TOMMYKNOCKERS' BEAT CLUB VOLUME 12. THE CONTINUING STORY OF UNCOMPILED UK SIXTIES BEAT RARITIES. USE YOUR HEAD: KNOCK ON WOOD!

Among the juvenile delinquents are Ritchie Blackmore, Peter Green, Mick Taylor, Peter Bardens, Mick Fleetwood and Clifford T. Ward. Another can full of more or less English 60s beatgroups you've never heard of before. BRIT-.ROCK  yer beatiful selfves in the next millenniums...

Now I'm a guide for the CIA:

01. Lookin' Back - Lee Curtis & The All Stars (Live on German TV, "Beat Club",66)

02. Little Liza Jane - The Tremors (German-only 7", Metronome,68)

03. Boom Boom - The 5 Liverpools (German-only LP "Tokio International", CBS,64)

04. Please Do Something - Sean Buckley Set (German-only 7", Hit House, 66)

05. In The Night - Jamie Lee & The Atlantics (Decca, 63)

06. Just Another Song - The Trixons (Major Minor, 69)

07. You're Whole Life Through - John Deen & The Trakk (German-only LP "Beat 69", Europa, 69)

08. You've Done It Again, Little Girl - The Cherokees (Decca, 64)

09. You Don't Care - The Idols (Mercury, 64)

10. Goodbye - Rusty Harness (Ember, 70)

11. Jodrell Blues - The Peter B's (Columbia, 66)

12. Rain - Hard Meat (Island, 69)

13. Pocket Size - The Juniors (Columbia, 64)

14. Heaven's The Place For Me - The Pilgrims (Herald, 64)

15. Move - The Move (unreleased outtake, 66)

16. Big Bad Blues - Carl Perkins With The Nashville Teens ( UK-Brunswick, 64)

17. That's What They Call Love - The Chasers (Decca, 65)

18. Shoes - Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers (EP "Try It", Parlophone, 65)

19. Hallo Josephine - The Dakotas (Parlophone, 64)

20. What Do You Say About That - Phase 4 (Fab, 66)

21. Love Me - The Poor Souls (Alp, 66)

22. Infatuation - The Secrets (CBS, 67)

23. Lost Out On Love - The LeROYS (HMV, 64)

24. I'm In Love With You - The Golden Crusaders (Columbia, 64)

25. Give Me Back My Heart - Denny Seyton & The Sabres (Mercury, 64)

26. Baby's Gone Away - The Pyramids (Polydor, 65)

27. But I Know - The Transatlantics (Fontana, 65)

28. Please Believe - The Beatmen (Pye, 65)

29. Here Comes The Fool - The Long & The Short (Decca, 64)

30. Meet Jacqueline - Barry Benson (Parlophone, 67)

31. How Can I Tell Her - The Foresters (Polydor, 66)

32. Fat Man - Barry Fantoni (Fontana, 66)

33. Dance Again - Bluesville feat. Ian Whitcomb (unreleased, 65)

34. Cox Yer Liver Away- Freddie & The Hoaxers

---- UK 45s except where noted ----

We lift off with another Beat Club performance of Lee Curtis & The All Stars. Schildkröte is on the organ again. More of the same on vol. 11 +++ 

Another band we already had on the last issue are The Tremors. Here's one of their 45s. "Little Liza Jane" was one of Fats Domino's minor hits, and is more familiar in the version David Bowie made in 64 as Davie Jones & The King Bees. +++  

 The 5 Liverpools actually were The Liverpool Five, but on their first recordings German CBS insisted on christening them this way. After a year in Germany they went off for an extended tour to Asia (thus the reason for the LP-title), but instead of returning to Frankfurt, they settled down in the States, where they found considerable success. +++ 

Scotsman Sean Buckley is best known for his single with The Breadcrumbs, "Everybody Knows". When this fine slice of proto-freakbeat sank without a trace, he went to Germany with a new outfit, The Sean Buckley Set, where he recorded a soul-flavoured LP and this non-LP single for Hit House. The band toured here for about a year, and I remember a tremendous 30 minutes live set on the radio show "Mittwochsparty", broadcasted by SDR Stuttgart. "Please Do Something", a Don Covay song, is better known in the version of The Spencer Davis Group. +++ 

I don't know much about Jamie Lee & The Atlantics, except that it's a Joe Meek production with Ritchie Blackmore on guitar. +++  

The Trixons were an Irish group, and must have been big Beatles fans... "Just Another Song" owes more than a warm handshake to "Only A Northern Song". +++  

For John Deen & The Trakk see last volume. Here's a song from their LP on the cheapo label Europa. +++  

The Cherokees from Leeds can also be found on volumes 6 and 8. Here's the first of five singles, and the only one for Decca. +++ 

This is the other side of "You Don't Care" by The Idols, a band from Rossendale. (See vol. 1) They recorded another one as Mike Sax & The Idols, and we'll hear it soon as I find it in my scruffy archives. +++ 

Rowdy rockers Rusty Harness had two Mike Berry produced 45s on Ember, before they vanished from the scene again. Although both are form 1970, they don't sound very "progressive". +++ 

The Peter B's actually were known as Peter B's Looners, and only recorded this 7" with more or less decent instrumentals on both sides. The most interesting thing about this record is the line-up: a still anonymous supergroup before anyone knew what might come. We have later Camel driver Peter Bardens, Mick Fleetwood, Dave Ambrose, who joined Brian Auger's Trinity soon after, and the first recorded guitar solo by Peter Green. +++  

Hard Meat were a prog band based in Cornwall with two albums for Warner Brothers 70/71, and wouldn't be of interest here, hadn't they debuted with John Lennon's "Rain" in 69. A far cry from beat already, but still a very pleasant interpretation of one of my all-time faves. +++ 

The Juniors from Hatfield obviously were very young and pocket size when they recorded their only 7". A 15-year old Mick Taylor strummed the strings, and rumour has it, that one of them played in an embryonic line-up of Jethro Tull. Brian and John Glasscock later formed The Gods with Mick. +++  

The Pilgrims were one of the best British Xian beatgroups. If you like what you hear, and want to listen to more Pilgrims and a lot of other Christian Brit beat of the 60s, check our compilation "Mercy! Beat!! UK!!!" here on this blog. In fact it was something like the initial volume 0 of Tommyknockers. +++  

The Move again with another unreleased gem. 'Nuff said... +++ 

 

We all know that The Nashville Teens backed Jerry Lee Lewis on his terrific "Live At The Starclub" album. But they also did the job for another rockabilly legend from the Sun stable. When Carl Perkins recorded in London '64, the Teens were chosen to accompany him. Only two of five studio tracks were published. +++  

The Chasers from Romford had three 45s on three major labels. This is the flip of the first, the often comped "Hey Little Girl". They had Len Tuckey on bass, the man who later married Suzi Quatro. +++  

Cliff Bennett & The Rebel Rousers were Liverpool's most successful soulgroup. But in their long recording career they played everything from popcorn rock n' roll to disco. "Shoes", written by the Shuman-Lynch team, who penned "Sha La La La Lee" among many other hits, is one of Cliff's most credible attempts towards the tougher British R&B sound. +++ 

We had the other side of this 7" by Billy J. Kramer's backing band The Dakotas on volume 6. And yes, it was spelled "Hallo", not "Hello" on the label. This Fats Domino song was often covered by Continental bands, and a hit for The Scorpions in Germany and Holland. +++ 

Phase 4 came from Newcastle and DIDN'T have the young Mike Batt in the group, as some sources try to tell us. They recorded two singles for the small Fab label in 66. This is the first, and it was licenced to Decca, who put out a second pressing the same year. +++ 

Dundee's Poor Souls already appeared on vols. 4 & 5. This is the other side of the rarer of their two 45s, released on the small Scottish label Alp. +++  

The Secrets began as Martin Raynor & The Secrets and ended as Simon's Secrets. As simply The Secrets Clifford T. Ward, who wrote "Infatuation", was the creative head, and they had three singles on CBS. +++ 

For The LeROYS, who insist on being written this way, see volume 10. This is the follow-up to "Don't Cry Baby", the third of five singles they made in 63 and 64. +++  

The Golden Crusaders should be known from volume 4, where we had the last of three records on Columbia. Here is the first. +++ 

Liverpool's Denny Seyton & The Sabres have been fearured on vols. 2 & 5. "Give Me Back My Heart" is the flip of "Short Fat Fannie", the second of four singles by Denny Seyton. +++ 

Not to be confused with with Eddie Grant's ska side-project, The Pyramids are a totally obscure beatgroup with a one-off on Polydor. +++ 

Fourth time around are The Transatlantics from Essex. (See vols. 3, 7 and 11.) And we've still got more in the can. +++  

The Beatmen reputedly came from Nottingham and released two 7-inchers on Pye. "Please Believe" is the b-side of "Now The Sun Has Gone", a very fine song which was comped on "Ripples 3" and on "Watch Your Step" +++  

The Long & The Short were from Ashton-in-Makerfield near Manchester. We already had a non-45 track from "Gonks Go Beat" on vol. 1. Here comes the flip of the second and last single. We'll probably meet them again on a future volume. +++ 

 

Couldn't find out more than this about Barry Benson: He was P.J. Proby's hairdresser. Well, if that was enough qualification to record four singles for Parlophone and one for Page One, why not... Both sides of this Larry Page production contain songs made popular by The Troggs. ( The a-side was "Cousin Jane".) +++ 

Nothing known about The Foresters, although they had six 45s for Polydor and Columbia from 65 to 67. +++ 

For Barry Fantoni see volume 9. "Fat Man" is the other side of "Little Man In A Little Box". +++  

Bluesville were a band from Dublin, and backed Ian Whitcomb on his first singles "This Sporting Life" and "You Turn Me On", which, I guess, still were recorded back home. Both were hits in the USA and Whitcomb settled down in the States, where he had quite a career with a string of pretty decent novelty rocksongs. That probably is why a couple of real good studio recordings by Bluesville never were released, with the main character no longer available for promotion. >>> Stay knocked. More next time. 

The Lolly Pope and van daale the engineer.

TOMMYKNOCKERS VOLUME 12

(direct download / 155 MB / all pix and liners and nonsense inclusive)