Recommendations of the editorial team
With Small Faces, The Mamas & The Papas and Buffalo Springfield, three of the most important bands of the 1960s published their first albums-and significantly influenced the subsequent period. Other debuts such as those of The Music Machine or The Monks are still passed on as an insider tips. Take a look at 1966 with us!
The Seeds – The Seeds
For bands like The Seeds, Greg Shaw’s Fanzine “Who put the bomb!” At the beginning of the 1970s, the expression punk rock: snotty hymns of pimple boys who dreamed of indoctrining American young people with their interpretation of the hard skirt of the British invasion. What the seeds took off from other bands were a stringent vision and a charismatic front man: nobody had longer hair in 1966 than Sky Saxon, none of the Moves Mick Jagger better, nobody had a more nasal voice, nobody wrote primitive songs.
Above all, the one-chord miracle “Pushin ‘Too Hard”, which made the seeds in Los Angeles as an Atavistic antithesis of Love and the Byrds so well known that they were allowed to record an album. Although after the band was dissolved in 1970, four further drug -contaminated long players followed, the 1966 debut is the ultimate statement of the band, an adorable collecting soda of songs that all sounded more or less like “Pushin ‘Too Hard” (is no coincidence that Neil Young is at the last concert of the band in Santa Monica The stage stormed to request the song loudly). Or like “Can’t Seem to Make You Mine”, the other mini hit by the South California Punks, which is also immortalized here. Chris Weiß
Question Mark & The Mysterians – 96 Tears
Lester Bangs considers “96 Tears” to be one of the best songs ever. Who is to contradict this? Like many American garage punk songs of the time, the most famous track from the Question of Mark & the Mysterians compared to the major achievements, to which the important British bands were capable of monthly rhythm, is initially regressive. But it is the lack of ambition that makes the song so truthful. This defrosted one-notot reef, with which the Farfisa organ over the chorus eggs, is impossible to get out of your head: this is primitivism of the highest order and takes the stoges by a few years in advance. Even if singer Question Mark, as he was officially called after a name change, insisted that he was born on Mars and only followed the inspiration of voices from the future, his band played rock music as if it had not come out about the achievements of the Stone Age. A compliment, of course. Accordingly, the debut, which was quickly absorbed after the unexpected national success of “96 Tears”, was less a uniform album than a collection of more or less successful songs. And finally culminated with the big hit. The best had been lifted for the end. Chris Weiß
The Music Machine – turn on
Sean Bonniwell had been a folk musician on his hump for a few years when he picked up the Music Machine south of San Francisco. The name was the program. Unlike the youthful garage rockers of the time, Bonniwell knew what he wanted. Hard, unmistakable rock music should play his band, electrified folk music. Or “Chinese jazz”, as he said himself. In order to achieve this goal, Bonniwell had his musicians sampled mercilessly until they, well, had become a machine. The instruments were tuned deeper to underline the threat of the sound; The musicians wore black and identical prince-iron hearts and slipped, the icing on the cake on the i, with their right hand in a black leather glove. That made a hard time when the group started playing in the Los Angeles clubs. Like the music that still conquers you in the storm when you put on turn on, the band’s first and only album. “Talk Talk”, the hymn of the group, 1 minute 58, opens up the round, but is not the anticipated highlight: Whether original or cover version (“Taxman” sounds as anticipated Heavy Metal), everything fits into a total work of art that rises confusion and alienation for art. Chris Weiß
The Monks – Black Monk Time
The punk did not start in London or New York, but in Gelnhausen in Hesse. There, five American GIS came together in the mid-1960s and founded a band: The 5 Torquays. They played the usual: Chuck Berry cover versions and the beat hits of the hour. And at some point it took on an own dynamic, the musicians began to compose their own songs, called themselves The Monks (the monks), performed in black clothing and wore short hairstyles with a monksure. You may find the overall concept silly, it was not the music: simple, highly effective garage skirt with Fuzzy guitars, a distorted bass, a clattering organ, an electrically reinforced banjo as a rhythm guitar replacement and Gary Burger’s right vocals – punk ten years before punk. Black Monk Time was the first and only studio album in Monks. Other careers have built on their music with the simple melodies and the desire to repetition. Mark E. Smith is a big monks fan. Anyone who compares the music of the Monks with The Fall also suspects why. Albert Koch
Jefferson Airplane – Takes Off
The band made a name for itself in San Francisco for a year when Jefferson Airplane with Takes Off The Blaupauer for the psychedelic music of the west coast. Although it has not yet emerged with the later singer Grace Slick, who still appeared with The Great Society at the time, the quintet around singer Marty Balin positions itself with the appealing collection of folked songs as the most important group of this new movement, which will celebrate the Summer of Love the following year. The guitarists Paul Kantner and Jorma Kaukonen are still underground, and yet it is unmistakable about Jefferson Airplane – not least because the then singer Signe Anderson, who leaves the record shortly after the publication, is in no way inferior to her family: on her number “Chauffeur Blues” she would like to have been heard from her. However, the highlights are “It’s No Secret” and “Come Up the Years” as well as an early version of the hippie anthem “Get Together”, long before the Youngbloods will be determined: Whatever will happen later at the Haight/Ashbury intersection, it starts here. Chris Weiß
Neil Diamond – The Feel of Neil Diamond
“There are two types of people. Some like Neil Diamond, others don’t.” In the 1991 film “What about Bob?” the disillusioned protagonist (depicted by Bill Murray) makes this statement. His marriage has just failed – the veneration of his wife for Neil Diamond. And in fact, the 75-year-old singer and songwriter has split the people interested in pop. For some he was the figurehead of a generation of the adapted, for the others … simply Neil Diamond. But already on his debut album The Feel of Neil Diamond was unmistakable what great songwriter the man from Brooklyn is. In the superficial SHA-LA-La of his pop songs assembled for the mass market, the bittersweet under tones were gladly ignored. The album opener “Solitary Man” (later cashed by Johnny Cash) is the best lottery song ever. Diamond, who had previously worked as an employed songwriter in a hit factory in the Brill Building in New York, coated very personal texts with immortal pop melodies. The fact that the tracklist of his debut album reads like that of a “Best of” compilation speaks for itself: “Solitary Man”, “Monday Monday”, “Cherry Cherry”, “Hanky Panky”, “Oh no no (I’ve got the feeling)”. The album was never released on CD. But you no longer need it anymore. Albert Koch