THE MOVING SIDEWALKS – ’99th Floor’/’What Are You Going To Do’ (Wand 1156) 1967
The Moving Sidewalks | 99th Floor | Wand | 1967 | Years before ZZ Top legend Billy Gibbons grew his beard longer than one of Queen Lizzy’s plush rugs at Buck Pal he was singing and playing lead guitar in The Moving Sidewalks.
They made a name for themselves in Houston, Texas playing psychedelic blues rock but it’s their stonewall ’60s garage punk classic ’99th Floor’ that they’re best known for amongst garage fanatics (like myself).
’99th Floor’ is a punk killer with pumped up teenage attitude, wild guitars, thrilling combo organ and fuzz then one of THEE greatest punkoid gee’tar breaks of all time. I’ve seen a picture of The Moving Sidewalks looking thrilled that they’re with their idol Jimi Hendrix.
Well Mr Hendrix never came up with anything as stunningly glorious as ’99th Floor’ – he probably was just as pleased to meet them – I think he was cos Jimi gave Billy one of his guitars after a gig when they supported The Jimi Hendrix Experience.
The 45 was first released on the local Tantara label, sales were strong and it got a further release on Wand. My copy is on the latter but instead of uploading the music from the single I’ve used the previously unreleased and longer version that appeared on the fabulous Big Beat collection ’Uptight Tonight’.
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