SHOCKED, BLUE

"Shocking You" by SHOCKING BLUE

R.I.P. MARISKA VERES
I was informed via a reader comment this evening that Mariska Veres, lead singer of the Dutch group Shocking Blue, died December 2nd from cancer in Holland. She was 59 years old.

Tonight, I'm reposting a previously written tribute to Veres and her band which appeared on this site a few months ago. If you missed these tracks the first time around, here's your chance to discover a great, underrated band:

A couple of years ago, I worked as a writer and assistant editor for a short-lived magazine published by MacWorld called Playlist. One part of my job was to fact check the celebrity iPod playlists we ran in the magazine. . . you know, making sure the artist's name is spelled right, making sure the song even exists, etc. It was kind of fun, especially when I'd be looking over playlists from Jack White or Rufus Wainwright and discovering all kinds of new music in the process.

One artist whose list surprised me was one of the drunken louts in the group Jet. Included in his list was a shout out to a Dutch group called SHOCKING BLUE. While researching his pick, I discovered that this was the band who had a hit in the '60s with "Venus." His choice was a song called "Send Me a Postcard." After a little scouring of the web, I found the song and was immediately blown away. Psychedelic bubblegum pop in the vein of QUESTION MARK AND THE MYSTERIANS or THE CRAZY WORLD OF ARTHUR BROWN, but with deep, powerful female vocals from sexy frontwoman Mariska Veres. "Not bad taste for a guy from Jet," I thought.

Regardless of the fact that they were one hit wonders in the U.S., the pathetic entry on the group at AllMusic.com is still less than the Shocking Blue deserve. "They generated enough hits in enough parts of the world to warrant a compilation on Rhino Records" is hardly a ringing endorsement.

The group was around for quite a while, but the absolute best place to start is by getting At Home, the same album that "Venus" appears on. Tonight I'm posting my own homemade EP, which includes 3 songs from that album. For regular readers, I already posted "Love Buzz" once before. For new readers, that is the original version of the song that NIRVANA would eventually make semi-famous on thier Bleach album.

If you like what you hear, happy hunting for the rest:

1. "Send Me a Postcard"
2. "The Butterfly and I"
3. "Out Of Sight, Out Of Mind"
4. "Love Buzz"
5. "Hot Sand"

FOR MORE ON TONIGHT'S POST:
- Learn more about Shocking Blue than you will at AllMusic right here.
- Another Blue page
- Some info on lead vocalist Mariska
- Buy Shocking Blue music at Amazon.com