However, thanks to MikeP, I now know that Joy and the Joystrings were a real band:
They were even signed to EMI and released albums like this:
And, during their LSD period, ones like this:
But what about the music? Actually, it's not bad (epilectic readers may wish to look away):The song doesn't quite live up to the opening riff, which is deceptively mean n' moody, but they give Freddie and the Dreamers a run for their money.
The Joystrings appear to have dropped off the pop radar after 1970, but enjoyed a cult following in Salvation Army circles and staged a successful reunion in 2004. This tribute website includes some clips of the band in action.
I've threatened to add some Joy and the Joystrings to our holiday car music mix, but Mrs Steerforth has vetoed the idea, so it will have to be a private pleasure.
There's a nasty, dark part of my mind that thinks "Joy and the G-Strings" whenever I read the actual name.
ReplyDeleteForgive me.
I note that author A.J. Guilliard (a/k/a Alfred J. Guilliard) penned a handful of Salvationist texts, including Another Innocent Abroad (1930) and Sussex Yeoman: The Story of Charles Rich (1956).
It all sounds very 'early Seekers' doesn't it?
ReplyDeleteBrian - Yes, I'm afraid I thought of that too.
ReplyDeleteI didn't know that Guilliard had been going for so long. I wouldn't have thought that a man his age would be so receptive to the foot-tapping beat of the Joystrings, but his book is an unashamed hagiography.
Martin - Yes, it is. I've had it going around in my head all day. My Salvation Army cousin will probably have an explanation for that.
I cannot look at the pictures without conjuring up some very sinister 'behind the scenes' stories. I wish I could just accept that some people simply are wholesome and well-behaved.
ReplyDeleteI do remember there being a good deal of filthy speculation among the schoolboys of Barnsley about the exact meaning of the words "It's an open secret" which Joy sang with such conviction on their "hit" of the same name. At the time their mild fame seemed weird in the midst of the Beatles, Stones and 1964 in general - like an attempt by the '50s to reassert old ways and virtuous boredom.
ReplyDeleteI see you're still suspended from Twitter. Given the number of unbanned people there who send aimless, pointless tweets, advertise vapid ebooks and offer lewd material (or all three), I'm straining to imagine what you could have done, so quickly, to attract the attention of the authorities. Perhaps you have an evil namesake?
ReplyDeleteBit Seekers, bit Searchers. Not exactly to my taste, but there was a hell of a lot worse going around at that time. I guess they can be seen as precursors to the mighty Sonseed.
ReplyDeleteAfter that video I need to lie down in a darkened room.
ReplyDeleteLucy - I've met a lot of people who seem wholesome, but nobody who actually is apart from my Auntie Nance, and I not completely sure about her.
ReplyDeleteRoger - I take it that you weren't a Freddie and the Dreamers fan?
David - It's a mystery. I posted a tweet about Joy and the Joystrings with a link to this blog. Then I discovered that a friend had created a Twitter account and was following me. I clicked to follow them and was told that my account had been suspended. I've tried to read their rules and regulations, but life's too short.
I haven't the foggiest idea why I've been suspended after a week of Twitter.
Tim - I won't be thanking you at 3.30am, when I'm lying in bed with 'Jesus is My Friend' going round and round in my head, but at the moment it's a corker, way beyond any paraody.
Nell - I hear that the Salvation Army have been deploying these CIA hypnosis techniques since the 1960s.