Various ‎"Girls In The Garage Volume 6" (Rec. 60's, Comp.1990)***

Yes, I know Volume 6 of any series sounds dangerously close to barrel scraping. But I couldn't resist buying this one: a limited reissue (mine is No.142/1000) on blue 180 gram vinyl with cool artwork and a nice booklet, on discount as a Record Store Day-related promotion. Of course this year there was no RSD because of the corona pandemic, so the related promotions and special RSD editions were split into more doses. A bit like entering a physical record store, when you have to wait in line since there is a maximum of something like three clients per time, depending on the shop's size. So it had been months since I had actually visited a record shop, but when I finally did they had to drag me out to make room for other customers. I came away with quite a few bargains, including this one. I couldn't find the date of the original Girls In The Garage 6 release (on Romulan Records) on discogs but based on the catalogue number it must have been released in 1990. This reissue on the Past & Present label is from 2018, so there are still a lot of mint copies on sale if this kind of thing interests you. Me, I used to be a compulsive buyer of everything garage/psych-related and I still occasionally succumb to the compulsion. That said, the garage maniacs among you shouldn't get their hopes up because this compilation isn't your Pebbles-style raw garage rock as was the case with the first entries in the series. Bands like The Cupons and Ellaine & The Shardells pay in Shirelles-like girl groups style, others (Pat Downey, Millie Rogers, Donna Loren) are just typical 60's pop. Beatlemania novelty "Ringo Boy" is probably the record's lowest point, while Kari Lynn's opener "Cleo Cleopatra" is a winner thanks less to singer and more to the nameless backing band for its distorted guitar, clanky piano and occasional gong. Other notables include The Fatima's galloping oriental surf beat "Hoochy Coo" and the crunchy riff of Karen Verros' "You Just Gotta Know My Mind" (a 1965 Donovan composition). Another gem is Die Crazy Girls' shake number "Hey Hey Ha Ha" from 1963 Germany, featuring surf guitars and sped-up barelhouse piano. Roberta Wolfson and Norwegians Karin Krogh & The Public Enemies offer us nice mod/beat versions of classics "Tobacco Road" and "Watermelon Man" respectively. Jonna Gault's "I'm Never Gonna Cry Again" is a spy movie-style groovy tune from 1966 reminiscent of Nancy Sinatra, while Venus Flytrap add this album's sole nod to psychedelia with the atmospheric Jefferson Airplane-like "The Note". Lastly, Tacey Robbins's "My L.A" isn't just notable for its garagey R&B beat, but has also secured a place in B-movie history having been prominently featured in the 1965 crime thriller called Psycho A Go Go.

  

The film was ostensibly about a diamond heist gone wrong and starred Tacey as the female lead. Somehow, director Al Anderson found it fit to fill the movie with nightclub scenes that had absolutely nothing to do with the story and everything to do with promoting the actress' singing career, whom he also managed. Shockingly, it wasn't the box office smash he hoped for. So he tried to re-sell it under a different title, Echo Of Terror. It still didn't walk, so instead of giving up he cut a few new scenes and added an extra story arc: apparently the baddie wasn't just a criminal, but a Vietnam vet turned into a psycho by a mad scientist (played by John Carradine) who experimented with his brain. Makes sense, right? The movie hit the cinemas again under the title The Fiend with the Electronic Brain. What do you know? Despite the addition of a mad scientist and tapping into the anti-Vietnam war zeitgeist, it still wasn't success! A lesser man may have called it quits, but not Al Anderson! So he added yet more new scenes, this time with a different storyline that included zombies, and made a Frankenstein's monster of a movie using scenes filmed in three different time periods and with three different casts. Even Ed Wood wouldn't be bold enough to release such an abomination, but he did! The nightclub scenes were omitted this time as Tacey had since retired and there were no records to promote, while the jewel heist arc was kept but dramatically shortened. As we learn from wikipedia, this time the film, now called Blood of Ghastly Horror, was a big hit in drive-in cinemas for years, which goes to show that, as AMC has found out, zombies are the magic ingredient! After the movie had ran its course in the drive-in circuit, he re-titled it once more and sold it to late-night TV under the title The Man with the Synthetic Brain. How bad do you want to see that movie now? Well, you're in luck, because the whole thing is available online, with retro TV ads to boot since someone must have programmed his video to record and went to bed but neglected to remove the ads. Enjoy!

**** for Cleo Cleopatra (Kari Lynn), Hey Hey Ha Ha (Crazy Girls), I'm Never Gonna Cry Again (Jonna Gault), My L.A.(Tacey Robbins), Hoochy Coo (Fatimas), You Just Gotta Know My Mind (Karen Verros), The Note (Venus Flytrap)

*** for Real Live Lover (Pat Downey & The Vistas), Turn Her Down (Cupons), Tell Me That You Care (Ellaine & The Shardells), There You Go (Millie Rogers),Watermelon Man (Karin Krogh & The Public Enemies), So Do The Zonk (Donna Loren), Tobacco Road (Roberta Wolfson) 

** for Ringo Boy (Dori Peyton)