Here's a first for you Rubber Room readin' reprobates out there, our phone lines are now open and we are taking your requests. A cat named Ryan took the time to write and axe me to post up my caricature of Northwest rock'n'roll monsters The Wailers which was printed in issue 5 of the ultra-suave Cryptic Tymes fanzine way back in the good old days, so here 'tis for your dumbfounded delectation. I guess you all prob'ly know the Wailers epic tale which ranges from the late '50s heyday of rumblin' instrumental action all the way through to the garage/psych haze of thee late '60s with many a hip pit stop to guzzle a tall cool one or ten along the way. The whole frazzled tale was spun out in the career spanning articool that my late buddy Alan and his wife Lisa inscribed unto those hallowed pages of the last ever issue of Cryptic Tymes back in the mid-'90s. If any of you kids out there have a fave piece of Merinuk art that hasn't yet graced this blog, feel free to drop me a line and I'll do my best to get it up here for ya or know the reason why. Stay tuned for MORE ACTION!
Oh, man!! Thanks a million, Darren. The illustration is even better than I remember.
ReplyDeleteI get a bit misty thinking about those halcyon days of my youth, reading Cryptic Tymes and discovering great garage and rock 'n' roll combos. In those days precious few articles and photos of great garage bands were available to a teenager living in Squaresville. It was often cool images like these that added to the mystique of those elusive and mysterious weirdos from a bygone era, their legacies lurking on obscure compilations mastered from dubious sources. What scant information we could glean was from rumours and half-truths printed on the backs of the LPs.
I think something is lost in these times when the (often) less exciting reality of those thousands of bands has been documented down to the finest details. It may be more accurate, but by and large, it's a lot less fun. The dorky photos of a lot of those groups seem a bit out of step with their wild records.
I think images like your Wailers portrait go a long way to keeping the image of Garage Rock cool.
Hey Ryan, thanks for the comments. I STILL live in squaresville and rock'nroll is STILL the only thing that makes my life worth livin'.
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