"Don't Be Bad! 60s Punk Recorded In Texas" by VARIOUS ARTISTS - featuring The Passions, Driving Wheels, Gaylan Ladd, The Pirates, Eccentrics, The People, The Dodads and more (April 2015 Ace/Big Beat Records CD Compilation – Nick Robbins Remasters) - A Review by Mark Barry...

This review and hundreds more like it can also be found in my 

SOUNDS GOOD MUSIC BOOK...

SOMETHING'S HAPPENING HERE 
Volume 5 of 6 

1960s and 1970s MUSIC on CD
Exceptional CD Reissues and Remasters

It contains 170 in-depth reviews (over 1,000 e-Pages) 

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"...Lost In A Crowd..."

"...Raunchy Gulf Coast garage from the vaults of Huey Purvis Meaux’s Crazy Cajun empire – 26 tracks sourced from the original master tapes featuring 10 Previously Unreleased..." - it says on the rear inlay for "Don't Be Bad!" and who am I to disagree.

Covering young acts recorded by Pasadena's notoriously eccentric Entrepreneur and local-band Producer Huey Meaux between 1964 and 1967 (at either Pasadena Sounds or Gold Star Studios) – what you get here is angry young American Men growling 26 times about girls they love but who lie and cheat on them all the time (apparently its always their fault too). The music is very Sir Douglas Quintet – "She's About A Mover" territory. What I wasn't expecting though is the quality – track-after-track of stormingly great Sixties Garage that lovers of guitar thrashers and bashers will have to own. It's not all unmitigated genius for sure – but the good stiff far outweighs the ordinary. Here are the Topless Guitar details...

UK released 27 April 2015 (May 2015 in the USA) – "Don't Be Bad! 60s Punk Recorded In Texas" by VARIOUS ARTISTS is a 26-track CD compilation on Ace/Big Beat Records CDWIKD 327 (Barcode 029667432726) and rocks out as follows (63:32 minutes):

1. Top-Less Girl – BARRY & LIFE (1967 USA 7" single on Pic 1 142, A)

2. Don’t Be Bad – THE DRIVING WHEELS (2015, Previously Unreleased)

3. The Fall Of The Queen – DESTINY’S CHILDREN (1966 USA 7" single on Ventural V-730, A)

4. Girl Said No – WHAT'S LEFT (1966 USA 7" single on Capri 520, A)

5. Cuttin' Out – THE PIRATES (1965 USA 7" single on Back Stage 5001, A)

6. Her Loving Way – GAYLANN LADD (1965 USA 7" single on MGM 13435, A)

7. I Don't Need Help – THE SANDS (2015, Previously Unreleased)

8. Again – THE PEOPLE (1965 USA 7" single on Ventural V-724, A)

9. Lively One – THE PASSIONS (1965 USA 7" single on Pic 1 117, A)

10. Better Come Get Her – THE TRIUMPHS (1966 USA 7” single on Pacemaker PM-238, A)

11. It's You – THE ACTIONEERS (1965 USA 7" single (1965 USA 7” single on Shane 57, A)

12. Lost In A Crowd – THE DODADS (2015, Previously Unreleased)

13. To No Place Of Its Own – THE PHINX (2015, Previously Unreleased)

14. Farmer John – THE ARGYLES (1966 USA 7" single on Pic 1 136, A)

15. Baby, I Need You – THE ECCENTRICS (1966 USA 7” single on Shane 60, A)

16. She Comes Running – THE DRIVING WHEELS (2015, Previously Unreleased)

17. Gotta Tell Her – THE BLUE DIAMONDS (2015, Previously Unreleased)

18. Dirty Dirty Game – GAYLAN LADD & THE EAST SIDE TRANSFER (2015, Previously Unreleased)

19. Open Your Eyes – THE SANDS (1966 USA 7” single on Capri 522, A)

20. Don't Tell Me – THE CHANCELLORS (1965 USA 7” single Caddo 102, A)

21. Honey Hush – THE LOAFERS (1964 USA 7" single on Tear Drop 3028, A)

22. Mona/Who Do You Love – THE PIRATES (2015, Previously Unreleased)

23. Don't Go In My Room Girl – BOB & GAYLAN [Bob Sharp and Gaylan Ladd] (2015, Previously Unreleased) 

24. Everything's Right – THE PHINX (2015, Previously Unreleased)

25. Hour Glass – BURNER AMBURN (2015, Previously Unreleased)

26. Bring me – THE DODADS (2015, Previously Unreleased)

[Notes: All Tracks are MONO - Tracks 2, 7, 12, 13, 17, 18, 22, 24, 25 and 26 are PREVIOUSLY UNRELEASED]

The 16-page booklet has typically indepth and fact-filled info from noted fan and music writer ALEC PALAO (of El Cerrito, California) that includes recollections and memorabilia from those who were there. There are label repros of rare US 45s on Ventural, Back Stage, Tear Drop, Pic 1, Capri and Caddo – as well as publicity photos for The Triumphs (rear cover) and The Chancellors, Scotch Tape boxes, a press release for Bob & Gaylon and even a handwritten letter from The Driving Wheels to Huey Meaux. Wonderfully illuminating as always with Ace. NICK ROBBINS does his best with grungy Sixties recordings and frankly most pack a wallop you wouldn’t expect. The audio does dip in and out as each recording varies from very good to great – but overall stuff like the superb "Cuttin' Out" from The Pirates sounds amazing.

"Top-Less Girl" starts out with some dude telling us "...no ugly stick for you...it's prevention of cruelty to wood week..." as he waxes lyrical about a girl with not a lot of clothing on her upper parts to a backdrop of suitably grungy guitars and Doors-like keyboards. What a winner! But that's as nothing to the compilation's first discovery of worth – the title track by The Driving Wheels recorded in October 1966 and stuck in a vault all these decades. It's a fantastic driving shaking fuzzed-up guitar thrasher with guitarist Tommy Bolton giving his tremolo-arm some torture – a proper Punk/Garage gem. Speaking of angst-guitar playing – "The Fall Of The Queen" features a properly great solo from Tom Maxton of Destiny's Children (he'd formerly been with Pasadena's Lord Wellington Five) while you wonder why the ludicrously catchy "Cuttin' Out" by The Pirates wasn't huge (very Them in its own way).

We get some Dylan "Blonde On Blonde" harmonica wailing on the warbling "Lost In A Crowd" while we go Association almost Mamas and Papas for the pleasingly melodic "To No Place Of Its Own" (both excellent unreleased tracks). "Farmer John" continues in Troggs fashion where The Argyles are in love with a daughter with Champaign Eyes. British youngster Bob Sharp (then 21) teamed up with Waco's Gaylan Ladd (when 18 both were with Waco's local band The Dawgs) for "Don't Go In My Room Girl" – a good stab at mid Sixties pop commerciality. Not all of the unreleased stuff is super-brill and you can hear why they were left in the can. But it fascinating after all these years to discover that there is stuff still left to discover...

A superlative release from Ace's label imprint Big Beat Records and recommended with a big T for Texas...