I'm Like the Northwest Mounties

Hackamore Brick - One Kiss Leads to Another (1970)


For a long time I tended to believe that there was a pretty solid ten-year gestation period before anyone really started putting out records heavily indebted to the Velvet Underground. I know there are all sorts of exceptions to that, but the thought was that the group didn't really have any immediate followers, especially in the early part of the '70s. I know that the first Modern Lovers record is heavily indebted to the Velvets (but that didn't even see the light of day until 1976, despite being recorded four years earlier). Another group is Simply Saucer, who recorded their album in 1974. This was also ground zero for both the Electric Eels and Rocket from the Tombs. But all of these groups (save for maybe the Modern Lovers) drew from the noisier parts of the Velvets, the drone, the nihilism, basically the "Sister Ray" side of the spectrum. Enter then, the one album from Hackamore Brick, released in 1970 (the same year as Loaded). This is basically a bunch of folkies who dug the song aspects of the Velvets. Especially the Doug Yule stuff. "Searchin'" is a Coasters cover that the group turn into their own barroom rumble. The whole album isn't solid all the way through, but it's a weird little bridge between VU's Squeeze album and the Flamin' Groovies Teenage Head. They kill it on this track, though.

Searchin'