Fruits de Mer Records (Friends of the Fish 68)
The Kinks were of course a very well-known British rock band formed in 1963. I must admit I've never been a big fan, Face to Face being the only album I have. I just thought they were not psych rock, more like r'n'b first and then classic rock, pop or something. An okay band and some cool songs, sure, but nothing to really blow my mind. Sorry about that...
Anyway, coming out at the end of the month is a very limited lathe-cut 8" single with four cover versions of their tunes. I don't even remember hearing the original versions except for the last track. To start off the EP, The Flower Machine makes it Fruits de Mer vinyl debut with "See My Friends". Nice song and very well executed too. Some Indian/Raga flavour in this one, I think. "Do You Remember Walter" is a nice pop song performed here by Bertling / Robertson (Mr. Robertson recently released a great single on FdM). It's cool to hear some added psych elements like backwards guitar and sitar sounds. Crystal Jacqueline & Icarus Peel (from The Honey Pot) play a pretty folk rock song "Shangri-La", an excellent choise for them. Some raga vibes here too. Only song that I actually was familar with before is the straight forward early rock piece "I Need You" that I guess everybody knows. The Tubeheads make their first appearance on a FdM vinyl release and deliver the goods.
All in all, this is a very nice little EP, too bad that only 100 copies were done as lathe-cut, making it quite pricey too. But hey, we're living hard times right now, so I guess a proper pressed vinyl EP was out of the question. If you live in the UK you can still order this from Fruits de Mer, outside of UK Shiny Beast is your only possibility.