I Can't Get A Fraction

A short, sharp blast of garage rock for Wednesday (also proto-punk, acid rock and psych rock too I believe), from 1966, the year of maximum garage rock. Count Five were from San Jose and this two minute fifty-six seconds is all you need.

Psychotic Reaction

Wonderful fuzz guitar riff, stomping drum, harmonica, lyric about being rejected by a girl, double speed Yardbirds inspired rave up section. Really, it's got it all.

In 1983 The Cramps had left IRS and were recorded playing live at New York's Peppermint Lounge. Lux and Ivy put the recordings out as a mini album called Smell Of Female. There aren't that many live albums I'd pull out and play very often but Smell Of Female is one of them, six tracks of gloriously unhinged psychobilly, culminating in their cover of Count Five's Psychotic reaction. Over at Julian Cope's Head Heritage website there is a review of Smell Of Female that has Lux and Ivy as Loki and the Goddess and their music as the shamanic and barbarian spirit of rock 'n' roll. You should read it. It's here.

Psychotic Reaction

Count Five

It's a funny thing how in music the artists with a body of work are on the whole the ones held up for veneration. To be really taken seriously you have to have a large back catalogue, as if the quantity of music produced is the real signifier of serious musicians and artists. San Jose's Count Five produced one single and one album but I'd take this one song over, say, Bruce Springsteen's entire recorded output (yeah, I know Nebraska's supposed to be good). Covered by The Cramps as well, on Smell Of Female.

Psychotic Reaction