TALL TALES OF THE 1960's

 

When was the last time you heard a song that had a title that started with "Tales Of".........?

Do people even tell tales anymore? 

Well, they did back in the sixties, and then they wrote great songs about them.

Here are two of the greatest examples! 

THE BOB SEGER SYSTEM - "Tales Of Lucy Blue" 

 

CREAM - "Tales Of Brave Ulysses"

THE SQUIRES OF THE SUBTERRAIN - "Evil Head" (2008)

 

Rich here. No doubt many of you longtime followers of this blog know that its original focus was the cassette culture of the 1980's, which was a time when the emergence of 4-track cassette recorders made it possible for DIY musicians to record their music at home while being able to mix and overdub multiple instrumental and vocal tracks. 

 

Some background:  Of course, being recorded on cassette tapes meant that the fidelity and sound quality was fairly low, but those primitive 4-track recorders proved to be a great workshop for teaching musicians how to arrange and record their music. And the resulting explosion of lo-fi home recorded music gave birth to a whole new musical underground as musicians gave out their tapes to their friends and fans and traded them with other home-tapers, fanzines were created that devoted themselves to reviewing the 100's of new recordings that were floating around, and left-of-the-dial radio stations were broadcasting the best tapes from the cassette culture. 

 

That's where I got my start as an indie musician in the early '80s, and despite the fact that the technology available to home recording artists these days is much more sophisticated, I still work and record with several of the artists I originally met and traded our primitive tapes with 30-40 years ago. 

 

One of the earliest cassette culture artists I met back in the day continues to be one of its most prolific -- Christopher Zajkowski, an extremely talented musician who channels all the best influences of the Sixties and releases his home-recorded masterpieces under the name THE SQUIRES OF THE SUBTERRAIN. In most cases, Chris writes and plays all the instruments and sings all the vocals, as he does on "Evil Head," which is a great pop song from his 2008 collection, "Feel the Sun." And recorded in Analog!

 THE SQUIRES OF THE SUBTERRAIN - "Evil Head"

CHARLES DE GOAL - "Commemoration" (1989)

 

Charles De Goal was a pretty cool band from France and they released this album called "Commemoration" in 1989 on the French label "New Rose.

There's not a lot to be found out about this group, the information on Discogs shows a band website that no longer exists, and their ancient Myspace page is almost totally devoid of information. 

Discogs lists them as "a the minimal synth project of Patrick Blain' but this song is a rockin' guitar based tune.

The title of this song is the same as the name of their record label, so I guess they were happy to be signed. 

This song has only had 15 views on YouTube in four years, and one of those is mine!

What a shame!

CHARLES DE GOAL - "New Rose"

SCOTT 4 - "Deutsche LP Record" (1997)

 

Scott 4.

The name of the band is the name of Scott Engel's 1969 LP titled ironically enough, "Scott 4."

 

 

That's Scott Engel aka Scott Walker of The Walker Brothers. 

The same Scott Walker that tore down all kinds of walls until his demise in 2019. 

So yeah, why not name your band after one of his albums? 

SCOTT 4 - "Deutsche LP Record"

THE KICKS - "Get Off The Telephone" (1980)

 

They started off as The Incredible Kidda Band, but changed their name to The Kicks after moving to London. They only recorded a couple of singles as The Kicks before changing their name to Were Only Human, and have continued recording all the way up to 2025 back where they started as The Incredible Kidda Band.

Here's one of their singles from 1980.

THE KICKS - "Get Off The Telephone"

TRAVIS WAMMACK - "Scratchy" (1964)

 

I never planned on doing tributes to all the great artists who have passed away over the years, but this is one I just can't ignore since this is a song that has been a part of my musical life almost forever.

Travis Wammack passed away on February 27, 2026. He was 81 years old.

The 'A' side of this single was titled "Fire Fly," but it was the 'B' side of this single titled "Scratchy" that caught everybody's attention and made it to number 80 on the charts in 1964.

Travis was only 17 years of age at the time.

With all the hubbub made over The Kingsmen's indecipherable lyrics in "Louie, Louie," I never could understand why nobody questioned the garbled backwards lines in this tune, because it always sounded like he was saying something nasty to me!

Travis Wammack might not be a household name, but he's pretty damn special to the people who do know who he was. 

Just listen to this song, one of the best instrumentals of all time, and understand why! 

TRAVIS WAMMACK - "Scratchy" 

FRANK STROZIER - "Fantastic Frank Strozier" (1960)

 

About 50 years ago I bought this record titled "Fantastic Frank Strozier" at a swap meet for fifty cents, and I was like who is this guy Frank Strozier? I'd never heard of him before but recognized all the other players on the album, Booker Little, Paul Chambers, Wynton Kelley, and Jimmy Cobb, as names I had seen many times before on albums by John Coltrane, and Miles Davis, and so I figured Frank must be pretty talented, and guess what?  He's more than that, and this is a record that anybody who loves Jazz should have in their collection for sure!

Frank Strozier is now 88 years old, and I hope he's still playing! 

FRANK STROZIER - "Waltz Of The Demons"