By cave 
Haha! That beautiful summer of 2025!!
Time to step it up a notch and shift to the middle of the current month to finish and deliver the updates of the lists from 50 years ago! The top 3 of August 1975 is quite diverse. Top of the bill: “Red Temple Prayer (Two Headed Dog)” (#1) by Roky Erickson & Bleib Alien, the first physical single by Roky after his mid-sixties to early-seventies adventures with the 13th Floor Elevators! Since then, Roky remained a wonderfully extravagant and influential musician in the pop and rock world. Tons of hard-drug psychotics, schizophrenia, detention, and other madness and repulsive hardships—he still managed to survive about 72 years! (1947–2019). Pretty much everything the man put on record appeals to me in an excessive, almost outrageous way! Hence that first place for “Two Headed Dog”, as the song would later be re-released several times in other forms.
Bruce Springsteen with “Born To Run” (#2) is self-explanatory! The single and the eponymous third album were released almost simultaneously. The heartland rock of The Boss will continue to flourish here until it becomes almost annoying—you can count on that!
Third place is local: “Vilvoorde City” (#3) by Kris De Bruyne! Perfect mid-seventies, and practically the peak of Flemish kleinkunst! The song originally appeared only on his second album Ook Voor Jou. Fortunately, that has since changed: on Record Store Day 2021, “Vilvoorde City” appeared as the B-side of a turquoise-coloured reissue of the single “Amsterdam” on the BLP label.
For the first time in the top 10 of the lists I’ve completed so far, I notice a shift in musical approach. A precursor of what we would later call the progressive line within pop music (indie, new wave, punk, etc.). Four tracks have already sunk their teeth and instruments into this: Roky Erickson (#1), Jonathan Richman (#4), The Tubes (#7), and Neu (#8)! It will take another year and a half before the more “classic” line will start to be outnumbered. Hopefully time is on my side!
Beautiful tracks that I did not pick up in 1975—or that at least didn’t stick—are: “De Luxe (Immer Weiter)” (#12) by Harmonia, the second Krautrock streak (after Neu!) of the three appearing in this month’s list! This progressive electronic supergroup housed—excuse me, harboured—Moebius, Roedelius, Michael Rother of yes, Neu!, and for a while even Brian Eno!
“January Man” (#21) by the Irish bard Christy Moore, brother of Luka Bloom, also passed me by at the time. It’s a gracefully constructed track from his third album Whatever Tickles Your Fancy, loaded with traditional folk!
Then a completely forgotten detour into American power pop with Dwight Twilley Band’s “You Were So Warm” (#32). The band around Twilley and one-hit wonder Phil Seymour (“Precious to Me”—remember?) was founded in 1967, but it took until ’75 before they managed to get anything on record! “You Were So Warm” just missed the Billboard Hot 100 (#103).
At the bottom of the list, I only really became aware this year of “Mamacita” (#36) by The Grass Roots and “Run Joey Run” (#38) by David Geddes. The Grass Roots produced truly brilliant singles in the sixties—my favourites, in descending order of euphoria: “Only When You’re Lonely”, “Let’s Live for Today”, and “Lovin’ Things”. That might be why this last, watered-down, overly commercial “Mamacita” single from 1975 still managed to persuade me to reserve it a place in the lower ranks.
Down at the bottom it’s all laughing, howling, and roaring this month! The melodramatic tearjerker “Run Joey Run” by David Geddes, “L’Ami Caouette” (#39) evoked by good old, dead-but-not-forgotten Serge G., and our national dance-floor samba pride “Charly Brown” (#40) by Two Man Sound make things exceptionally colourful—and also a bit blue!
The fossilised cherry on the cake in August comes from the novelty/curiosity song of the month. The award for the most delirium-inducing song goes to the hilariously awful “Regreza Maria” by The Dutch Specials. Once you manage to watch the entire video (3’13”), you know that from now on you yourself are becoming ripe for an overdose of demented glee! Or does there need to be a bit more corona first?
(Jan VH)
Playlist
- Roky Erickson & The Bleib Alien – Red Temple Prayer (Two Headed Dog)
- Bruce Springsteen – Born to Run
- Kris De Bruyne – Vilvoorde City
- Jonathan Richman – Road Runner
- Rainbow – The Temple of the King
- Bob Marley & The Wailers – No Woman, No Cry
- Tubes – White Punks on Dope
- Neu! – Hero
- Eric Clapton – Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door
- Neil Young – Roll Another Number
- Alexander Curly – Freek
- Harmonia – De Luxe (Immer Weiter)
- Peter Frampton – Baby I Love Your Way
- Triumvirat – The Deadly Dream of Freedom
- Uriah Heep – Your Turn to Remember
- John Fogerty – Rockin’ All Over the World
- Procol Harum – I Keep Forgetting
- Rod Stewart – Sailing
- Jethro Tull – Minstrel in the Gallery
- Bob Dylan & The Band – You Ain’t Goin’ Nowhere
- Christy Moore – January Man
- Bots – Lied van de Werkende Jeugd
- Kinks – (A) Face in the Crowd
- Leo Sayer – Moonlighting
- Fleetwood Mac – I’m So Afraid
- Wim De Craene – Rozane
- Black Sabbath – Am I Going Insane?
- Manfred Mann’s Earth Band – Visionary Mountains
- Andy Mackay – Wild Weekend
- Aerosmith – Walk This Way
- Dwight Twilley Band – You Were So Warm
- Outlaws – There Goes Another Love Song
- Joan Baez – Diamonds and Rust
- ABBA – S.O.S.
- Starry Eyed and Laughing – Good Love
- Grass Roots – Mamasita
- Roger Daltrey – Walking the Dog
- David Geddes – Run Joey Run
- Serge Gainsbourg – L’Ami Caouette
- Two Man Sound – Charlie Brown