There's always been a certain segment of the record industry that only exists to make a quick buck, no matter how cheesy the product being offered is. From the 1950s until the 1970s, a big part of that segment was made up of LPs covering -- or even just vaguely approximating -- current hit acts. Sometimes the cover art was dressed up to mimic an album by the hit artist, to hopefully fool parents (or Grandma) into thinking they were buying what little Jimmy or Susie asked them for. Sometimes the covers just listed a bunch of song titles, hoping the buyer wasn't paying attention to the fact that the album did not contain the hit versions. Gradually, various artist compilations of hits licensed by Ronco and K-Tel drove most of this sort of hucksterism out of business.
Among all the dross there are some cash-in albums worth picking up, though. Eagle-eyed crate diggers will find lots of good vintage R&B and country recycled on budget line LPs. And besides the sound-alike albums, labels often licensed early singles sides by then-superstars, which today is often a much easier way to get those sides than it is to find the actual 45.
Then, there are the real outliers. For '60s rock fans, one of the more intriguing cheapie comps of the mid-'60s is Soundsville, which hit the racks without fanfare about 1965. Much of the music here is fairly by-the-numbers teen pop or soul...but at least some of it was co-written by a pre-Velvet Underground Lou Reed. The album was released on both Design and its subsidiary "Stereo Spectrum Records." Both labels originated from Pickwick International, where Lou Reed worked for a time before and during the VU's long gestation period, in 1964-65. There's no songwriting credits on the disc or cover, but in White Light White Heat: The Velvet Underground Day By Day, Richie Unterberger states that it's possible all the songs on this album could bear Reed's credit -- he and co-workers Terry Philips, Jerry Vance and Jimmie Sims shared billing on the songs they registered -- but some sound to me like they probably predate Reed's time at Pickwick. However, as Lou is singing lead on "You're Driving Me Insane" by the Roughnecks and "Cycle Annie" by the Beachnuts, his involvement in those tracks is 100 percent confirmed. His distinctive choppy guitar playing is also obvious on these two tracks.
Beyond digging for Lou Reed's back pages, there's lots of wildly-packaged albums out there for '60s garage/psych fans, which occasionally nicely fill the need for some fuzz-tone silliness. One such example is the truly ridiculous looking Monkey Business LP, released on Cameo-Parkway's budget line Wyncote. I assume it's spelled "monkey" to try and avoid getting sued, though I would think ripping off the distinctive Monkees logo would have put the label in the legal crosshairs. The reason this album is interesting is that, after dispensing with a couple limp Monkees covers, the rest of the album consists of some good, junky '60s garage band action. They lazily attempt to rip off some other Monkees songs just by aping titles ("Sunday's Kid," "Sit Tight Girl," "Papa's Blue Jeans") or riffs here and there. In all, it sounds like Wyncote hired a random band to write and record a pretend Monkees album in about three hours. Somewhat unbelievably, there's a second volume, Monkeys A-Go-Go, listed on the Both Sides Now Wyncote discography. So of course, I have to find that now.
More straightforward chicanery takes place on The Surfsiders Sing the Beach Boys Songbook, which inside its colorful surfing cover at least consists of all Beach Boys covers...that sound vaguely as if a polka band who "learned" the songs that day is playing them. "Fun Fun Fun" might as well be a King Uszniewicz track. Granted, the Beach Boys vocals are hard to match, but some of the tortured wailing emanating from the Surfsiders is truly unearthly: The listener will never hear the couplet "I'm a real cool head, I'm making real good bread" the same after experiencing this album. Elsewhere, the vocals range from incredibly stiff ("Little Honda") to so poorly timed ("Little Deuce Coupe") that it sounds as if the singers were not necessarily listening to the backing track when they sang. I love it! This album was also a Design product from 1965, and there are rumors that Lou Reed is even involved in this one, but I don't really hear it myself.
