Hola, Hombres y Mujeres del Town!

I just got back from 10 days in a pretty cool little country called Uruguay. In addition to Uruguay being the land of my birth, this nation of farmer-aesthetes is also the land of The Mother Of All Flea Markets, held every Sunday over about 10 square blocks of the city. Needless to say, there are lots of dudes out there flogging vinyl, and I went to see what I could see.

At the end of the day, I walked out with about four or five choice-looking albums, about which I knew next-to or absolutely nothing. Finally, this morning, after a grueling 24-hour return trip home, I was able to cue things up and have a listen. Doing so yielded a couple of gems, and one disappointment.

To begin with, let’s get the disappointment out of the way. By far, the LP that held the most promise in terms of Look was the following:

A disappointment

I mean, come ON! These dudes are a) high-steppin’ and soul-clappin’ their way into your hearts; b) wearing matching uniforms of the coolest sort; c) playin’ some seriously twangy-lookin’ guitars, and… well, you get the idea. Sadly — very sadly — the music contained on the el-pee most certainly does not match the Look. Talk about mediocre! I suppose I should cut the Angels some slack — they were one of the earliest “beat groups” in Brazil, and they were learning by poorly copying what they heard, same as everybody else.

A lousy photo, perhaps — but this is all I got on Los Blue Caps, people

On a more positive note, I found a copy of the album Dejame Mirarte, by Los Blue Caps (no relation to any Gene Vincent act of any kind, I assure you). For the most part, the music produced by these Paraguay-by-way-of-Argentinians is standard pop treacle of the day. In fact, it’s even treaclier than *I* can handle, and I’ve been known to tap my toes to some pretty White music, indeed. I was about to write the album off, when — whoah! — buried on the last track of side 2, I found “Don’t Leave Me Alone”. The only song on the album sung in English, it is also very much the only tune that sounds anything like, well, this. I’m actually shocked it hasn’t found its way onto one of those obscure freakbeat comps that seem to be popping up like psychedelic mushrooms in cowflop these days. I hope you enjoy it; I doubt you’ll find it anywhere else.

Spot the unhappy bassist

Lastly, an anomaly from the band that brought you “Little Green Bag”, of Reservoir Dogs fame, The George Baker Selection. I picked up this album based on my hazy recollections of the “Little Green Bag” song and was deeply disappointed by everything I heard, until I got to this, the only song on the album not written by “George Baker” (actually Dutchman Jan Bouwens). The song, called “Suicide Daisy”, was instead penned by the co-author of “Little Green Bag”, band bassist Jan Visser. In my opinion, it’s a stone winner — especially compared to all the other totally shitty sngs the GBS foisted on a cheese-hungry world. I mean, George Baker was the guy who wrote this:

Imagine being Jan Visser in this band. I sure hope the drugs and groupies were good, ’cause he couldn’t have been happy in that band… could he?

Your pal 4ever,

HVB