The Buggs: Liverpool Drag (1964)

Elsewhere takes no end of cheap delight in unearthing various Beatles tributes (by dogs, by the soon-to-be Cher), copyists, weird cover versions and so on.

But to find the Buggs' sole album for a mere $5 in a secondhand record shop was a discovery of the first order.

This group from Liverpool cashed in on the Beatles songs (they cover I Want to Hold Your Hand and She Loves You) but also add in their own songs with titles like Mersey Mercy, Soho Mash, Liverpool Drag, Big Ben Hop, Teddy Boy Stomp . . .

Their album banners very heavily "The Original LIverpool Sound, Recorded in England".

But curiously there are not only no writing credits and where exactly the album was recorded, but no band members are named . . .

And despite the Beatlesque guitar work and songs in the idiom (there are "yeah-yeah'yeah" parts and hand holding) there is something just a little suspicious about those accents.

In truth the short-lived Buggs were not from Liverpool, the album was not recorded in England and this is not the "original" Liverpool sound.

The Buggs -- and I really do want the slightly later reissue of this as Meet the Buggs in a With the Beatles/Meet the Beatles-type cover -- were from Nebraska and the album was recorded in Minneapolis. 

I reproduce below the back cover with its enthusiastic blurb . . . which lies through its teeth.

There was no shame when it came to cashing on. If there was money to be milked from kids, why not?

Well, almost half a century later they got me. But just for $5, probably the price of the lovely surface noise.

Not a bad song about selfish cheating and selfishly wanting someone back, though.