THE KNIGHTS OF FUZZ PRESENTS:
THE ED COBB TRIBUTE ALBUM
and a tribute to GREG JOHNSON
ED COBB (left) and GREG JOHNSON (right)
The Knights of Fuzz DVD is still available, but here are some samples and information from the ED COBB TRIBUTE album we are attempting to finish up. FUZZ ON!
While this album began merely as a tribute to one of the most influential of the original 1960s garage-music composers, it now also gives an appreciative nod to one of the unknown heroes of the recent garage music world. Ed Cobb accumulated 32 Gold or Platinum records in his accomplished career, and passed away in 1999. Greg Johnson screamed his lungs out in underground garage bands for his entire adult life, was still on his way up, and died in late 2009.
This tribute album ties them together, the garage music architect and the later-generation garage true-believer, industry kingpin and garage rock rebel.
It was Greg Johnson who approached me almost two years ago with the idea of inviting some of our favorite current garage bands to record Ed Cobb songs for a tribute album. He laughed constantly about his cover photo idea: a naked 1960s-styled go-go girl wearing a giant corn cob costume, holding 45s in her outstretched hands. That was pure Greg Johnson -– if it wasn’t fun then why do it?
We worked together to gather bands and herd the tracks together, and I thought we were ready to finally complete the album in the fall of 2009 -- when he suddenly fell silent. I had known Greg for 20 years by then, and was used to him disappearing for a while doing other things. Our bands played together when I toured to his native Vancouver, Canada. I wrote the liner notes for releases by his glorious garage punk outfits The Worst and The Fiends, and I helped him get record deals and to spread the garage gospel. We were like garage brothers-in-arms, though I was happy to get beat up a lot less frequently than Greg at bars and shows. I figured he would just get back to me soon. I was wrong -– he died on December 4, 2009 from complications of a heart valve infection. He was only 41 years old.
I have taken the loss of Greg to heart. He was very much the meaning of rock n roll to me, one of those unknown soldiers who actually kept the music alive by playing it, making it, sharing it. He never had a hit record, he never made a million dollars. He was just a funny, vivacious, crazy, fun guy. Greg Johnson was just rock and roll. I miss him.
I told the record company that was supposed to release the Ed Cobb Tribute album on CD that Greg had died. In an e-mail saying they were sorry about that, they also told me the album was cancelled because of the bad economy. Gee, thanks.
But I will not let the Ed Cobb Tribute album slip into that great sleep so easily. I am hunting for a new label to release this album -– but in the interim I will present some of it here for garage fans to enjoy.
And while Greg would be pleased to have me soldier on, he would remind me that Ed Cobb is the reason for all this work. Ed was a longtime music pro, making vocal hits from 1956-1966 with the tame Four Preps, then heading out as a songwriter, session engineer and producer.
He penned some commercially successful instrumentals for his side-group The Piltdown Men in 1960, then his pop-soul effort “Tainted Love” brought Gloria Jones a hit in 1964 –- and Soft Cell’s 1981 stunning electro-pop cover version immortalized Cobb forever. Cobb scored another soul hit in 1964 with the much-covered “Every Bit Hurts” for Brenda Holloway, and then he moved on to the garage genre for his most influential compositions.
Of course this was not known as “garage music” at the time – it was just teenager pop music. Cobb also didn’t know it at the time, but some of his next songs would become archetypes for the entire garage rock genre. 1965’s “She Moves Me” for the E-Types (which Cobb also produced) was a snack that led to Cobb’s greatest garage act: The Standells.
The Standells garage classics penned by Cobb are countless: “Dirty Water,” “Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White,” “Why Pick On Me,” and “Rari” are among my favorites, and almost define single-handedly everything great about 1966. I am honored to contribute my band’s version of “Good Guys” to this album – I’ve played this song in bands for close to 25 years, and return to the original version anytime I feel I’m losing the true garage rock feel. It never fails me.
Cobb’s garage encore is also stunning, as he wrote for and produced the Chocolate Watch Band in 1966 and 1967, bringing more garage-psych classics such as “Sweet Young Thing,” “She Weaves A Tender Trap,” and “No Way Out” into his canon of work.
Ed Cobb would go on to write and produce countless other mainstream and commercial pop-rock sessions, but it is these seminal 1960s works that our tribute focuses upon. And in our tribute there are a few of these timeless songs, done with all the reverence, excitement and energy that today’s garage faithful can exert.
Check back here often as I’ll rotate bands and songs as I continue my search for a label to release them all.
And keep a good thought in your heart for Ed Cobb – and Greg Johnson. They’ve both done their part, in their own ways, for garage music. The rest is up to us.
-- Timothy Gassen
December 19, 2009
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October 11, 2009
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