Vinyl Vault Entry #17: Battle of the Budget Beatles Bootleg Records

Written by Parisa

The Vinyl Vault series is back! In this very special edition of the blog, we’ll be presenting the ULTIMATE SMACKDOWN of bootleg budget Beatles bands! We’ll be ranking and reviewing the wonderful, whimsical, obscure and bizzaro world of ‘60s bargain-bin record labels and their “soundalike” bands to determine which group is the MOST MEDIOCRE of them all!! Will The Buggs make you ‘Do the Beetle’? Or perhaps the Beatle Buddies will have you singing the ‘Beatle Beat’? Join your host Parisa as she shares so much (too much?) about these charmingly off putting records and discovers fun factoids about budget label bands along the way.  There'll be unexpected twists, turns and you just may stumble across a few genuinely good songs along the way. It’ll be the best of times, and the blurst of times.

In this special edition of Vinyl Vault, we’ll be ranking ‘n spanking a special collection of knock-off Beatles bands. I came across this series of records at Wooden Tooth Records in Tucson, and while some of these are rather common titles that we see pretty often (i.e. The Schoolboys, The Liverpools), some of these groups were totally new to me. I’m usually never all too excited to check out these bands ‘cause they’re a dime a dozen, but once in a while you come across a cover that’s so charming and so ridiculously bootleggy that you can’t help but want to learn more about it. The curiosity isn’t necessarily about the music, but the backstories that make this weird world of “soundalike bands” so interesting. They’re not quite willing to put in the effort of being a full-on tribute or cover band, they rather bank on the image and likeness of a hugely successful group and cash in on their popularity. It’s a shameless and, in my opinion, somewhat endearing, attempt at a get-rich-quick scheme. 

Some of these LPs are better than others, but even so, none of them are very good. They all fall into the broad category of budget albums, which were “low-priced vinyl LPs of popular and classical music released during the 1950s to 1970s consisting either of previously released material (usually reissues drawn from the catalogs of major labels featuring older performances by well-known artists) or material recorded especially for the line (often cover versions of hit songs by name artists sung or performed on these albums by usually unidentified and unknown musicians).” There’d usually be only one or two cover songs to lure in the buyer, and the rest of the music would be imitation-type songs or random tracks in the public domain. Some drugstores ran their own labels, and later many major record labels would create their own subdivision dedicated to this field. These releases cost about 2.5x less than those of major releases, so we’re talking Budget with a capital B! Even today, none of these records have appreciated in value.

Although there’s some information out there about the ridiculous world of anonymous budget bands, you’re left to wonder about the people behind the music. How did they end up getting cast for these projects? Did they have genuine hopes and dreams of making it big? Were they told this band would be a gateway into their own music career? How much, if at all, did they get paid for being on these recordings? And where oh where are they now?! I haven’t found any answers to these questions, so for now, we’re just left here to listen and ponder about this oddball fragment of vinyl history. 
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So with all that being said...prepare for the ULTIMATE SMACKDOWN of the bootleggy Beatles bands to determine which group is the MOST MEDIOCRE of them all!! I’ll be sharing some fun facts from my research along the way. You can listen along and fill out a bracket if you wish to join in on the fun! Feel free to leave some comments on this blog or on our IG with who ranked the highest on your scoreboard. And make sure you read to the end to be rewarded with a real treat…aka Beatles rip-offs that are actually good!
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Round 1
The Beatle Buddies vs. no one

Since I had an odd number of records for this tournament, I put the Beatle Buddies in a category of their own because without even listening to it, you just know this would easily knock out any other contender in the first round. The Beatle Buddies got two things going for them right off the bat:

1. Their name sounds like a corporate exec thought of it in two seconds. I love a dumb alliteration 
2. The fabulous imitation Beatle-esque portraits on the front cover. I’m surprised they went with the more serious look, rather than like a Help! type album cover that is more playful and buddy-like. They certainly aren’t giving me “buddy” with those hard mugs I tell you what

What really makes this record shine, however, is the description on the back:

The Beatles created one of the most phenomenal musical events since Elvis, and the whole world is infected with Beatle sounds. Our contribution is unique in that we are offering the Beatle Buddies, a group of young gals that have their own sound, in the true Beatle tradition. They have a distinct and definite originality in their presentations. The girls are cute and very talented. We think that their names and sound will last long after the Beatles are gone. Listen to their harmony and style and we think you will agree that these girls are a real find in the recording business of today. A single record is being prepared from this album which should be heard nationwide very soon. So here we go -- Beatle Buddies. 

…WOW.
A lot to break down there!

Firstly, it’s evident that these bands were sold more as a product than as an artistic endeavor, seeing as how the label refers to this band as “our contribution”. These very “cute and talented girls” (nice) are stated to all be very distinct in their personalities and yet none of them are even so much as credited anywhere on this record. And the claim of this group outlasting the Beatles themselves is so WILDLY outlandish and insane that you almost have to respect the absolute nerve of this publicist. I’m not sure if the “record being prepared” is in reference to the record here or if they were preparing another album after this one. Needless to say, the Beatle Buddies did not go on to release anything else after this. 
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While the liner notes state that us listeners will surely agree that they’re “a real find” based on their harmonies and raw talent, I can’t quite say they live up to the hype. There’s only two reviews of this on Discogs, one from  tomdaly1960 stating:

This is the same rubbish issued on the same label as being by "The Manchesters," recording artists of whom no identity is revealed on the packaging! This is cheap cloned junk for people who were too cheap to buy authentic Capitol and Vee Jay Beatles' LPs!

And another great review from a YouTube comment from user @2574mcu: 

When I was a kid I wanted Meet the Beatles for my birthday and I got the Beatle buddies album instead. That was not a good day for me. I just said thank you. I did not want to hurt my Mother's feelings.

Despite the awkwardly flat harmonies and lackluster performance, it still has a certain charm to it that you just can’t shake. It kind of sounds like when you’re forced to do a group project in school and no one really wants to be there, but you come together in the end purely for the shared goal of wanting to get things over with. These ladies certainly weren’t “buddies” before and probably weren’t “buddies” after recording together, but hopefully they shared some kind of shared goal of getting paid and getting out the studio as fast as possible.

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Round 2
The Schoolboys vs. Charles River Valley Boys

The Schoolboys 

Hailing from whoknowswhere, The Schoolboys released Beatle Mania in 1964, featuring mostly original songs and two Beatles covers. What’s clever about this album cover, which looks like it was drawn by an amateur police sketch artist, is that if you were just flipping through a bin at a record store you’d most likely just see the words “I Want to Hold Your Hand” and “Beatle Mania” -- it’s only when you’d take it out of the bin that you can see the band name in smaller letters below. And speaking of band names, they’re credited as The Schoolboys on the front cover, The Liverpool Moptops on the back cover, and on the label as The Moptops. What a mess. I do enjoy that The Schoolboys name made it as front cover material, as it’s the least literal Beatles reference of them all. 
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The “Twist and Shout” cover does an impeccable job of taking all the joy and excitement out of the song by giving it a more minimalist quality. Everyone knows the production of that song was all too much fuss, so why not just have one horn tooting and have the backup singers sound like they’re recording from a mile away? Much better!!
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A budget band is only as good as its original soundalike song, so let’s take a listen to  “You Don’t Even Care” because the title seems prophetic. The notes are impressively flat, the attempted doo-wop jangle is more of a musical mangle, and I’m left with a faint stomachache. Nice.

Charles River Valley Boys

Alright, it might be unfair for me to squeeze this band into the competition as they’re not technically a “budget band” (this actually was somehow released on Elektra Records), but I saw it in the record store bins alongside the other wannabe Beatles junk and bought it all together. Here’s Massachusetts-based bluegrass group Charles River Valley Boys with their 1966 Beatles cover album, Beatle Country.

Welp, upon listening now I can say it’s totally unfair to include them in the mix, because this album unironically rips. The Charles River Valley Boys were a group of Harvard students that started a bluegrass band. A friend of theirs, Paul Rothchild, produced their previous album and suggested the boys do an all Beatles cover album after hearing a demo of their “What Goes On” cover. They went on to sign with Elektra for the album, recorded in Nashville (much more fitting than Harvard, no?), and apparently got permission from the Beatles themselves to do the album. 

The album was marketed towards mainstream country audiences and achieved mild success, but producer Paul Rothchild went on to work with bigger and better artists (The Doors, Janis Joplin), so Beatle Country was left for greener pastures. The Charles River Valley Boys disbanded by 1968. Here’s a quick pros and cons list to wrap up the review.

Pros:

• The album artwork is incredible and tells you everything about this record. A buncha bluegrass cowboys in London
• They do a great job adapting Beatles songs to their bluegrass sound, although some tracks are sort of a given because they already have a country composition to begin with
• They say “yeller submarine” for christs sake 

Cons:

• It’s pretty darn good, perhaps too good for this competition 

While this was hardly a budget band, I still think this album works within this general competition because they too were a hardworking group that kind of got lost in oddities vinyl history. I wonder if they were bummed that their major label connection went on to do bigger projects, or if they continued to live their best bluegrass lifestyle after their '60s Beatles era. Either way, this album achieved some cult status many years later and became a sought after record amongst collectors, so much so that it got a reissue in the '90s.

All that being said, I gotta give it to the boys for this round. 

​Round 2 winner:
Charles River Valley Boys

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Round 3
The Manchesters vs The Liverpools
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Obviously, these two had to be pitted together as they share quite a lot in common:

• They both have the laughable city-based band names (+1 point for The Liverpools, since they beat the others to the punch of taking the city name of where the Beatles are actually from)
• Both covers feature mop tops (a close one, but +1 for The Liverpools cause I dig the bummed out cartoonish faces and the color variant jackets)
• They both cover “She Loves You” and “I Want To Hold Your Hand” (+1 point for The Manchesters, they definitely outperform their competitors)

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As far as original music, The Manchesters totally got The Liverpools beat. They got a bit more edge and a better ear for harmonies. And as I was reading some YouTube comments on these videos, which mostly consist of people lamenting when they received these as gifts from aunts and uncles rather than actual Beatles records, I came across another interesting tidbit. It turns out this original Liverpools song was duplicated for another album from the same label, the Wyncote Squirrels:

That’s right, we’re talking DOUBLE BOOTLEG!!!!
It’s a bootleg version of The Chipmunks doing a bootleg version of a budget Beatles bootleg band. Or is that a triple bootleg? I’m lost…

This band is credited as The Four Chipmunks on the first pressing, but the label surely had to avoid some copyright infringement and dubbed later pressings as Wyncote Squirrels (Wyncote being the label that put out these records). The tracklist is the exact same as The Liverpools, so my assumption would be that they just sped up the recording and remarketed it as a chipmunks spin off to sell to younger kiddos. I bet that made the musicians feel reaaal good that they were being profited and ripped off on a whole other level.

While I’ve seen this record come into the shop before, I can’t say I’ve listened to it ‘til now, and my review would have to be a simple: pure torture/10. 

So in a SURPRISING AND SHOCKING TWIST in the championship…no one saw it coming…the under(prarie)dogs swoop in and steal the show…the winner for this round goes to…
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Round 3 winner:
Wyncote Squirrels
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​Round 4
The Buggs vs B. Brock and the Sultans

The Buggs

Right off the bat, I think The Buggs’ Beetle Beat takes the cake for the best and bootleggiest of all the budget band names. I went ahead and delved into their original tracks for this review, because I’m getting pretty fucking exhausted of hearing “She Loves You” covers at this point in the competition. ​My favorite has to be “Liverpool Drag” because it’s the melody of “I Want to Hold Your Hand” but they change the words to “I hope you leave your man”. Perhaps they couldn’t afford the rights to do any more covers and came up with that lyric last minute. 
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The cover boasts this album as being recorded in London and having the “the original Liverpool sound”. Upon first listen, you can tell these guys definitely ain’t British. In fact, Discogs actually had a bit of information about this one:

This LP was actually recorded in the New Jersey/New York area by a group named The Coachmen V featuring Gary Wright, later of Spooky Tooth, and was to be a self-titled album. Coronet Records hijacked the tape and the band was paid nothing. "The Buggs" never really existed.

Jersey!!!! The furthest point, physically and culturally, from Liverpool. Incredible stuff.
Also amazed to finally find some credit information about any of these bands, especially seeing as how one of the guys actually went onto be in a successful group. The Buggs/Coachmen V even have their own Wiki page that discuss how they were ripped off in multiple ways :
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Band members were surprised (and unhappy) when they discovered that album had been released under a different band name, under false pretenses, and with models representing the band members. No royalties were ever paid, and The Buggs ceased to exist. In 1966, Coronet released Boots a Go-Go, repackaging the same Beetle Beat album from two years earlier, now with a go-go music storyline on the back cover and a picture of a go-go dancer on the front and back covers... Cleverly, no song titles were featured on the album's front or back cover so that unaware buyers would not know that this was exactly the same Buggs' music from their previous and, technically, only release. 

Yikes. Not only did the Coachmen V fellas get ripped off by their label, the public did too! Coronet has to be the most ruthless budget label out there.
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B. Brock and the Sultans
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Coming out of left-field, we got a hot album contender with its own unique twist…a totally tubular surf album with a gnarly lookin’ tracklist (that similarly to the album above uses “beetle” rather than “Beatle”).

Do The Beetle    
I Want To Hold Your Hand    
The Saints    
Beetle Walk    
30 LB. Beetle    
My Bonnie    
Feed The Beetle    
Fast Beetle    
Mexican Beetle    
Little Brown Beetle
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I’ve listened to so many godawful covers at this point that they’re starting to blend together, however this one above really dazzles and shines as perhaps the worst one yet! Every single aspect of this song is so sloppy, it actually garnered a “woof” from both me and my boyfriend upon listening. Everything is out of time, out of tune, and out of touch with reality. They’re not even a good surf band, let alone cover band. Also the guy on the far left looks like he didn’t get the memo of doing a mod-looking cut and went more in the Hitler youth style. 

The rest of the album is largely instrumental and not very Beatles-esque at all, aside from a quick shout of “Hey, let’s do The Beetle!” before the track starts.

Both of these albums are pretty horrific in their own special way, but I think I’m gonna give it to the Jersey boys for this round.
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Round 4 winner:
The Buggs

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​Time to take a look at the rankings!!

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​Let’s do a quick round of stats and highlights to determine the winner:
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Beatle Buddies vs. Charles River Valley Boys

I gotta go with Beatle Buddies for this round, only because I feel like Charles River Valley Boys were too polished for this competition. They’ll forever hold a place in our honky tonkin’ hearts.
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Wyncote Squirrels vs. The Buggs

This is a tough one, and I’ve genuinely spent too much time out of my day pondering this. Both groups have deep, rich and complex layers of bootleg that truly exemplify the spirit of this competition. One is a squirrel rip off of another budget band, the other is a legitimate Jersey band that was ripped off to create a fake budget band. 

The Wyncote Squirrels would normally be an easy winner because personally, I love things that are egregiously annoying (perhaps it’s the younger sibling complex in me). However, upon searching the web to see if anything could help sway this difficult decision, I came across this tidbit about The Buggs:

Their influence may have been limited, but Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh said that Beetle Beat was his first album purchase, thinking it was a Beatles album. Mothersbaugh said, "One track pissed me off so much it eventually inspired the nasty Devo song, 'U Got Me Bugged'."

The Buggs sucked so bad that Mothersbaugh had to write a song about it!! It’s easy to get pissed off hearing an imitation Chipmunks sound, but the Buggs’ annoyance is on a whole other unique level. Another incredible twist…the winner of this round is The Buggs!
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​FINAL ROUND!!

Beatle Buddies vs The Buggs
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To sum up this whole competition, we have to ask ourselves, are there really any winners here? On the surface…no, not really. The albums flopped, the music sucked, and the bands all sank into obscurity. On the other side of the coin, there’s something to be said about observing the inauthentic, low-brow and unapologetically dumb side of music. You uncover incredible artwork,  like the Beatles Buddies gruesome portraits, and reveal deep cut inspiration for some of your favorite bands, like Devo’s song about The Buggs. And most of all, in a world full of nonstop horrific news, sometimes it’s fun to experience some goddamn WHIMSY!

So all that being said, the group that overall brought me personally the most joy, whimsy and sheer stupidity is…



*drumroll*

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THE BUGGS! HOORAY!

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Thanks for reading. If you played along, please leave a comment below or send us an email via the Contact Form with your ranking! 
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BONUS MATERIAL

If you were brave/kind enough to actually read this whole thing and stick along for the ride, you’ll now be rewarded with not one, but TWO, actually pleasant sounding Beatles-related songs.
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First up, from 1973 comes on one of the most endearing, beautiful pop ditties:

Monik was a Peruvian singer that only came out with four singles in the ‘70s. The arrangement (written by her brother Carlos Guerrero, lead singer of psych band We All Together) is Beatles imitation in its utmost flattery, and despite the obvious/extremely literal inspiration, Monik brings this an adorable charm that gives it a mood all her own. This song fills my heart with so much joy, it is so precious.

And finally, from the 1960’s Illinois garage-country-psych rock band Spur comes my favorite Beatles cover:
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This rare gem has been on repeat for me since my friend recommended it to me earlier this year. The whole album is excellent, and this cover is a shining highlight. It’s rusty, dusty, swirling, psychedelic, slightly depressive, nostalgic…a swell of emotions and sounds. 

Enjoy!

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