The Chocolate Watchband: Revolutions Reinvented

Timeless re-recordings, or garage meltdown?

By Jo Kendall
( Classic Rock )
published

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Re-formations are a tricky thing. It’s hard not to question the motivation, and the end result can find a precious entity becoming a Marshalled-up chugganaut with little authenticity or self-respect.

This is different. Cali garage giants The Chocolate Watchband’s ‘original line-up’ (questionable, as members from three incarnations are here) have re-recorded 13 tracks exactly the way they did in the 60s. Instruments, echo room, the works. It’s a good set, and fun to play spot the difference against the originals.

Some tracks retain attitude and raw power (Gone And Passes By, Sweet Young Thing), some reflect the pace of the 60-somethings remodelling them (Are You Gonna Be There, I Ain’t No Miracle Worker). It sure whets the appetite for any live shows, but the baffling bit is why they’ve done it at all.

Perhaps a comment on the stifling influence of their production svengali Ed Cobb – a way of saying: ‘we own these tracks now’?

Jo Kendall
Jo Kendall

Jo is a journalist, podcaster, event host and music industry lecturer with 23 years in music magazines since joining Kerrang! as office manager in 1999. But before that Jo had 10 years as a London-based gig promoter and DJ, also working in various vintage record shops and for the UK arm of the Sub Pop label as a warehouse and press assistant. Jo's had tea with Robert Fripp, touched Ian Anderson's favourite flute (!), asked Suzi Quatro what one wears under a leather catsuit, and invented several ridiculous editorial ideas such as the regular celebrity cooking column for Prog, Supper's Ready. After being Deputy Editor for Prog for five years and Managing Editor of Classic Rock for three, Jo is now Associate Editor of Prog, where she's been since its inception in 2009, and a regular contributor to Classic Rock. She continues to spread the experimental and psychedelic music-based word amid unsuspecting students at BIMM Institute London, hoping to inspire the next gen of rock, metal, prog and indie creators and appreciators.