Wednesday, July 13, 2011

Action - Action Speaks Louder Than... (1968)

I assume that you all know The Action. The Mods and Beat fans love them for their 65-67 recordings respectively the retrospective "Ultimate Action" album, the Psychedelic entusiasts prefer the "Brain" aka "Rolled Gold" releases. "Action Speaks Louder Than..." contains five studio demos from '68 shortly before they became Mighty Baby and was released 1985 on the Castle label (Castle DOJOLP 3). Although it's already the Mighty Baby line-up the sound is better comparable with the "Brain" recordings and highly recommended for every Psychedelic connoisseur. All the tracks were written by Ian Whiteman and presumably recorded as they've picked up the name Azoth for a short while. "The Tapestry of Delights" described it as "a soft, West Coast psychedelic feel with very pleasant harmonies". The tracks also appeared on Big Beats CD re-issue of the first "Mighty Baby" album and if you have this release you don't need necessarily "Action Speaks Louder Than...". If you haven't you should grab these songs for your complete Action discography!

Tracklist:
- Only Dreaming
- Dustbin Full Of Rubbish
- An Understanding Love
- My Favourite Day
- A Saying For Today

Personnel:
Reggie King (vcls) [ABCD]
Peter Watson (lead gtr, vcls) [A]
Alan 'Bam' King (gtr, vcls) [ABCDE]
Mike Evans (bass, gtr) [ABCDE]
Roger Powell (drums, gtr) [ABCDE]
Ian Whiteman (keyb'ds, sax, oboe, clarinet) [CE]
Martin Stone (lead gtr) [DE]


Band origin:
London

Discographie:
Albums:
1. (A/B) The Ultimate Action (Edsel ED 101) 1980
2. (E) Action Speaks Louder Than (Castle DOJOLP 3) 1985
3. ( ) Rolled Gold (Dig The Fuzz Records DIG 025) 1998

[1. singles and unreleased 65-67]
[2. '68 demo recordings]
[3. '67/'68 demo recordings]

45's:
1. (A) Land Of A Thousand Dances/In My Lonely Room
   (Parlophone R 5354) 1965
2. (A) I'll Keep On Holding On/Hey Sha-Lo-Ney
   (Parlophone R 5410) 1966
3. (A) Baby You've Got It/ Since I Lost My Baby
   (Parlophone R 5474) 1966
4. (B) Never Ever/Twenty Fourth Hour
   (Parlophone R 5572) 1967
5. (B) Shadows And Reflections/Something Has Hit Me
   (Parlophone R 5610) 1967
6. (B) Harlem Shuffle/Wasn't It You (Hansa 14321 AT) 1968

[6. German-only release]

Get it here (Artwork included / vinyl rip)

Listen to A Saying For Today

5 comments:

MAD4MUSIC said...

Thanks for sharing this! I wasn't aware of these recordings. I particularly enjoyed the opening track: "Only Dreaming."

ge said...

Thanks from a big ROLLED GOLD Fan

jose kortozirkuito said...

Action is a great mod band.
Thank you for this post.
Greetings from Spain.

Tristram Shandy said...

Man, it seems i'm in a megastore here, i've downloaded a lot of stuff you put here. For me it's like being Anders Breivik in front of a buch of labours.
You should be payed for your service, you're doing something special for us (for "us" i mean a sort of perverted person who live for 60s garage-rock).

Thanks a lot!

proggy said...

Awesome stuff.... top post...:-)