Placeholder text

Go to cart

Fuzz, Flaykes & Shakes, Vol. 2

Fuzz, Flaykes & Shakes, Vol. 2

0 - Default Title
Description
If anything, the second volume in Fuzz, Flaykes, & Shakes is superior to its predecessor on purely musical terms, emphasizing bands with harder, more frantic, soulful psychedelic sounds. Dave Travis Extreme's "Last Night, the Flowers Bloomed" is a lost artifact of the Sunset Strip riots that is a match for the Standells' classic on the same subject; the Chicago-based Traces of Time's "Oh Bob" is an even harder and better-paced piece of psych-punk, and it only gets better from there. John English & Lemon Drops ("Just Don't Complain") and Zorbra & the Greeks ("One and Only Girl") are incredibly cool, frantic dance numbers with a hard psych edge, but the real revelation is track number five, "I Saw Her Yesterday" by the Sunrisers; these guys came from Whitestone, Queens (and nearby Little Neck), and they delivered up one of the smoothest, coolest, most well-played pieces of psychedelic rock ever to come out of New York City, period, with a great beat, memorable hooks, and mournfully frustrated teen vocals; this jewel from October of 1966 was, alas, their only recorded venture in the psych-punk vein. Soul Inc.'s "Stronger Than Dirt" is a funny psychedelic take on a pop-culture theme. The Amoeba ("Lost Love") out of McAllen, TX, may well have gotten tarred and feathered for pushing a sound this punked out in 1965 -- even the 13th Floor Elevators had to blow relatively cosmopolitan Houston, after all -- and these guys were just as direct in their punk sensibilities. The Deepest Blue, the Last Chapter, the Graven Image ("Take a Bite of Life," with a Bo Diddley-beat), the Hackers ("Keep On Running, Girl"), the Tracers ("Who Do You Love," with a pumping organ in the mix), the Denims, Flowers, Fruits & Pretty Things ("Take Me Away"), and the Search ("Mr. Custer") all acquit themselves well, but there are a handful of acts here that could easily have competed in the larger musical arena with the material or the talent they offer up here: the Druids with "Cool, Calm & Collected" (not the Rolling Stones song), and its catchy choruses and solid guitar hooks; the Other Four with "Searching for My Love," crunchy rhythm guitars (and one great lead player) and surging organ beneath an achingly beautiful melody, especially on the choruses; and the title track of this compilation by the Backgrounds, which is a great song handled by a lead singer who's trying just a little too hard to sound like Arthur Lee of Love. The sound on this CD is very slightly shakier than the quality of its predecessor, but the music is the purest, distilled psych-punk, with barely a mellow or reflective moment anywhere on this disc. ~ Bruce Eder, All Music Guide
Product details
Release Date:
1999-11-08
Publication Date:
1999-11-08
Publisher:
Bacchus Archive
Languages:
Published: English
Weight:
113 g
Buy on Amazon
Currently sold out