By Alan Haber – Pure Pop Radio
The Weeklings featuring Peter Noone
“Friday on My Mind” (Jem, 2019)
It’s Friday, it’s special, and it’s time for this important question: What happens when a quartet of old pros meet up with an old pro from the 1960s, get amped-up, plugged in and blast out, in smashing fashion, a 52-year-old classic hit of psych pop like it’s their last ride on the roller coaster?
Fireworks of the musical kind ensue! Better stand back, kids, and buckle in! You’re in for a fun, wild ride!
The Weeklings, New Jersey’s fab foursome, this time eschewing their fab influences, have connected with Herman’s Hermits front man Peter Noone to record a blown-up-and-put-together-again-with-a-rocking-bed-of-dynamite version of the Easybeats’ 1966 worldwide smash, “Friday on My Mind.”
Blowing up expectations, the Weeklings–Lefty, Zeek, Rocky and Smokestack–provide the daring instrumental and vocal backing and hand the lead vocal reins over to Peter Noone who, more in line with his persona on the Tremblers’ 1980 long player, Twice Nightly, aims for outer space as he takes on Harry Vanda and George Young’s classic number.
It’s a hell of a performance, folks; the mix of Noone’s piercing, take-no-prisoners vocal and the Weeklings’ mastery of the original song’s ultra-catchy melody and instrumentation is one of this melodic pop season’s most powerful moments.
As the beat and oomph ramps up in the last seven seconds of this great waxing to about as above ground as humanly possible, Noone looks his microphone in the eye and gives it all he’s got–a throat-shredding scream that lasts all of two seconds but burns itself into your brain for a lifetime.
And now, before this review bids you a fond adieu, enjoy the Weeklings and Peter Noone–the Fab Five, if you will–and their smoking rendition of the Easybeats’ “Friday on My Mind.” These guys are seriously superheros (Marvel or DC, take your pick).
Whew. Produced by Jem Records’ Marty Scott and recorded by the Grip Weeds’ Kurt Reil (Peter Noone’s vocal was recorded by Fernando Perdomo at Reseda Ranch Studios), this pulsating version of “Friday on My Mind” is a keeper, a classic in its own right–a monumental knock on the door of what we expect to hear…an instant classic, if you will.
And you will.
Where to Get It: Amazon, iTunes
Alan Haber’s Pure Pop Radio is the premiere website covering the melodic pop scene with in-depth reviews of new and reissued recordings, and a wide variety of features. We’ve been around since the first weekly Pure Pop Radio shows, which began broadcasting in 1995, and the 24-hour Pure Pop Radio station, which ended last August.
Welcome to your number one home for coverage of the greatest melodic pop music in the universe from the ’60s to today.