The Champs & The Fabulous Cyclones

RE-UPPED! And since writing this article I HAVE heard a cover of the Champs' Lowdown: by the Surfin' Gorillas (great album too!)

Probably not going to re-up those other songs, but the album link has been updated

This post is going to be easy. While I'm not going to kid myself, most people checking out this blog have some interest in the forgotten art of Rock & Roll and have some sort of savvy, often more than I do, but I explain the albums all the same. The Champs, however.... I think anybody can sing along to Tequila. 

This here's a split LP, though you can hardly tell by the cover. And honestly, the cover is sort of correct in doing so; The Cyclones side is far less fun, but we'll get to that later. Aside from Too Much Tequila, which got a proper 45 single treatment and was on their album Tequila these songs don't really appear anywhere else except for a rarities collection called Wing Ding (in the case of the last three songs) and a Greatest Hits collection which features Streamliner. However, these are excellent tracks, all with the signature Champs sound and with a healthy dose of humor. Club House was the immediate standout to me, and it apparently had some affect on Quintron as well since he did a loose cover on his album "These Hands of Mine". Quintron, why are you so great?

I haven't heard a direct cover of Lowdown myself, but it's got a great slow and dirty vibe to it that reminds me of this Eddie Angel song that I'd might as well throw on here

As for the Fabulous Cyclones, whose name got an even smaller typeface than their song titles on the cover, they're up against some hard competition but the LP is still worth flipping over. It's simple rock & roll instrumentals, reminding me of Joe Houston. If you wanna dance, The Cyclones will provide and you'll have a great time, but if you want something to whistle while walking down the street I'd stick with the A side. The real disappointment here is that the song Moon Journey has no sci-fi tone to it, because with the Quintron mention I would have another rare post fulfilling the Louisiana, Rock & Roll, Sci-fi trifecta in this blog's mission statement. 

this album isn't the cleanest one I've got but the songs are about 97% listenable, the only pops that I found were as one song faded out. Otherwise there's sort of a fuzz going on, but the music prevails. I don't have a back cover included since it says nothign about the album, just other albums on the label. The tracklist looks like:

Side A (The Champs):

1. Too Much Tequila
2. Streamliner
3. Wing Ding
4. Club House
5. Lowdown

Side B (The Fabulous Cyclones):

1. Boogie Guitar
2. Rocking & Picking
3. Moon Journey
4. Blue & Mean
5. Gone & Out

Re-Upped! go get it here