Call For Backup

Awesome.

Fun! With Indian jeweled turban, desert keffiyehs, and "Pharaohs", you know this band would have been celebrated today for its cultural allusions

I think Wooly Bully was the first 45 I ever bought.

Did the same thing as rjy did (see the forum). Went to hit "submit" but clicked "reveal." Nevertheless, the revelation matched my attempted submission. Fun one. Thanks, Jay

Fun! Amazingly got there without Google, but did do a final check before submitting.

Wow, I should have gotten this IMMEDITELY. I kept looking to use 4 answers with two parts to make an 8 letter word. Jay told me "and the", and of course the wool from the bull was removed from my eyes. Full disclosure, I had to look up the proper spelling of Pharaohs. Now if only Bird had been able to include SAM I'd have had it right from the get go. I did not know Mike and the Mechanics and I tried to stuff Karen Carpenter in there at one point. Great Bird puzzle as usual, hits a sweet spot in my history.

Maybe I shouldn't have given up so easily... but, hmm, can't seem to figure out how to back-engineer it. Maybe back-engineering will be as challenging and fun as solving.

Anyway, thanks for the fun puzzle. I'm sorry that I have absolutely no idea what it means.

Ah! Now I see 1) how I couldn't solve it, 2) Others solved it quickly, and 3) How I could stare at it and get frustrated there was nothing there.

I legitimately figured SHAM but .... lack of cultural knowledge it meant nothing to me. (In hindsight, I suppose I could have google for "quote sham and the quote" and see what came up but that didn't occur to me.... sigh.

Good puzzle.

Sometimes being old is an advantage. Thanks for a good puzzle.

Got the first bit right off and even thought of Sam the Sham. But forgot about his back-up band! D'oh moment.

Fun puzzle. I do remember Mike + The Mechanics from the 80s. Didn’t know “bosky” though, so I learned something.

Biggest laugh, from happy memories, I’ve had from a meta in quite some time. Thanks, Jay!

"Let's not be L-7"

Absolutely loved it...thanks Jay (and the Americans?)

I have never heard of this group. I guess they never made it to Australia? But I loved the puzzle: great meta (mike and the) mechanic(s)!

Thanks, Jay. "You sure are looking good...."

I too hit the wrong button. But I did figure out the mechanism beforehand. This was a good one… glad my parents listened to 104.3 when I was a kid or I probably wouldn’t have known the band.

Thought it might be Crickets for me this week, among other Heartbreakers and Wailers, but found my way down E Street. Thanks Jay (and any Americans that might have been involved). Great grid, clueing and meta!

Whoosh. Definitely before my time (though I have heard of Bully Wully or however you spell it)

Doh! I blame my phone's spell check for giving me misleading information. Despite our last yard fumble, we enjoyed this.

I certainly should have gotten this sooner. I definitely knew all the names. I just took forever to see the second step. Great meta, Jay. For once, songs for my age group!

I saw them at the Steel Pier in Atlantic City in 1964. On the bill with Peter and Gordon. :)

Got the four music groups rather quickly. Then a major stew over what next. Never thought that there would be a group "Sham and the _____" until the avalanche of nudges forced me to try this out. Clever

oh jeez I can't believe how long this took for me to see - and how many nudges!

WOW! Finally got that but had to be dragged kicking and screaming. It didn't help that I'd never heard of most of these and I AM of Social Security age! Thanks for the final AHA!