Playlist : Early Turkish Crossovers, the milliyet battle of the bands releases & some outstanding moments of progressive Turkish music. With Marthy J. Coumans. 2002-12-11 : part 1 : Marthy Coumans collection of Turkish early crossovers : * Adman Varveren : "Abudik Gubudik Twist" An early 60's twist, played with saz, Turkish percussion, additional singing. Sounds a bit like an Indian movie song, -very funny to hear actually-. * (Petrol Ofici) Alpay : "Raman", "Gelin Ayse" Alpay is a singer who cooperated with Uç Hürel in his early days. This is made for the Turkish oil Company. "Raman" is interesting for its strange psychedelic effects being used, piano, and "Gelin Ayse" sounds a beautiful moody psych track. Nice harmonic singing, some el. guitars and again piano.. More info : http://progressive.homestead.com/ALPAY.html * Yildirin Gürses : "Carmon Istanbul" Hürriyet's Altin Mikrofon 1965 contest single. Completely odd addition from drummer with the Arabic orchestra and an operatic voice. One of the favourites of Marthy. After having heard it more than once I began to see the sense of it. What seemed ridiculous odd at first shows its qualities. Nice powerful voice too. * (Milliyet, 1968) Izmir Özel Turk Koleji : "Himmet Aga" Milleyet, the other gazette's School bands contest had French songs, English styled (-also cover-) singles, and possibly more freedom in expression (with songs about sex, drugs,..). This is an early 60's styled rock'n roll crossover song, with clearly a Shadows touch. * (Milliyet) Tarsus Amerikan Koleji : "I don't care" Sweet American garage style, with nice organ. * (Milliyet) Ankara Deneme Lisesi : "La La La" Completely odd single. Very funny. A bit amateurish. Not to believe this won in a contest. Nothing but "lalala", schlager like melodies, but also odd/rhythm and tempo changes -it changes suddenly in into rock'n roll-. Very enjoyable in fact. * (Milliyet 1969) Kadiköy Ticaret Lisesi : "L.S. and D" / "Sexy Girl" Milliyet had odd titles, songs in 1969, like this single for Instance, with Cream, Steve Winwood / Eric Clapton / Jimmy Hendrix influences. "Sexy Girl" could be a different "Foxy Lady" version. Odd American styled voice reminds me at certain singers (don't remember right now). Recorded like a garage single. Pure in its Hendrix like playing with no extra (studio) effects. * (Milliyet) L.S.D.Orkestrasi : "Dönmeyen Sevgili" / "Neye Geldin Dünyaya" Rough Garage styled single (but with a bit naïve or childlike melody). * (Milliyet) Alman Lisesi : "The story about the girl counting stars" Christophe Sommer (English ? member of the band) song. Beautiful English styled nicely arranged and orchestrated ballad. More info : http://progressive.homestead.com/ALMAN.html *(Milliyet) Istanbul Erkek Lisesi : "Ask you mine" English freakbeat psych track. A bit like Creation / Small Faces / The Attack. There are no Turkish influences in this song any more. Other track by Istanbul Erkek Lisesi, "in the deepings" (Artwoods)could be found at Turkish Delights CD. More info : http://progressive.homestead.com/Erkek_Lisesi.html * (Milliyet) Galatasaray Lisesi : "Babeth" / (Zazie) Galatasaray is rich Club. Probably the reason why it's sung in French. With Shadows inspired guitar. Webpage entry : http://progressive.homestead.com/GALATASARAY.html More info on the Milliyet contest / releases is also published at : http://progressive.homestead.com/MILLIYET.html * Baris Manço & Les Mistigris : "Bien fait pour toi" Another example of a French song. The French band Les Mistigris did various recordings in France, and three singles in Turkey. Baris Manço started with the twist style, not very good actually. But this is nice. Later he recorded some more 70's progressive recordings, with some electronic music moog experiments in it too. Much later he evolved into a media figure with little musical interest for recordings from that period. More info : http://progressive.homestead.com/Baris_Manco.html * Sevket Ugurluel & Arkadaslari : "Metin Geligor Metin" Metin was the most famous Turkish football player in the 60's. 'Football'- beat / rock'n roll. Odd sounding gem. Somewhat funny ("Metin Goal, Metin shoot" and "penalty !" ..) Cover at http://progressive.homestead.com/UGURLUELEL.html * Arda Kardes : "Pis Sinek". Famous little boy who sang (in 70's). Did "Mammy Blue" (naïve talk over). This is a Doors song ("Musquito"). Incredible band, who might even gives a more psychedelic version as the Doors with their 70's freakout Hammond, weird effects etc., but with moments they play kitchy and funny along with the child voice. Very Enjoyable. More info : http://progressive.homestead.com/ARDA.html * Selçuk Alagöz : "Ringo" King of kitsch. Not always taken very serious, but very popular. He was dressed in odd Uniforms (Indians,..) but he played with very good musicians too, like Mogollar. Also Uç Hürel participated at first with Selçuk Alagöz. On Turkish delights, he's listed with the Cedars song, "Saklaran Birisen"(Hide if you want to hide). Cedars was being said to be a Libanese band, but possibly was just English studio band with some Libanese people. B-side "Ringo" is Morricone's "Good, Bad, Ugly" song with some nice organ sounds in it. This is kitschy too. Singing is a bit amateurish but this makes it even more odd. Members of the Selçuk Alagöz group went later to form Mogollar with Siluetler members. More info : http://progressive.homestead.com/SELCUK_ALAGOZ.html * (Saner) Erol Büyükburç & Özel Orkestrasi : "Madas", "Gel Bana Gük Güle" / "Zulayha" Talking about contraversions and Kitsch, let's mention Erol Büyükburç. Since early 60's Erol recorded a lot of music. Some of it did sound a bit like Paul Anka, Turkish folk music, not really renewing at all. Unless lots of it is not that good, there are some singles in Anadolu Pop style worth to trace, like this one. At the 2 A-side tracks some good organ work, some spots of wahwah guitar. "Zuleyha" at side B is instrumentally even more interesting, also for the Turkish whistle instrument involved and its driving bass at the end.. More info : http://progressive.homestead.com/Erol.html * Selçuk Alagöz : "Edremit va'a Bakas" One of the latest singles of Selçuk Alagöz with an incredible (and beautiful) psych like organ ! More info : http://progressive.homestead.com/SELCUK_ALAGOZ.html Second part : more progressive rock sounds (70's) : * Murat Ses & Nejat Teksoy : "Play with fire" / organ solo (title ?) Not many early singles from Murat Ses (early Mogollar) exist. These singles contained some organ / moog ? improvisations/experiments. Later work is different. This is a jam session with singer from Mavi Isiklar, coming from a bootleg ? home recorded LP. Some incredibly beautiful organ. First song is a beautiful Rolling Stones Cover (organ, el. Bass, el. Rhythm guitar and Turkish violin like instrument, in a beautiful psychedelic version). Second track is a beautiful 15 minutes Hammond organ ? improvisation with saz ? and electric guitar accompany. It starts with an Anatolian melody, but evolves into psychedelic experiments, and progressive improvisations, Keith Emerson like playing, all genially structured within its ideas. First class prog, masterly played on the organ. More info : http://progressive.homestead.com/Murat_Ses.html * Tünay Akeniz ve Grup Cigirism : Salak / Babam Yaazdi Ben Bestleledim Turkish early Rock group with distorted guitar solo's. "Salak" might be a bit Black Sabbath influenced ? Also B-side is very good electric guitar dominated more heavy rock. Their other single Mesela Mesele is not as good, but still very interesting for it's B-side track with electric wahwah guitar. More info : http://progressive.homestead.com/CIGRISIM.html * Erkin Koray : Live in Nazilli 1974 Tr.3, 1249-> end 23 min, "Mesafeler" 10 min, Tr.6, "Mesafeler" 14 min One of the most interesting recordings from Erkin Koray, but sadly from a very bad quality. Luckily the 2 highlights (second part of the first "Mesafeler" song, and the second version) of this recording are listenable. The Turkish Jimmy Hendrix with no doubts : incredible, long freak out solo's. One of the highlights of electric guitar playing in general. A friend of mine mentioned it did sound like a Santana / Grateful Dead like guitar playing. More info on Erkin Koray (3 pages) : http://progressive.homestead.com/ERKIN_entry.html --------------------------------------------------------------------------- More info at http://psychevanhetfolk.homestead.com/TurkishProgressive.html