The Mickey Finn lived the life. They may not have notched up any hit records, but their sixties adventures took them from the East End of London to trendy clubs in the South of France and the Bahamas. Along the way they hobnobbed with millionaires, movie stars, murderers and scoundrels, and left behind a tidy pile of sought-after 45s, one a freakbeat monolith revered as one of the era\u2019s best. And by \u2018era\u2019 we mean since the invention of the gramophone.<\/p>\n
This collection of their work is an impressive tribute to their maverick, hedonistic spirit, comprising all their released recordings plus some \u2014unissued at the time\u2014 1966 tracks that have never been available on vinyl before.<\/p>\n
Guitarist Mickey Waller and drummer Richard Brand formed the earliest incarnation of the group in London\u2019s Bethnal Green in 1962. Originally known as the Strangers, by late 1963 they\u2019d added bass player John Burkett and lead singer Alan Mark and changed their name to the Central Sound, Bethnal Green being on the Central Line of London\u2019s Tube system.<\/p>\n
In 1964 the Blue Beat label had just released a single recorded by members of the Checkmates but credited to an as-yet fictional group, Mickey Finn & the Blue Men, \u201cTom Hark\u201d b\/w \u201cPlease Love Me.\u201d The record needed to be promoted, so at their manager\u2019s insistence the Central Sound changed their name to Mickey Finn & the Blue Men. Since there was already a Mickey in the group, Mickey Waller was designated as Mickey Finn. They were now \u201crecording artists\u201d before ever having set foot in a recording studio.<\/p>\n
After adding a new member, John \u201cFluff\u201d Cooke on keyboards, the group began its real recording career in March 1964 when Oriole released a single featuring hip bluebeat arrangements of two R&B numbers, Bo Diddley\u2019s \u201cPills\u201d and Jimmy Reed\u2019s \u201cHush Your Mouth.\u201d For the recording session at Regent Sound, they were joined by their friend Jimmy Page on harmonica. Page also played a handful of gigs with them and also blew harp on their next single, a version of Chuck Berry\u2019s \u201cReelin\u2019 and Rockin\u2019\u201d backed with an excellent punk R&B original, \u201cI Still Want You.\u201d<\/p>\n
Shel Talmy took over production duties for their next single, released on Columbia in March 1965, a strong version of the traditional blues song \u201cThis Sporting Life\u201d. It was on the B-side, though, that they really cut loose. On \u201cNight Comes Down\u201d Mark\u2019s brooding vocal is underpinned by a tense descending bass line by new member Mick Stannard, atmospheric keyboards from Fluff, and some wild, dissonant guitar work from Mickey Waller and Jimmy Page. Another Talmy-produced track, \u201cIt Ain\u2019t Necessarily So,\u201d also dates from this period.<\/p>\n
Although the group was kept busy with live work, they went out on a package tour with the Kinks, the Yardbirds, and Goldie & the Gingerbreads, the next Mickey Finn single didn\u2019t appear until July 1966. The Polydor release found singer Alan Mark backed by session players for a cover of Billy Stewart\u2019s \u201cBecause I Love You\u201d and a number by American songwriters Pam Sawyer and Lori Burton, \u201cIf I Had You Baby.\u201d It\u2019s the real band playing, though, on two solid soul numbers, Lloyd Price\u2019s \u201cStagger Lee\u201d and Bobby Bland\u2019s \u201cPoverty,\u201d cut at Regent Sound in 1966 but unissued at the time.<\/p>\n
By 1967 Bernard Jory had replaced Mick Stannard, and it was he who came up with the mighty bass line that propelled the Mickey Finn\u2019s final single, the explosive \u201cGarden of My Mind,\u201d released on Direction at the end of that year, backed with the raucous Equals-style mover \u201cTime to Start Loving You.\u201d Despite its high quality, the single failed to sell, but the Mickey Finn continued to ride high, playing lucrative engagements in St Tropez and the Bahamas before finally disbanding in 1969.<\/p>\n
Mike Stax, Ugly Things Magazine<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Mickey Finn lived the life. They may not have notched up any hit records, but their sixties adventures took them from the East End of London to trendy clubs in the South of France and the Bahamas. Along the way they left behind a tidy pile of sought-after 45s, one \u2014 \u201cGarden of My Mind\u201d \u2014 a freakbeat monolith revered as one of the era\u2019s best.<\/p>\n
This collection of their work is an impressive tribute to their maverick, hedonistic spirit, comprising all their released recordings plus some \u2014 unissued at the time \u2014 1966 tracks that have never been available on vinyl before.<\/p>\n
It includes a couple of Shel Talmy productions and Jimmy Page features over a repertoire that combined hip bluebeat arrangements of blues classics, solid soul numbers and punk R&B originals.<\/p>\n
Over 50 years after their break-up, their brilliant 1964-1967 recordings, collected here on vinyl for the first time, are still generating heat and moving feet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":45478,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false},"product_brand":[],"product_cat":[62,164,167],"product_tag":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-45481","1":"product","2":"type-product","3":"status-publish","4":"has-post-thumbnail","6":"product_cat-60s-en","7":"product_cat-beat-en","8":"product_cat-garage-en","9":"pa_formato-lp-en","11":"first","12":"instock","13":"taxable","14":"shipping-taxable","15":"purchasable","16":"product-type-variable","17":"has-default-attributes"},"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/munster-records.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product\/45481","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/munster-records.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/munster-records.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/product"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/munster-records.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45478"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/munster-records.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=45481"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"product_brand","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/munster-records.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_brand?post=45481"},{"taxonomy":"product_cat","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/munster-records.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_cat?post=45481"},{"taxonomy":"product_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/munster-records.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/product_tag?post=45481"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}