JimENight
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FREAKBEAT!?!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... 
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Rockin'_Art_Lewis
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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
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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
| Quote: | Freakbeat is a rock music genre that peaked approximately between 1966 and 1970.
The term was invented in the 1980s by the music journalist Phil Smee, to retroactively describe a music style that has been described as a missing link between the early to mid-1960s mod R&B scene and the psychedelic rock and progressive rock genres that emerged in the late 1960s. Freakbeat music was typically created by four-piece bands experimenting with studio production techniques. Elements of the freakbeat sound include strong direct drum beats, loud and frenzied guitar riffs, and extreme effects such as: fuzztone, flanging, distortion and compression or phasing on the vocal or drum tracks. Many freakbeat songs could also be described as garage rock or early psychedelic rock. The freakbeat scene was more prevalent in the United Kingdom than in the United States. Notable freakbeat bands included The Creation and The Move. |
Allmusic
| Quote: | | Freakbeat is the name for rare, collectable, and obscure British Invasion records. Usually, these are rare British blues and garage rock, bands that sounded a bit like the Rolling Stones, Yardbirds, or the Bluesbreakers, but occasionally some of the tougher Merseybeat bands fit this category, too. The criteria for freakbeat is a little vague, and known basically to collectors who specialize in the style, but it generally is fairly obscure British Invasion of all types. |
Personally, I don't care for the term. I dig the fuzz, though!
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Rockin'_Art_Lewis
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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! 
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. 
Peace!
R. (I'm not a rock critic......I just play one on the message boards)A.L.
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Astrakhan
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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
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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
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Can I be a spanner in the works and suggest "She's Not There" by the Zombies?
Peace!
R.A.L.
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JimENight
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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. 
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