Troggs

Although the raw power of "Wild Thing" is undeniable and has held influence over countless bands, the band were more than that. From Nowhere showed a group of British guys with a keen garage-stompin' punk sensibility in '66, years before the term 'punk' even entered music's consciousness…

Remembered chiefly as proto-punkers who reached the top of the charts with the "caveman rock" of "Wild Thing" (1966), the Troggs were also adept at crafting power pop and ballads. Hearkening back to a somewhat simpler, more basic British Invasion approach as psychedelia began to explode in the late '60s, the group also reached the Top Five with their flower-power ballad "Love Is All Around" in 1968. While more popular in their native England than the U.S., the band also fashioned memorable, insistently riffing hit singles like "With a Girl Like You," "Night of the Long Grass," and the notoriously salacious "I Can't Control Myself" between 1966 and 1968. Paced by Reg Presley's lusting vocals, the group - which composed most of their own material - could crunch with the best of them, but were also capable of quite a bit more range and melodic invention than they've been given credit for.

Hip Hip Hooray is actually a retitled and slightly resequenced reissue of the Troggs' 1968 U.K. album Mixed Bag (which never came out in the United States), tacking on 11 CD bonus cuts from 1970 and 1973 singles. The original title Mixed Bag was an appropriate description of this rather scrapheap assembly, as it wasn't really a regular album. Instead, it was a budget-priced compilation matching eight songs that appeared on British and American singles in 1968 with four others that made their first appearance on the LP. Although all but one of the tracks was a Troggs original ("Hip Hip Hooray" being the lone exception)…

The Troggs were one of the toughest and most gloriously unpolished bands to emerge from the U.K. during the British Invasion era – the leering, monolithic pound of "Wild Thing" and "I Can't Control Myself" was about the closest thing to the Stooges that emerged on vinyl before James Osterberg reinvented himself as Iggy Pop, and lead singer Reg Presley all but defined the word "lascivious" with his guttural howls and moans on their best recordings…

The Troggs' debut British LP was substantially different, and distinctly inferior to, their first American long-player (Wild Thing), although eight of the songs appear on both records. The tracks unique to the British edition are all covers: "Ride Your Pony" and the obscure "The Kitty Cat Song" (both taken from Lee Dorsey), "Louie Louie," and Chuck Berry's "Jaguar and Thunderbird." And none of them are so hot. "Wild Thing" is the highlight of the disc, and the rest of the set is a mixed bag, peaks being the primordial power of "From Home" and "I Just Sing," as well "Jingle Jangle," the first of Reg Presley's tuneful ballads. The vaudevillian "Hi Hi Hazel," on the other hand, is a lowlight. There's no "Lost Girl," "With a Girl Like You," or "I Want You," all of which made the U.S. Wild Thing a better counterpart to this release, although this didn't prevent From Nowhere from rising to number six in the British charts.

Don't mistake the title of this album, The Trogg Tapes, for that 12-minute talking studio digression New Rose Records released (with no track listing) on The Troggs on 45's EP. Perhaps cashing in on that fun debacle's underground buzz, the band releases 11 tracks that are pure Troggs. With singer Reg Presley and late drummer Ronnie Bond on board, original producer/manager Larry Page puts together an exciting 1976 album which has a simple raw sound, perfect for the new wave…

Remembered chiefly as proto-punkers who reached the top of the charts with the "caveman rock" of "Wild Thing" (1966), the Troggs were also adept at crafting power pop and ballads. Hearkening back to a somewhat simpler, more basic British Invasion approach as psychedelia began to explode in the late '60s, the group also reached the Top Five with their flower-power ballad "Love Is All Around" in 1968…