URBAN ASPIRINES: Pebbles Volume 5: Various Morons, Original '60s Punk & Psych Classics 1992

Sunday, August 11, 2019

Pebbles Volume 5: Various Morons, Original '60s Punk & Psych Classics 1992

Volume 5: Various Morons, Original '60s Punk & Psych Classics [AIP CD 5022] - Released 1992

Not surprisingly, the fifth volume in this series of garage rock compilations, is an improvement over Volume 4 and better than some of the subsequent Pebbles releases. In any case, this is an enjoyable

collection of obscure regional bands, featuring 19 recordings from 1965-1967 and one (Magi's "You Don't Know Me") from 1971. Highlights include the garage screamer "Why" by Chicago's Dirty Wurds (later remade by the Pandoras); "The Way I Feel" by Texas punkers the 12 A.M.; and the Kinks-influenced "Go Away" by the Plague.
Between 1981-1982 myself and a like minded friend (now sadly no longer with us) in our mid teens managed to buy between us nearly all of the first 10 Pebbles collections on vinyl - usually from the Virgin Megastore in Oxford Street. Coming back to these collections 30 odd years later (now thankfully available on CD) Volume 5 still stands out as one of the best.
My friend was already out at work, I was still at school, so he had the cash which meant he got to keep the records but immediately put them on tapes for me so that we could both play them to death and compare notes, track by track. Seriously, finding a previously unheard volume of Pebbles in the record racks was a major event...

As with many of the Pebbles CD reissues, not everything is on here that was on the original vinyl LP, but this is compensated for with some cracking additional tracks.

There are many garage/punk/psych classics on here - all of which would have remained unheard to this day I'm sure were it not for the Pebbles series. 'Yesterday's Hero' by The Satyrs is an intense, moving piece of pop with Doors like keyboards; 'I Wanna Come Back (From The World Of LSD)' by The Fe Fi Four Plus 2 pretty much speaks for itself and as for snotty aggressive US garage punk tales of lost love and teen angst, it doesn't get much better than 'Writing On The Wall' (The 5 Canadians) or 'It's A Crying Shame' (The Gentlemen). The reason I love this genre of music so much is that (in general) even the rubbish is usually brilliant, a fine example being the wacky 'I Need Love' by The Time Stoppers.

All these years after first hearing and loving this great, innocent and totally exciting music, I am amazed at the amount of anthologies that exist of these non hit obscurities from the mid to late 1960s - far more than I could ever keep up with, let alone afford!

Don't expect high quality sound, or even high quality playing (!) These are mostly independently released singles by amateur local bands, where in most cases there was only a scratchy copy of the original single as the source for Pebbles. All the better for that I say.