The Troggs

All Music Guide:

Remembered chiefly as proto-punkers who reached the top of the charts with the "caveman rock" of "Wild Thing" (1966), the Troggs were also adept at crafting power pop and ballads. Hearkening back to a somewhat simpler, more basic British Invasion approach as psychedelia began to explode in the late '60s, the group also reached the Top Five with their flower-power ballad "Love Is All Around" in 1968. While more popular in their native England than the U.S., the band also fashioned memorable, insistently riffing hit singles like "With a Girl Like You," "Night of the Long Grass," and the notoriously salacious "I Can't Control Myself" between 1966 and 1968. Paced by Reg Presley's lusting vocals, the group -- which composed most of their own material -- could crunch with the best of them, but were also capable of quite a bit more range and melodic invention than they've been given credit for.

Hailing from the relatively unknown British town of Andover, the Troggs hooked up with manager/producer Larry Page (who was involved in the Kinks' early affairs) in the mid-'60s. After a flop debut single, they were fortunate enough to come across a demo of Chip Taylor's "Wild Thing" (which had already been unsuccessfully recorded by the Wild Ones). In the hands of the Troggs, "Wild Thing" -- with its grungy chords and off-the-wall ocarina solo -- became a primeval three-chord monster, famous not only in its original hit Troggs version, but in its psychedelic revamping by Jimi Hendrix, who used it to close his famous set at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival.

"Wild Thing" made number one in the States, but the Troggs' momentum there was impeded by a strange legal dispute which saw their early records simultaneously released on two different labels. Nor did it help that the band didn't tour the U.S. for a couple of years. As a consequence, the fine follow-up singles "With a Girl Like You" and "I Can't Control Myself" didn't do as well as they might have. In Britain, it was a different story -- they were smashes, although "I Can't Control Myself" had such an open-hearted lust that it encountered resistance from conservative radio programmers all over the globe.

The Troggs tempered their image on subsequent ballads, which utilized a sort of pre-"power ballad" approach. These weren't bad, and a few of them were British hits, but they weren't as fine as the initial blast of singles which established the band's image. "Love Is All Around," which restored them to the American Top Ten in 1968, was their finest effort in this vein. It was also their final big hit on either side of the Atlantic.

But the Troggs would keep going for a long, long time. In a sense they were handicapped by their image -- they were not intellectuals, certainly, but they weren't dumb either. They wrote most of their songs, and their albums were reasonably accomplished, if hardly up to the level of the Kinks or Traffic, containing some nifty surprises like the gothic ballad "Cousin Jane," or the tongue-in-cheek psychedelia of "Maybe the Madman." By 1970, though, they were struggling. They continued to release a stream of singles, most of which had a straightforward simplicity that was out of step with the progressive rock of the time, all of which flopped, though some were fairly good.

The Troggs' image as lunkheads couldn't have been helped by the notorious Troggs Tapes, a 12-minute studio argument that was captured on tape while the band were unawares. The Spinal Tap-like dialog helped keep their cult alive, though, and as punk gained momentum in the mid-'70s, they gained belated appreciation as an important influence on bands like the Ramones and (earlier) the MC5. They found enough live work (sometimes on the punk/new wave circuit) to keep going, although their intermittent records generally came to naught. In 1992, they rose to their highest profile in ages when three members of R.E.M., which had covered "Love Is All Around," backed the Troggs on the comeback album Athens Andover.

Wikipedia:

The Troggs are an English rock band from the 1960s that had a number of hits in UK and the US. Their most famous songs include the Hot 100 chart topper "Wild Thing", "With a Girl Like You", and "Love Is All Around". "Wild Thing" is ranked #257 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time and was an influence on garage rock and punk rock.

Fronted by Reg Presley, The Troggs were from the town of Andover in southern England and were originally called The Troglodytes.

History

The Troggs formed in 1964 and were signed by the manager of The Kinks, Larry Page in 1965. They recorded on Page's Page One Records, and Page also leased them to CBS for debut single "Lost Girl". Their most famous hit was the single "Wild Thing" (written by Chip Taylor) (the song on the b-side of the single depended on the country where it was sold), which with the help of television exposure on Thank Your Lucky Stars reached number 2 in the UK and number 1 in the United States in July 1966. Its combination of a simple heavy guitar riff and flirtatious lyrics helped it to quickly become a garage rock standard. It was recorded in one complete take (take two) at Olympic Studios in London, with Keith Grant engineering. Because of a dispute over US distribution rights, "Wild Thing" was released (along with the first album of the same name) on two labels: Fontana and Atco. The band's success in the US was also limited by not touring there until 1968.

They also had a number of other hits, including "With a Girl Like You" (a UK number 1 in July 1966, US number 29), "I Can't Control Myself" (a UK number 2 in September 1966—this was also their second and final dual-label release in the US, with Fontana retaining the rights to all subsequent releases), "Anyway That You Want Me" (UK number 10 in December 1966), all at Olympic Studios, "Night of the Long Grass" (UK number 17 in May 1967), and "Love Is All Around" (UK number 5 in November 1967 and US number 7 in May 1968). With chart success eluding the band, they split up in March 1969. Ronnie Bond was the first to release a solo record, with the "Anything For You" single in March 1969, followed in April by Reg Presley with "Lucinda Lee". Chris Britton released a solo album, As I Am, the same year. The band reformed later that year, with former Plastic Penny bassist Tony Murray replacing Staples, and in 1974, after a spell on Pye Records, in an attempt to re-create their 1960s successes, the Troggs re-united with Larry Page, now running Penny Farthing Records. The resulting cover version of the Beach Boys hit "Good Vibrations" did not capture the public's imagination. A reggae version of "Wild Thing" also failed to chart. The band found a sympathetic ear at French label New Rose in the 1980s, the label releasing 1982's Black Bottom LP and 1990's AU.

In 1991, the Troggs recorded Athens Andover, an eleven-song collaboration between themselves and three members of R.E.M. It was recorded in the American band's hometown of Athens, Georgia, and was released in March 1992.

The band attempted to capitalize on this new exposure with a couple of bizarre collaborations on new versions of "Wild Thing". In 1992 they teamed up with actor Oliver Reed and snooker player Alex Higgins, with another version the following year featuring Wolf from the TV show Gladiators, which actually reached number 69 in the UK Singles Chart.

The band's original drummer, Ronnie Bond, died on 13 November 1992. Dave Wright, another founding member, died on 10 October 2008. The band played Tunbridge Wells on 11 November 2011.

In January 2012, after over 40 years of touring, Reg Presley retired due to lung cancer, thus ending The Troggs.

Million sellers

Three of the Troggs' recordings, "Wild Thing", "With a Girl Like You", and "Love Is All Around", each sold over one million copies and were awarded gold discs.

Legacy and influence

The Troggs are widely seen as a highly influential band whose sound was one inspiration for garage rock and punk rock. For example, the Troggs influenced artists such as Iggy Pop, and the early version of British pop-punk pioneers Buzzcocks featured I Can't Control Myself in their live repertoire. The Ramones are also amongst punk bands who cited the Troggs as an influence. The MC5 covered "I Want You" at their live shows and recorded the song for the album Kick Out the Jams, although they renamed it "I Want You Right Now".

The Jimi Hendrix Experience famously covered "Wild Thing" during their appearance at the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival, introducing it as the British/American joint "national anthem", and climaxing with Hendrix burning his guitar.

In 1990, the first hit for the band Spiritualized was a cover of "Anyway That You Want Me". This cover was later used in the movie Me and You and Everyone We Know.

"With a Girl Like You" is featured uncut in a school dance scene from the 1991 Nicole Kidman/Noah Taylor movie Flirting. It is also featured in Shine, The Good Night, and The Boat That Rocked.

In 1991, "Love Is All Around" was covered by R.E.M. during live performances and was released later that year as a B-side on their "Radio Song" single. They also performed an acoustic version of the song on MTV Unplugged.

In 1994, Scottish band Wet Wet Wet's version of the song spent fifteen weeks at number one in the UK after its inclusion in Four Weddings and a Funeral.

The point-and-click adventure game Hopkins FBI features "I Can't Control Myself" and "Lost Girl."

A modified version of "Love Is All Around" was featured in the film Love Actually (2003), performed by actor Bill Nighy.

'The Troggs' was the name of the high school gang in the movie Bang Bang, You're Dead who persuade the main character to join them in attacking their high school.

'Trogg' is the name of one of Bane's three henchmen in Dennis O'Neil's Batman: Knightfall comic arc. The other henchmen are Byrd and Zombie, named after other popular '60s rock bands, The Byrds and The Zombies.

An in-studio tape of Reg Presley's running commentary on a recording session, filled with in-fighting and swearing (known as "The Troggs Tapes") was widely circulated in the music underground, and was included in the Archaeology box set, as well as the compilation album The Rhino Brothers Present the World's Worst Records. The in-group infighting is believed to be the inspiration for a scene in the comedy film This Is Spinal Tap where the band members are arguing. Some of this dialogue was sampled by the California punk band The Dwarves on their recording of a cover version of the Troggs song "Strange Movies".