Sunday, December 17, 2017

The Count Five's "Carburetor Dung"



The Count Five only released one album, Psychotic Reaction in 1966. The band did release a few singles afterward, but broke up in 1969. Unfortunately for the band, none of their subsequent singles came anywhere close to matching the success of "Psychotic Reaction." Later compilation albums have brought together all the band's album tracks, singles and outtakes. Using the later singles and outtakes, there's more than enough for a second album.

Rock critic Lester Bangs wrote an essay in 1972 with a fictional history of the band and listed four follow-up albums by the Count Five that never actually existed. The first of these follow-ups he titled Carburetor Dung. Now, it's doubtful the band (or the record company for that matter) would have called an album Carburetor Dung, but in a salute to Bangs, that's what we'll call this.

SIDE A
1. People Hear What I Say
2. Move It Up
3. Contrast
4. Declaration of Independence
5. You Must Believe

SIDE B
1. Hold Me Closer
2. You Can't Get Me
3. Teeny Bopper, Teeny Bopper
4. Merry-Go-Round
5. Revelation in Slow Motion

The album opens with the noisy garage rocker "People Hear What I Say." Six of the songs, "You Must Believe," Teeny Bopper, Teeny Bopper," "Merry Go Round," "Contrast," "Revelation in Slow Motion" and "Declaration of Independence" were all released as A or B sides of singles in 1967 and 1968. "Hold Me Closer" opens the second side and is a nice, and kind of surprising, cover of an Equals song.

The album cover is my creation, using existing outer space artwork. I added a picture of a carburetor as sort of a spaceship or space junk. I added titles using a Star Trek font, which seemed appropriate as the show was popular at the time. In the future, I'll also post a last EP for The Count Five: Cartesian Jetstream.

6 comments:

  1. I thought that this album hung together extremely well, and after listening to it I couldn't wait to hear Cartesian Jetstream, so I've made my own copy. Hopefully this will tide fans over until you do your own reconstruction. http://www27.zippyshare.com/v/lVvfOQsQ/file.html

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  2. Cool! I don't expect to have Cartesian Jetstream up until March, and then it'll only be an EP

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  3. Anyone know why it wasn’t released with the original artwork? I believe the original cover was “a rusty wheelbarrow, the body of an old Ford with no wheels or engine, and a cottonwood tree in the background. The sun has almost gone down and it’s so dark you can hardly see a fuckin’ thing. So the title’s up there in oxblood-colored letters. Oxblood!”

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    Replies
    1. Hi. Sorry, but I don't know what your referring to. I don't know of any Count Five album cover that looks as you describe.

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    2. They were making a joke based on how Lester Bangs described the (non-existent) album artwork in his book. Source: just read that part of his book last night lol

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