As opposed to many of the
Gear Fab releases,
Shout is a mere curiosity, and really not even a very enjoyable one at that. In essence, it reissues the output of a third- or fourth-rate rec-room
rock band, which tends to have a severely limited fan base even among devotees of 1960s
pop. The most interesting material on the collection comes courtesy of
the Ramrods, the barely teenaged combo led by
Tom Carter and
Johnny Boggs that operated from 1961 until the rest of the band broke from
Carter in 1966 to form
the Soundsations. It's most interesting not because the songs are necessarily strong (they aren't especially) but because it consists of mostly self-penned tunes, some of them quite nervy and joyous, and a couple (
"Talk, Talk, Talk," "These Are the Things That You Do to Me") that actually betray a melodic flair wholly absent in the later tunes. By the time
the Soundsations got around to recording, they had turned into strictly a party band and fallen back on predictable cover material, most of which they had little affinity for. The performances are so tame, in fact, that it's even hard to imagine this stuff entertaining the 13-year-olds down at the youth center on Friday evening, surely the band's core audience. The thin, white-bread cover of
"When a Man Loves a Woman" is a more amateurish example of the type of bloodless mangling
Pat Boone became infamous for, draining the song of every ounce of its
soul.
"Midnight Hour" and
"I Can't Help Myself" fare marginally better, but you would never have imagined, if this happened to be the first version of
"Unchained Melody" you had ever heard, that the song was good, let alone a classic. Oddly enough, the only cut that the band manages to turn into a quasi-amusing romp is the sole original tune,
Boggs' slow, heated
blues,
"Moody Love," although it's nothing special either. As a package, it's up to
Gear Fab's usual standards. Whether the terribly dated sounds contained inside deserved to survive into the CD era is another topic altogether, a case where being definitive isn't necessarily a good thing. Only the most ardent, fetishistic, and nostalgic fanatics of early-'60s
garage and
frat rock need apply. ~ Stanton Swihart
![Good Morning Vietnam [Original Soundtrack]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0082839696920_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg "Good Morning Vietnam [Original Soundtrack]")
![Go for Your Guns [Bonus Tracks]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0889853230723_p0_v1_s90x140.jpg "Go for Your Guns [Bonus Tracks]")
![Here Are the Sonics!!! [Pocket Version]](http://prodimage.images-bn.com/pimages/0029667025621_p0_v2_s90x140.jpg "Here Are the Sonics!!! [Pocket Version]")