Flowerz

This Reading, Pennsylvania-area band had a couple of locally popular singles in 1968 ("I Need Love Now" and "Flyte") on the small Kingston label. Even by garage band standards, these guys sounded pretty wet behind their ears, with a typical poppy organ-dominated sound. They were also evidently big fans of the Small Faces' single "Whatcha Gonna Do About It"; two of the four songs kick off with a drum pattern that almost exactly duplicates the one at the start of "Whatcha Gonna Do About It," and another of the tunes has a riff that strongly echoes the song's progression. Cute, maybe, but the Flowerz' take on the kind of British guitar-rock sound favored by the Small Faces, the Who, and the Yardbirds is among the most innocuous to be found in all of '60s garage rock. The singles, along with a 1968 tape consisting entirely of covers of 1960s hits, were compiled for a CD reissue in 1998. © Richie Unterberger /TiVo