I have to confess to inwardly groaning everytime Peel announced that he was going to play a track from a compilation album like Boss Drag ‘64. I generally found most of the hot rod/car song instrumentals that would pepper his playlists to be utterly forgettable, and when later in the decade, he used to take up time on his programme by playing field recordings taken from motor race tracks, I’d sometimes be screaming at the car radio for him to get on with it and play some music. Gear Masher, which was originally recorded in 1963 for Hotrodders’ Choice, the sole album by The Deuce Coupes makes it onto my metaphorical mixtape mainly because it has the good sense to rip off Money (That’s What I Want) for its main riff, which no track can ever go wrong with.
There’s also an interesting sub-plot at the heart of Gear Masher and several other songs on Hotrodders’ Choice. Although it uses the Money riff to wonderful effect, it is almost made unlistenable by the way in which the track is plastered with the sound effects of screaming brakes and roaring engines virtually all the way through. Producer Bob Keane, who also owned Del-Fi Records, the label which put out The Deuce Coupes handful of releases, may have felt he had to do something to prevent the group from being sued for plagiarism but the fact that he repeated the trick on other tracks on the album such as Double-A Fueler or Smooth Stick must have driven the band mad, as they are having to battle the effects to be heard. While it’s tempting to consider that The Deuce Coupes failure to put out any material after 1963 was down to the end of the Surf music craze and the onset of The British Invasion, I think it’s just as likely due to be something like Keane having to go into hiding for his own safety from a very angry group. At a push, one could make a case that the effects were a metaphor for back seat lovemaking and sexual activity - the car being one of the few places in early 1960s America where young couples could get physical with each other in relative privacy under the seemingly innocent pretext of just taking a drive. But the witlessness and lack of subtlety in the use of the effects suggests Keane was trying to be a cut-price Phil Spector, without any sense of his musicality or idea for how his ideas would complement the artist. In it, we can see early signs of the kind of philistinism which blighted folk records of the mid-60s where it was felt that Simon & Garfunkel or Richie Havens on their own weren’t strong enough, so full bands and additional instruments would be foisted on to their recordings, often without the artists’ knowledge or
consent.
NOTE - This post was one of those instances where I did a little more research after I’d published it, rather than before it. Had I done so, I would have changed the notion of Bob Keane hiding from an angry group after the release of Hotrodders’ Choice to him having to hide from an angry duo. The Deuce Coupes were a pair of brothers - Lolly and Pat Vegas - whose playing on the album was supplemented by session musicians. Furthermore, another album was released in 1963, which was also credited to The Deuce Coupes. However, The Shut Downs was a hasty cash-in which featured neither of the Vegas brothers, who would go on to achieve greater commercial success in the 1970s as Redbone.
Video courtesy of Scott Johnson
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