The Stone Foxes
“Bears & Bulls”
(promotional copy)
★★★

By Pat Prince

The Stone Foxes’ new album “Bears & Bulls” is as mixed of a bag as the title suggests. Half of the songs are exciting, bluesy, balls-to-the-wall rockers; the other half … too anthemic, too typical, and some of them too eager to please the current trend of hard rock commercialism.

“Young Man” and “Hyde & Pine” are both good examples of simply brilliant rockers, standout tracks. Both are the true essence of ‘ballsy.’ And “Hangman” is great garage rock blues, with a damaging harp throughout. You can’t help but love it. And it hints at what made the White Stripes so popular.

“Reno” is another example of the good side of this album’s equation. With its scratchy guitar riff and kick-ass mentality and quirky lyrics. And, on a smaller note, it’s quite nice to finally hear a good song written about Reno, rather than its bigger brother, Las Vegas.

At times, the Stone Foxes will become somewhat cliche when they are trying to be witty, as in “I Killed Robert Johnson.” It’s all been done before, yes, but there’s nothing special about it here. In turn, the band handles Dixon’s “Little Red Rooster” as an interesting take on a well-traveled oldie. And the well-hyped album opener, “Stomp,” has good elements of guitar picking and harmonica wailing in it, but it ends up being more of a below-average Ram Jam.

Then the bad side: it’s where The Stone Foxes lose their personality. “Patience” sounds like it is straight from a late ’80s hair band. And not in a good way. “Passenger Train” is something you’d hear from a band like Train. Too commercial. too melodically sweet and too sentimental for this band.

“Bears & Bulls” will be available in stores on July 6. I like to preach the purchase of full albums, but in the case of “Bears & Bulls,” you might want to buy only half the album at iTunes. The album will be released early via iTunes on June 29.

In its title, this two-CD set recalls the Chicago street address that headquartered U.S.A. Records and its associated Destination imprint. 2131 South Michigan Avenue compiles 40 tracks that reveal the highly charged garage and psychedelic sounds blowing through the city of Chicago and the Midwest during the late 1960s.

 Twenty-two bands are represented by 38 songs and two advertising spots on the discs; the collection is mastered in mono, as most cuts were pressed only on seven-inch vinyl, and few were heard outside of regional radio markets. Two previously unreleased tracks bookend the second CD: The Counts’ “Stop Cheating On Me” is a terrific British Invasion-style track showcasing the early inspiration for garage rock, while The Lost Agency’s alternate take of “Time To Dream” is immersed in the psychedelia of the late ’60s.

The compilation features The Flock, The Cryan’ Shames and The Buckinghams, three groups who gained national reputations and ultimately inked contracts with Columbia Records. Emphasizing an edge muted on their later Columbia hits, the Buckinghams perform brash guitar and organ workouts on the extended versions of “Don’t Want To Cry” and “I’m A Man,” a five minute rave-up from the highly collectible original mono pressing of the Kind Of A Drag LP. Along with “I’m A Man,” 2132 South Michigan Avenue has six additional cover versions of contemporary hits by local bands. These titles include “Midnight Hour,” “I Can’t Explain,” “Til The End Of The Day,” and “Help Me Boy,” which reconfigured the familiar Animals/Outsiders “Help Me Girl” to accommodate The Daughters Of Eve, the one girl group on the album.  

With five songs, Oscar Hamod And The Majestics claim the most tracks on the collection. The Indiana quartet’s guitar-based R&B embodies the strengths of the Heartland, while doubling as an American reverberation of Britain’s Mod sound. The Jokers, another group hailing from Indiana, unveil contrasting sides of their Destination label single: “I’ll Never Let You Go” is melodic pop, yet “What’cha Gonna Do” has the threatening bluesy undertow of the early Rolling Stones. The Foggy Notions, a high-school band from hometown Chicago, deliver pure ’60s garage rock with “Take Me Back And Hold Me” and “Need A Little Lovin’,” a two-sided single on a minor affiliated label called Ginny Records.

Brimming with fuzz guitar riffs and Farfisa organ lines, this compilation holds plenty of other rare gems performed by long-forgotten groups dripping with punk-rock swagger or soaring with folk-rock harmonies. These groups carry wonderfully inspired names such as The Sheffields, The Cherry Slush, The Shady Daze, Trafalgar Square and Park Avenue Playground, whose “I Know” sports the complex influences of post-Sgt. Pepper Anglo-pop. The first collection to focus on these independent Chicago labels, 2131 South Michigan Avenue includes an insert showing photos of all singles and most bands, as well as author Jeff Jarema’s comments on each group coupled with impressively detailed musician lineups. (Also available on high-quality vinyl as a three-LP set.)

Fueled by a madness brought on by excessive acid use, the unhinged garage-rock and mind-bending, sometimes harrowing, psychedelia of ’60s pre-punk trailblazers The 13th Floor Elevators looked out over the edge and leaped — sanity and safety be damned. Few others, if any, followed their lead. They were too afraid.

The 13th Floor Elevators’ resident medicine man, Roky Erickson, on the other hand, risked everything, from his mental health to any chance at commercial success the band may have had, to commit wild and woolly rock ‘n’ roll to an asylum of scary, mind-f**king noise. Did the acid unleash the cavalcade of demons, bizarre planets, werewolves and general strangeness wandering around in Erickson’s mind and let it all roam free in the half-crazed lyrics and manic energy of the Elevators’ cat-scratched rock?

Maybe it did, or maybe Erickson’s imagination would have dreamed it all up without chemical encouragement. Whatever the case, the 10-CD Elevators’ anthology, Sign Of The 3-Eyed Men, goes to great lengths to prove, once and for all, that their savage brilliance is deserving of a place at the table with the greats of rock ‘n’ roll.

If Sign Of The 3-Eyed Men stopped at simply rounding up mono and stereo versions of the band’s three seminal albums — The Psychedelic Sounds Of The Thirteenth Floor Elevators, Easter Everywhere and Bull Of The Woods — and capturing their sonic glory with meticulously restored sound, courtesy of the Elevators’ original producer/engineer Walt Andrus, that would be a satisfying collection.

Toss in all the original masters, all the group’s singles, a clutch of session outtakes, two lost albums of previously unreleased material and Stacy Sutherland’s work in progress — the acetates, the safety masters and the multi-track tapes — for the aborted Beauty & The Beast album, and you’d be getting closer to nirvana.

But Sign Of The 3-Eyed Men has all of that and much, much more. There’s an assortment of live rarities —  some of which are being made available for the first time on record — and a 72-page hard-cover book written by Elevators’ authority Paul Drummond, who penned the book “Eye Mind.” Scattered about is a host of reproduction memorabilia. Everything from posters, stickers and handbills to photographic prints are included, providing a feast for that “eye mind” of yours.

And while all that makes for a stunning package, what will really set tongues wagging is the incredible wealth of recorded material contained within its padded cells.

Amid the cacophony of gurgles, sirens and Erickson’s hell-spawned caterwaul, The 13th Floor Elevators — tight as can be — played at a frenetic pace, always just a heartbeat away from utter anarchy. Their rock ‘n’ roll was primal and basic, the progeny of their ’50s forefathers like Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly. And yet, the Elevators took it to places they never imagined, and this set provides the road map for their long, strange journey.

An otherworldly alternate mix of “May The Circle Remain Unbroken” and a freewheeling, ramshackle live version of “Shake Your Hips,” from 1973, are revelations. Elsewhere, outtakes of “You’re Gonna Miss Me” and “Fire Engine” are slightly less chaotic than the originals, allowing the sure-fire hooks of both to grab hold easier. Although this version of “Fire Engine” loses none of the goofy fun and howling mayhem of the original, and the intensity of this take on “You’re Gonna Miss Me,” with riffs that would blow away Them or The Animals, is just as potent.<

Authors Barry Wickham and Geoffrey Richman certainly know the audience for their new guide to U.S. and Canadian garage records. This is the kind of book that will have fans furiously ripping through the pages to see what can be found. Or not.

“My Jefferson Airplane radio spot is only worth how much???”

“Oh hell. I didn’t know the Velveteens had TWO different picture sleeves for the same single!”

“So many Paul Revere & The Raiders records, but only three Turtles?”

“What’s Del Shannon doing in here?”

“Ha! I only paid two bucks for The Shags on Taurus!”

“I bet that Vito & The Hands single would be priced differently if people knew the backing band was the Mothers of Invention.”

Wickham and Richman should be commended for tackling a previously neglected specialty of record collecting. Other than a few mainstream surfacings such as the Nuggets anthologies and the stray Rhino comp, the dirty, sweaty, wild music of grassroots teen pop and rock from the 1960s has remained a cultist’s game. They’ve approached the subject with diligence, knowing that they face the full glare of fanatical scrutiny.

All 10,000-plus records listed were personally inspected by the authors, or at least by their qualified deputies. The amount of detail is impressive: Matrix numbers, label variations, dead wax numbers, notable colored vinyl, promos, pressing plants (!) and picture sleeves. It’s the picture sleeves that will be the most revelatory to even the most casual browsers — so many great (dirty, sweaty, wild) images that capture the era in ways that no mere photograph can. A generous 49-page appendix shows almost 300 labels and picture sleeves in full color, itself an invaluable reference. They even list the hometowns of most of the bands.

While there are plenty of records here priced in the $5 to $20 range, it’s those in the hundreds that often provide the most passionate responses among fans. There are astronomical prices, however, that a small group of collectors are willing to pay for the rarest, most desirable records that will make your ears burn. The authors have wisely decided to use a value placeholder of “Neg” (Negotiable) for those records that would certainly result in a feverish bidding war if they were ever to come onto the market. That means starting at $1,000 and up, way up.

Of course, the most contentious issue of any price guide is, well, price. Wickham and Richman have charted a middle course between the higher (“insane”) prices paid for those collectors who engage in bidding wars and “must have” at any cost, and those from genuine bargains because of retailer neglect or ignorance. Their philosophy is to present an estimate of the average price a record would be expected to bring if offered for sale. That may infuriate some who want a particular record to be “worth” more, and delight others who think they got a real deal for their thrift store find. As a moving target, prices need to be seen as the fuzz they are, and the authors actively encourage comments and revisions for future updates.

The design and production of the guide is clear and functional, though the binding glue appears a bit weak. Record label names are alphabetized under each band’s listing. There are columns for year of release, when known, pressing notes, and whether its image appears in the appendix. Relevant comments are made underneath each listing. Ease of use is exemplified by the fact that “number” bands (13th Power, The 4 Of Us, etc.) are listed separately at the beginning of the guide. How thoughtful.

It’s always easy to criticize a new price guide for any number of reasons. This one isn’t perfect, as the authors would be the first to acknowledge. But “Garage Records Price and Reference Guide” is an impressive debut, and any improvements will only be incremental.

(Self-published, 482 pages, $59. www.garage45priceguide.com)

- Stephen M.H. Braitman