fireballs & tsunami

A few nights ago I was painstakingly organizing my distended, 8,375-track iTunes collection (adding album artwork, et cetera). While searching for the name of the artist who originally recorded “I Want Candy,” I stumbled upon the All Music Guide page for a British band called THE TREMELOES.

As a serious music fan — especially of 1960s UK rock music — I shook my head, flabbergasted, and wanted to punch myself in the neck for never having listened to the Tremeloes before. AMG has a total hard-on, and rightfully so, for this little-known gem of a band who allegedly beat the Beatles in a January 1962 battle of the bands (reports vary).

I uploaded one of their excellent B-sides, “Even the Bad Times Are Good,” HERE for your listening pleasure. AMG proclaims its “beats, harmonies, and hooks half the groups in England or America would have killed to put together.” This is no hyperbole; it’s dubious you’ll listen and not be overcome with an uncontrollable urge to 1) dance, 2) air guitar, or 3) form your own band. I have, without a doubt, annoyed my neighbors raucously singing along to the “la la la la la la la la las.”

The Tremeloes, like their 1960s British contemporaries the Sonics, Beatles, and Rolling Stones, also recorded a ton of covers including Cat Stevens’ “Here Comes My Baby,” the Isley Brothers’ “Twist and Shout,” Roy Orbison’s “Candy Man,” and the Contours’ “Do You Love Me,” all of which charted well on both sides of the Atlantic.

AMG claims that “it’s difficult for anyone who has heard them not to like — or even love — the Tremeloes. ” As usual, AMG has hit the nail on the head. But good luck finding Tremeloes information online; I’ve done some exhaustive searches, and seems as if AMG is one of the few sites willing to extensively review their work. Let me know if you’d like me to IM or burn you some tracks. And the always-competent Amazon offers several of their recordings.

Additional Tremeloes biography HERE; discography HERE.

P.S. Speaking of music, I’ve joined the ranks of My Space users who attack you with audio. It never occurred to me to add a song to my My Space profile but after some consideration, I finally decided to include one tonight. It’s not my first choice (I would have liked Jeanette’s “Porque te Vas” or Del Shannon’s “Runaway” or a Tremeloes tune; all were unavailable), but I did the best I could. Snap.

This entry was posted on Friday, February 10th, 2006 at 6:07 am and is filed under Music. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.