BEST VENTURES SONG EVER

[brutus]

HANDS DOWN IT'S "ENDLESS DREAM" HOW MANY GUITAR TRACKS ON THAT SONG? BEST COVER "FIRE" GIVE IT UP FOR GERRY MCGEE!
BEST UNRELEASED TRACK "SAIGON"
BEST DAVIE ALLEN SONG "ACTION ON THE STREET"
BEST SANDY NELSON SONG "CASBAH"
LET ME KNOW YOURE PICKS

[Tommy C]

Walk Dont Run 64 , Diamond Head , and Caravan.

[Dennisthe Menace]

Walk Dont Run 64 , Diamond Head , and Caravan.

DITTO.....There were a LOT of good tunes on WDR '64 VOL II
that have been overlooked over the past 10-20 years.....

[Tommy C]

Walk Dont Run Vol.64 is probably my favorite Ventures album. After that would be The Ventures in Space and then The Fabulous Ventures . The best overall album I think would be The Ventures Live in 1965 which I just got.

[dubtrub]

I like most all of the stuff done by the Ventures. Especially songs done with Gerry McGee on lead. What I didn't know until reading the Ventures book was, there were a lot of their recordings done by studio musicians while the Ventures were touring. That was a bummer to read that, but it explained how there were such wide variety of playing styles on some of their albums. Look at the credits on the album cover to see how many songs were actually recorded by studio musicians. If you don't recognize the artist name as being a member of the Ventures then it's a studio musician.

Nokie, a registered member here on the forum is an avid Ventures fan and knows just about any and everything you could ever want to know about the Ventures. Hopefully he will chime in on this discussion.

[zak]

For the Ventures stuff I guess it's pretty narrow for me: 1964-66.

Starting with the "In Space" LP up until "Wild Thing" is, at least for me, the golden era of Ventures records. By '67 I think they were going downhill (although there's a few songs I like on the "Super Psychedelics" and "Guitar Freakout" LPs, and their pre-Mosrite stuff doesn't really interest me that much. I don't think that they got very flattering sounds out of Fenders, although there's stuff I like from that era...just not nearly as much as their '64-'66 period. I'd say "Live In Japan" is the most consistent, the level of energy and the dry farty Mosrite tones make this one a favorite of mine. The only think missing is some flatulent fuzz guitar. At least there ain't no studio musicians on it!
Hard to pick individual favorite tunes, I guess the organ and fuzz guitar on "The Swingin' Creeper" make that one a favorite, and the live version of "Besame Mucho" has some great playing on it too.

Best Davie Allan LP - "Cycle-Delic" hands down. Favorite individual Davie Allan & the Arrows track: "Another Cycle In Detroit" with "The Stompers And The Souls" following close behind.

Favorite Takeshi Terauchi LPs have got to be the Bunnys' "Seicho Takeushi-Bushi" and the Blue Jeans' "Let's Go Eleki-Bushi" but I am really enjoying "Manatsu no Umi wo Buttobase!!" these days.

[kenposurf]

Really like everything on Surfing and In Space. Favorites tunes on those releases...Diamond Head and The Fourth Dimension (a cover really of The Frantics tune "Werewolf".

[Dennisthe Menace]

Zak wrote:

For the Ventures stuff I guess it's pretty narrow for me: 1964-66.

Wow....That's pretty much where I am at. There were a few tunes off the Psychedelic Album,
but not that many.....same thing with the Hawai 5-0 Album. For some reason, when Nokie left,
I felt, that was the beginning of the downfall of the Ventures. Please don't get me wrong, Jerry
is a great guitarist in his own right, but I never felt that he had the same magic formula with
the band that Nokie had. And sadly, I heard that Nokie has lost some of his chops due to his
health and age, but let's not forget what he 'burned' on the Fretboard when he and the rest of
the group were in their Prime......

[zak]

Please don't get me wrong, Jerry
is a great guitarist in his own right, but I never felt that he had the same magic formula with
the band that Nokie had.

I could never really get into post-Nokie Ventures. It was definitely the end of an era when he left, they started recording more and more turkeys and the production got cheesier and cheesier. Nokie had his share of cheesy moments, but when he was at his best he had that aggressive explosive picking style (you can hear it all over "Live In Japan") that McGee never came close to being able to match. As much as I love mid-60s Nokie, for my tastes Takeshi Terauchi had (at least in the 60s) more of everything I like about Nokie's playing - more flash, wilder material, and a more extreme tone.

[dubtrub]

I do like Nokie's early stuff on most all their recordings until he gets into the 'country pickin', that's when I loose it. Also, Gerry seems to really enjoy playing and it shows in his expressions. I read that Nokie has taken flak for being so lethargic on stage. They say his excitement comes out in his playing. If you watch some of their early 60's TV performances, you will see that Nokie smiles and has some movement. That's because their promoter hired a dance choreographer to help them with their on stage showmanship. They weren't the 'dancing bears' type so they dropped the choreographer after a few sessions. I have several DVD's with both Nokie and Gerry, to me, Gerry is easier to watch while performing simply because you can tell he's really getting into it and enjoying it. Nokie was a great song writer and a more fluid guitar player, but Gerry is no slouch.