VA - Doin' The Mod Vol. 4 - Ready, Steady, Stop! (2002)

When more and more collections of half-hearted beat groups, along with the dregs from the psychdelic and garage archives, keep being unearthed (mores the pity), it makes a pleasant change to find a collection that is more or less 100% quality - the "Doin The Mod" series fits that bill. Whilst the series is now long deleted and all the volumes (with the excpetion of the first one) somewhat difficult to find, anyone with more than a passing interest in mid-60s UK music should definitely try and seek this series out.

This series is to the beat and rnb scene what "Rubble" is to the psychedelic sound; that is, the best compilation of it's kind; the tracks are by and large very high quality, most do not feature on other compilations (at least, not to my knowledge!) and the presentation (eg the sound quality and the liner notes) are second to none. All volumes concentrated on the "mod" scene - a mis-used term if ever there was one - but with a slightly different focus in each volume; this one collects the slightly more freakbeat and vaguely psychedelic sounds from this time.

As such, it is probably the least "mod" in the five volumes, but this is not a criticism; in fact, this one is probably the best amongst them all.
Whilst there are a few relatively "well-known" groups on here (at least, well-known amongst collectors of the obscure), such as The Koobas, The Sorrows and The Riot Squad, the majority of the tracks are by groups and artists who rarely, if ever, feature on compilations. Several previous reviewers have highlighted Michael Leslie's "Make Up or Break Up" as one of the outstanding tracks on the collection; for me, this one is good, but is surpassed by "Some Kind of Lovin" by The Blue Chips (one of the most seriously catchy intros if nothing more), "The First Time I Saw The Sun Shine" by The Time, "Working Man" by The Riot Squad (top class Joe Meek production) and, best of all, Tony Colton's "I've Laid Some Down In My Time". Never heard any of these songs? Then buy this CD!! You need to hear them!