The album is currently listed on eil.com and also
Amazon UK
When the tragic death of Bon Scott ended AC/DC in the form that they are most fondly remembered and revered, very few knew outside of Australia that he was a veteran of bands dating back to the mid 60's, prior to stepping up and fronting arguably the greatest straight up rock band in their halcyon days. Anyone who was lucky enough to see them live back in the day would testify!
Starting out drumming and singing with Specktors in 1966, he was enlisted to front The Valentines as vocalist along with Vince Lovegrove in 1967. Their repertoire touched on ballads, freak beat, psych pop, and straight up beat.....later after a label change to Philips in 1969 they veered towards bubble gum pop. Although only achieving mild success with their Clarion label releases, and fairing only slightly better with the sides on Philips, they did however attain the notoriety in 1969 of being the first band in Australia to be arrested for drug (marijuana) possession, and essentially ending their squeeky clean pin up persona. The Valentines came to a halt in mid 1970. A stint fronting Sydney prog / blues band Fraternity for two albums and an ill fated English tour was last port of call prior to fielding the call to audition for AC/DC.
The nine tracks on this release bring together all the sides from the four 7" singles released back in the day between 1967 - 1968 on the Clarion label, along with an out take from those sessions, a cover of the Stax classic, "Sookie Sookie". To piece together all the original 45's would lighten your wallet considerably. Here you get all the tunes, and for the first time, the picture of the band on the cover art is the actual band that recorded the tunes, rather than the completely different 1970 line up! While the booklet includes pictures of both their hideously rare EP's, some rare band pics and a discography.
You get the definitive version of the Vanda / Young orchestral psych pop masterpiece, "Peculiar Hole In The Sky". The Easybeats version was only ever intended as a demo to be used as a guide for the Valentines and never to be released as the song was written for The Valentines!
You could argue that the track right there was the seed for Bon's being courted as vocalist for AC/DC on the suggestion of older brother George Young, once original vocalist Dave Evans was fired.
"Love Makes Sweet Music" is fierce,fuzzed out, freak beat....a cover of a very early, insanely rare Soft Machine single, while "To Know You Is To Love You", is the Teddy Bears tune penned by Phil Spector & "I Can't Dance With You" is the Small Faces stomper. "Every Day I Have To Cry" is a tune originally done by soul maestro Arthur Alexander, "She Said" is a tune written for the band again by George Young while "I Can Hear The Raindrops" & "Why Me?" are two Lovegrove / Ward originals.
well they moved on down