Right from the very start, you’ll realize that for Shutdown 66, it’s all shut down before and after 1966, with maybe just a peep or two towards the beginning of ’67 or the end of ’65.
Another important defining mark is the fact that the sounds this band deals with, could not be heard on the ’66 charts, it’s all about the ones that used to come strictly out of the garages and basements.
Mostly keeping with the wild, raw r’n’b sound of The Missing Links and the British pioneering practitioners, The Pretty Things, they even tend to take things to an extreme, making every tune sound like it’s the very last performance, that everyone expect to be the ultimate one.
Some of the standouts may be the Stone(s)-cold Mr.Johnson with Nicky Hopkins replacing his piano for a Farfisa organ, the signature tune Shutdown 66, with it’s wailing harp and kinda punkier Sky Saxon vocal delivery, or the Kinksized punker Kellie’s Turn To Cry and Pleasantville (what a title for what could represent the very essence of the “moody punk beat” term?!).
Though I wouldn’t call Yellow Balloon “goofy” nor would I call their singing “stupid harmonizing” (as stated by executive producer, Ernie Douglas, in the album’s liners), sometimes it feels good to shut down everything before’n’after the mid sixteez, maraccas-lead punk growl.
Turn on the Shutdown !!!
[Released by Get Hip 2003]
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