The Next Big Thing

After the massive amounts of Dutch beat boots of recent years there's a sudden flood of legal CD reissues around at the moment from both the Popinstituut and BR Music that cover both the big names and the more obscure acts. And it's obviously great to see this stuff finally available to those interested in fine sound quality and expertly annotated (for those of you outside Holland may I recommend the fine folks at Bomp mailorder, easily the best, and cheapest source for this, and other cool stuff). Tho' amazingly enough the bootleggers still come up with obscurities that the majors overlook. Cases in point; Bonny St Claire's 'Tame Me Tiger'/'I Surrender' 45. Best know over here for at least 30 years of aural atrocities and an ever failing battle against alcoholism, this boot turns up two amazing late 60s tracks, the first a solid rocker, the second a current fave on the UK northern soul circuit. The Sandy Coast's first 45s are collected on a great 10" entitled 'Subject Of Our Thoughts' that shows that, even with a decent choice in covers (Byrds, Small Faces), they were most comfortable w/ their own brand o' folky beat tunes (of which 'I'm A Fool' was recently covered by the Thanes). Another major find is the re-issue of the 'Tiener Band Show!' comp LP, the Dutch equivalent of those 'Live at the Cavern/Star-Club' type o' discs that combine ragged live-in-the-studio performances dubbed w/ audience screams, that I've always found the best way to hear continentals bastardise the Chuck Berry songbook !. Last, and certainly not least, is a mysterious lookin' disc w/ a sleeve that shows a B&W pic of a dog and is entitled 'Please, No Smoke!', that turns out to include a 1967 live set by Van Morrison backed by Cuby & the Blizzards (!). Taped off Dutch radio the sound quality is only so-so, but jeez, I really can't imagine anybody not wanting to hear this at least once. Van is in fine form and the Blizzards at times sound like a bluesier Velvets. Great, great stuff !. The flip is some Cuby live recording of more recent vintage, but still pretty solid, 'cept for the horid "symphonic' take on 'Window Of My Eyes'. The whole thing gets rounded off by 60s Italian band Gli Uragani and their cover of 'You're Body Not Your Soul', more inter continental cross fertalisation that nobody ever knew about. Hey, I might be biased living here, but the amount of great music that came from mid 60s Netherlands never stops to amaze me. Whatever happened to these people anyway?, did they really all became keyboard salesman and data typists?.