Groovy Uncle
It happens very rarely, but when it does it honestly shocks you. The phrase… why haven’t I heard of this band before? Such it is with Groovy Uncle.
Ifirst got to hear about Groovy Uncle on the Aldora Britain Label Compilations (where you can get a lot of top tunes for pennies… Think Creation Soup or Indie Top Twenty Albums from back in the day). It’s often said that ‘they don’t write them like they used to’. Well… they are wrong. Groovy Uncle does… the whole of the 1960s is here… or rather there… in their music. Everything from Dusty, Pet Clark, Beach Boys, Move, Lovin’ Spoonful, Kinks, Mersey, Manchester, Seekers, Mamas & Papas, Burt Bacharach, blue-eyed soul and a nod to the Motor City. Trust me. It’s all here – and beautifully produced too. No synth sounds pretending to be Detroit. Nope. You want a soulful French horn? That’s exactly what he’ll cart into the studio to do the job. There are dalliances with electric sitars, multi-layered harmonies and all those lush little tricks that are so iconic to the 60s sound. They are as near to finding a crate of unplayed 60s pop originals as you’ll be likely to get.
Apparently this bent came about while gigging in the mists of time. The common chant from the back of pubs was ‘play something we know!’ so Glenn et al decided to do just that – but on their own terms. Those being, it would be a new song you ‘thought’ you knew. And with glorious musical sleight of hand that’s what they do. With about a dozen CDs to their name (and vinyl too) I can’t point to one and say… ‘Buy that one first’ because each is as varied and superb as the next. They simply sum up and deliver everything that was great about 60s pop, but they are new songs. Straight pop or in conjunction with the fantastically fab Suzi Chunk and Miss Modus. The songs come at you – and before they are a few bars in you’re being swept along with them and you’re convinced you know them, which you don’t, you kinda do… but you don’t. There are earworms aplenty seeded in the CDs, all of which will happily drive you nuts.
From the first track I heard of theirs, I fell in love with the band and am dedicating a segment each week on the Lucky Bag show on Target Radio (targetradio.co.uk) and can’t wait to get them on the Tip Top Pop Show (the video equivalent of the Lucky Bag). So get a lughole full of their delicious groovy choonadelic goodness at www.groovyuncle. co.uk