Pop Geek Heaven

TITANIC “Ballad of a Rock ‘n Roll Loser” [linebreak style=”25.png”]   I am half-Scandinavian. My maternal grandmother was Swedish and my maternal grandfather was Danish. To my knowledge, this has had zero effect on my tastes in pop music—I was raised on American AM radio. Still, though, I have had some curiosity about Scandinavian bands. […]

GRAPEFRUIT “Around Grapefruit” [linebreak style=”25.png”] Most pop fans have at least a basic familiarity with the bands that were signed to Apple Records in the late ’60s and no doubt those bands profited greatly from that connection, at least in terms of buzz and profile. Nearly everyone knows Badfinger, Mary Hopkin and Billy Preston and […]

THE HOMBRES “Let It Out (Let It All Hang Out)” [linebreak style=”25.png”]   One of my favorite quotes about rock music comes from an interview I heard with Tom Petty. He said, “The important thing to keep in mind about rock ’n’ roll is that none of it was ever meant to be any good.” […]

DIRTY ANGELS “Dirty Angels” [linebreak style=”25.png”] On November 19th, 1978, I dragged a carload of my friends to the UCLA quad to see the Talking Heads play a free afternoon concert (I even purchased an “I Survived the Talking Heads at UCLA 11-17-78” T-shirt that became one of my best conversation starters for the next […]

THE SPENCER DAVIS GROUP “With Their New Face On” [linebreak style=”25.png”] Many pop bands with prominent lead singers continue to record after the departure (or sometimes death) of their star frontmen. Think Them or The Doors. Or, in the case of this Lost Treasures post, The Spencer Davis Group. Everyone is familiar with the hits […]

THE CARNIVAL “The Carnival” [linebreak style=”25.png”] The Carnival is a charming cross between the Fifth Dimension and Sergio Mendes and Brasil ’66, offering the rich vocal arrangements of the former against the soft, lulling rhythms of the latter. When I first came upon the album, I thought it fairly obscure and assumed it was the […]

LOST TREASURES FRATERNAL ORDER OF ALL “Greetings from Planet Love” By Peter Marston [linebreak style=”25.png”] One of the pitfalls of success for pop bands is that record companies, fans and sometimes the bands themselves develop fairly fixed views of what the band can and should sound like. Sometimes recording under an alias can help restore […]

LOST TREASURES JAKE AND THE FAMILY JEWELS “Jake and the Family Jewels”   By Peter Marston [linebreak style=”25.png”]   When I was a in junior high, I must admit that I was often—and perhaps too easily—confused by which band had recorded which hit singles. I know I thought that the Hollies’ “Long Cool Woman” was […]

LOST TREASURES SPLINTER “The Place I Love” By Peter Marston [linebreak style=”25.png”] My formative years in record collecting revolved around the Beatles. I had grown up on my older brother’s Capitol LPs and once I had mastered those (and once I got my driver’s license), I began making forays to my local underground record store […]

LOST TREASURES Catapult “Catapult” By Peter Marston [linebreak style=”25.png”] Ever since I first heard “Ma Belle Amie” by the Tee Set, I have been a fan of Dutch pop. “Little Green Bag” by the George Baker Selection, “Venus” by Shocking Blue, “How Do You Do” by Mouth and MacNeal—I loved them all and, later on, […]