{"id":14718,"date":"2018-06-20T05:30:10","date_gmt":"2018-06-20T09:30:10","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=14718"},"modified":"2018-06-13T12:50:32","modified_gmt":"2018-06-13T16:50:32","slug":"album-review-the-vettes-rev-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2018\/06\/20\/album-review-the-vettes-rev-up\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: The Vettes &#8211; Rev-up"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-14719\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/rev-up.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/rev-up.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/rev-up-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2018\/06\/rev-up-300x300.jpg 300w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>Man, those Wrecking Crew guys and gals were a <i>busy<\/i> bunch. Of course in their 1960s heyday, the loose studio aggregation wasn\u2019t known by that label \u2013 ace bassist (and guitarist) Carol Kaye argues the name is a later-day Hal Blaine invention \u2013 and in fact their were rarely if ever credited on the records they made. They helped create <i>Pet Sounds<\/i>, for example, got their union scale and moved onto the next project.<\/p>\n<p>In 1962, Steve Douglas and Nick Venet hired the crew for a quickie project on MGM Records, one that latched onto the popular trend of exploitation releases. <i>Rev-up Featuring the Vettes<\/i> is a cash-in on the hot rodding craze of the era, circa January 1964. (Leon Russell was at the helm for a similar effort featuring a young Keith Allison; that record \u2013 not yet reissued \u2013 shamelessly cast a wider net as evidenced by its breathless title: <i>Liverpool! Dragsters!! Cycles!!! &amp; Surfing!!!!<\/i><\/p>\n<p>Russell\u2019s album was credited to The Eliminators, a group that wasn\u2019t a group at all, just like the Vettes weren\u2019t. For this date, one Bruce Johnston took the vocal spot on five cuts; you may recognize his name. He\u2019s been in the Beach Boys since 1965, at which time he replaced Glen Campbell, who in turn had replaced Brian Wilson in the touring lineup.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking of Campbell, he\u2019s here too. So is Hal Blaine, uncredited producer Terry Melcher (Byrds, Paul Revere &amp; the Raiders), guitarist Tommy Tedesco, bassist Ray Pohlman and \u2013 just to tie this little narrative together \u2013 Leon Russell on piano.<\/p>\n<p>How could it not be good? The songs are throwaways, with trendy titles like \u201cHappy Hodaddy (with Ragtop Caddy)\u201d and \u201cSuperstock Vette,\u201d and the lengthiest cut among the dozen tracks is \u201cDevil Driver\u201d at an epic 2:35. The songs are very much in the vein of the Beach Boys\u2019 car-themed tunes, with bits of Jan and Dean thrown in for good measure. Sound effects abound. The overall effect on tunes like \u201cLittle Ford Ragtop\u201d is quite like fictional group Cap\u2019n Geech and the Shrimp Shack Shooters from the Tom Hanks film <i>That Thing You Do!<\/i> Some of the vocals are goofy, but the playing \u2013 especially by Campbell and Tedeseco \u2013 is always appealing and often inventive.<\/p>\n<p>The folks at Modern Harmonic clearly had a bit of fun with this one: the translucent vinyl is described in its press materials as \u201cwiper fluid blue.\u201d Short of essential unless you\u2019re a Wrecking Crew completist (there\u2019s a scary thought), <i>Rev-up Featuring the Vettes<\/i> is still a heckuva lot of fun.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Man, those Wrecking Crew guys and gals were a busy bunch. Of course in their 1960s heyday, the loose studio aggregation wasn\u2019t known by that label \u2013 ace bassist (and [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":14719,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[51,62,64,65,73],"tags":[2973,3455,2402],"class_list":["post-14718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-pop","category-rawk","category-reissue","category-review","category-vinyl","tag-modern-harmonic","tag-the-vettes","tag-wrecking-crew","cat-51-id","cat-62-id","cat-64-id","cat-65-id","cat-73-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14718"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14720,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14718\/revisions\/14720"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/14719"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}