Hadley Murrell Presents: The Best Arizona Garage Bands 1967-1970

Late 60’s Phoenix Arizona garage bands, mainly four. Decent stuff but somewhat derivative. Really just 4 bands, one of which sounds exactly like Grand Funk and the others stuff of the day. But still good. This is released by a studio producer/dj at the time who doesn’t miss a self-referential opportunity in 7 point font liner notes, the bands be damned. He released a great collection of Phoenix funk/soul bands of the day too, which was awesome, on the Dionysis/Bacchus Archives label, on which can also be found an incredible collection of late 60’s Tucson garage bands (see “The Tucson 60’s Sound” under CD collections). I’m afraid Mr Murrell was presumptive when he touted his as “the best”, cuz Tucson wins this round, hands down.

1) (3:10) upbeat very 60's bouncy
2) (4:14) bluesy stoney soulful with so so much Grand Funk Railroad vocs and feel
3) (2:03) jangle tambourine love psyche
4) (2:05) simple smarmy love song feel
5) (3:00) blues rock, "gangster of love"- steve miller lawsuit?
6) (3:31) cream blues rock feel
7)* (2:28) cool organ and bass, distraught lovelorn lyrics
8) (5:03) god does this sound like grand funk, the chorus melody is a complete unabashed lift from the Zombies 1968 smash hit “time of the season"-another lawsuit
9) (1:35) jangly
10)* (3:49) grateful deady kinda strummy, silly lyrics, funny with sirens, mark farner vocals
11) (2:35) bit of a 50's feel with tenor sax
12) (4:11) harmonies abound, mid rock
13) (4:00) slow bluesy, nice tone, picks up kinda jazzy
14) (1:52) cover of she's so fine w girl backup vocs
15) (3:12) grand funk returns
16) (2:17) full on 50's rock with sax, cover of young blood
17)* (2:03) low fi with a western gallop, instrumental
18)* (1:47) total surf, nice, instrumental