When most people think of "garage bands" from the 60's, they immediately think of a brilliantly moronic Fuzztone riff and a lead singer screaming about "You get outta mah HAY-air, bay-BEH" and all that, but perhaps we are reaching the point where there are very few truly scorching screamers left to be discovered. And maybe that's not such a bad thing, because there was an amazing a variety of cool sounds being served up by the nation's suburban teens that went way beyond genre archetypes like Nobody's Children and Gonn. For a good example check out the Ikon Records Story, an awesome two-record set (or double CD with bonus tracks) devoted to the incredibly rare 45s of a legendary California label.

If you've been following Little Hits for some time, you know we love the jangly garage pop that seemed to a favorite with Midwestern bands (and not just because they tend to be quite a bit cheaper than the gnarly sounds). Here are two good 'uns; the Ricochettes from Milwaukee with primo jangly folk rock on Chicago's well-known Destination label, and the Only Ones from Detroit with a much more crude but similarly-scrubbed effort.

Quick plugs: Erik Meinen's fabulous Beat Behind the Dykes mail order, where I scored the Ricochettes 45, and the mynd-blowingly cool "Searchin For Shakes" 60s comp database on-line at the Ugly Things website, a massively cool and invaluable resource.

Here's a UK power-popper by a very obscure group, a fine example of the genre, but what really sets it apart is the cheeky bottleneck guitar. Another one brought to us by our friends at Low Down Kids.

More mall store memories...Remember when Camelot Music was doing their "Fresh Music" promotion? They had TONS of nu-wave related inventory, and besides a fairly strong selection of US indies, they had hundreds of exotic-looking 12" singles from the UK by bands with weird names like Kajagoogoo and Haysi Fantayzee and Simple Minds and Yazoo, most of whom had not yet or would never crack the US market. I bought a bunch of them at a reduced rate when the "Fresh Music" concept crashed and burned about a year later.

I love some things about the UK 12" singles from this era. They're always really loud, the vinyl is good, and they tend to have deluxe glossy picture sleeves. Unfortunately, most "extended" 12" mixes are simply the same song with the instrumental parts repeated over and over, so the records, despite their beauty as objects, are worthless for listening. Here's an example of the exception, this huge, majestic version of the other really good song from the Icicle Works' debut album. Another good one, one I wish I still had, was the 12" of "(In a) Big Country," which contained two versions of that song, one considerably longer than the US hit single version, and one shorter. The longer version was more interesting, and the short version more concise and powerful than what we heard on the radio here.

Did any of you guys like this band? I recall receiving this album as a graduation gift from my pal David Ring, (who I've lost contact with, and as he's not the kind of guy who probably goes around Googling himself, dropping his name here probably isn't going to help) and subsequently penciling it in as my favorite LP of 1984 for the year-end list bulletin board at Second Time Around Records in Wichita (still maybe my favorite record store ever). I seem to recall ranking it ahead of, for example Meat Puppets II (which actually came out in '83, but indie rock records didn't really have street dates back then, and besides, I was in friggin' Pratt, KS, so give me a break already) which seems a bit dubious, but then this thing did have the Sound Of Jon's Bedroom, ca. 1984; it sounded like a cross between REM and U2/Big Country. Many tracks were used on mix tapes, and I memorized the entire LP in a way I almost never do with a current release.

Uh...I didn't like their next album as much.

Absolute lack of chart success notwithstanding, there is an absurd tendency to regard the Only Ones as a one-hit wonder. And while "Another Girl, Another Planet" is without doubt one of the supreme cultural acheivements of Western Civilization and the band's greatest song, it is hardly the only Little Hit by a band who made three consistently excellent LPs. The band had more chops than most (especially ex-Spooky Tooth guitarist John Perry, who does amazing things with regularity) and one of the great songwriters of the era, Peter Perret, who deserves the kind of hosannas regularly (and rightly) flung at guys like Robyn Hitchcock. This was in fact, one of the greatest bands of the late 70s, and everyone who is not already familiar should not hesitate to pick up Why Don't You Kill Yourself: The CBS Recordings, which contains the 3 LPs as well as some B-sides and things. It was difficult indeed to pick just one great track, but Perret's vocal on this stunner from the 2nd LP just kills us.