingly beautiful orchestrated 1968 pop Psych odyssey from Los Angeles. Wichita Fall's Life Is But a Dream takes the listener on a magical musical journey of 13 compositions, grouped into four suites, all lovingly arranged by renowned conductor Artie Butler. Taken from the original Liberty Records masters, this release also includes both sides of their final 45, along with the complete inside story behind the album in the liner notes with quotations from group members and rare photographs. This is a must hear for all fans of sunshine Psychedelia and orchestrated Pop. Tune In.(amazon)

This is a great sunshine pop work with fine orchestrations.
Have fun
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Various Artists - Garage Beat '66 Vol.3 ''Feeling Zero...'' (2006 Sundazed Records) Flac & mp3@320

The third volume in Sundazed's Garage Beat '66 follows the same format as the preceding installments, the 20 tracks hailing from all over North America, most of them quite rare, all of them sourced from the original masters. Mid-'60s garage rock is the main course here, but it does allow for some different shades than the stereotypical snarling fuzz-laden pounders, including some psychedelic and pop-influenced productions.

The Music Machine is the only group here that had a big hit (though they're represented by a non-charting 1968 single, "Mother Nature/Father Earth"), and while some of the other songs and artists will be fairly familiar to '60s collectors who specialize in this area, most listeners who've only just digested the Nuggets box set will find most of it virgin territory.

It occupies a somewhat peculiar niche, though, in that collectors who dig this stuff might be apt to already have the better cuts here -- Southwest F.O.B.'s pop-psychedelic "Smell of Incense," the first-rate harmonized pop/rock of the E-Types' "She Moves Me," the Preachers' fierce version of "Who Do You Love," the Brogues' Pretty Things-inspired "Don't Shoot Me Down" (with a couple of future members of Quicksilver Messenger Service), and the Mourning Reign's moody "Satisfaction Guaranteed."

The other songs are mostly below the standard of the aforementioned items, but a few goodies do lurk here, particularly the mix of stomping rhythms and tag-team harmonies in the Answer's "I'll Be In" and the Mile Ends' "Bottle Up and Go," a galvanizing slice of blues-pop-garage that's one of the best such efforts not to show up on too many compilations.(R. Unterberger, allmusic.com)

Hello Folks, i am a little late today but it was a very busy Saturday for me. Anyway, here is the third part of the ''Garage Beat '66'' series. Hope you have fun with the bands here.

Enjoy
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