from the album “Dreams” on Psych-Out Records 003) 1995

Back in the nineties Italian garage band The Others, were prolifically releasing records on various low-budget labels and as far as I know I have managed to track most of them down over the years.

During 1995 The Others had the inclination to create an album full of obscure cover versions of numbers originally released by American outfits in the mid-sixties. There’s also Dutch beat cut “I Love Her Still, I’ll Always Will” by The Outsiders.

My choice cut from the album is their rendition of “Love Does It’s Harm” originally released as a B-side by The Mojos, an unknown group of teenagers from Randolph, MA.

This low-key jangle lament from 1966 receives a successful Others treatment who are faithful to the original but give it a slightly quicker tempo.

“Dreams – The Woody Pad Recordings” comes housed in a very thick card sleeve with an insert written by leader Massimo del Pozzo. It’s dated 7th February, 1997 – leading me to conclude that the release of the LP was delayed.

One thousand copies were pressed and over the years the sales must have been impressive because it’s a difficult disc to find, especially in Britain. Back in the ’90s I was a regular buyer from Detour Records mail order and they were good at stocking the most obscure neo garage and psychedelic records, especially those from Italy and Sweden.

It was from Detour where I obtained many of my ‘60s mod and garage revival records. Fanzines too, including Massimo’s Misty Lane.

insert:

Well, pals, finally this album is out! I know many of you asked for almost one year ago, like us. There are many reasons for this late time release. At first recording an LP with only covers it’s pretty hard if you want it to come out pretty similar to the originals.

Around Spring 1995 we were asked by Psych-Out Records to release an LP, this had to be out by October of that year.

Pretty sure to make it we started thinking about some covers we wanted to do since so long. Most of these tunes were part of our actual set around Fall ’95, so we ended up recording them in our eerie woody pad outta the countryside.

It was an incredibly crazy time there, almost three afternoons a week for the whole season with our usual large amount of o’cerveza, chocolate (for the Winter was pretty tough that year!)

Some of our pals assisted our recordings done with two different 4-track tape recorders. We probably spent more laughing trying to learn the songs and decipher the words than actually taking care at the final sound, that’s why your ears will tell you that it probably sounds worse than any Mummies record.

Anyhow, in the end we went in the studio with normal cassettes which lasted for months in accurate places like under the beds or forgotten in the kitchen, and the result sounded pretty raw but also kinda authentic so we decided to take the sessions for good.

Claudio at Delta Studio then tried to clean a bit of the sound and added the usual industrial quantity of reverb which we dig almost as much as beer!

After one year it’s pretty normal that we can’t but laugh at these recordings but at the same time we really love ’em. It’s part of our story and we’re sure that all the purists who usually criticize the more clean studio sound will appreciate this crude ‘n’ primal piece of wax.

Some songs out of this LP are still in our set, some not. Our line-up has changed since then and so has our sound. Nevertheless we feel this LP is something unique we wouldn’t have done in a modern studio with a clean sound and many overdubs.

In that woody pad there was a magic feeling that I personally won’t ever forget.