Friday Freak-Out: The Hi-5's "Did you have to rub it in?" (1965)

[youtube link] Friday Freak-Out: The Hi-5 perform "Did you have to rub it in?" (1966), now available again on Follow Me Down: Vanguard's Lost Psychedelic Era.

Vintage psych on Vanguard Records? Indeed! While Vanguard, formed in 1950, is best known for its essential folk/blues offerings in the 1960s by the likes of Joan Baez, Country Joe and Fish, Buddy Guy, and Otis Rush, the label also released some very fine nuggets of psychedelia -- many of which were 45s by bands that vanished almost as quickly as they made the scene. Recently though, my dear pal and DIY musicologist David Katznelson of Birdman Records and Vanguard staffer Stephen Brower dug deep in the label's archive to compile the best of these "lost" recordings. The vinyl release of Follow Me Down: Vanguard's Lost Psychedelic Era is a beautiful double-gatefold, 18-track compilation. It's also available as MP3s, but, well, I encourage you to dust off the old record player for this groovy set. Now then, what's the story with the Hi-5's "Did you have to rub it in?"

A classic rock and roll tale of a band that was so very close to superstardom, but fell short. The band were regulars at the famous Café Wah, when Beatles manager Brian Epstein walked into the club and signed the Hi-Five to management. Soon after, labels like RCA and Columbia were cutting demos on the band. But when Epstein died at 32 of a drug overdose, the doors that had been opened were slammed shut. It was then that Vanguard, who had also had been interested in the band, offered them a single deal.

Follow Me Down: Vanguard's Lost Psychedelic Era

• [virtual human]

  EDIT: The 13th Floor Elevators weren’t on Vanguard but they’re still awesome psychedelic rock from the same era.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XlOBMC1RLw0

• [David Pescovitz]

  Huh? The 13th Floor Elevators weren’t on Vanguard. Did you read the post?

  • [virtual human]

    My bad… *backing away slowly…*

• [dschille]

  Is the drummer wearing the same sweater as The Dude?

  • [Rich Keller]

    I think so. This whole video is rather sweater instensive. The lead singer is wearing at least two.

• [pepik]

  Wow! The drummer lost a stick at 0:48, which is probably why the lead singer gets that look on his face. He apparently didn’t have a spare, as he’s one-sticked the rest of the song. You can’t tell by listening – in fact, I was thinking that his hand must have been hurting like hell by the end of the song, since he was hitting the snare with it. That is, until I realized that the drum track we hear is not what he’s playing. When he drops the stick, and clearly is fumbling for it, you can still hear the snare, even though he’s not playing it. Maybe the Invisible Pink Unicorn was lending a, um, horn?

• [scifijazznik]

  Further proof that excellent pop songs needn’t be 4:30 long.  That’s a great find.  I’ve come to look forward to the Friday Freak-Out and you haven’t let me down so far.

  My personal Friday Freak-Out came as I was flipping through the L.A. Weekly over breakfast and saw that Brainticket and Nektar were going to be playing on September 3rd.  Huw Lloyd Langton from Hawkwind and Helios Creed from Chrome are opening.  I’m unsure whether it will be outrageously mind-bending or outrageously sucky.  I saw Helios several times back when he was on Amphetamine Reptile and he was always a trip.  If any of my fellow Boinger burnouts want to weigh in, I’d appreciate it.  Didn’t mean to threadjack….

  • [k386]

    The original is 3:10 – which i only found out by listening to the studio version offered up at the end of this video – just saying.

    Friday Freakouts are rapidly becoming one of my favourite feature on here

  • [lewis_stoole]

    my previous comment was meant to be a reply to scifijazznik

• [lewis_stoole]

  i had a friday freakout like that from the la weekly for trad, gras, och stener, a swedish group from the late 60′s to early 70′s.  i think falling james rec’d it.  
  it was in the small, intimate room at the now defunct knitting factory.it was awesome.  for an entire minute, the audience did not even know the band had started, ambient sounds from the drums, some guitar and bass, until the sound expanded into “tio minuter”, a song they did as parson sound.  i bought their entire discography at the show.  the covert intro is actually on the cd, but was not included in this youtube clip of “tio minuter”http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8qPHqGydVVQ

• [Mark Frauenfelder]

  I look forward all week to Friday Freak Out!

• [David Pescovitz]

  Thanks so much for the support, everyone! If any of you have Friday Freak-Out suggestions, I’m all ears!

  • [Buddy Bradley]

    How about The Monks. Some suggestions:

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJTGimyf0r8&feature=related

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

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMvpWhz4pZ8&feature=related

• [jphilby]

  Welcome post. Vanguard was a very interesting label that took chances and put out a lot of stuff that wasn’t going to make a lot of money – but did launch a lot of notable careers. Clearly they were in it for love of the music, which was pretty freaking rare in The Industry.

  A class act; I always appreciate learning more about it.

• [Sana Souratha]

  Much potential.

• [jonjonz]

  Perfect example of ‘The Lurch’ type of everyone play on the same beat.  An extremely common bad practice of garage bands especially on songs like Louie Louie etc. 

  Whats with the heavy sweaters?  Was this filmed in Canada?

• [lewis_stoole]

  i especially liked the electric lucifer friday freakout.