If you like: the rare and magnetizing cuts from The Rising Storm’s garage psych masterpiece Calm Before... melded with the earthy quality belonging to The Velvet Underground and fellow CBGB counterparts, this album is for you.
About: Hackamore Brick are one of the great missing links in the late-‘60s New York music scene. In some circles, the Brooklyn-spawned quartet is considered notable for The Velvet Underground influence heard throughout the music on One Kiss Leads to Another, the group's album cut for Buddha Records’ Kama Sutra imprint, no less. Lou Reed’s singing style is in evidence throughout Chick Newman’s flat intonation, but other attributes here range further, eerily anticipating the minimalist charm of Jonathan Richman, while some of the material, such as the Bob Roman/Tommy Moonlight-authored “Peace Has Come,” makes one think of an embryonic Television. There was a lot of talent there and some good instincts about what to do with it, at least as a starting point. Not even the revived Buddha imprint had the courage or enough interest to reissue the album.
As for the band, they did elicit some interest at the time–the record was well-reviewed by the rock press of the time, and Hackamore Brick played a week at the Bitter End in Greenwich Village and seven weeks in St. Thomas in the Virgin Islands–in addition to their originals, their shows encompassed renditions of Chuck Berry, Leiber & Stoller, and Curtis Mayfield songs, and pop standards going back to “I’m in the Mood for Love”. They played around New York for a time and issued
“Searchin’” as a 45, but a proposed second album never got recorded, reportedly over a disagreement about where to cut it, which led to the single’s being canceled. The group split up not long after that–Chick Newman and Tommy Moonlight stayed in the business, and played such celebrated venues as CBGBs, Max’s Kansas City, and Folk City, and even cut a whole album of material together in Austin, Texas in the mid-‘80s.*^{via Bruce Eder}
Why it’s worth your time: Listening to this album right before a thunderstorm is something of a transcendental experience I’d recommend to everyone.... A subtle, yet powerful effort, One Kiss Leads To Another prospers in quiet tension–notably one between flat and expressive vocals, mellow introspection and stark observation, barren bass lines and velvet guitar riffs, the grit of early New York punk and the smoothness of West Coast psychedelia–all akin to that of the perceptible calm, yet electric feeling of an impending summer storm. Perhaps that’s why it’s such a perfect pairing. Of course, this three dimensional quality has other merits. Quite simply, it’s the best of both worlds–an ageless masterpiece and an American classic that should go down with the likes of Marquee Moon, Plastic Letters, and Loaded.
A favorite track: Got A Gal Named Wilma