(beat, rock'n'roll, psychedelic rock) The Easybeats (1967) Friday On My Mind - 2005, APE (image+.cue), lossless

The Easybeats occupy a unique place in the pantheon of 1960s British rock acts. For starters, they were Australian, except that they really weren't -- they met in Sydney alright, and being based in Australia with the talent they had gave them a leg-up over any of the local competition. But lead singer Stevie Wright originally came from England (although he'd been in Australia for some years), and bassist Dick Diamonde hailed from the Netherlands, as did guitarist Harry Vanda, while the others, guitarists George Young and drummer Gordon "Snowy" Fleet, were recent arrivals from Scotland and England -- most significantly, Fleet was Liverpool born and raised, and had been a member of the Mojos, one of that city's more promising bands of 1963 and 1964. They all had talent, but he had a sense of style and an idea of what worked in rock & roll; it was Snowy Fleet who came up with the name "the Easybeats," and the sharp image for the early group, which made them a piece of authentic Brit-beat right in the heart of Sydney, 13,000 miles from Liverpool and as precious there as water on a desert.
In Australia, they were the reigning kings of rock & roll from the summer of 1965 onward, assembling a string of eight Top Ten chart hits in a year and a half, including an EP that managed the unusual feat of making the singles chart. Their second album, It's 2 Easy, was a match for their first, a genuinely exciting collection of British Invasion-style rock & roll whose only fault -- assuming that this was a fault -- was that it seemed a year out-of-date in style when it was released in 1966. That, however, pointed to the fundamental bind that the band faced; they'd conquered Australia and could do no wrong by keeping their sound the same, as the changes taking place in rock music filtered only very slowly across the Pacific. By George Young's own account, the band could have gone on writing and playing the same kind of songs for years in Australia and nobody would have minded, but he had ideas for more complex and daring music. By mid-1966, the Wright/Young songwriting team had become history, but in its place Vanda and Young began writing songs together. Additionally, the group had become so successful, that it was inevitable that they'd try to expand their audience, and that didn't mean side trips to New Zealand. In the fall of 1966, the Easybeats were ready to make the jump that no Australian rock & roll act had yet done successfully, and headed for England.
In November of 1966, with legendary producer Shel Talmy (of Who and Kinks fame) managing their recordings, the group scored its first U.K. hit with "Friday on My Mind." A product of Vanda and Young's songwriting, the song embodied all of the fierce kinetic energy of their Australian hits but was written at a new level of sophistication, with an amazing number of musical "events" taking place in its three minutes: An opening two-note staccato figure (backed by a cymbal crash) blooms into a pseudo-Arabesque quotation on the guitar, rising higher while the singer intones a frantic tale of work, fun, and escape, covering the days of the work week (in a manner vaguely reminiscent of "Rock Around the Clock"'s trip around an idealized 24 hours in a teenager's life, and also declaring working class defiance in the manner of "Summertime Blues"); a chorus chimed in at an even higher register, notching up the tension even as the tempo quickens and also broadening the tonal palette, in a manner akin to the early psychedelia of the period. With all of that activity and excitement within the context of a three-minute pop song, and two catchy hooks, it was impossible to get tired of "Friday on My Mind," in any language. It rose to the Top Ten not only in England but across Europe and much of the rest of the world, and reached the Top 20 in the United States as well where, for the first time, Americans became aware of the Easybeats.

Friday on My Mind, produced by Shel Talmy and recorded in England, captures the Easybeats at just about their peak, combining all of the best elements in the evolution of their sound under one cover. The Easybeats were still one of the most energetic outfits in rock music, with a raw, highly animated guitar attack, but they were trying (and largely succeeding with) ever more complex vocal harmony parts and some staccato guitar harmony as well that was pretty impressive, and at this stage they were working with a brace of gorgeous Harry Vanda/George Young originals. The ubiquitous title track is in excellent company, surrounded by an array of mid- to late-60's British rock treasures: a killer garage punk rendition of "River Deep, Mountain High," with a superb performance by Stevie Wright and what sounds almost like a sitar buried somewhere in the midst of the crisp electric guitars; "Do You Have a Soul," with its abrupt tempo changes, cascading choruses, chiming guitars, and hooks that seem to flow into each other effortless; "Saturday Night," with more sitar-like sounds beneath the radiant choruses and rhythm guitar hooks; the dramatic, angst-ridden "You Me, We Love," on which Vanda's guitar playing becomes as intense as Wright's wrenching vocal performance; "Pretty Girl," with its crunchy rhythm guitar sound and catchy lyric hooks and choruses; and "Made My Bed Gonna Lie in It," a punk anthem nearly as catchy and well-played as "I'm Not Like Everybody Else." Not everything on this album is as successful as these cuts, but it is all good listening, even the eerie, original album finale, "See Line Woman." In fact, only the rendition of Leiber and Stoller's "Hound Dog" may be out of place, and even it works as a change of pace. The label of "Australia's Beatles" may have proved an overstatement to some, but one can get a good look at its basis on this album -- it's loaded with actual and potential hit singles, yet it doesn't come off as lightweight in any way.

Exact Audio Copy V0.99 prebeta 4 from 23. January 2008
EAC extraction logfile from 2. November 2008, 23:27
The Easybeats / Friday on my Mind
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Filename D:\The Easybeats - Friday on my Mind.wav
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Copy CRC 2A3EE86E
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