Monday 21 July 2008

Colombia A-Gó-Gó!!! Garage Beat 1966-1967

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My very first post was about the Chilean 60s and I had been thinking of following it with more South American Garage Beat for some time.
Over the years we discovered more and more things from this huge and diverse continent and in some cases we are talking about true gems (Los Vidrios Quebrados for me!).
It is also true though that too many albums were packed with covers and often badly done or simply bad choices due to record companies pressure or other reasons...
Colombia had some fine bands, plenty of covers but generally well executed and with some original or different arrangements.
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One of the most prolific bands were The Speakers, pictured above, with 5 albums between 1966 and 1968, their third being my favourite.
Los Yetis also recorded a lot, with 4 albums under their belt.
They didn't come from the capital, Bogotá, like all the rest but came from Medellín and did some cool originals. The first picture of this post shows them as a bunch of cool, don't-mess-with-us, garage band.
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Los Ampex, above, did mainly covers and some very interesting ones, here you can hear them doing The Byrds "Why" and amazingly, "Russian spy and I" by Dutch band The Hunters .
The strangely named Walflower Complextion were actually Yankees that lived in Colombia and released a couple of cool albums full of covers by the Stones and the likes and a few original tracks, I love their "Sapphire".
One of my very favourite albums is "Psicodelicias" by The Flippers that I discovered thanks to a European vinyl reissue of some years ago. I couldn't believe my ears when I first played it, a great collection of cool covers played with lots of energy and how many bands in South America (or the world!) were so hip to cover the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band?
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So here it is, a 30 track collection of some of very the best, there are several blogs where you can find some of the original albums (fillers and all!)and I would particularly recommend "En busca del tiempo perdido" for all things South American, see my cool links.
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01 AMPEX Me tienes
02 WALFLOWER COMPLEXTION Sapphire
03 SPEAKERS Glendora
04 YETIS Ya no te aguanto mas
05 FLIPPERS Don't Mince Matter
06 AMPEX Russian spy & I
06 YOUNG BEATS Not fade away
07 FLIPPERS Los Cuervos Estan De Luto
08 YETIS Me siento loco
09 WALFLOWER COMPLEXTION Open up your door
10 FLIPPERS Shifting sands
11 AMPEX Por qué te vas (Why)
12 YETIS Sabes cuanto te quiero
13 SPEAKERS Tu eres gente que no encuentra nunca quien te quiera
14 AMPEX Mala reputación
15 FLIPPERS Flipprotesta
16 YETIS Llegaron los peluqueros
17 AMPEX El melenudo
18 YETIS Despierta Lorenzo
19 WALFLOWER COMPLEXTION All it is
20 YETIS Amor sideral
21 FLIPPERS Mickey's Monkey
22 AMPEX Perro lanudo
23 YETIS Es lupe
24 WALFLOWER COMPLEXTION Empty heart
25 YOUNG BEATS Gloria
26 AMPEX Paint it black
27 SPEAKERS Vete ya
28 FLIPPERS Demuestramelo Baby
29 YOUNG BEATS Baby please don't go
30 FLIPPERS Last night
http://www.shareonall.com/COLOMBIA_A-GO-GO_uxwa_rar.htm

22 comments:

Anonymous said...

ciao Aldo,

era praticamente un dovere per uno che sta sul luogo di fare una bella compilation cilena (più o meno, la stavo aspettando...) molto apprezzata, anche per le foto, muchas gracias... sto lavorando su una 60s uncmpd dedicata tutta all'america del sud, forse riuscirò in agosto.....

saltoni dalla sempre più insopportabile Milano!

Anonymous said...

. solo ora vedo che non é Cile ma Colombia ma va bene lo stesso!

aldo said...

MichaelVee,
il mio primissimo post é sul Cile...dagli un'occhiata se non l'hai visto,tra l'altro sul nuovo UGLY THINGS che uscirá a metá Agosto ci sará un'articolo sui gruppi Beat Cileni.
Io saró in Italia in poco piú di un mese per una 30na di gg..
ciao

Mr.Mosstrem said...

Buenísima!!
Gracias.

Anonymous said...

Love your site, but the link appears to be down for this colombian comp. Any chance of a Re-up?
Thanks -
The Upsetter

Anonymous said...

hola, se ve que este aporte esta buenisimo, pero los links ya no funcionan y no puedo disfrutar de el , por favor vuelvan a poner nuevos links ...gracias

Anonymous said...

RESUBIR EL ARCHIVO

Anonymous said...

Re-up Please!
Thanks man.

Anonymous said...

No puedo disfrutar del link Por Favor RESUBIR.
OK!

aldo said...

Sorry but I don’t believe three people left the same comment in the space of three mins. It sounds like the same Anonymous to me…it doesn’t matter.
Have a better look in the blog.
FILES were RE-UPLOADED since August 2008.
The mediafire links are working, just copy and paste!
It would be nice to get some feedback!
Enjoy it!

Anonymous said...

Hi, sorry but this link is not working, can you try again?
Thanks.

michael marnin jacobs said...

Hello from the far north in Finland. I was born In bogotá and lived there for 11 years and I can remember seeing The Flippers at a country club called Los Lagartos around 1967. The sound knocked me out. I also remember listening to my brother's The Walflower Complextion album. It got lost when we up and left Colombia in 1969 but I never forgot their sound.

I remember my older brother dragging me off to an afternoon of r&r at some movie theater to hear bands like, Siglo Cero and The Red Kings. Amazing stuff. I was all of 10 and I can still remember the place.

aldo said...

hi michael,
what a wonderful comment, thanks a lot from the opposite side of the world, Chilean Patagonia!

michael marnin jacobs said...

Hola Aldo en Patagonia,
The funny thing is that I live in the far north of Finland in Rovaniemi at the Arctic Circle. Far, far from your neck of the woods. I plan to introduce this music to our locals when I do dj nights at a local club in the fall. I'll keep you posted on how it goes.
Michael

michael marnin jacobs said...

Hello Again,
Could you get the Coleccion Infierno A GoGo link working again. There is wonderful stuff there that needs to come to the northern world.
Thanks, m

aldo said...

Hi Michael,

Most of the files in this blog that disappeared after shareonall closed down, were reposted last year using mediafire, just copy and paste those links…
This particular homemade comp was reposted last August.
I advise you to check “En Busca del Tiempo Perdido” a Chilean blog that’s been posting whole albums of many Latin American bands from the 60s and 70s, see links on this blog.
I’m glad you’ll be spreading the word on the other side of the world!
All the best,

PS
Have you ever seen that clip on youtube of a cool looking band called the Creatures, from a Finnish film? Don’t know if the clip is still there though…

michael marnin jacobs said...

Hola Aldo,
Thanks for the info about the links.
I'll look into the vid clip when I return from a short holiday by a lake with a sauna. The Finnish way.

aldo said...

Here's the CREATURES link
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=49w6CsD4uKo
enjoy it and find out about them!

michael marnin jacobs said...

Greetings from a rainy Lapland.
Thanks for the youtube clip. Funny stuff. Great movie,Käpy selän alla (1966). That translates into something like, "A pinecone under one's back".
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0060613/
The band The Creatures were led by the singer Kirka. He later went on to fame and fortune in this part of the world. Sadly he died in 2007.
Btw, I can't get the Colecciones link to work even with mediafire. Could you give me some additional advice.
All the best from Rovaniemi,
Michael

aldo said...

Hi Michael,

copy and paste the MEDIAFIRE links, posted on AUG 2008.
(FILES RE-UPLOADED).

what a title for that Finnish film!
The Creatures look and sound wild, but unfortunately never had any records out...

ciao

michael marnin jacobs said...

Hola Aldo,
Ahora lo entiendo que es el problema y el problema es con mi cabeza. Muchas gracias para la musica_a-go-go.
I have my spies searching for any recordings of the Creatures and I'll be getting back to you and your blog as soon as they cough up the news.
Hei hei (as we say around here),
Michael

michael marnin jacobs said...

Good evening,
Here is the news about The Creatures, a Finnish band. They recorded all of one song, Takaan sen (stuck on you) in 1965. They were brought in to play for the movie Käpy selän alla (1966), "A pinecone under one's back" because they were considered the best musicians of the day.

The lead singer was Kirka who was a wild man back then. He later on tuned down his attitude. But there is more to the story. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tphmbksNx54

The drummer was Remu Aaltonen who later went on to fame and occasional misfortune with the band The Hurriganes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SyBhrHnGlSA&feature=PlayList&p=BA586E6B42D85E38&index=2&playnext=2&playnext_from=PL

Another version: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=702pY0PRhuI&feature=related

None of these guys could speak english so they made up lyrics that seem to sound "American" but actually don't mean much of anything. But in R&R it works just the same. They were a huge band in Finland, Sweden and Germany. More news later on.

Here is some fun for your audience, Danny; http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gqo_oJI0zMQ&feature=related

Hei hei,
Michael