What's a tapewreck you ask? Just to set the parameters a bit here, I'm reposting this standout song from the outstanding Garage Hangover site. The Five, I Don Care If It Rains All Night...an example of my favorite kind of wreck...virtually unknown, rescued from a bin, just learning to play, off rhythm, out of tune, recorded kind of badly, but the song knocks me out. Simple, sweet lyrics belted out at the top of the kid's lungs...if you're here to hold me tight... And that sloppychoppy guitar...It's a feeling, man. You dig?
The Five - I Don't Care If It Rains All Night
In an early Tapewrecks focus group, I heard this song without any context on the era in which it was recorded or the age of the band members. I pegged it as "British minimalist female art-punk circa 1978-79, possibly contemporaries of the Raincoats or Slits" or perhaps "circa 1990 K records."
ReplyDeleteBoy, was I wrong. It was mid-60s and young boys.
Usually you can identify a 60's garage bands by a sound derivative of mid-60s hitmakers (Stones, Beatles, Byrds, etc.), generally manly voices and concerns (e.g. "Let's Talk about Girls"), and a driving beat. "I Don't Care if it Rains All Night" with its choppy chords, no discernible bass guitar, drums/tambourine falling all over the place, pre-Peter-Brady-voice-change vocals and gender-neutral lyrics has none of these cues. These youngsters appear to have accidentally invented what we now might think of as post-punk 15 years ahead of its time AND before they started shaving.