The Beacon Street Union were one of those bands associated with what's known as "The Bosstown Sound" which evidently was something dreamed up by their record label. My only exposure to them has been these two singles and I can tell you that all four songs here are really neat and indicate a band with a lot of different sides to their music. You got straight-out rock 'n' roll with their absolutely raucous cover of that Carl Perkins classic everyone knows. You've got weird psychedlic instrumental complete with swirling, drooping organ and backward tape loops with "Four Hundred and Five." There's more crazy psych with "Speed Kills," a 1:42 lament to the travails of life's fast pace, complete with changing time signatures, bleeping keyboards and a cool fuzz guitar solo. And there's the pick of the crop, "South End Incident (I'm Afraid)" which opens with a rapid-fire hard psych blast before slowing down into a tale of a hunted man who's witnessed a murder ("I saw him in the alleyway/I saw that piece of steel laughing at her throat/There was nothing I could do"), punctuated with creepy organ and bursts of loud guitar. So there you go: two different 45s, four different sides. How's that for diversity?
Oh, by the way, both of these records were produced by Wes Farrell, who would go on to being involved with TV's "Partridge Family." I guess that's progress.
No comments:
Post a Comment