the headless horsemen - can't help but shake Well, just take it all because it’s all, but all... delicious.
It didn’t seem destined to last.
Because it seemed, and perhaps it was, a divertissement.
A little something put together by the new unemployed of the New York garage scene: Peter Stuart from the Tryfles, Elan Portnoy from the Fuzztones, Chris Cush from the Amps, and Celia Farber, also an ex-Tryfles, who was soon replaced by Ira Elliot from the Fuzztones and then by David Ari for the final sessions of the album, who would later sit behind the drums for the Devil Dogs and Times Square.
And why then were simpler and more “wild” records often preferred over it?
Yet, listening to it again today, Can’t Help but Shake has retained its charm intact.
In fact, it has become even more beautiful. Because it is an album that draws from a certain sixties tradition like many from that era, but it does so in a different way.
With a breath of its own and snorkels attached to the oxygen tanks of power pop from the Raspberries, the Flamin' Groovies, the Last, and the Plimsouls.
It is on this playing field that Elan and Peter stake their reputation earned over years of militancy in their respective bands, shifting their focus towards a sound open to folk-rock influences, Merseybeat (the title track is a piece worthy of Gerry and The Pacemakers), West Coast psychedelia (Her Only Friend is a sweet nod to the flower power era), power-pop, and jungle-beat inflections worthy of Bo Diddley (Same Old Thing) as well as certain freakbeat offspring of the Pretty Things (Not Today, entirely played on the edge of a harmonica and fuzzy arabesques) and the psychic disturbances of the Elevators (if you don't see the spirals of Rollercoaster within I See the Truth, you might want to start worrying, NdLYS).
Few can boast such a precious work of guitars and vocals within the neo-garage scene they are inevitably shoved into. Chris, after all, is a fanatic and an expert of vintage gear and manages to find the right sound for every need. He would soon end up managing the most renowned instrument shop in all of New York, at 102 St Mark’s Place.
And while the disoriented and drugged version of Cellar Dwellar cannot compete with the testosterone-fueled one from the Fuzztones, the renditions of Bitter Heart from the Tryfles’ repertoire and I See the Truth from the Optic Nerve’s make the space around them go empty.
Can’t Help but Shake is an album of stunning beauty.
A nugget for refined palates and for trippy go-go dancers with vixen curves.
