Woburn's own Casa Grande records(CG-1911 if you are curious) dropped this 8 song masterpiece. Imagine a powerpacked duo of drums and organ(Hammond X-77) according to the liner notes. Gene Gawron and Lee Elliot wail through a group of classic covers. "It Never Rains in Southern California", "I can see clearly now","Lodi" and more. If you stumbled into whatever Holiday Inn Lounge these guys were in, you would have been in for a good time. Bill Murray could sit in on vocals. Tear jerkers are here too, "Didn't We","Crying Time"... One side for rocking and one side for drinking and bumming out appears to be the concept. Not a bad idea.
They make a lot of noise for a duo and the drummer is pretty hyper pushing the tempo. Vocals are delivered with a lot of energy. The organ playing is frantic bordering on a spastic hockey rink style. Almost as if, they had convinced themselves that with a little more gusto they could play themselves out of whatever lounge or dive bar they were in.
So Surpise Package had the chops, the outfits(check Gene on the back cover-between the mutton chops and white boots, he could be a Lemmy stand in), the tunes, but apparently not the luck as this was discoverd at the Salvation Army for 50 cents.
If there was only one damn drum break this could be a "private press","breaks","holy grail" level obsucre record, but we/they are not that lucky and that keeps this obscuro nugget in your price range if you ever stumble across it. But meanwhile while I am trying to be psyched about this, a record collecting assoicate of mine is picking up Floyd bootlegs for two bucks a pop in NH. I guess you know who really scored that day.......
1 comment:
Can I get a copy of this CD as Gene is my father.
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