Sonny and the Sunsets - Hit After Hit

Honestly, I really should have reviewed this album ages ago but work and life just got in the way, but Hit After Hit, probably the seventh record created by Sonny Smith, the brains and soul behind San Franciscan garage-pop act Sonny and the Sunsets is well worth taking the time to check out...especially as we ease into summer season.

Smith, who once created 100 fictional bands, the bios and even the songs to go with them (sample name: Zig Speck and the Specktones), is a man with an ear for melody and a catchy hook, and there's plenty to be found on this record. There's a bit of Jonathan Richman in these songs, lots of Nuggets-style garage grooves, and plenty of similarities with the modern group of 60s-influenced acts such as The Fresh and Onlys, Ty Seagall and others.

Beginning with the Standelles-alike 'She Plays Yo Yo With My Mind', Hit After Hit rushes through a bunch of other smashing psych-pop tunes, 'Home and Exile' has what might be the best drums and bass intro to a song you'll hear all year before launching into deliriously infectious call and response, and 'Reflections of Youth' chugs along with VU riffs before adding a sunny chorus.

The marvellously titled 'The Bad Energy from LA Is Killing Me' drones on some seriously bad Roky Erickson vibes, and is a detuned treat, before the unbelievably funky 'Teen Age Thugs' (a name of one of Smith's fictional bands) kicks in and takes us to a sweaty club where the crowd would fug furiously to garage tunes all night long. There's plenty more to choose from before the record ends on the sweetly sad 'Pretend You Love Me'.

With the prolific nature of Sonny Smith it's quite likely he's got about four more records' worth of material to release already, but for now just savour the solid-gold pop nuggets found on this one.

Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era

Nuggets is the story of a transitional period in US Rock n Roll, covering three rollicking years from 1965 to 1968. It was punk rock before punk was invented; it was garage rock long before the existence of CBGBs, and it was psychedelic before Grateful Dead, Pink Floyd et al jumped on that particular bandwagon.

Conceived by Lenny Kaye of The Patti Smith Group and Jac Holzman of Elektra Records, it brings together a collection of young men in quickly thrown together bands playing songs under three minutes long. These songs are incredibly raw, mostly done in one take in someone's basement, and featuring the fuzziest of guitars, the craziest of drummers and - more often than not - everyone under the influence of speed.

As a rule, it seems the subjects of the songs featured on Nuggets varies from getting with girls to, emmm....well, actually that's about it. The fellas aren't always successful though, leading to vitriolic attacks such as "Psycho" by The Sonics.

With the Vietnam War on the horizon and the death of President John F Kennedy fresh in the mind, it was a strange time for the youth of America. The shadow of nuclear armageddon hung over the country and no-one knew how much of a future there would be. Retreating to their bedrooms to listen to British Invasion bands like The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Animals and The Kinks, and the popular west coast sounds of homegrown bands like The Beach Boys, the seeds of a idea began to take hold in the minds of some young men: what if we could combine the rawness and freshness of these British guys with the music we've grown up listening to? The idea worked, and what followed was some of the most thrilling, immediate and melodic music ever to come out of the USA, and would influence countless bands through the 70s, 80s, 90s and right up to this decade.

You'll be familiar with some of the bands: The Sonics, The Monks, Captain Beefheart, The Kingsmen and The Electric Prunes, but then there's lesser know (and extremely short-lived) bands like The Human Beinz, The Remains, The Standells and The Shadows of Knight.

With over 100 songs to choose from, it's been hard to pick a top ten or so, but below are some of my favourites (in no particular order), with appropriate links, of course........

The Standells - "Dirty Water" : This has got a fantastically dirty groove, and lyrics which led it to being banned upon its release around 1966:




The Premiers - "Farmer John" : One of many songs that takes it cue from "Louie Louie", it's a great call-and-response anthem, carried along by some funky brass. Most famously covered in an hilariously lascivious fashion by Neil Young and Crazy Horse on their live album Weld.

Human Beinz - "Nobody But Me" : Originally an Isley Brothers track, this version's grooves were so tight that it took the public weeks to realise that it was a bunch of white kids from Ohio that were playing:




The Shadows of Knight - "I'm Gonna Make You Mine" : This is simply wonderful. A slice of prime garage rock, in and out in 2mins 25secs. Terrific guitars and drums propel this one right along and it's over and out before you know it.

The Knickerbockers - "Lies" : Clearly indebted to The Beatles and Herman's Hermits, this is a track that has the garage hit, but with a large dollop of harmony. Nice:




The Sonics - "Strychnine" : One of the few bands to have survived through to the present, this lot were quite an intense band, responsible for "The Witch" "Psycho", and this marvellous paean to a drug that causes muscular convulsions....and death! Rock on! This is from 2008:




The Rationals - "I Need You": A blistering, and probably definitive, version of a song by The Kinks.

The Kingsmen - "Louie Louie" : No collection would be complete without the blueprint for all garage rock bands, ever:




The Music Machine - "Talk Talk" : This is brilliant, a staccato beat, swirling guitars and organ, and singer Sam Bonniwell yelping nonsense over the top of it all:




Count Five - "Psychotic Reaction" : To end, let's have a little bit of Count Five, who switch between gentle, almost country-ish harmonica led grooves, and what can only be classed as a psychotic middle section where the band are trying to keep up with themselves as the song threatens to fall apart/fly away at any moment:




So that's it, a basic introduction to the world of Nuggets. Basically just a bunch of lads making rock music, but aren't some of the simple things in life the most enjoyable?