Before he became Patti Smith’s lead guitarist, Lenny Kaye compiled the 2 album set, Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era. Released in 1972, the two-LP set covered American garage rock and psychedelia from the years 1965 to 1968 and was a major influence on punk rock. Rhino Records reissued an expanded version of the set in 1998, with 118 tracks in total. I’m profiling and rating each of these 118 tracks, working backwards.
Track 62/118: Jack of Diamonds by The Daily Flash
From: Seattle, Washington
Aphoristic Rating: 6/10
JACK OF DIAMONDS – The Daily Flash [2:35]
(arr. Steve Lalor/Don MacAllister/Jon Keliehor/Doug Hastings)
Personnel/STEVE LALOR: vocals, guitar * DOUG HASTINGS: lead guitar * DON MacALLISTER: bass, vocals * JON KELIEHOR: drums
Producer unknown
Recorded in Seattle, WA
Parrot single #45-PAR-308 (6/66)
Like a lot of 1960s bands, The Daily Flash arrived via acoustic music. Don MacAllister played with a bluegrass trio, while Steve Lalor passed through the San Francisco folk scene. The pair met in Seattle, where they formed a band with guitarist Doug Hastings.
The Daily Flash’s career was hindered by their lack of songwriting. Their debut single was a cover of Dylan’s ‘Queen Jane Approximately’, although it’s the b-side that has been preserved on Nuggets for posterity. ‘Jack of Diamonds’ is a Texan gambling song, also covered by Blind Lemon Jefferson, Lonnie Donegan, Fairport Convention, and Nick Cave. The marriage of Doug Hastings’ feedback-laced guitar with a traditional melody and a jazzy drummer doesn’t ignite the way that it needs to.
The band only released one further single in the 1960s, a cover of Ian Tyson and Sylvia Fricker’s ‘French Girl’. They drifted apart – Hastings briefly joined Buffalo Springfield, to replace Neil Young during one of his absences from the group, while drummer Jon Keliehor was fired for prioritising a TM workshop over a gig. McAllister died of an overdose in 1969.
Lalor reformed The Daily Flash in 2002, before passing away in 2018. Curiously, the current lineup consists of no original Daily Flash members, but two former members of the better-known Kingsmen.
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Read about the discographies of musical acts from the 1960s to the present day. Browse this site's review archives or enjoy these random selections:
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You hit the proverbial nail on the head: lack of a songwriter. This band’s name was on a lot of Fillmore posters, but you can’t have a career on cover songs alone. Unless you’re Jeff Beck, writing quality is the key, not musicianship or image, and I don’t think enough listeners realize this.
Obviously other genres get away with existing on covers, but tough for a rock band. Songs are the legacy really.
That intro was pretty cool…that I will have to say but the rest was ok. Something seems off after the intro…you are right about the drums. It just didn’t fit.
I do like the overall sound of it…like most of these.
There’s quite a bit of musicianship in the band, just doesn’t quite coalesce for me.
I usually like different things…but yea it just didn’t sound right.
Not a bad song, but certainly not as good as some of the other tunes you previously featured from that collection. As such, I agree with your lower rating.
Yeah, I like what Fairport Convention were doing with traditional material around the same time a lot more.
This is one of those Nuggets songs where if I’m listening to the album and this track comes up I don’t even know what the hell it is and I have to go check the tracklist to find out. Which means I never liked it enough to even learn it. But don’t worry, in a few more weeks you’re about to hit a fucking goldmine of good tracks.
A good one.
I feel like I should like it more than I did – normally I’m all for weird 1960s eclecticism.
Sometimes it’s a mood thing, isn’t it?
As it turns out it wasn’t Erasure who did the disco songs but it was Bronski Beat. Erasure did the ABBA. I always get all those synth-pop people mixed up. Including Pet Shop Boys.
Somebody gave me a WordPress keychain thing. The kind you wear around your neck, of that silky material. It says WordPress and it has the little WordPress insignia and it also says Code is Poetry, whatever the f*** that means. The guy said, I got a whole drawer of them, what color do you want? He doesn’t remember where he got them he said. But now I can pretend I’m a WordPress blogger. Lmao!!
Tatoo next? 🤣
What?? Do people get tattoos of it? Of what?
Wordpress!
Well, maybe just the little insignia thing, but not the whole word. Ha.
That’s a pretty cool tune.
Have you heard the song before? It pops up a bit – I know it from Fairport Convention on their debut, but I imagine you’re more likely to know it from old blues records?
No. Didn’t ring a bell at all.
Fairport was my intro to the song.