Press play: 2131 South Michigan Avenue: 60s Garage & Psychedelia from USA and Destination Records (Sundazed)

Welcome to another edition of Press Play in which we highlight new music that’s worth investigating even if it didn’t quite fit in this week’s issue.

The Beatles and their ilk inspired every Tom, Dick and Harry in the Midwest to grow a mop top, pick up an electric guitar and give the old rock & roll a go—or at least that’s the impression that Sundazed’s latest compilation gives one on first buzz. Previously, the full story of Chicago garage and psychedelic music could be pieced together on compilations of vintage rock from labels such as Dunwich, but there’s still quite a bit of material to be mined. This double CD/triple LP set has been literally decades in the making—just tracking down the members of long-forgotten bands must have been a helluva pain. But it's totally worth the wait.

Run by Jim Golden, U.S.A. Records and sister label Destination signed a lot of local bands, many from Indiana, and promoted them at teen clubs in the Chicago 'burbs and through influential WLS radio station. Garage fanatics have long obsessed over the high quality of the label's output and paid a pretty penny to own originals. As the comp shows on its some 40 tracks from 22 acts, these local bands often started with familiar material. Oscar Hamond & the Majestics recorded “Soul Finger,” Trafalgar Square covered the Kinks, and the Cryan Shames did “You’re Gonna Lose that Girl” for 45rpm singles.

Among the field of obscure acts are some historic Chicago groups. Gary and the Knight Lites were one of the city’s first integrated bands. They already had R&B records on the Nike label before they brought a pop tune to U.S.A.—they later scored a national hit as the American Breed. There’s some phenomenal pop that never made the charts on 2131 from the likes of the organ-driven Park Avenue Playground. Girl group grooviness is well represented with the Daughters of Eve’s “Help Me Boy.”  You’ll marvel that the likes of the Cherry Slush’s bubblegum psych masterpiece “I Cannot Stop You” didn’t go further. The Messenger's "Hard Hard Year" bridges the gap between psych-folk and acid rock. It’s not all garage-by-the-numbers, which may disappoint today’s slash-n-burn rockers, but the wide variations in styles are evidence that the music explosion of '66 meant something different to everyone. Of course, it didn’t last.

Reportedly, Chicago was a pay-to-play city at the time—and many of the singles never made it to the airwaves: Vietnam or adult life came calling for some of the musicians. A select few acts, such as the Buckinghams, went on to national prominence. 2131 reveals shades of style that were the currency of a ’60s underground that revered the British Invasion but inevitably put its own regional imprint on the sounds of psychedelia, R&B and folk-rock. As a historic document, it's important; as a listening experience it’s a gas, man.

Read interviews with the acts on 2131 at Sundazed.com
Order 2131 from Dusty Groove.