One of my recent acquisitions is a Voxx Records compilation CD put together by Greg Shaw of crazed psychedelic material called Beyond the Calico Wall. That album included another Bohemian Vendetta song, a brain-twister called “Paradox City”; it is also available on YouTube at www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNiJ6HnMptI .
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Another great Canadian band (from Montreal), the Haunted had a fairly big hit that has the title “1-2-5”. Their recorded output was prolific enough that Greg Shaw released two Haunted albums in the Rough Diamonds Series on Voxx Records. A CD called The Haunted has been released on Voxx more recently; the Voxx CD includes “Pourquoi”, their French version of “Talk Talk” by the Music Machine.
(April 2013)
One name that has come up repeatedly in these 40-odd posts is Greg Shaw, a widely respected music historian and the founder of Bomp! Records – which also includes the labels AIP Records, Voxx Records, Total Energy Records, and Alive Naturalsound Records (usually just called Alive Records) – and their associated Bomp mailorder music service. It would not surprise me at all if I haven’t mentioned Greg Shaw in a third of these UARB articles. In addition, more than a few of the Under-Appreciated Rock Bands have released albums or EP’s on one of the Bomp!-affiliated labels. If I also included the albums on non-Bomp! labels that I ordered through the Bomp mailorder service, close to half of the UARB’s and UARA’s would likely have a Bomp! connection.
Many of the seminal bands in these rock movements released albums on the Bomp!, Voxx, Alive or Total Energy labels; most of them are not household names by any means, but they are recognized by those in the know as being important bands that shaped the history of rock and roll. Some of these better-known bands and artists are the Romantics, the Modern Lovers, the Dead Boys (and Stiv Bators individually), the Plimsouls (and Peter Case individually), the Beat (and Paul Collins individually), the Stooges (and Iggy Pop individually), Devo, Nikki Sudden, the Black Keys, and Soledad Brothers.
(Retrospective album by the UARB for August 2012, Phil and the Frantics, released in 1985 as Rough Diamonds, Volume 3 on Voxx Records)
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(Final album by the UARB for May 2010, the Not Quite, released in 1990 on Voxx Records)
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(May 2013)
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I had also acquired a retrospective album by GONN that was identified as Rough Diamonds, Volume 9; Rough Diamonds is a series of albums that Greg Shaw put out on Voxx Records by garage rock bands who had recorded more than just a few singles.
I have been collecting Pebbles albums for around 30 years and have also purchased many, many other albums that have come out on Greg Shaw’s record labels: Bomp, Voxx, AIP, Total Energy, and Alive. There have also been several compilation albums that have collected highlights from Bomp! Records releases over the previous several years, and I have most of those as well. One of the most comprehensive is Destination: Bomp!, a two-CD set that is subtitled “The Best of Bomp! Records’ First 20 Years”. Bomp celebrates its 40th anniversary next year.
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Blair 1523 was founded in 1989 and broke up in 1992. They released an EP called On the Rise on a small English label, Wilde Club Records, so Blair 1523 might have dropped from sight altogether had they not caught the attention of Greg Shaw. Their Voxx Records release Beautiful Debris came out on LP and CD in 1993.
(September 2013)
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In 2003, Angie Pepper released her first full-fledged album, Res Ipsa Loquitor (the name is taken from a Latin legal term meaning “the thing speaks for itself”). The album has a variety of moods and influences – even a short rap section – with most songs being co-written by Angie Pepper and Deniz Tek. Four of the tracks were recorded with a Montana psychedelic outfit called Donovan’s Brain (named after a 1942 science fiction novel, Donovan’s Brain that was made into a horror film on three occasions). The songs include a cover of the notorious “Hindu Gods (of Love)”, a linchpin Australian punk rock song; “Hindu Gods (of Love)” was originally released by Lipstick Killers on Greg Shaw’s Voxx Records in 1980.
(December 2013)
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Much as past UARB the Poppees was the first band signed by Greg Shaw for his original Bomp! Records label, the Crawdaddys was the first band brought in by Shaw for his new 1960’s revival label Voxx Records. The name Voxx is an adaptation of the Vox brand of musical instruments, known in the rock world for their electric organs, amplifiers, and (as Wikipedia says) “a series of innovative but commercially unsuccessful electric guitars and bass guitars”.
As quoted in the book by Simon Reynolds called Retromania: Pop Culture’s Addiction to its Own Past: “Greg Shaw soon decided that words weren’t enough anymore; it was time for action. He folded the magazine Bomp! and injected all of his energy into Voxx, a Bomp! [Records] subsidiary label dedicated to the new breed of post-[Flamin’] Groovies garage bands.”
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The Voxx Records retrospective CD, Be a Caveman: The Best of the Voxx Garage Revival (2000) presents one incredible song after another that has led me to buy several full albums by the bands on the CD; besides the Crawdaddys, the CD includes songs by the Vertebrats, DMZ, the Chesterfield Kings, the Pandoras, Gravedigger V, the Miracle Workers, the Fuzztones, Hypstrz, the Surf Trio, the Steppes, Dwarves, and many more.
In the liner notes for Be a Caveman, Greg Shaw recalls those heady days: “At the end of the 1970’s, there was no scene for ’60s garage music. No label released it. Less than a handful of bands played it. Then came Voxx Records, and over the course of a decade, everything changed. Voxx was as much a concept as a record label. The idea was to present young bands doing pure mid-’60’s roots music, garage, psych, surf, beat, folk-rock, and various hybrids thereof. . . . The catalyst was a young San Diego combo called the Crawdaddys, who actually came to me via a very good new wave band, the Hitmakers.”
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The first album by the Crawdaddys, Crawdaddy Express – recorded in monaural; talk about looking back! – came out in 1979 as the initial LP on Voxx Records. Allmusic gives the album 4½ stars and states in the review by Matt Carlson: “The Crawdaddys started their recording career properly, releasing a record with nothing but ’60s R&B, British Invasion, and blues standards (in addition to two original compositions).”
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The blog entry on the Crawdaddys is headlined: “In a Ché Underground exclusive, Ray Brandes offers the first comprehensive history of San Diego’s original retro-visionaries.” Ray Brandes was previously a member of the Mystery Machine, which contributed a mind-bogglingly great song called “She’s Not Mine” (written by Carl Rusk) to a Voxx Records garage rock band “competition” called Battle of the Garages, Part 2.
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While this line-up never recorded another album, the Crawdaddys secured their place in the rock firmament with their next two releases (both on Voxx Records): the single “There She Goes Again” b/w “Why Don’t You Smile Now” in early 1980, and an EP called 5 x 4 in August 1980. For my money, “There She Goes Again” is the one Velvet Underground song (written by Lou Reed) that is tailor-made to be covered by other bands. There is an obscure cover of “There She Goes Again” by the Electrical Banana in 1967 which is mentioned by Wikipedia; this is not the same band as the Electric Banana that was a pseudonym for the Pretty Things over several years. However, the only other cover version of “There She Goes Again” that I know of is by R.E.M.; and Peter Buck acknowledges that their recording is inspired by the Crawdaddys version. “There She Goes Again” is included on the Bomp! Records compilation CD Straight Outta Burbank, and that is where I learned about the song. The “B” side, “Why Don’t You Smile Now” was co-written by Lou Reed and John Cale but pre-dates their involvement with the Velvet Underground; “Why Don’t You Smile Now” was originally released on a 1965 single under the name the All-Night Workers.
A German record label called Line Records collected the single and EP by the Crawdaddys and released an album called Still Steamin’, with “There She Goes Again” on Side 1 at 45 rpm and the other 6 songs on Side 2 at 33 rpm. Line Records also re-released the Crawdaddy Express LP and the “There She Goes Again” single in 1985; later, the label combined all of the Voxx Records material onto a CD in 1989 called Mystic Crawdaddys. Voxx Records did the same with their CD reissue of Crawdaddy Express in 1994.
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As often happens following the break-up of a popular rock band, the Crawdaddys’ remaining songs – frequently, as here, presented as an unreleased album – were packaged into a CD by Voxx Records called Here ’Tis. The CD was originally released in 1987 and was reissued in 1994. The brief liner notes by Ron Silva (dated October 1986) end by presenting the CD: “So why wait until tomorrow! HERE ’TIS!”
(January 2015/2)
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