[1966] The Eyes - The Immediate Pleasure

listen to the song:

The Eyes, were an Freakbeat and Garage Rock group from London in the 60's. I don't know much about them, but that they have realeased a load of singles and Acme licenced them and putted out a propper reissue of them in a compilation in 2006 together with Lion Productions. Sooner or later I will post another song form this comp, wich is entitled "The Arrival of the Eyes" and also feat. alternate takes/demos. Some of the tracks (as well as this one) are quite psychedelic! "The Immediate Pleasure" for example leans toward a strong Byrds vein (before they had their "cowboy attitude" ;-) ) mixed up with that certain british beat of the 60's, the Beatles cultivated.

[1967] The Quiet Jungle - Everything

listen to the song:

The Quit Jungle's '67 single got bootleged quite often. starting with the countless amount of psych comps and ending with the recent Garage Greats exact repro 45's ... What is known about this band? Let's ask Canuckistan Music: "Toronto's Doug Rankine and the Secrets scored huge in early 1966 with a rather goofy novelty hit, a quintessentially Canadian ode to the burly Toronto Maple Leaf forward Eddie Shack called 'Clear the Track, Here Comes Shack'. This tepid Merseybeat clone rocketed to number one on the CHUM-AM charts in Toronto in February, 1966, ultimately and inexplicably charting for nine weeks. However, by early '67, having by then adopted the hipper-sounding Quiet Jungle, the lads debuted with the first of two seven-inchers for the Yorkville label, later home to fellow garagesters the Ugly Ducklings. 'Ship of Dreams', is stellar psychedelia, opening with an eerie guitar squeal that presages Fever Tree's 'San Francisco Girls', and with delicious organ riffs and mellifluous harmonies that would justifiably see it hit #31 in February of that year. Flip it over and the wax explodes with some gruff and snarly - if not a tad formulaic - garage punk. The Quiet Jungle followed this with the less interesting, though much tougher to find, Too Much in Love / Make Up Your Mind (also on Yorkville), before vanishing from Toronto's Yorkville scene. Unbeknownst to many, though, is that the band found gainful employment as session musicians for the budget label Arc, churning out fodder for hundreds of K-Mart and Kresge bins with an entire set of Monkees hits, as well as a totally lame-o Christmas disc, The Story of Snoopy's Christmas and Other Favourite Children's Songs (Arc)."

A nice interview with Doug Rankine from the band can be read at: The Garage Hangover!

[2008] Otis Optic & The Option People - Traffic Lights

listen to the song:

Otis Optic & The Option People are aband based in Germany. They released their debut on Nasoni Records and mark their discoraphy highlights along with a hand full of other albums. Although it's a mystery to my, why they are that little known. ok, it's the label-politics regarding promotion on one hand, but on the other they are not known to a lot of Garage Punkers. Their songs consist of a strong psychedelic style, and they rather established in the Neo-Psych scene (Vibravoid, Liquid Visions, Siena Root, ...). So let me recommend their album to everyone who is digging the good old Garage-Psych! The band's last activity is dated back to 2008, so just let's hope they have not broke and will delight us with more goodies in future!