The Backdoor Men - Out Of My Mind

Chunk Garage, if there ever was one…

Let’s say that if you are everything you claim to be (digger, sixties maniacs, and so on) the historically most interesting section of this collection is the one immediately following the concise tracklist of the two and a half singles released by the Backdoor Men during their activity and that, if you are indeed what you say you are and I have no reason to doubt it, you should know it like the ABC.

These are, in fact, the band's earliest recordings, those from the “mod” period preceding the folk/punk and garage shift that would lead them to record gems like Magic Girl and, on the wilder side, the unmatched beauty of Out of My Mind, when the Backdoor Men were still called Pow and roamed the local venues on scooters, bringing with them the gold of the Jam, the incense of the Lambrettas, and the myrrh of the Merton Parkas.

It was the early eighties, and Pow was the only mod band in Sweden. Pioneers of an aesthetic rich in charm. Just as it would be a few years later for the Backdoor Men. Pioneers once again.

Södra Esplanaden tells, through music and in the beautiful accompanying booklet, the transformation of Pow into Backdoor Men and then into the more fortunate (much more fortunate) Creeps. However, there is no trace of the songs that the quartet seemed to be working on for the debut album that was supposed to be birthed in the neonatal unit of Electric Eye in Pavia.

And that is a real shame.

We would have been happy and honored to know what history has deprived us of.