Count Five - Psychotic Reaction [CD re-issue]
Album original released in 1966. This rip is from the 1987 CD re-issue by Demon Records/Edsel Records. Cat.#: ED CD 225.
Ripped with EAC, Secure-rip, to FLAC-image.
Ripped and uploaded by Toxxy...cheers and enjoy the album :-)
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The title track from this San Jose group made the charts in 1966 and will be a familiar classic to Nuggets fans. Psychedelic!
Formed in 1964 in San Jose, California, USA, Count Five were a classic one-hit wonder whose Yardbirds-inspired psychedelic-punk hit Psychotic Reaction, reached the US Top 5 in 1966. They first drew attention by wearing Dracula-style capes to their gigs. After recording one album, also titled PSYCHOTIC REACTION, they continued to release singles before disbanding in 1969.
Tracks:
01. Double Decker Bus (2:03)
02. Pretty Big Mouth (2:12)
03. The World (2:15)
04. Psychotic Reaction (3:08)
05. Peace Of Mind (2:23)
06. They're Gonna Get You (2:28)
07. The Morning After (1:58)
08. Can't Get Your Lovin' (1:47)
09. You Must Believe Me (2:54)
10. Teeny Booper Teeny Bopper (2:25)
11. Merry-Go-Around (2:37)
12. Contrast (3:52)
13. Revelation In Slow Motion (2:03)
14. Declaration Of Independence (1:51)
Band line-up, as they were in 1966:
COUNT ONE! John "Sean" Byrne, 19, vocalist, rhythm guitar, composter, sophomore at San Jose City College, a native of Dublin, Ireland.
COUNT TWO! Craig "Butch" Atkinson, 19, drums, sophomore at San Jose State College, originally from Springfield, Missouri.
COUNT THREE! Kenn Ellner, 18, leader, vocalist, tambourine, harmonica, freshmant at Los Altos Foothill College, born in Brooklyn, New York.
COUNT FOUR! Roy Chaney, 18, fender bass, freshman at San Jose City College, home-town Indianapolis, Indiana.
COUNT FIVE! John "Mouse" Michalski, 18, lead guitar, senior at San Jose Pioneer High School, hails from Cleveland, Ohio.
More info:
http://www.answers.com/topic/the-count-five
Furious Chutzpah...The All-Time Psychepunk Garage Band!
They were hardly the first of what we have long since known as garage bands, but you would be hard enough pressed to find a garage band this side of the original Stooges with as much furious chutzpah as the Count Five. At essence a quintet of R and B aspirants, the Count Five melded that with their having been, apparently, blown away completely by the Yardbirds' version of it, to forge an attack of cheerful inspired amateurism with more than traces of fury. The Count Five weren't exactly the only ones looking to make their own version of the Yardbirds' music in the mid-1960s - but they came up with unquestionably the most inspired cops thereof, "Psychotic Reaction" mashing the verse structure of "Over Under Sideways Down" and, for the instrumental breaks, the lunatic chaos which closed out the British quintet's take on Bo Diddley's "I'm A Man".
So who cares if the rest of the album is filler when held up against "Psychotic Reaction"? This pack put together more furiously engaging filler than an awful lot of allegedly superior acts were doing in the mid-1960s (and if you can listen to "Pretty Big Mouth" or "Peace of Mind," or "Double Decker Bus" and not get caught in the chutzpah and the thrust of it all, you're obviously having a bad day), and they seemed to hit each song as though they'd never get to cut another one for as long as they lived. In more ways than one, the Count Five should have received what the Kingsmen got - the Kingsmen got "Louie, Louie" and a world of legend out of all proportion to their overall selves (let's face it: the Kingsmen's filler makes the Count Five's resemble "Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band"), while the Count Five had to settle merely for being a semi-legend of psychedelic punk grunge.
But if they really were playing as though they'd never get to cut anything else with each song, they couldn't have been more wrong; the Count Five actually had a couple more albums in them - the ones to hunt out are "Carburetor Dung" and "Cartesian Jetstream," both of which damn near make "Psychotic Reaction" the album sound like Herman's Hermits, even if their songs aren't exactly up to "Psychotic Reaction's" lineup. (Not for nothing did the late, legendary gonzo rock critic Lester Bangs spin his most memorable essay among a pack of memorables off the Five - "Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung: A Tale of These Times," which ended up becoming the title essay of a posthumous collection of his most representative criticism.) Those who wonder which was the missing root of both punk and grunge, this is said root. In ways they probably would not have given a thought to knowing, Nirvana, the Ramones, the Sex Pistols, the New York Dolls, the MC5, and the Stooges owed at least as much a debt to the Count Five as to anyone else, and probably more so. [Amazon user review]
BIO:
The Count Five was a 1960s garage rock band from San Jose, California, best known for their Top 10 single "Psychotic Reaction".
The band was founded in 1964 by John "Mouse" Michalski (born 1948, Cleveland, Ohio) (lead guitar) and Ken Ellner (born 1948, Brooklyn, New York) (harmonica, vocals), two high school friends who had previously played in several short-lived outfits. After going shortly under the name The Squires, and several line-up changes later, the Count Five were born. Roy Chaney (born 1948, Indianapolis, Indiana) took over bass duties, John "Sean" Byrne (born 1947, Dublin, Ireland, died 2008) played rhythm guitar and lead vocals, and Craig "Butch" Atkinson (born 1947, San Jose, California, died 1999) played drums. The Count Five gained distinction for their habit of wearing Count Dracula-style capes when playing live.
"Psychotic Reaction", an acknowledged cornerstone of garage rock, was initially devised by Byrne, with the group refining it and turning it into the highlight of their live sets. The song was influenced by the style of contemporary musicians such as The Standells and The Yardbirds. The band members were rejected by several record labels before they got signed to the Los Angeles-based Double Shot Records. "Psychotic Reaction" was released as a single, and found immediate popularity in the protopunk scene, peaking at #5 in the U.S. charts in late 1966. The band got along for about another year, but dropped out of view altogether when their only hit had fallen from public memory. Another setback to a potential career in the music business was the decision of the five members (who were between the ages of 17 and 19) to pursue college degrees.
By 1969, the Count Five had broken up, but their memory was immortalized in a 1972 essay by rock journalist Lester Bangs, entitled "Psychotic Reactions and Carburetor Dung." In the essay, Bangs credited the band for having released several albums — Carburetor Dung, Cartesian Jetstream, Ancient Lace and Wrought-Iron Railings, and Snowflakes Falling On the International Dateline — that displayed an increasing sense of artistry and refinement. However, none of these albums actually existed, except in Bangs' own imagination.
The Count Five reunited only once, when they performed a concert in 1987 at a club in Santa Clara, California called "One Step Beyond". This performance has been released as Psychotic Reaction Live.
Craig Atkinson died 10-13-1998 and John "Sean" Byrne died 12-15-2008. Roy Chaney formed a new band in the 1990s called The Count (with Byrne and drummer Rocco Astrella, who played in the last version of the original group). The Count released their debut CD, Can't Sleep, in 2002. In 2006 they were inaugurated as one of the very first, into the San Jose Rock Hall of Fame. [Wiki]