As three recent titles prove, Cherry Red’s RPM label leaves no stone unturned in its pursuit of rare pop music to issue on CD, living up to its credo “By Collectors – For Collectors.”

Much like The Artwoods (also recently the subject of a compilation from RPM), The Bo Street Runners were among the exciting mod R&B revivalist bands that London had to offer in the mid-sixties. However, The Runners – like The Artwoods, The Action and so many others – never attained the top tier of commercial success.   Today, the band might best be remembered for the third drummer to have passed through its ranks: one Mick Fleetwood. But RPM’s Never Say Goodbye: The Complete Recordings 1964-1966 allows the group’s small but potent catalogue to shine anew.

During the brief period of 1964-1966, The Bo Street Runners issued just four singles – one on Decca, three on (U.K.) Columbia – plus one rare EP. Never Say Goodbye compiles all of those tracks as well as a one-off LP track and both sides of a single by singer Mike Patto.  Building their reputation at the Railway Hotel – the same venue in which The Who first found a following as The High Numbers – the Runners looked to have a promising career ahead of them when the band won a competition sponsored by television show Ready, Steady, Go to find “the next Beatles.” Sure enough, Fabs manager Brian Epstein was among the panel of the judges who anointed The Bo Street Runners the winners of Ready, Steady, Win in September 1964. Their gutsy brand of R&B had won out over the Fab-inspired Merseybeat groups they faced, and they landed a contract with Decca. Subsequent gigs found them appearing on bills with The Rolling Stones, Marianne Faithfull and Tom Jones. But some band members didn’t wish to continue in music professionally, leading to a series of personnel changes. Decca sold off the Runners’ contract to Columbia, where they recorded a pair of James Brown covers and teamed with producer Mickie Most, who shifted the band’s sound to a more polished soul style.

In 1965, Mick Fleetwood joined the fluctuating line-up, making his debut with the track which gives this compilation its title, “Baby Never Say Goodbye.” Though championed by outlets such as Radio London, the single didn’t get anywhere, and Fleetwood moved on, too. The group, with new lead singer Mike Patto, eked out one more single featuring a cover of The Beatles’ “Drive My Car” before calling it a day. Never Say Goodbye includes every track released by the group, and is accompanied by a definitive chronicle of the band in the booklet’s liner notes by compiler John Reed. Reed even provides a “Where are They Now” for all ten members of The Bo Street Runners. Simon Murphy has remastered.

With The Matchmakers’ Bubblegum A Go-Go: Expanded Edition, RPM returns to the music of cult-favorite producer Mark Wirtz (Tomorrow, A Teenage Opera). Wirtz, well-known at the time for his hit single “Grocer Jack,” was sought out in 1969 by German music publisher Rudi Lindt to write and produce demos of “bubblegum” songs. Wirtz recalls in the liner notes here that Lindt even provided him with the titles for two of these made-to-order songs: “Baby Make Me Happy” and “Thank You Baby (For Coming).” Wirtz recalls Lindt promising him that his participation in the project would be kept a secret, as the songs would be released by a non-existent band called The Matchmakers. Wirtz was surprised to find that Lindt intended to release all of the demos he produced – not just as Matchmakers tracks, but credited to other equally fabricated groups like Krimson Kake, Cellophane Mop, Happy Confusion, The Guards, Fickle Finger, Astronaut Alan and the Planets, and Father’s Brown! He didn’t object, though: “The fact that somebody had actually paid us [Wirtz, Kris Ife, and their array of studio musicians and singers] for having this much fun made it all worthwhile.”

Bubblegum A Go-Go collects 26 bright tracks touching on pop, rock, psychedelia and freakbeat from the Wirtz bubblegum sessions, including the entirety of The Matchmakers’ 1970 LP of the same title. Wirtz friend/biographer Mark Frumento co-produces the set with RPM’s Mark Stratford, and contributes personal recollections in the liner notes as well as an amusing story involving the late, unforgettably irascible Kim Fowley. Simon Murphy has again remastered.

A third release from RPM jumps ahead to the mid-seventies. Pelican: Iceland’s Prog-Pop Pioneers: The Anthology collects on two CDs the complete recordings of the Icelandic band that blended Beatle-inspired pop with a progressive-rock underpinning. This release follows Poppsaga: Iceland’s Pop Scene 1972-1977, RPM’s survey of the country’s mid-seventies pop scene.

Formed in the summer of 1973, Pelican graduated from performing covers in front of appreciative audiences at the U.S. Army base outside Reykjavik to writing and playing band members’ original material. It was then that Pelican decided to travel to the United States to record their new songs. The band members decamped to Stockbridge, Massachusetts’ Shaggy Dog Studios, following in the footsteps of “the Icelandic Beatles,” a.k.a. Thor's Hammer, or Hljómar. (American artists to have recorded at Shaggy Dog included Arlo Guthrie, Odetta, Peter Yarrow and “Hey Girl” singer Freddie Scott.) In March 1974, Pelican completed its debut LP Uppteknir (which translates as “busy,” “opened” and “recorded”) primarily featuring songs by the band’s Omar Oskarsson; it’s included on Disc One here, along with a pair of bonus singles. Upon its release in Iceland, Uppteknir was an instant smash, selling 8,000 copies in 1974 in a country with a total population of 214,000!

They booked Shaggy Dog for a return visit in 1975, logging 230 hours of studio time between January and March to record a sophomore LP. During this stint, they even built a local Boston fan base by performing in clubs and colleges in New England. They befriended Freddie Scott and attracted the attention of Don and Jimmy Ienner’s CAM USA management company. According to the liner notes by Icelandic music historian Dr. Gunni, Pelican was offered support slots on tours by The Doobie Brothers, The Allman Brothers Band and others. But upon their return to Iceland that spring, the group was greeted by an economic crisis including a currency shortage. Tension between band members was also growing, and frontman Petur Kristjiansson announced his intention to depart the band in May 1975 – two months in advance of the release of Pelican’s second album, titled Litil Fluga. Herbert Guomundsson replaced Kristjiansson in the line-up, but his presence didn’t mollify fans. In December of that year, Pelican called it quits. Litil Fluga is featured on the second disc of this set with one bonus single added.

Pelican’s members continued to make music; some even still play together today. RPM’s anthology, produced by Kieron Tyler and Mark Stratford with remastering by Simon Murphy, shows why the group’s sound has endured.

All three titles mentioned above can be ordered at the links below!

Bo Street Runners, Never Say Goodbye: The Complete Recordings 1964-1966 (RPM Retro 958, 2014) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

1. Love to You
2. Lonely Avenue
3. Bo Street Runner (EP Version)
4. Shame, Shame, Shame
5. Bo Street Runner (Single Version)
6. Tell Me
7. Tell Me What You’re Gonna Do
8. And I Do Just What I Want
9. Baby Never Say Goodbye
10. Get Out of My Way
11. Drive My Car
12. So Very Woman
13. Can’t Stop Talkin’ About My Baby – Mike Patto
14. Love – Mike Patto
15. Bo Street Runner (Ready Steady Win Version)
16. I Want to Be Loved (Radio Version)
17. Baby Never Say Goodbye (Radio Version)

Tracks 1-4 from Oak EP RGJ 131, 1964
Tracks 5-6 from Decca single F 11986, 1964
Tracks 7-8 from Columbia single DB 7488, 1965
Tracks 9-10 from Columbia single DB 7640, 1965
Tracks 11-12 from Columbia single DB 7901, 1966
Tracks 13-14 from Columbia single DB 8091, 1966
Track 15 from Ready Steady Win, Decca LP LK 4634
Tracks 16-17 previously unreleased

The Matchmakers, Bubblegum A Go-Go: Expanded Edition (RPM Retro 953, 2014) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

1. Hi Groovers…Intro
2. Baby Make Me Happy
3. Sandy
4. Fantastic Fair (also as The Guards)
5. Fickle Lizzie-Anne (also as Fickle Finger)
6. Turn Me On
7. Two Timing Man
8. Wooly Wooly Watsgong (Ging Gang Goo)
9. Tell Me a Secret
10. Goody Goody Goody
11. This Time It Must Be Love
12. Gently Baby Gently
13. Cellophane Mary Jane (also as Fickle Finger and as Astronaut Alan and the Planets)
14. Droopy Loopy
15. Better to See You at Battersea
16. Laila
17. Thank You Baby
18. Lovers’ Congregation
19. Feelin’ Better (as Krimson Kake)
20. Waiter! (as Krimson Kake)
21. Hereditary Impediment (as Happy Confusion)
22. The Singer Sings His Song (as Happy Confusion)
23. Slowly Slowly Quick Quick Slowly (as Cellophane Mop)
24. What Goes Up Must Come Down (as Cellophane Mop)
25. Let Me Go Home (as The Guards)
26. Maybe Baby (as Father’s Brown)

Tracks 1-13 from Vogue LP CDMDINT 9796, 1970
Tracks 14 & 16 from Vogue single DV 11159, 1971
Track 15 TBD
Track 17 from Better single 07-824 and Vogue single DV 11094, 1970
Track 18 from Chapter One single CHR 127, 1970
Tracks 19 & 20 from Penny Farthing single PEN 707, 1971
Track 21 from Penny Farthing single PEN 706, 1969
Track 22 from Penny Farthing single 6067 001, 1969
Tracks 23 & 24 from OPP single 44, 1969
Track 25 from Vogue single DV 14905, 1969
Track 26 from Decca single F 23059, 1970

Pelican, Iceland’s Prog-Pop Pioneers: The Anthology (RPM Retro D954, 2014) (Amazon U.S. / Amazon U.K.)

CD 1: Uppteknir (AA Records AA018, 1974)

1. Theme
2. A Sprengisandi
3. My Glasses
4. Sunrise to Sunset
5. Roll Down the Rock
6. Golden Promises
7. Living Alone
8. Picture
9. Jenny Darling
10. Come My Way
11. How Do I Get Out of NYC
12. Amnesia
13. Time (AA Records single AA019, 1974)
14. Instrumental Love Song (AA Records single AA019, 1974)

CD 2: Litil Fluga (Pelican PEL002, 1975)

1. Theme
2. I Feel a Change
3. Working to Find a Paradise
4. Litla Flugan
5. Warm Against Night
6. Anyman’s Open Road
7. You Can Go My Way
8. Recall to Reality
9. G.O.C.
10. Silly Piccadilly
11. Cloudscape
12. Fall of a Fortress
13. Lady Rose (Pelican single PEL-001, 1975)