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ROCK AND ROLL'S TIN PAN ALLEY

Guy De Federicis | east of here | 12/08/2004

(5 out of 5 stars)

"The East Side Los Angelos sound, as depicted here, may have less to do with great rock and roll roots, as it does with marketing strategy. These great crude A.M. radio wannabes were hacked out from small recording studios, indebted to the current trends of the day, to either sink or swim into the Top 100 record lists. Opener "So You Want to Rock" by Chuck Carlson and The Majestics, is virtually "Do You Wanna Dance?" (Dave Clark 5) with different words, and The Atlantic's "Sloop Dance" makes no bones about lifting "Hang On Sloopy". The early stuff has some great uncredited California sounding electric guitar ( the only credits offered here are the artists and the songwriters), and there are some bona fide classics amongst the hacks and novelty acts - (check out "Olive Oil" by The Mixtures in which the entirety of the lyrics is the cartoon heroine seductively saying, "Ohhh, Popeye!", to which a very bad impersonation answers "Olive Oil!", while a rock band from Frankie and Annette's world backs them up. One can only assume the song is entitled "Olive Oil" because they couldn't secure the rights to the name 'Popeye'.). But, is not "Hopped Up Mustang", by Arlen Sanders, the best car song ever recorded, with it's simple tale of a drag race with a Cadillac, fitted with the most perfect engine's roar zooming by? Runner-up may be The Romancer's ode to the depths some women will reach in "She Took My Oldsmobile". The Premier's "Farmer John" is a rauckus party song with an audience whooped up to near hysterics, and their later stuff, "Get On This Plane", and "Come On and Dream", have the making of classic psych-garage, and they sound like they could have been huge, in the right hands. The crown jewel here is, Cannibal and The Headhunter's "Land of 1000 Dances", a big natiional hit, it still sounds voodoo frightening and oh, so crude. There are no master tape transfers here, most (all?) are lost, and these recordings were taken from original vinyl, and you can even here some comforting scratch sounds from the old records. They are all worthy of salvaging and saving, (ok, if you were to throw some of them into the ozone, they just might get thrown back), but they are a lot of fun, indeed historic, and you may not find another chance to hear them."