'Run here my towhead grandchillen, and let this geezer dandle you on his knee. While you still recognize me, you little maniacs. You know the gong has tolled, it's that time again. Now let me set my old brain a-ruminatin', ah what upbuilding tale from days of yore shall I relate today?
'What's all this shit about the Yardbirds?''
So begins Lester Bangs revered essay Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung written for Creem Magazine in 1971. It pays tribute amongst other things to the glory of already largely forgotten San Jose garage band The Count Five. Best known of course for their Top Ten single Psychotic Reaction, as good as the genre got, and to my mind one of the best singles ever released. Bangs discusses at great rambling length the wonder of the single the album that followed, the band itself and what they represented to him, values he felt had already been forgotten and discarded just five short years later.
'The album had a killer cover too - the photo was taken from the bottom of a grave around the rim of which stood the members of the group, staring down atcha in the sepulchre with bug-eyed malice. Really eerie, except that they were all wearing madras shirts and checkered slacks from Penney's. Which was not so eerie but a nice touch in the long run. The colors and lettering were nice too.
The back had four pictures of them; Count Five in Lugosian capes on the lawn in front of an old mansion, trying to look sinister; Count Five on some L.A. dancetime show ravin' it up while a crowd of blooming boppers, presumably cordoned off from their idols, pushed eagerly towards them from the right side of the picture; Count Five in the TV studio; and Count Five loading luggage into the trunk of their car with proper sullen scowls on their faces, gettin' ready for the Big Tour as al popstars must (they probably took it in the manager's wife's station wagon.'
So here are five of their tracks. All from that first record. With respect to Bangs, the first two songs here are absolute stone cold classics. The other three less so.
1. Psychotic Reaction
2.Pretty Big Mouth
3. Double-Decker Bus
4. Peace of Mind
5.Contrast
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