The Liverbirds?!?!?!?!

[JSngry]

http://www.dustygroove.com/item.php?id=v3pzw2vfqc&ref=index.php

Looks like it is http://www.allmusic.com/cg/amg.dll?p=amg&sql=11:anfwxqqgldse~T1 but can somebody who was there confirm?

[Big Beat Steve]

OF COURSE they were real! Very real and quite good among the Merseybeat groups (though not as good-looking IMHO as some made them out to be).

No, I wasn't there (far, far too young and geographically removed anyway) but this British beat band was a staple on the Hamburg scene in the Beatles era after the girls had made the trek from Britain to Hamburg. Photographic documents of them abound in books about the legendary Star Club in Hamburg, and I do remember seeing quite a bit of footage from the just as legendary Beat Club TV show recorded and broadcast by Radio Bremen (a couple of months ago a German TV station broadcast an all-night special on this Beat Club, unfortunately I failed to record it on video).

Am not sure what their status was on the British mid-60s beat scene but they did have a sort of cult status in Germany for sure.

BTW, if you wonder whether this or that band from that period and location was real, why not check (google) out THE MONKS and wonder in amazement how come THEY were real? (And ask yourself the question in the process what kind of oddballs and weirdies the Yanks let loose on the overseas world at that time ). FWIW actually the members of the Monks were and still are pretty cool and down to earth (if recent interviews with members who've stayed in Europe are anything to go by)

Edited June 30, 2010 by Big Beat Steve

[sidewinder]

The second one from the right has a strange resemblance to John Lennon..

[Shawn]

I'm not convinced the one on the right is a "bird".

[Big Beat Steve]

I'm not convinced the one on the right is a "bird".

Maybe she actually was Bill Wyman's sis?

But you are right ... one might start wondering ... (see on the left below)

But AFAIK their line-up remained the same while the band existed so maybe this might be a bit more convincing:

[Jazzmoose]

I'm not convinced the one on the right is a "bird".

OMG; I thought it was an early version of the New York Dolls...

[clifford_thornton]

Gotta check this out. Definitely a Monks fan.

[JSngry]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwKDSjgyNFU&feature=related

Maybe you had to be there?

[Jazzmoose]

See? I was right!

[Big Beat Steve]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vwKDSjgyNFU&feature=related

Maybe you had to be there?

Not any more (or less) than you had to be there in those 50s R&B juke joints to esxperience THAT music first hand - or whatever music from "before your time" strikes your fancy. It's all a matter of being able to imagine yourself into those settings through the suviving/existing music and not projecting too much "benefit of hindsight" into it all.

[JSngry]

I dunno....I was there (well, here...) for the whole British Invasion/Beatlemania/etc thing, and this...just doesn't sound all that good to me. There's plenty of other stuff that does.

[Big Beat Steve]

I dunno....I was there (well, here...) for the whole British Invasion/Beatlemania/etc thing, and this...just doesn't sound all that good to me. There's plenty of other stuff that does.

Depends on what your preferences were. Nobody claims they were the cream of the crop by any yardstick. But I guess you in the U.S. lived through the Beat era in quite a different way from the way it was experienced over here anyway (both in the UK and on the continent). So you can hardly gauge the impact many of those groups made on stage and in the musical sourroundings they came up in and presented themselves.

BTW, do you actually think all those Garage Punk bands that were there in the US during the Beatles era sounded "all that good" or were that great as far as musical and instrumental proficiency were concerned? On strictly musical terms, many of those 3-chord bands were just nowhere.

But isn't a lot in the musical immediacy, energy and overall sound but not necessarily in individual accomplishment?

Which is where the risk of misjudging things with the "benefit of hindsight" comes in again. A lot of music that mirrored an era really needs to be seen, heard and appreciated from the vantage point of that era wherever possible.

[JSngry]

BTW, do you actually think all those Garage Punk bands that were there in the US during the Beatles era sounded "all that good" or were that great as far as musical and instrumental proficiency were concerned?

Oh hell no!

But - they (the ones I find worth remembering, anyway) had a good pocket & had the good fortune to make a 45 or two that captured/presented that. You don't have to be a "good musician" or even have a "good song" to make a "good record". Maybe The Liverbirds made the record or two that captured their pocket to good advantage & I''ve not yet heard it. Entirely possible. It's just that the 5-6 songs I've heard to this point don't encourage me to go looking for it/them.