Music: 'Pour A Little Sugar On It – The Chewy Chewy Sounds of American Bubblegum 1966-1971' & 'Cut Me Deep – A Story of Indie Pop 1985-1989'
20+ years of music from Grapefruit and Cherry Red Records – including The Cowsills, The Archies, Edwyn Collins and The Jesus and Mary Chain
There’s just no way around it. Music is music to anyone and everyone. What grates on one’s ears in 1968 is now nostalgic yearnings. What was treasured as a must-listen in 1987 is now dismissed as teenage angst.
Yet, with the release of both Pour A Little Sugar On It and Cut Me Deep, you sense an acceptance on both sides. There’s no guilty pleasure here. No historical artifact that has to be reassessed for reasons unknown. It just… is.
I won’t even pretend to figure out any known factor, demographic, listening trait, or format. That’s for the data analysts. What I will do, like any good disseminater of pop music, is lay it all out and let you – the audience – make your choices.
Pour A Little Sugar On It is a four-hour, 3CD, 91-track anthology of late ‘60s American bubblegum pop. Some of you out there know exactly what I’m talking about: The Archies, The Electric Prunes, Lobo, Bobby Sherman. But who’s kidding who? Certainly not the pied pipers who instigated and profited from these sticky sweet confections: Jerry Kasentz, Jeff Katz, Ron Dante, Don Kirschner, and the Buddah Records titan known as Neil Bogart.
As the accompanying booklet says, “For anyone who’s ever got hopelessly lost in a jelly jungle of orange marmalade or had cause to step back and admire a girl’s dainty shoe size, this one’s for you.”
The Jaggerz, formed by Dominic Ierace, hit Number 2 on the Billboard chart with this 1970 song. And if Ierace sounds even the tiniest bit familiar, you might know him better as Donnie Iris, whose 1980 solo tune “Ah! Leah!” was a staple during the embryonic days of MTV.
One of several studio iterations contrived by Kasentz & Katz, this 1969 ditty hovered under the Top Ten, but might be better remembered for lead vocalist Robert Spencer who was part of the ‘50s doo-wop group The Cadillacs and wrote “My Boy Lollipop,” covered by Jamaican singer Millie Small in 1964.
I can hear it already. “You’re kidding me?” But nope, and as a matter of course, I encourage a reading of
’s post here on Substack:
What could be more sticky-gooey-sweet than this confectionary piece of pop-psychedelia? Better known for their Number 1 hit “Green Tambourine,” the band got a sour taste of reality when they became one of the (un)stable groups at Bogart’s Buddah Records after delivering the above non-seller. No worries. One member, a new name, and a 1977 cover of Lead Belly’s “Black Betty” and Ram Jam were in business.
Lost in the mists of time, The Peppermint Trolley Company aced it with this bit of ‘sunshine pop’ from 1967. Brothers Jimmy and Danny Faragher remained core to a group of revolving band members throughout TV appearances in 1968-69 and as the vocals heard on the pilot episode of The Brady Bunch.
Cut Me Deep is a 99-track 4CD box set of that wonderful era running alongside the stylized synth/glam beats of the mid-’80s to the late ‘90s, offering up what can be now labeled as pop with a post-punk sensibility. It wouldn’t be a stretch to see and hear how these musicians and bands – Happy Mondays, That Petrol Emotion, Pop Will Eat Itself, Pale Saints, and The Stone Roses – helped to usher in the ‘indie scene,’ with all their “anoraks, Doc Martens and charity shop chic.”
Better known now for the neo-psychedelia of 1988’s “Inside Out,” The Mighty Lemon Drops were a harder-edged version of themselves when they dropped this B-side tune in 1985, which as the accompanying booklet notes “bridges the raw rock ‘n’ roll of the late ’60s and 1980s post-punk minimalism.”
As
wrote in a 1988 Melody Maker story, “The good thing about The Primitives is they always knew The Ramones were bubblegum.” And with that, this tune machine guns forward at breakneck speed. Buckle up your seatbelts to avoid the (pun intended) crash.Miaow is a blip on the radar with this 1987 song, however, lead singer Cath Carroll’s intriguing background thread denotes something bigger: writing for New Musical Express under the pseudonym Myrna Minkoff, fronting Miaow and the dissolution thereof, and collaborating with late producer Steve Albini for the tribute album The Last Temptation of Elvis in 1990. Carroll was also the subject (and cover art) for the US indie band Unrest and their 1993 album Perfect Teeth.
You can hear why so many of these songs are so of the now. The energy poured from the UK-US combo The Corn Dollies plows through its 1988 constraints with messy guitars that eventually lay the groundwork for later bands like Urge Overkill, Sugar and yes, even Oasis.
Brighton UK’s The Popguns get to it with 1989’s “Down on Your Knees,” a right-ready piece of hard candy, as vocalist Wendy Morgan slides in with Debbie Harry-style delivery and some cast-down lyrics. If you’re sufficiently satisfied with this number, the band is still kicking it with their 2023 release POPISM.
Pour A Little Sugar On It: The Chewy Chewy Sounds of American Bubblegum 1966–1971 is available from Grapefruit. Cut Me Deep: A Story of Indie Pop 1985–1989 is available from Cherry Red. Both compilations release September 27.
