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MIKE'S COMMENTS:
A classic garage burner this one. However, to me this album sounds more like it was recorded in '65 or 66 then the suggested release date of 1968. "Out of the Bach's" has a very dated and primitive sound. To many this very aspect is much of the records appeal, but in my opinion it lacks the power and the drive to really knock me out. There are certainly some monster fuzz riffs throughout the album, and without doubt this is best exhibited on the records
greatest and beefiest track, "Minister to a Mind Diseased". The album is just about worth it for this song alone. It is a splendidly thick slice of 60's psycho-punk served up in the garage by a group of spotty teenagers. Shame the rest of the album doesn't deliver to this standard. To me the album sounds like white suburban boys trying to play Chuck Berry at break neck speeds. Not quite up to the same production values as MC5's "Back In The USA" LP, but at the same time it doesn't quite have the same snarl and punkish attitude that say "Distortions" by The Litter or "From Zero Down" by The Nomads has. To many though, "Out of the Bach's" is the quintessential 60's garage punk album. For garage purists this record is an absolute must.
Rating 4/10
RICH'S COMMENTS
This is gonna be more of a story than a review. In the early 90's the legendary Gregg Breth was having me track down anything and everything that he thought had some serious sales potential. The Bachs LP was virtually unknown at this time and he sent methe information so I could try to find the band. Our deal was always the same.....I found the band and got copies of the LP"s when available and he sold them for ridiculous prices and we split the profits. He was always fair when it came to this and I assume he was
always honest with me about how much $$$ he was charging for the LP"s. The Bachs was not an easy nut to crack. No info about where the band was from and now in retrospect I know that at least one of the band members names were misspelled. After many calls I finally got a gentleman named Jim Peterman. Jim informed me that he himself was a musician and played with some guy I may have heard of....Steve Miller!! Jim was very familar with the Bachs LP as his cousin John
Peterman was their lead singer. Jim told me a little about the band including where they were from. A day or two later I was speaking to band members and scored a handful of LP's. Gregg sold them for big bucks and I got my cut. Then Mr. Breth asked if I could put him in touch with the band as he wanted to re-issue the LP on his Del-Valle
label. Before I could answer, Gregg made the unsolicited offer of sending me a "box" of the re-issues for my trouble. Of course I turned
over the info and would have done so regardless of getting any compensation. Gregg did a nice job with the re-issue and I had told a bunch of folks about this amazing garage LP that they just HAD to hear. Since I was gonna have a "box" of `em I promised freebies to
my pals when they arrived. When the LP was done I received a package in the mail with a single copy. I assumed this was my "advance" copy to check out and waited patiently for the others to arrive. Friends were asking about the LP as they saw it pop up in various listsand I assured them that they would have their copies, as promised, before long. Weeks turned into months and finally I confronted Gregg about where my "box" of LP's were?? The reply was classic and done in that overbearing monotone overtly annoying and somewhat pompous Gregg Breth style that some of you may have had the displeasure of
hearing ......"I promised you a "box", and I sent you a "Bachs"...that was the deal". I have to admit I was amused, this "play on words" was ingenious but certainly he couldn't be
serious......au contrere mon frere....he was deadly serious and my pals were left out in the cold with me looking like the bad guy. I didn't speak to Breth for years after that incident and honestly, had a hard time listening to the LP as it always brought out one of those
"ghosts" that Stan mentioned here recently. Truth is that this LP is such a monster that even that funny/bad experience can't put a damper
on it for me. In the world of private press, original song, garage psych The Bachs is one of the 2 or 3 best. Along with "All Of
Thus", this LP is a great example of the transition from garage rock to psych that happened all across suburban America in `66-'67. The LP was recorded in a Butcher Shop on a cheap tape machine so the sound isn't quite up to major label quality, but the LP has a charm that truly captures the teen angst and emotion that so many of these type of LP's lack. Is it worth the price tag some have paid for an original.........nah, I'd rather buy my daughter that car she's been bugging me about........but in the scheme of things, if any LP is worth four figures, it's this one....... in my opinion this LP eats Mystery Meat for lunch!!!
10 on a scale of 1-10
STAN'S COMMENTS
I remember first hearing about this album when I heard that a German collector I knew had just paid $5,000 cash for a mint copy of a rare Chicago garage LP by "The Bachs." One of the (many) things that I find interesting about this whole rare record scene has to do with the difficulty the MUSIC has in escaping the gravitational pull of the price
tag. You know what I mean. When you're listening to a record with the knowledge that some guy who has a way better record collection than you do (and, therefore, knows a lot more than you do) just paid FIVE FUCKING
GRAND for a copy, well... it's... just... different, that's all. In the past I've played the reissue of this record about a dozen or so times, but it's one that I only had sort of vague memories of, nothing specific. There is about a 50/50 chance that if someone played a cut from this I'd be able to identify it. The 50% (for many rare LPs it's more like 2%) is the result of the album's odd sonics. As soon as I put it on I recognized the sound immediately; there is a combination of amateurish playing and awful recording that only a record collector could love. Imagine playing this for one of your non-collector friends (you must have had that experience of playing some mega-rare obscure
private-press for someone who looks at you as if you've just shown him one of the really exceptional turds from your collection of shit; "Ooooo! This one looks JUST like Nixon!"). I'm reminded of The Index, Grandma's Rockers, moments from Brigade, perhaps one of the better Justice label albums (are there any, really?), and so on.
For me the pleasures in this record (and The Rising Storm) are found in part in my memories of garage bands in my neighborhood in Northeast Philadelphia circa 1965-67. Every block had at least two bands and in the summer impromptu patio and driveway concerts were commonplace in the early evenings. If I had the proverbial three wishes there is a better than even money chance one of them might get used up on a box of tapes from those evenings.
For me, The Bachs seems to turn on what I'm guessing (I have the CD) is the last track on side 1 and the first track on side 2. "Minister to a Mind Diseased" is an excellent example of why, when people call and ask if a given foreign LP is sung in English I usually have to tell them I don't know. "You haven't heard it?" "Oh, I've heard it. It's one of my
favorites; I just don't ever listen to the words." In this song it seems that the choice of imagery is entirely based on finding words that rhyme (eat/feet along/throng 6:05/survive 95/alive dive/revive, etc.), producing this strangely unfocused sense of bad trip paranoia.
There is an amazing moment however, towards the end of "Tables of Grass
Fields", where the vocals repeat the title in harmony over solo drums, which is unlike anything I was led to expect and takes me completely by surprise. And that is the one moment, amid all the lo-fi earnest sameness, that lifts this one up for me. This is all based on listening to the CD on the Italian Flash label, a boot label sorely missed as they
did some excellent work. This is the sort of record review I love to write because it's the kind that rambles on about all sorts of things that have little to do with the record and, when you're done, you can't tell if it's, like, a 7 out of 10 or what. M- copy for $2,000+
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