HACKAMORE BRICK - One Kiss Leads To Another
Wednesday, September 11, 2013 at 07:00PM
soundscapes in Pop/Rock, Psych/Garage, Punk, Reissue

From the streets of Brooklyn came this strongly Velvet Underground-influenced group whose only album unfortunately sank without a trace upon its release in 1970. While recalling the Velvets in their more mellow moments, Hackamore Brick's sound and sensibility also forecast punk pioneers like Jonathan Richman and Television.

"Though Hackamore Brick hailed from the mean streets of New York (as depicted on that striking and hip cover), there’s a beguiling, youthful innocence behind the often-oblique lyrics (that alone differentiates the group from the Velvet Underground!). Darkness lurks around the edges of otherwise-mellow tracks like the album-opening "Reachin'."  [Chick] Newman’s elegiac melody and the ragged harmony vocals contribute to an atmosphere of paranoia...Haunting, spare and atmospheric arrangements color [Tommy] Moonlight’s "Got a Gal Named Wilma," Moonlight and Bob Roman's "Peace Has Come," and Newman's "And I Wonder."  The latter builds to an extended keyboard jam-freakout, and makes it one of the few tracks on One Kiss that seems of its time; others, like "Zip Gun Woman," sound straight out of the CBGB's scene of a few years later." - The Second Disc

Article originally appeared on Soundscapes - 572 College Street Toronto (http://www.soundscapesmusic.com/).
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