Velvett Fogg...Plus - Velvett Fogg (1969/1989)

One of my favourite obscure sixties U.K. psych bands. From the reviews I've come across it appears to be an acquired taste. Still, check out "Lady Caroline", " Within The Night", "Yellow Cave Woman", and their version of "Come Away Melinda". This is their sole album and includes their single as an added bonus. Not bad for a debut album with few covers. The Singer/guitarist Paul Eastment went on to form another obscure group, The Ghost. If there is enough interest I will post that one here as as well.

You get all this plus a hilarious front cover and a John Peel review in all it's sixties glory on the back.



















Reviews:
From the weird name, as well as song titles like "Yellow Cave Woman" and "Plastic Man," you'd expect something a little more interesting than routine late-'60s British psychedelia. However, that's what you get on this rarity, from a group which gave more prominence to heavy organ riffs than the typical outfit of the era. There's no gripping vision or focus -- "Yellow Cave Woman" is a basic riff and lyric that keeps on going for several interminable minutes without variation; "Come Away Melinda" is an odd hard rock cover of the anti-war folk tune; "Owed to the Dip" is a long formless organ instrumental; and "New York Mining Disaster 1941" a strange, pointless Bee Gees cover. The album meanders so directionlessly that it is kind of weird, but in a boring way. [Richie Unterberger]

MP3 192kbps 62.2MB

Out among the Fogg.
PW = apoxonrox

Track List in comments

Ugly Things, Vol. 1 - V/A (1980)

The LP that led me on a long convoluted chase of all manner of good tunes from Oz. 20 tracks that run from punk ,to raunchy R &B, to pop. Tunes that have earned a special reserved spot on many of my playlists include The Creature's "Ugly Thing" (what is that guy screaming?), The Four Stranger's "Sad & Lonely", The Moods' "Rum Drunk", and the Black Diamond's "I Want, Need, Love You". The series had it's ups and downs but the best tracks are to be found here.



















Reviews:
U.S. and U.K. audiences were totally unaware at the time, but Australia was home to a thriving garage-punk scene in the mid-'60s. The scope and output of these groups were limited by the country's population, which was only about 15 million or somewhat less, after all. But there was a surprisingly large number of fine singles, some of which measured up to the manic, over-the-top R&B-derived energy of anything coming from Texas, California, or London. Volume 1 is by far the best of the series and, indeed, one of the best '60s garage compilations ever, filled with good hooks, screams, and crunching riffs. The second and third volumes aren't nearly as good, peppered with undistinguished covers and unmemorable tracks, although some excellent ones do surface, including some from neighboring New Zealand; the best of these two LPs should have been combined into one. Raven has put out a best-of compilation CD from the Ugly Things series that draws from all of the volumes and adds some other cuts. [Richie Unterburger]

MP3 192kbps 68.5 MB

Don't wanna be Sad & Lonely.
PW = apoxonrox

Track list in comments

What A Way To Die - V/A (1983)

As my first upload I thought I'd share one of my all-time favourite garage-punk compilations...
"Your loving fluctuates baby...but the temperature always stays the same on an ice cold bottle of Stroh's"
Truer words were never spoken. A comp full of raw teenage something and one I return to over and over again. Of special note are both Pleasure Seekers tracks (nice bikinis), The Knaves' "Leave Me Alone" and The Renegades version of "13 Women" [Watch the video HERE].

Reviews:
One of the very best '60s garage compilations; considering that there are probably over a thousand entries in that field, that's not a light compliment. Many of the best garage-pop treasures are here: the Enfields' "She Already Has Somebody" (which both recalls and stands up to the best of the Zombies), Richard and the Young Lions' odd clash of snotty punk and pop production ("You Can Make It"), Larry & the Loafers' exhilarating frat-rock clarion call "Let's Go to the Beach," and an extremely cool surf rarity by the Standells. Especially great is the single by Detroit's Pleasure Seekers, one of the very few female '60s garage bands, and possibly the best, featuring a teenage Suzi Quatro. "What a Way to Die" is probably the raunchiest female-sung garage record of the 1960s; its flipside, "Never Thought You'd Leave Me," is more subdued and just as good, showing an unexpected Zombies influence. A nice bonus is the cover shot (of Richard and the Young Lions), one of the best '60s garage band photos ever printed. [Richie Unterberger]

WHAT A WAY TO DIE Satan 1313 USA 1983
Another winner from the golden age of '81-84, compiled by N.J collectors Todd A and Vince B. Several classic punkers made their first reissue here. Contrary to what you've heard, the closing bonus cut is not by the "Dirty water" guys. A reissue was available, plus a recent CD pairing with Hang It Out To Dry. [LamaSivartDoz 1991-2001]

(MP3 192kbps 51.4MB)

Your loving fluctuates baby.
PW = apoxonrox

Track List in comments

Greeting from the Great White North

Ooh, me very first blog post...

Having browsed some of your excellent music blogs over the last couple of weeks, and yes shared a few choice sonic memories, I have decided to join the community and share some of my own treasures with you all.

Over the years I have managed to amass, to the inevitable chagrin of my partner, a few vinyl souvenirs of my often changing musical tastes. Needless to say most of them rarely saw the light of day as I commonly played them once then transferred the tunes to cassette soon after. The only exception was during our yearly change of living space, when I would curse each individual album for contributing to my resulting sore back. When CDs first came out I dreaded having to repurchase all those old albums and so I just went on listening to the cassettes and usually only bought CDs for new artists or albums I didn't already have.

Life was good, that is until MP3 players came out and my last trusty cassette walkman died a horrible grinding death. I knew I had to find a new solution, so I slowly started transferring only my absolute favourite, can't live without vinyl tunes to my computer and original 128 Meg MP3 player. It's tiny size meant only a minimum of transferring ever took place.

Enter Apple and the iPod. I held out for quite a while. But when I saw that 60GB colour beauty I knew I was toast. I had a new mission. To fill it up to capacity. At first all was well in iPod land as I proceeded to upload all my CDs. But eventually in the dog eat dog world of limited space artists had to fight it out to win the coveted 4 or 5 star rating that would enable them to remain within my listening universe and not return to the shelves of CD storage. I could only look forlornly at those poor neglected cassettes and LPs.

Once again life was good, months worth of shuffled tunes and many songs forgotten in the mists of old memories. I had grown and obviously my musical tastes had matured. So of course one day while I was looking for an album cover to attach to one of the few tunes I had originally ported over from vinyl I discovered Chocoreve. There in all their digital glory were many of the records I had reluctantly walked away from as being too much trouble to transfer. I soon discovered just how many good blog sites there were and a downloading frenzy ensued.

Which brings us to now. Since you've all saved me the time and effort of digitizing so many of my albums, I decided to go ahead and offer some of those that I haven't come across but feel deserve to be shared and enjoyed. I'll mostly stick to vinyl, but in the rare instance that I have a CD that is out of print or otherwise difficult to find, I'll upload it. Needless to say there will be few bonus tracks and much popping involved. Many of my LPs were acquired in second hand shops and thus subjected to vinyl heathens prior to their being rescued, so bear with me. I'll also minimize any cleaning up or filtering the files as much as possible in order to share the full vinyl experience I grew up with. My hope is that the music will entice you to try and track down a CD reissue where possible, much as I have is some cases. Feel free to make requests, if I have it I'll bring it to the top of the list for digitizing and uploading.

I stopped buying vinyl sometime in the late eighties/early nineties so most of my posts will reflect earlier times. For the most part my tastes tend towards the psychedelic, surf, progressive, garage, punk, and freakbeat ends of the rock spectrum, with some pop and blues thrown in for spice. Sorry, but not many bootlegs in my collection.

My thanks for putting up with all this verbosity, now on with the show.

Cheers, SamIam