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The Equals are THAT band! (at the moment)

holmesholmes 3,532 Posts
edited March 2007 in Strut Central
What is it with these dudes, seems whenever I've play their stuff out at gigs recently people have come up to the turntables & want to know who it is. It's happened with Viva Bobby Joe, Baby Come Back & Soul Brother Clifford in the last 3 gigs I played. Best is when I say the Equals to the enquirer & they come back with "the Eagles????" Also after playing Viva Bobby Joe, some guy came up & wanted to know the band & the name of the song (just after Eddy Grant had finished singing "Viva Bobby Joe" about 20 million times in the outro...). I haven't even played the best 45s "I Can See But You Don't Know" & "Brown Skin Blue Eyed Boys" out in ages either.

  Comments

  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts
    "What is it about the Equals?" They were a damn good band, man - they deserve all the shine they get (even if it is decades after they broke up!). When Rhino put together that Nuggets II box set, they made a grave mistake by not including one of the Equals' more freakbeat-slanted tracks. At my last soul night, early on I played "Black Skinned, Blue-Eyed Boys"...an hour later, this girl who wasn't there an hour before randomly asked to hear some Equals. Good call! Would have played it for her, too, except: (1) I didn't have any other Equals cuts on me, (2) I wasn't about to play the same song twice, and (3) the flipside was a ballad, so no sense in playing that. Still and all, I'm a huge fan.
  • holmesholmes 3,532 Posts
    Yeah man, definitely one of my fave groups of that period, just odd that on 3 seperate occasions they were the band people asked about, years of feeling like I was the only one playing their 45s out then bang, 3 enquiries in 3 weeks. I was stoked to give their name to these people. Very rarely do I pack a 45 box to take out that doesn't include several of their 45s. Great stuff.
  • SoulOnIceSoulOnIce 13,027 Posts
    They have good disco records, too. The promo-only live EP
    is a monster, and the Born 'ya! album has some heat.

    From the 60's, "I Can See But You Don't Know" is a scorcher!
  • soulmarcosasoulmarcosa 4,296 Posts
    I GET SO EXCITED
    SOFTLY, SOFTLY
    MICHAEL & THE SLIPPER TREE
    POLICE ON MY BACK
    BLACK SKIN BLUE EYED BOYS
    GREEN LIGHT
    ETC.

    Unfuckwithable, basically.

  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts
    They have good disco records, too. The promo-only live EP
    is a monster, and the Born 'ya! album has some heat.

    Seems like a few years back I saw a Scorpio-ish repressing of Born Ya making the rounds. Maybe it's my own anti-disco bias talking (and the fact that Eddy Grant was gone by then, I think), but of all the Equals albums they coulda reissued, why choose that one? That'd be like if the only Who album you could get was Face Dances.

    From the 60's, "I Can See But You Don't Know" is a scorcher!

    It's also an anachronism - it's from 1970! Sounds like 1966, don't it! Mercy, I love that song!
  • SoulOnIceSoulOnIce 13,027 Posts

    From the 60's, "I Can See But You Don't Know" is a scorcher!

    It's also an anachronism - it's from 1970! Sounds like 1966, don't it!

    Well, the fact that it thematicaly rips-off the Who's "I Can See for Miles"
    from 1966 doesn't hurt either!
  • SoulOnIceSoulOnIce 13,027 Posts
    They have good disco records, too. The promo-only live EP
    is a monster, and the Born 'ya! album has some heat.

    Seems like a few years back I saw a Scorpio-ish repressing of Born Ya making the rounds. Maybe it's my own anti-disco bias talking (and the fact that Eddy Grant was gone by then, I think), but of all the Equals albums they coulda reissued, why choose that one? That'd be like if the only Who album you could get was Face Dances.


    Well, Scorpio would reissue it because the LP and "Funky Like a Train"
    in particular are rare and sought after by funk/beat collectors, which
    is certainly the crowd Scorpio caters to. The question is why the labels
    that reissue 60's freakbeat type-stuff aren't doing deluxe reissues of
    "Equals Supreme" etc ...

    I think you are being a little too harsh on the mid-70's Equals ...
    although technically "disco" there is enough of a rock pedigree and
    island funk influence to make them pretty unique and really quite good.
    Harder to find and more expensive than the 60's-era President (and RCA)
    LP's, too. Eddy Grant is definitely involved, completely in charge, doing
    production, songwriting, etc.
  • karlophonekarlophone 1,697 Posts
    so school me: who are the Equals who did albums in '76-'78 on the Club, Mercury, and Ice labels? different band?
  • p_gunnp_gunn 2,284 Posts
    They have good disco records, too. The promo-only live EP
    is a monster, and the Born 'ya! album has some heat.

    Seems like a few years back I saw a Scorpio-ish repressing of Born Ya making the rounds. Maybe it's my own anti-disco bias talking (and the fact that Eddy Grant was gone by then, I think), but of all the Equals albums they coulda reissued, why choose that one? That'd be like if the only Who album you could get was Face Dances.


    Well, Scorpio would reissue it because the LP and "Funky Like a Train"
    in particular are rare and sought after by funk/beat collectors, which
    is certainly the crowd Scorpio caters to. The question is why the labels
    that reissue 60's freakbeat type-stuff aren't doing deluxe reissues of
    "Equals Supreme" etc ...

    I think you are being a little too harsh on the mid-70's Equals ...
    although technically "disco" there is enough of a rock pedigree and
    island funk influence to make them pretty unique and really quite good.
    Harder to find and more expensive than the 60's-era President (and RCA)
    LP's, too. Eddy Grant is definitely involved, completely in charge, doing
    production, songwriting, etc.

    good points...

    also, the "beat group" era Equals were very very famous in Europe, specifically Germany, where you can buy any equals LP or 45 from 67-71 for 5 bucks or less...

    wheras by the time they did their two "disco" records "Born Ya" and "Mystic Sister", they were no longer top of the tops material. those records sold much less, and thus the need for the reissue. "Born Ya" has a couple dope cuts besides F.L.A.T. ("stone cold cat" is a fav of mine...) as for Mystic Sister, i ordered one off ebay like a year ago and it never came, so damned if i could tell you anything about it...

    certain disco/boogie heads sweat that period (as well as the Eddie Grant Ice singles) more than you sweat "baby come back"...
  • sloppywhitesloppywhite 230 Posts
    and the Born 'ya! album has some heat.

    "Stone Cold Cat" is
  • funky16cornersfunky16corners 7,175 Posts
    I still have a couple of tracks up on the blog...
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