Mild Mannered Garage Rock

What is it about Portsmouth? they seemed, back in the day to punt out such great garage rock/psychobilly bands, some of them are featured on this website at the link 'Garage Rock'. This is another of those fantastic garage style bands from sunny Portsmouth with an infectious riff and a cool garage style you could die in garage rock heaven for.

The band were called The Mild Mannered Janitors and for those old enough you may remember the cartoon Hong Kong Phooey with Penrod 'Penry' Pooch (the mild mannered janitor), could be....? Catch a wonderful article, picture and comments that remember the cartoon show as I did as a kid back in the 1970's at the link Do You Remember? Obviously don't want to put the pictures of the Kung Fu Doggy Superhero up here as they are probably Hannah-Barbera copyrighted! To be honest the mid-70's was riddled with martial arts stuff from T.V. shows such as 'Kung Fu', aforementioned Kid's T.V. shows, films to music with Carl Douglas hitting the #1 spot in the charts with 'Kung Fu Fighting'.

 

Anyway, the track by the Mild Mannered Janitors is 'Dirty Jean' and was re-issued by Cherry Red Records on the 3 x CD box set, but was originally recorded in 1989 on the White Room Records Label and with only one other release on that label I am just getting the faint whiff of 'self financed released'.

 

To me a fabulous example of the re-introduction of garage rock in the mid to late 1980's to an uncaring public, a sound emulated by many bands of the same genre across the UK from Kent and Essex to name a couple back at the time. To some degree sadly it had to fight against the might of other music genres such as House Music, Italo House and of course that whole Stock, Aitken and Waterman Hit Factory thing, still the spirit of the Garage bands relied more on independent labels and loyal local following rather than getting into top chart positions. The Garage Rock revival almost seemed like a resurgence of a bygone era that in many respects even today has never died. Have a listen to some other Garage Rock Style bands at the tag link on this website at 'Garage Rock'. You can also get the band's equally good and much faster paced track 'Dog' at the youtube link.

 

There seemed to be a number of drummers mentioned on Discogs, I am having to assume that they all moved on. They managed to push out a couple of albums and singles on both the independent White Room and Screaming Apple labels during their time.

 

Their first album was on cassette and released by another Indie Label called 'Uniqie Records' 

From their second album 'Innocence' released in 1991 on The Screaming Apple Record label, cop a load of this track called simply 'Car' and being the first track on the album, it has quite an intense and broody start to it, a track I hadn't heard before and seem to have fallen for! To be honest referring to some of the other more 'popular' music genres of the time this track (at least to me) sounds a little bit 'crossover' to another fine band who released their eponymous album 'The Stone Roses' in 1989 and that whole 'Baggy Sound'. Finally a live set from The Mild Mannered Janitors captured from back in 1991 at a venue called 'Pandora's Box' in Portsmouth again at the link.

Just when you thought Portsmouth had done it all back in the day have a listen to this 'newer' band called The Courettes who appeared at The Wedgewood Rooms in Portsmouth in April with the track 'Hop The Twig' (based on this track like a cross between The Shangri-La's and The Cramps, what's not to like!) which was initially released in 2021 on the album 'Back in Mono' and also on 7" single by the indie Damaged Goods Record Label, they are a duo from Denmark/Brazil who supported Portsmouth band Paul Groovy & The Pop Art Experience (another Portsmouth garage rock act) which you can catch at the link on this website. Catch the link to the gig and some of their tracks at the Facebook Page 'Pompey Punk N' Roll'. Portsmouth is truly a city that just doesn't stop rockin'!

 

 

 

 

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Photo by Elizabeth Smith on Unsplash 

Photo by Peter Chiykowski on Unsplash 

The Courettes Discogs.com