The Nashville Teens – Tobacco Road

This week, in tandem with the new Sixties Garage mix we released on Mixcloud (available to listen here: https://www.mixcloud.com/dannyneill714/fruit-tree-records-sixties-garage-vol-1/ ), the Old Fruit feature is a selection of bands from the same era who all fall under the Garage umbrella. Not only that though, I have also made my mission this week to source some rarely seen TV or film footage of the acts in question, all of whom are rather lacking in visual representation thanks to either their only moderate success at the time or the pitifully small volume of surviving tapes. To get the ball rolling, this is a band heavily linked to the R&B scene of the period with undoubtedly their best known and most successful track. Also, this is by far the best quality footage I have seen, such high definition and colour from the time is rare indeed so get your eyes and ears around this one. For further digging, check out any Nashville Teens CDs you can purchase here: https://amzn.to/4l7VZHW

The Electric Banana – It’ll Never Be Me

Sixties midnight to six men The Pretty Things can be seen on a few TV and film clips from the era but they also had an alter-ego called The Electric Banana. This was hardly publicised at all during those years, in fact the band most likely treated it as a handy side hustle with their writing and recording for De Wolfe library, which placed specifically recorded background and music features into films and TV. Still, even though they never intended for it to be a public facing project, they actually made some really cool tracks under this name and the sound is generally identifiable as the classic Pretty Things style. On top of that, they occasionally appeared on film as the Electric Banana, as seen on this wonderful excerpt. The complete recorded works of the band are available to buy on this 3-CD set from a few years back: https://amzn.to/4rToSuf

The Birds – That’s All I Need You For

More priceless footage from a film although this time, frustratingly, we do not quite get the full song, cut as it is into dialogue scenes from the movie. It is worth it though simply for the chance to catch a glimpse of Ronnie Wood’s first band, way before the future Jeff Beck Group, Faces and Rolling Stones guitarist would become instantly, identifiably famous. The Birds were a mid-sixties London band primarily playing in the energetic mode that would later be classed as Freakbeat. They would have been rubbing shoulders with bands like the Pretty Things and The Who in their early days and in fact, theirs is a decent catalogue from the era and they made a few now garage rock classics well worth getting to know. This CD compilation ‘Collector’s Guide To Rare British Birds’ is a great one-stop place to start: https://amzn.to/4b8bivR

The Standells – Dirty Water

Thanks to its prominent positioning in the original Nuggets compilation tracklist (for the uninitiated this is the 1972 album that launched the collectable genre known as Garage Rock) The Standells ‘Dirty Water’ is rightly regarded as one of the styles premier artefacts. Still, it was hardly a song that rose too close to the surface in its time, the Los Angeles band releasing it as a single in 1965, but clearly it did warrant some promotional TV appearances in the US. That said, whilst it is incredible to see moving footage of the band in colour, they could hardly be accused of capturing the energy of the record with this casually mimed effort. The singing drummer looks quite bemused throughout and even puts his sticks down at one point. Still it is great to see this all the same, you can then follow this link for access to a good CD re-issue of the band taken from the original master tapes: https://amzn.to/3P13bto

The Rockin’ Ramrods – Play It

Even by the standards of sixties garage, The Rockin’ Ramrods are a pretty obscure act. For that reason alone it was quite a surprise to find that there is this grainy film footage of the band waiting to be found. It is certainly not a great quality visual but that downside is compensated by its rarity. They were a band from Boston who enjoyed a little local success in their time and are likely to have played alongside other notable neighbourhood names like The Remains, The Lost or The Barbarians. There is a ‘best of’ CD compilation available to buy via the link which does have some good period tunes in the primitive style sat alongside more standard sixties guitar band fare, worth a punt: https://amzn.to/3P13FQe

The Seeds – I Can’t Seem To Make You Mine

We finish with another garage band who today are regarded as one of the legends of the form. The Seeds were from Los Angeles and more than some of their peers, they really pushed the music forward into the psychedelic and garage-punk that would evolve out of the mid-decade musical grains. Not only that but their leader Sky Saxon was one of the more attention grabbing front men of the day and he knew how to work a camera, so it is nice that there are some examples of the band on film to explore. As for checking out the music, this expanded re-issue of their debut album is as good a place to start as any: https://amzn.to/4b8jNqw