Featuring no less than 72 remastered tracks and many rare and unreleased mixes, this collection serves to highlight the pioneering pop/house crossover sound created especially for Mel & Kim by songwriting and production powerhouse Stock Aitken Waterman and the PWL studio team. ‘Respectable’ became SAW’s first own composition to top the UK charts (they’d merely produced Dead or Alive’s ‘You Spin Me Round’ stomper) and while there are online debates about it, ‘Showing Out’ is widely considered the first ever British house record.
A New Jersey band that's making all the right noises. A chaotic guitars and drum combo who sound like they recorded this rolling down a hill. Their songs shift from inane free form workouts and surreal silliness to highly complex guitar riffing.
"Yak match raucous, restless energy with uncommon gravitas, making this the rare garage rock-informed record that aims for the upper reaches of Royal Albert Hall." - Pitchfork
The second box in as many years of a truckload of obscure British psychedelia. Here are ten more CDs' worth of serious rarities by some bands that barely scratched the surface of the British freakbeat scene during rock's golden era, and a few who went on to other things. In all, there are 128 cuts here, all compiled and annotated by Phil Smee – of Perfumed Garden fame (also issued by Past And Present). While some of these acts, such as the Poets, the Human Instinct, Outer Limits, and Denny Laine left marks on the scene, as did mod bands such as les Fleur De Lys and the Buzz; many others came from the swamp and returned with only these few minutes of glory for all of their efforts.
The folks at Rockbeat Records have gone deep, culling together nearly 100 ultra-rare, delightfully campy Halloween nuggets from the '60s on this well-curated three-disc set. Don't murder your next party with another tired spin of "The Monster Mash." Even the weakest of these tracks provides a greater thrill than that tired old platter. Weird it up with bands like M.R. Baseman & the Symbols, the Twelfth Night, Kenny & the Fiends, the Grim Reapers, and dozens more from the '60s garage heyday. Strewn between tracks are trailers and excerpts from various B movies and horror shows. As a Halloween set, this is priceless, and fans of '60s rock rarities will also want to take note.