Yays & Nays - Yays & Nays (Reissue) (1968/2010)

Monster rare USA private pressing from 1968, rated with 6 stars in the Hans Pokora 3001 Record Collector’s Dreams book. The Yays & Nays were a groovy, hip group (says so on the original LP jacket!) comprised of three guys and three girls. Theirs is a truly unique sounding album, full of creative songwriting and vocal arrangements and a style that defies categorization. There’s garage folk-rock—the opening track ‘Gotta Keep Traveling’ is really astounding!, tracks with vocals in a kind of ‘Kicking Against the Pricks"-era Nick Cave-channelling-Tony-Joe-White-meets-Johnny Cash vein, a little country flair, and some cuts of an ’’Incredible Strange Music’’ type. Weird and wonderful, in it’s own peculiar way. Reissued for the first time, in collaboration with band members, and with original artwork.

“…mighty obscure LP, in which the three-man, three-woman combo fuse rather catchy early-‘60s style troubadour “gotta travel on” folk-pop (with a hint of country) with more contemporary folk-pop-rock arrangements, some of which even verge on garage rock rawness. The songs have their catchy elements, never more so on the most garage-folk-rockish cut, ’Gotta Keep Traveling.’ Other cuts show some surprising stylistic versatility, with hints of early-‘60s pop/rock surfacing in ’Contrary Mary’ and ‘Easy Woman’ (which could almost pass for a Lee Hazlewood-Nancy Sinatra duet)… and certainly makes it stand out in a sea of far more predictable obscure LP releases from the same era." —Richie Unterberger