"Rule, Hermania" arrived today in the mail.
Much the same as "Gerry Cross the Mersey." I doubt it's for everyone, but it's a fresh take on music that was surprisingly good (as I discovered in recent months), and IMHO, too-long underrated. Sure, the Hermits copied the Beatles (even did a movie called "Hold On!" shortly after the Beatles' "Help!"). Almost everyone did. Maybe it's partially because there's so little by the Beatles we haven't heard that we seek out other stuff from that time, from the second- or third-rate groups. More likely, it's because we see the same great songwriters/teams providing the catalogue for many of these groups: Sloan/Barri, Goffin/King... the masters of the 3-minute pop song in the 60s. I reckon it's pretty tough to truly fuck up a Sloan/Barri song without entirely rearranging it. Maybe it harks back to a time when I, personally, was a much MUCH less jaded person, and maybe that's sort of attractive, too.
And I have the semi-unique experience here, of "discovering" the Hermits a few weeks after finding the Stool Pigeons, and having still not heard much of the Gerry and the Pacemakers stuff they cover in "Gerry Cross the Mersey"!
The Stool Pigeons have got a nifty little formula going with these "British Inversion" recordings, with two or three more or less straight covers, a bunch of guitar-heavy ones, and one or two nearing parody. "Hold On" is a flat-out great rave-up cover here. They even managed to get Peter "Herman" Noone (who must be like 70 years old by now) to sing lead vocals on two songs. ("Take Love/Give Love," duetting with the magnificent Lisa Jenio, and a half-Dylanesque "All the Things I Do for You Baby," with stellar Sheryl Farber backing on the choruses.)
"A Must to Avoid," Herman did better, but it's still an enjoyable romp. You find yourself using words like "romp" with stuff like this.
"I'm Into Something Good," the song that got me started on all this, is just wonderful, sweet, a stripped-down acoustic-guitar-and mournful-vocal version.
Oh, and here we have the instrumental "theme" for this album: "Montezuma's Revenge," a fuzz-heavy cover of the Marine Corps theme!
On "No Milk Today, Tomorrow, or Ever," we close with a weird accordion-laced version of the classic, with someone bawling all the way through it. It just keeps going and going; 13:29. .(The E-Types covered this nicely, btw.)
Did I mention the sexy album cover photos? No? Well, that wouldn't be appropriate anyway.
I can't help thinking a band could do MUCH worse than cut their teeth on songs like this, and I really look forward to seeing what they can do on their own.
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