Don't Press Your Luck! (The IN Sound of 60's Connecticut)

Don’t Press Your Luck is a solid 22-track collection that documents a garage-rock scene that flourished in Connecticut in the mid- to late ‘60s and covers everything from the elementary but powerful frat rock of The Bram Riggs to the punkish snarl and fuzzed-out guitars of George’s Boys and The Roadrunners. Much of Don’t Press Your Luck features thrilling (if somewhat predictable) three-chord stomp-and-bash, but a few acts here break the garage-rock formula. The Hartford outfit The Wildweeds, for example, were a good deal more polished than most of their peers. While other area bands could boast few original songs that didn’t borrow heavily from British Invasion staples, The Wildweeds were crafting striking compositions on the level of “No Good to Cry,” a beautiful soul number that became a sizable regional hit when it was released in 1967. The Wildweeds’ frontman, Al Anderson, would go on to find greater success with NRBQ. But few of the musicians on Don’t Press Your Luck had similar success, making this album a unique and valuable document of a fleeting but vivacious local music scene.