Brute Force aka Stephen Friedland
- The Recorded Compositions from The Sixties

For most of the mid-sixties Stephen Friedland AKA Brute Force was a 'Token' (as shown in scans from the Press Release pack sent out by The Tokens manager Seymour Barash) but I decided to focus on the four core members, Margo, Margo, Medress and Siegel and hadn't intend a 'Brute Force' page. In complying The Tokens discography though and paying a bit more attention to the credits, listening & re-listening to the music I decided Bright Tunes Music Inc. most prolific writer/composer at the very least deserves this discography.
There are a number of pages on the web, including Brute Force's own website Brutes Force with information and interviews that have interesting tales including his starting out as a songwriter with Billy Gussak at RCA and introduction to The Tokens. Both Brute Force original 60s LP's B.T. Puppy's "Extemporaneous" and Columbia's "Confections of Love" have been re-released, with bonus tracks and informative sleeve notes but web and CD's, at least to these ears, concentrate too narrowly on particular compositions and recordings. His song writing in the sixties produced a body of work, in all the then current musical styles, that deserves attention from all aficionados of quality pop not just the controvosial or 'hit' recordings.
"The King of Fuh" despite a great melody, production and picturesque/interesting but 'rude' lyrics (without the slight ambiguity of say Max Romeo’s “Wet Dream” or Jane Birkin and Serge Gainsbourg's "Je T'Aime" which did breach the UK charts in 1969) could hardly have been expected to be a chart hit then or now. "She Still Remembers Tony" cool song purposely written and sounding just right for Del Shannon but still just one of many great cuts. The "Extemporaneous" album, shit rare yes but deservedly so? A quirky live studio recording but possibly the humour/social comment is lost in translation from American to English. (To be fair though many knowledgeable folk rank the album very highly.) The recently released "Confections of Love" is more accessible, with tunes, lyrics and production that will have you smiling, thinking and jigging your botty. But like I said before these are only a small part of Brute Force's legacy to sixties popular music.
Song titles such as "Nobody Knows What's Goin' On (In My Mind But Me)", "On The Go", "One Face in The Crowd, "Relief", "Sharin'" and many, many more from the first flames of the 60s to its burning embers should get the blood pumping and if not you've been missing out on some great musical nuggets.
Until at least one CD anthology of Brute Force's musical delights gets released you may have to scour the record bins, CD track lists, YouTube et al to hear what you've been missing but I promise the hunt will be worth it!
About the discography: As with the main Tokens Discography pages the writer, producer and arranger credits have in almost all cases been taken from the record.
If I have omitted any tracks from this 'Complete Discography'(!) scans/mp3s would be appreciated. One B.T. Puppy track, that I'm aware off and haven't heard is "Friendly" from Frankie Paris' "P.H.B" album.
On some recordings more detail is supplied in the main Tokens Discography on 'notes'.
Brute told me that his co-writer on a number of tracks, Charlotte Parsons and David Rockefella are both aka Jay Fishman. (As Charlotte Parson he also had a number of near hits with the New York (Soul) song writing team of Johnny Northern & J.R. (Ralph) Bailey).