FREAKBEAT!?!

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JimENight · Site Admin Joined: 16 Jul 2006 Posts: 183

I've heard the terms: psych, mod, garage, punk, pop, etc.
So what is Freakbeat?
It sounds like something I should be into, but I'm not sure if I am, or not... Confused

Rockin'_Art_Lewis · Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 119 Location: Gallup, NM.

Freakbeat is one of those terms that didn't come into existence until recently.
Wouldn't be a bit surprised if "Mojo" coined it.
It's a description of the stuff that was essentially Power Pop, mixed with very early psychedelia.
The Creation, The Action, Pretty Things, The Who (at times) John's Children, et. al, seem to get tagged as Freakbeat these days.
A good yardstick for the term would be, if it's uptempo, has deliberate feedback, strange noises or lyrics that hint at drugs, it qualifies.

Peace!

-R.A.L.
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Joe_Stax · Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 3:16 am Post subject:

Yeah, it's relatively recent. I'm not sure where it started, but I'll guess that some critics or collectors began using it in the 90's to describe bands in that period of late 65-mid 67.

Basically on the cusp of mod and psych. I seem to recall seeing the term for the first time in an issue of Ugly Things.

It can cover a lot of ground, and gets bandied about a bit too loosely I think. If asked for an example, I'd say bands like the Creation or the Attack. Maybe the Birds. John's Children kind of fits, too.

I've seen the Action and the Pretty Things lumped in here, too, but I feel the Action are pure mod r&b, and lack that proto-psych vibe. The Pretties jump from raw rhythm & beat into a Kinks-like, orchestrated sound (on Emotions) and straight into hardcore psych with SF Sorrow, so I don't consider them as part of this, either.

AIP, the label that put out Pebbles, has a six volume series entitled English Freakbeat, if you can find them, they're a pretty good overview without the appearance of any big-ish names.

A quick skim of the net yields these definitions:

Wikipedia

Rockin'_Art_Lewis · Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 119 Location: Gallup, NM.

Yeah, The Move gets frequent mention as being part of this non-existent erm.....movement. I'm not sure why. "Fire Brigade" is a slice of pure pop.
"Imposters Of Life's Magazine" fits into psych perfectly.
I guess it's every critic's dream to think up a tag that sticks to a particular genre! Laughing

As long as we're lumping this stuff together, let's not forget the material that came out of Strawberry studios before 10CC started up!
How about Crazy Elephant, which comes as close to "Freakbeat" as any of the British groups?
I agree with Joe, that it's a confusing and kind of useless term. Anything that's defined with 20/20 hindsight and somebody with a typewriter is destined to be just that. Wink

Peace!

R. (I'm not a rock critic......I just play one on the message boards)A.L.
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Astrakhan · Joined: 20 Jun 2007 Posts: 135 Location: nowhere, man

Freakbeat is a rather...unwieldy word, isn't it? It doesn't feel quite right. Not like mod, which not only sounds good, seems to fit the image we associate with it perfectly.

It isn't as if in reply to a reporter's question of how do you describe your sound Pete Townsend said, "We call it...freakbeat!" (I can't help but think of Ringo's "I'm a mocker.")

If this word was coined so long after the fact, it does seem to be something concocted by a critic, or marketer, to sell a new niche.

Even in the late 70's, when some label executive came up with the term "new wave" as a less frightening alternative to "punk" it made sense. And, it fit and became part of the lexicon at the time. No-one waited until 1995 to decide that perhaps Blondie were "punkbeat" or some rubbish like that.

That's not a knock on any of the bands who are labeled as freakbeat. After all, a rose by any other name...
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Joe_Stax · Posted: Thu Sep 20, 2007 10:06 pm Post subject:

A couple of more bands I'd grudgingly include under the Freakbeat label:

The Red Squares (You Can Be My Baby)
The Sorrows (You Got What I Want)
The Syn (14 Hour Technicolor Dream, Grounded)

I think these bands are all represented on the second Nuggets set.
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Rockin'_Art_Lewis · Joined: 23 Apr 2007 Posts: 119 Location: Gallup, NM.

Can I be a spanner in the works and suggest "She's Not There" by the Zombies? Laughing

Peace!

R.A.L.
_________________
The Watusi.....The Twist.......Eldorado?

JimENight · Site Admin Joined: 16 Jul 2006 Posts: 183

Very good, guys. Well, it seems as tho the term covers the descriptive ground of one of my very favorite periods. Sometimes I really want something so far out it's, in. That's when I reach for the good psychedelic stuff circa '67-'68. But then there are times that I want that edgy, more primitive pre-proto-psyche sound that really moves! That's when I reach for the so-called 'freakbeat' circa '65-'67.
Hence my inclusion of The Smoke on last week's show. Mr. Green