The Candidates
While most of Germans bands, trying to keep up with every new trend, developed a strange variety of styles without ever finding their own, The Candidates were strictly R & B. Pretty good at that, but unfortunately a lazy bunch, they never tortured their brains with writing original material. Good taste anyway, as the Pretty Things, Rolling Stones and the very popular (in Germany) Renegades obviously were their heroes. In '66 they recorded an LP for budget label Baccarola. "Bad, Bad Baby" the continental B-side of the exiled UK-Renegades' greatest hit "Cadillac" gets a short, but great face lift here. A cover version, admittedly, but one that doesn't show up on every second compilation.

John Deen & The Trakk
After a couple of unsuccessful years in England as Johnny Deen And The Deacons, the band (like so many others) went to Hamburg. They recorded for CBS, but the company killed the group commercially by releasing their and The Marmelade's version of "Obladi Oblada" simultaneously. Their last sign of life was the LP "Beat 69" for budget label Europa. Trying to sell Beat in '69 was as good an idea as planting bananas in Alaska and, moreover, the wholething was marred a bit by John's ill-fated attempts to win an imaginary Wilson Pickett-impersonator contest. Towards the end of the record (and your patience) we find this cool and unintentionally