Random mumblings and mundom ramblings on music (mostly), and whatever else pops into my mind . . .
[The files attached here are for review only, and should be deleted after two weeks. If you like the bands, go buy the albums . . . like I did!] . . .
And yes - EVERYTHING posted here is still available!
Nowadays, the early '80s band A Flock Of Seagulls has been reduced to little more than a punchline, remembered more for lead singer (and former hairdresser) Mike Score's unusual hairstyle and the derisive mention of the group's name in the film Pulp Fiction than for their music. And if any of their songs are recalled at all, most people lump them all together and refer to the band as "just another cheesy '80s group".
But in hindsight, A Flock Of Seagulls were pioneers and extremely influential, with their dance-able electronic synth-pop sound and style leading the way for similar and subsequent British bands that followed in their wake. While their heyday was brief, they opened the door for New Romantic bands like Duran Duran, Culture Club and Adam & The Ants to dominate the US and international charts, along with "Second British Invasion" groups like Wham!, Eurythmics and Bananarama, and allowed subsequent later acts such as Kajagoogoo, ABC, Dead Or Alive, and Talk Talk to make significant inroads on worldwide charts as well. In my opinion, in many ways you can draw a direct line from what A Flock Of Seagulls was doing at the time to the current state and nature of dance, electronic and some pop music on the airwaves today.
As significant as their achievements were, as I mentioned above, A Flock Of Seagulls' time in the spotlight was very brief, peaking in 1982 with three monumental international hits: "I Ran (So Far Away)", "Wishing (If I Had A Photograph Of You)", and what I consider to be their magnum opus and one of the greatest synth-pop songs of all time, "Space Age Love Song":
"Space Age Love Song" is so well-constructed that over the years, many a band, both well-known and obscure, has seen fit to try their hand at covering it. I think it was about three or four years ago that I came across an entire ALBUM of these covers offered on someone's website; I wish I could recall where I got them from, so I could give the compiler all due credit and respect for pulling these together. But the location seems to have been taken off-line, or has otherwise eluded my searches for it.
But in any event, here it is for you to enjoy: Space Age Love Song covers, a delightful and entertaining bootleg of some of the best attempts to re-record/reimagine this tune. Have a listen, enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
Jane Wiedlin's music career has long been a source of curiosity and disappointment to me. As a member of the seminal new wave girl group The Go-Go's, Wiedlin wrote or co-wrote at least half of the songs on the band's first three albums - including huge hits and fan favorites such as "Our Lips Are Sealed", "How Much More", "Lust To Love" and "Tonite" off of 1981's Beauty And The Beat, "Girl of 100 Lists" and the title track off of 1982's Vacation, and "Turn To You" and "Beneath The Blue Sky" off of 1984's Talk Show. But after the band broke up after that third album (done in by nonstop touring, injuries, and the endless partying with its attendant copious use of drugs and alcohol), and Wiedlin began her solo career, she seemed to find little success in translating that songwriting ability into her own music.
I believe that part of this stemmed from the insecurity she might have felt then being on her own. With The Go-Go's, Wiedlin had four other band members to not only bounce ideas off of, but also serve as a "united front" against producers and label executives who were interested in exploiting the group and/or drastically modifying their sound. And for the most part, this unity was successful, only faltering somewhat on their second album, Vacation, produced by former Brill Building alum Richard Gottehrer. Gottehrer slicked the band's sound down somewhat on this album; although it was still successful (reaching #8 on the Billboard 200), it received lukewarm critical
reviews and was seen in many quarters as a step backward by the group. Talk Show, released two years later, was considered a "return to form" for The Go-Go's, returning the bite and drive to much of their music. I enjoyed this album very much, and recall being disappointed when I learned of the group's demise soon after its release; it would have been interesting to see in what direction The Go-Go's would have gone with future albums. But it was not to be.
Trying to make a name for herself as a solo act, I think that Jane fell under the influence of the label and the producers assigned to her first release in her/their drive to make the disc more accessible/"commercial" and
thereby more successful. In many ways, 1985's Jane Wiedlin is way overproduced, full of shimmering effects, '80s-style beats and guest musicians (Chris Sheehan participated in several of the recordings for this album) that bury the effect and urgency of the lyrics she penned. It also doesn't help that Wiedlin's voice is rather thin and lacking in range... but with the right producer, that could have been managed. In her best songs on this album, especially on "One Hundred Years Of Solitude", the special effects are toned down, allowing the quality of her music and vocals to shine through. Alas, it wasn't enough - IRS dropped her after Jane Wiedlin peaked at only #127 on the charts. I still bought the disc, though, out of my love for and loyalty to The Go-Go's (and because, on the album cover, Jane reminded me of a girl I once adored in college).
Jane moved to Manhattan Records, where she released Fur three years later, in 1988. But again, she made the same mistake as with her previous album. Fur is even more slickly produced than her first album, with producer Stephen Hague (who helmed albums by Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark, Erasure and The Pet Shop Boys) liberally ladling on the synth-pop. This album should have gone nowhere as well...
however, it did produce a Top Ten hit single, "Rush Hour", which helped drag the album up to #105 on the charts. But the rest of the disc is airy and forgettable. Wiedlin managed to release one more album, Tangled, on yet another new label (EMI) in 1990... but the damage was done. Tangled failed to chart. Jane wouldn't release another solo album for another decade.
[It is interesting to note that during this time, Jane's former band mate Belinda Carlisle also began a solo career, albeit in a poppier, more radio-friendly vein, and found much greater
success with arguably more inferior material (although her first big hit, 1986's "Mad About You", was originally slated for release on The Go-Go's aborted fourth album). Other huge hits for her, including "I Get Weak" and "Heaven Is A Place On Earth", soon followed.]
Although "Rush Hour" was Wiedlin's biggest solo hit, I've always felt that "Blue Kiss", off of her first solo outing, was the best song she ever did on her own, even though it only reached #77 on the charts.
IRS seemed to think so as well; "Blue Kiss" b/w "My Traveling Heart" was released as the first single off the album, and later that year the label issued a 12" of dance and extended versions of the song on vinyl. To date, these songs have never been released on CD.
Here's the lineup
Blue Kiss (Special Dance Version)
Blue Kiss ("V" Mix)
Blue Kiss (Instrumental Version)
So here for your enjoyment is Jane Wiedlin's Blue Kiss 12", put out by IRS Records in September 1985. Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
I first heard Brisbane, Australia-based Thigh Master's single "Exodus" a little over two years ago, while driving into work in suburban Boston one morning. The local independent/ alternative station in the area, WMBR 88.1 FM out of the basement of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's (MIT's) student union, is fantastic, a harbinger back to the old days of college radio, when stations of that ilk were wild enough and brave enough to play anything that struck the DJ of the day's fancy, no matter how non-commercial or anti-mainstream it was. I generally switch between WMBR and the local National Public Radio station on my morning commutes... but with the news here in the States increasingly chaotic and depressing, I found myself grooving to alt/indie music more and more often. In doing so, I've come across some musical gems being put out at that station, including this one on that fateful day:
Although the band is from Australia, I instantly caught that New Zealand/Flying Nun vibe/sound shooting out of this tune, reminding me of the stuff I liked and listened to often when I lived over in that part of the world many moons ago. Needless to say, this band flipped my wig, and I couldn't wait to get home to order their single.
Thigh Master formed in 2012 around a nucleus of brothers Matthew (guitar and lead vocals) and Daniel Ford (bassist) with drummer Patrick Byron, but went through a few lineup changes in their first few years before settling on a stable, solid foundation of Matthew, Patrick, Innez Tulloch on second guitar and new bass guitarist Dusty Anastassiou. The band has toured extensively in the Australasia and Southeast Asia region, and to date has released two albums, Early Times in 2016 and Now For Example just last year, the latter of which contains the album version of the song presented here, released a year earlier. Both of these albums come highly recommended. The group was supposed to begin their first-ever US tour in March of this year... but that didn't happen, for obvious reasons.
In the meantime, here's the single to whet your appetite: Thigh Master's Exodus/Pity Run single, recorded in September 2017 and released on Bruit Direct Disques on January 4th, 2018. Enjoy, and as always... well, you know.
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
In the mid-2000s, a small British label called Planet
Clique, specializing in dance music, released a series of remix EPs of classic
B-52's hits, mostly on vinyl. The label was an offshoot of Manhattan
Clique, maintained by founders Philip Larsen and Chris Smith, collectively
referred to by the moniker "MHC".
From
their website:
One
of the most enduring and well-respected remix teams of the last decade,
Manhattan Clique have worked with some of the biggest names in pop and dance
music, delivering over 200 dance/crossover remixes to date for all the world's
major labels and many independents. Highlights include Katy Perry, Charli
XCX, Emeli Sandé, Lady Gaga, DJ Fresh, Ellie Goulding, Nicole Scherzinger,
Britney Spears, Carly Rae Jepsen, Example, Wretch 32 and many more.
Manhattan Clique remixes regularly reside in the upper reaches of dance, club
and pop charts in the UK, US and across Europe.
Their remix edits are also hugely popular with radio stations, gaining support
on BBC Radio 1, Kiss and Capital in the UK,
and across a large number of radio stations in the US. The team are also well
known in the blogging world, picking up regular plaudits from leading music
bloggers such as Popjustice, Perez Hilton and Arjan Writes.
Manhattan Clique have also worked with some of the biggest artists in Europe;
from Germany's Frida Gold, Norway's Ida Maria, Holland's Esmée Denters,
Russia's Valeriya to French megastar Mylene Farmer. Her duet with Moby,
"Slipping Away" was Manhattan
Clique's first #1 production, as well as Moby's first and only #1
single, spending several weeks at the top of the French singles chart in
2006.
Outside Manhattan
Clique, Philip Larsen has additionally won a Grammy award for his mix work on
Kylie Minogue’s "Come Into My World". Chris Smith runs the PR
and marketing company Renegade Music, based in London, who consult for a wide
variety of new and established UK
and international talent.
Their remix EP of songs from Whammy! came
out in 2005, followed by their Mesopotamia
remixes the following year and their reimagining of songs from Wild Planet
the year after. All in all, I found these modified songs to be mostly
interesting and enjoyable, and a welcome addition to the overall B-52's catalog.
Took me forever to find these discs... and as
usual, I'm happy to share them with my fellow Bee-Fives fans.
So here, for your enjoyment and perusal, is the Whammy!
- 2005 Remix EP, the Mesopotamia - 2006 Remix EP, and the Wild
Planet - 2007 Remix EP, released in limited
editions by Planet Clique in the years indicated. Enjoy, and as always,
let me know what you think.
Please use the email
link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
The indie band The North Atlantic, comprised of brothers Jason Hendrix on lead vocals and guitar) and drummer Cullen Hendrix, along with their friend Jason Richards on bass, came together while the three were attending Kalamazoo College in
Michigan in the late 1990s. After Cullen's graduation, all three members relocated to San Diego, California to make a go at the music
industry. Their debut album, the mostly-unheard Buried Under Tundra, was released there on Applep Records in mid-2001. But the disc did get them a little bit of notice in certain quarters.
The band kept playing and touring in the Southern California area for the next couple of years, recording their sophomore album, Wires In The Walls, during this period and pressing a few hundred copies to sell at their shows. The group went on hiatus shortly thereafter to allow Jason to go back to school to complete his degree, before reconvening in late 2005.
The North Atlantic's sound has been described as "math rock", an indie variation of '70s progressive rock championed by bands such as King Crimson and minimalist composers from that period like Steve Reich. One definition I found of it described math rock as being "characterized by complex, atypical rhythmic structures (including irregular stopping and starting), counterpoint, odd time signatures (such as 7/8, 11/8 or 13/8), angular melodies, and extended, often dissonant chords." To me, this just sounds like the approach practically every other indie/punk band at the time, like Fugazi, Slint, Black Flag and Broken Social Scene, was taking. Thus, I never have really "gotten" math rock... It always seemed to me like the term was unnecessary, and slicing up the alternative/indie music genres/subgenres just a little too thin.
In any event, The North Atlantic had its (very) brief moment in the sun in the mid-2000s. Shortly after Jason's college graduation and return to the band, The Syndicate, a West Coast radio promotion company, decided to expand into artist management and marketing, and picked up the then-three-year-old album for rerelease on their new label. Wires In The Walls started getting moderate airplay on independent/alternative stations across the country.
I was living in Massachusetts at the time, and my local go-to station began playing the lead single, "Scientist Girl", fairly often. Other than the sound and instrumentation featured in the song, what really grabbed me was that the band had the nerve/balls to not only name-check The Clash, but also lift one of their lyrics from the Clash song "Straight To Hell":
I was hooked, and based on this one song, I started looking everywhere in the Boston area for this album, without any luck.
This was also during the time when I would regularly travel three hours down the road with my toddler children to New York City some weekends. I never spent much time in the Big Apple until I was in my mid-twenties, but from then on I always considered it a fun, "happening" place to be, and I vowed that my kids wouldn't have to wait as long as I did to see the city for themselves. I would place the three of them in the big stroller, and we would roam all over town - visiting the museums, going to the Central Park Zoo and letting them play in the playgrounds there, browsing through the huge old F.A.O. Schwarz and Toys R Us locations, checking out new places to eat... all sorts of stuff. I'm happy and proud to say that, now that my kids are teenagers, they KNOW New York. They no longer have any interest in going to the touristy areas - they have their favorite shops and haunts in Soho and the Flatiron District; they know what subway trains to take to get to Harlem or Union Square; they know how to look at the light posts in Central Park and
know exactly what street they're parallel to; and before both locations closed, they regarded the Benash Delicatessen with disdain, considering The Carnegie (where we went so often, many of the staff knew their names) directly across the street the best deli in Midtown. So I guess I did that part with them all right.
It was during one of our NYC trips late that summer that I was bound and determined to find that North Atlantic album. So while we were there, I made a hateful side trip through Times Square (a locale I try very hard to avoid), pushing a loaded stroller through dense
crowds of tourists, in order to visit the old Virgin Megastore right there in the center of the square. Once inside, I couldn't move around there much with three small children in tow, so I flagged down an employee and told him what I was looking for. The guy disappeared for a few minutes, then came back with the CD I wanted. I was in and out of there in less than five minutes!
I was happy to finally own the album... but again, I only bought it for one song. So I can't say that this disc has been in heavy rotation in my house for the past decade and a half. But listening to "Scientist Girl" again just recently, I still get the same sort of buzz I got when I first heard it, all those years ago.
And here it is for you all to get buzzed on as well: Wires In The Walls, the second (and apparently last) release by The North Atlantic, originally released by the band on May 23rd, 2003, and rereleased by We Put Out Records on July 11th, 2006. Have a listen, and as always, let me know what you think.
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
A year ago today, I finally made the effort to put together my own music
blog. I'd always wanted one, but at the time the process of
establishing one seemed like something exotic and difficult, a thing
that only truly savvy technogeeks did. When I finally made up my mind
to give it a try, I was surprised at how easy making my own blog turned
out to be.
I cannot tell you how much fun it has been, sharing my
stories and music with you all over the past 365 days. I initially
assumed that no one would take the time to find or read my words, or
have any interest in this little corner of the Web that I designated my
own... Some folks just passed
through; some have lingered a while; and many have left comments with
me, sharing their own thoughts about the things and events I've written
about. To all of you, I just want to say "Thank you".
...This thing turned out to be a lot more fun that I ever thought it would be.
Even after a full decade of maintaining this site and providing my thoughts (and, more importantly, the files) on the music and bands that I have loved, hated, enjoyed and maligned throughout my life, I don't think I can add much more to this writeup. As the number of visitors now approaches a million, all I can say is that I am grateful and humbled for your interest and support over the years, and the kind and thoughtful words many of you have left. In my wildest dreams, I never thought that Pee-Pee Soaked Heckhole would resonate with so many for so long.
Near the end of my post in 2011, I added the following:
While my output has slowed in recent months, that does not mean that
"Pee-Pee Soaked Heckhole" will be ending anytime soon. I have many more
stories and tunes to share with you all (in fact, I have a number of
posts that are currently in progress - just looking for the right words
and the right time to finish them). I hope that you all keep on coming
back here in the weeks and months to come, and please keep letting me
know what you think of my funny little blog.
That part remains to be true; I've got literally dozens of essays in various stages of completion that I've been working on sporadically. And in the next few weeks, I hope to get some of these longer-form screeds finished and up for your perusal, acquisition and commentary - along with some quickies I hope to put up in the next few days to celebrate this milestone. Just bear with me, as always. They don't come out as fast as they used to... but there are still plenty more where these current ones came from, and I look forward to sharing them with you.
All in all, this thing HAS turned out to be a lot more fun than I ever thought it would be. Thanks to you all for hanging in there with me for the past decade. Looking forward to the next ten, and beyond!
We lost a song-writing, folk-singing giant today, folks... Although it's been touch-and-go with him for a while now, I was hoping this nasty virus would somehow spare him... but I was wrong. If you've never taken the opportunity to listen to John Prine, there's no better place to start than with his superb first self-titled album, recorded mostly at the legendary American Sound Studio in Memphis and released by Atlantic Records on June 1st, 1971.
Not much else to say here, so I'll keep this short. R.I.P., Mr. Prine, and thanks for the music.
I hope you DO get to see your daddy and mama, and smoke that 9-mile-long cigarette when you get to heaven:
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
As longtime readers of this blog can readily attest by way of mymanyposts over the years, I'm a huge Barbara Manning fan. As such, I've been meaning to post her magnum opus, the three-disc Super Scissors comp, for forever... but I could never come up with the words to properly introduce this music here.
Fortunately, someone already did so - the paragraphs below are taken from the liner notes to this set, written by the lead compiler:
I can still recall, quite clearly, falling in love with these Scissors recordings during the first week of November 1987. I'd just moved to San Francisco days before and I'd made it my mission to track down Barbara Manning - whose songs and voice had captivated me on the album she'd recorded previously, 28th Day. Barbara and I had a couple of mutual friends and one of them gave me her number. I called, and was invited over to hear some "demos". Already being a fan, as well as a taping fanatic, I showed up with my own "dubbing deck" and proceeded to copy about two-thirds of what later became the Lately I Keep Scissors album. During the course of the evening, Barbara got me very stoned and a little bit drunk. I eventually stumbled home with my gear, and woke up the next morning already under the spell of these recordings. I immediately plugged in my headphones and began playing these songs over and over. It didn't take me long to feel that these songs and the performances - the plaintive vocals, the haunting feel of the music - were on the level of my heroes Sandy Denny and Nick Drake. Initially, Barbara hated me comparing her to these "folkies". She saw herself much more on the indie-rock side of the fence and after she turned me onto some Flying Nun recordings, I could certainly hear the influence of The Chills, The Verlaines, etc. on her work. However, I felt vindicated about a year later when Martin Phillips of The Chills did an interview upon which he spelled out his love for a lot of the folk music that I'd been trying to turn Barbara onto. That said, she was into Krautrock long before I even knew the meaning of the word. After a bit of arm-twisting, I convinced Barbara to let me release these recordings on my new Heyday Records label. She said, "okay,", as long as she could record a new song called "Never Park." Since most of the recording for the album had already been done, we went into Greg Freeman's studio just a few times for a couple of overdubs and mixing sessions. Greg always treated vocals like an instrument, meaning he kept them buried among the other instruments, and Barbara was self-conscious about her voice (wanting it lower). So, if I contributed anything to the production of Scissors, you can credit me with making sure that her vocals stayed up in the mix. It's important to remember that Scissors was originally
recorded without any plans for release - it was really just a case of Barbara having some cheap studio time and a handful of friends willing to help out with a batch of songs that she'd stockpiled. In my mind, Lately I Keep Scissors is one of those great debut solo albums of an artist stepping out on their own, away from their previous band, like Van's Astral Weeks, Lennon's Plastic Ono Band, et al. It also shares an edgy dose of reality with those albums; Barbara makes personal statements about her life, its ups and downs, all captured on tape for the rest of us to mull over, be moved by and enjoy. Like many of my favorite albums, it's an uncomfortable but elating listening experience that leaves me numb, no matter how many times I hear it. Of course, Barbara's earlier band, 28th Day, was not anywhere close to groups like Them or The Beatles in fame, but you get my point. What really blew me away when I first heard these recordings, was that Barbara didn't realize how good they were - nor did the general public have any idea what would eventually be unleashed on them - that cassette tape that I had dubbed felt like a million in prizes. The fact that she wasn't famous didn't make the recordings any less important in my obsessive mind. After Scissors was released, artists such as Robyn Hitchcock, Sonic Youth and Yo La Tengo acknowledged it. Soon, Barbara's moody songs and ethereal voice began weaving their own special path that would lead to recordings for bigger and hipper labels: Forced Exposure, Sub Pop, and Matador - as well as high profile gigs and international tours. By the time of One
Perfect Green Blanket, I was being told to keep away from the studio and keep my mouth shut, although I was still allowed to hear demos as they were happening. I suggested that both the home demo of "Sympathy Wreath" and the studio recording be used for the final album. Barbara got a 4-Track machine after Scissors was released, and several demos (and songs recorded just for fun) that she taped at her San Francisco apartment on Lyon Street during this time are included as bonus tracks on the One Perfect Green Blanket CD. One of the highlights for me is hearing her sing "Cheap Holiday Song" by the obscure but legendary San Francisco band X-Tal. The Barbara Manning that created the music on these CDs was a beautiful young tigress - the energy and magic she evoked on stage was incredible and for several years I never missed a gig and recorded many of them. Barbara in general is not a fan of her own live recordings, and the handful of live material included here reveal some of the songs that she was playing during the time of One Perfect Green Blanket (occasionally during tours with her sister Terri) that were never recorded in the studio. There are also a couple of "Flying Nun" cover versions represented here, and Barbara makes these songs her own. For the audiophiles out there, you'll be pleased to know that all songs from Lately I Keep Scissors and One Perfect Green Blanket have been remastered from the original reel to real master tapes and transferred carefully to digital format. Frankly, these recordings have never sounded as good as they do now - as we used the best of both analog and digital technology. Scissors sounds better than ever before, while I hear a slight muddiness on One Perfect Green Blanket. For the hardcore Manning fans (which you must be or you wouldn't have bought this box set) is Disc Three - filled
with previously unreleased songs and recordings from the Scissors sessions. To be honest, I dragged my heels a few times since first announcing this project, but the advantage of having taken so much time is that we kept finding more tapes. When Barbara showed up one day with a previously unknown reel-to-reel tape of Scissors outtakes, I thought I'd pass out from excitement. Until then, I'd been working from cassettes made after each recording session. After a lot of listening, the songs that made the final grade were either ones that didn't get included on Scissors the first time around or were radically different than the released version. Just shy of two decades since first hearing these Scissors songs, my love affair with Barbara's music continues - ad she's still making records that will spellbind and entrance you. Actually, now that I think about it - Barbara's career (and life) has lasted longer that the icons that I first compared her with. Barbara gave me free reign as I worked on this collection - so if there's anything you don't like about it, please send the complaints to me. And if there's anything that blows you away, all the acclaim belongs to her. It's her art, her music, her voice, the magic is all hers - she's got everything she needs, she's an artist, she don't look back - she can take the darkness from the night time and paint the daytime black. Pat Thomas * Oakland, CA May 2006
Here's the lineup and track selection for each disc:
Disc 1 - Lately I Keep Scissors:
1. Scissors
2. Breathe Lies
3. Somewhere Soon
4. Talk All Night
5. Make It Go Away
6. Never Park
7. Every Pretty Girl
8. Mark E. Smith & Brix
9. Something You've Got (Isn't Good)
10. Prophecy Written
Disc 2 - One Perfect Green Blanket (with previously unreleased bonus tracks):
1. Straw Man
2. Smoking Her Wings
3. Don't Rewind
4. Sympathy Wreath
5. Green
6. Lock Your Room (Uptight)
7. Someone Wants You Dead
8. Sympathy Wreath (Demise) Or ODE2WOP
9. Walking After Midnight
10. Green Home (Demo Version)
11. I Wish I Could Tour
12. Cheap Holiday Song
13. Lock Your Room (Uptight) (Home Demo Version)
14. For Pity's Sake (Live)
15. On on and One (Live)
16. Winter Song (Live)
17. Optimism Is It's Own Reward (Radio Session)
Disc 3 - Previously Unreleased Outtakes & Demos:
1. Scissors (Acoustic)
2. Make It Go Away
3. Every Pretty Girl
4. Mark E. Smith & Brix (Alternate Version)
5. Something You've Got Isn't Good (Acoustic)
6. Prophecy Written (Electric Version)
7. Wires Cages Fences and Gates (Without Drums)
8. My Name Is Not
9. Song for Trish
10. Someone Wants You Dead (Acoustic)
11. Make It Go Away (Alternate Version)
12. Wires Cages Fences and Gates (With Drums)
13. On on and One (Home Demo)
14. Reverse Disguise (Home Demo)
15. Scissors (I've Been Working on the Railroad) (Home Demo)
So here, for your listening pleasure, is the legendary and hard-to-find Super Scissors set, featuring some of the early work of Bay Area indie icon Barbara Manning. I've been enjoying this set for years, and I think the entire comp is a winner! Have a listen, enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
* - Interestingly, and if I'm not mistaken, this is the same 'Pat Thomas' who currently serves as Kendra Smith's manager, and who wrote the David Roback tribute in Variety last month that I referenced in the previous posting...
Another sad loss to the alternative music world: David Roback, guitarist and founding member of Mazzy Star, died last week in Los Angeles. Here's his obituary in the New York Times.
I was living in New Zealand in 1994, where there was plenty of great local alternative music being played on the country's stations, so I really didn't begin to hear Mazzy Star's "Fade Into You" until more than a year after it came out, when I returned to the States for grad school.
It took me forever to find out who the song was by, as it seemed that every time I heard it during that time, it wasn't identified by artist. I heard the tune on rare occasions playing softly in the background of urban hubbub in cities like Boston and Washington D.C., or would catch the tail end of it once in a while on obscure radio stations with unknown call signs, while walking the streets of other towns I was in in the mid/late '90s... and every time I was too slow to find out any information on this haunting but annoyingly obscure song. Mind you, this was long before the days of song-IDing apps like Shazam, so if you missed the radio DJ providing you with the details, or weren't around enough cool in-the-know people to clue you in, you were pretty much on your own. But it was maddening.
Finally, while hearing the song while strolling near, of all places,
Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco while on a visit there in the late 1990s, someone I accosted on the street told me it was a Mazzy Star tune. I immediately ran across town to Amoeba Music near Golden Gate Park and grabbed their album So Tonight That I May See. Amoeba also had the band's full discography there in the stacks under the "Mazzy Star" card; not only the albums that came
before (1990's She Hangs Brightly) and after (1996's Among My Swan) the one I went there for, but also music from bands related to the group. When I saw a copy of Opal's Early Recordings amongst the discs, it was then I knew why "Fade Into You" sounded so familiar; it was through my brief encounter with that band many years earlier that I had first become aware of the genius and songcraft of David Roback.
As per the NYT article:
"David Edward Roback was born in Los Angeles on April 4, 1958, to George and Rosemary (Hunter) Roback... He studied art at the University of California, Berkeley, and [in 1981] formed the band Rain Parade, which included his brother, Steven. Rain Parade was one of several bands in what became known as the Paisley Underground, a revival of psychedelic rock in California in the early 1980s. Mr. Roback left the group after it released its first album, Emergency Third Rail Power Trip (1983).
In the mid-1980s he founded the group Opal with Kendra Smith, the bassist from Dream Syndicate, and the drummer Keith Mitchell. Opal, which featured Ms. Smith as lead singer and expanded on the Paisley Underground sound, released the album Happy Nightmare Baby in 1987."
Opal evolved from Clay Allison, the band Roback formed in the immediate aftermath of his departure from Rain Parade. Clay Allison played a handful of obscure gigs across the U.S., but by the time they determined they were ready to record, the name change had already occurred (the new moniker was reportedly derived from ex-Pink Floyd Syd Barrett's 1969 song "Opel"). Opal was together for just three years; in addition to their sole 1987 LP, the group also released a pair of "psych-folk-leaning" late-80s
EPs (Fell From The Sun and Northern Line) that were later collected on the Early Recordings compilation, released on the U.S. incarnation of Britain’s Rough Trade label, which went under in 1990. Neither the album nor the EPs sold very well, which was of absolutely no concern to Roback and his reclusive band mates. “It doesn’t matter how well our records do,” he told The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1990. “None of that matters, because we’re completely free.”
However, Rough Trade had enough faith and confidence in Opal to utilize some of its remaining limited resources to finance the recording of a simple black-and-white music video for the song "Empty Box Blues", featuring Smith and Roback enjoying a quiet day together in the countryside and on the beach: As fate would have it, MTV VJ Dave Kendall deigned to air this video on the station's 120 Minutes program (dedicated to alternative music) sometime in mid 1990... and luckily, I happened to be watching the show that night. Here's what I saw, and fell in love with:
I thought that "Empty Box Blues" was a damn-near perfect song: whimsical, melancholy, and filled with an undefinable sadness and nostalgic yearning. When I ran up to DC later that month (I was living in southeastern Virginia at the time), I found and purchased a cassette copy of Early Recordings containing this song at the old GWU Tower Records. It went with me on my six-month Navy deployment to South America later that year, and I got the opportunity to absorb the group's other wistful tunes, like "Strange Delight", "Northern Line" and my other fave, "My Only Friend".
What I was unaware of was that by the time I got into Opal, the group had already long ceased to exist. The band went out on the road in the fall of 1987 supporting their sole album Happy Nightmare Baby; a final gig that December in England at the Hammersmith Odeon ended with Smith hurling her guitar to the stage and abruptly announcing she was leaving the group. Roback quickly promoted Opal backup singer Hope Sandoval to lead vocalist and reconstituted the group as Mazzy Star. After producing the three albums I referenced above, Mazzy Star went on a long hiatus beginning in 1997 before reuniting, with an album (Seasons Of Your Day) in 2013 and occasional live concerts over the past three years... right up to Roback's death last week.
Pat Thomas, current manager of Roback's former band mate Kendra Smith (even with all the turmoil surrounding the dissolution of Opal, the two remained good friends), wrote an excellent tribute/remembrance of him in this week's Variety; here it is.
Thomas's article contains the following paragraph:
At the time of his passing, Roback was working with Smith on finalizing the re-release of the [Opal] albums, which will be available digitally and physically via Ingrooves Music Group, Thomas tells Variety. The group’s 1987 opus, Happy Nightmare Baby, will not include any bonus tracks, but a 1989 compilation of earlier material called, naturally enough, Early Recordings, will include five extra songs: “Hear the Wind Blow,” “I Called Erin,” “Don’t Stop the Train,” “Sailing Boats” and an alternate version of “Empty Bottles.” (Some of these songs appeared on a bootleg compilation called Early Recordings Volume 2.)
I've owned this Volume 2 bootleg for years; these recordings are from the early days of Opal, same time frame as the previous compilation, 1983 - 1987. They were never released on any official Opal project.
Here's the complete lineup:
1. My Canyon Memory (5:00)
2. Sisters Of Mercy (4:21)
3. Sailing Boats (6:02)
4. Vespers (0:42)
5. Lisa's Funeral (6:51)
6. This Town (6:02)
7. Freight Train (1:59)
8. Wintertime (3:15)
9. Little Bit Of Rain (2:30)
10. What You've Done (3:37)
11. Cherry Jam (8:27)
12. Indian Summer (3:09)
The sound quality is less than perfect, having been taken from various tape sources, but this set contains some great tracks, songs like "Sailing Boats" (referenced above), and Kendra's take on the Leonard Cohen song "Sisters of Mercy" - a must-hear. As such, I can't figure out why, in the wake of Roback's death, they just don't release the entire damn thing, instead of onesy-twoseys from the boot. Therefore, I'm taking it upon myself to release this fine disc from its self-imposed shackles.
So here, for your listening pleasure and in memory of the great David Roback, are the following:
Opal - Early Recordings, Volume 2: A fan-assembled compilation of unreleased band tunes (of various audio quality) put out sometime around 2006; they somehow managed to dig up even more songs for the Early Recordings period, with these previously-unheard songs mixing the acoustic bits with swirling, black-light clouds of Happy Nightmare Baby style jams; and
Clay Allison - King Kong Club, College Park, MD (5-14-1984): A rare live taping of the proto-Opal group on tour in the spring of 1984 (can't remember where I managed to track this down... but no matter). Again, somewhat sketchy quality, but this set includes great early versions of songs that ended up on subsequent band recordings.
Enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think. RIP David, and thanks for the music.
I'll close out this tribute with one of my all-time favorite Roback compositions, "Look On Down From The Bridge" from Among My Swan:
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
Opal - Early Recordings, Volume 2: Send Email Clay Allison - King Kong Club, College Park, MD (5-14-1984): Send Email
About six years ago, I posted a piece on Single Gun Theory, a prolific and innovative Australian electronic band which, during its fifteen-year active life (from 1986 to 2001), had some fairly popular releases, including two Top Fifty albums in Oz. But by the time I wrote about them, more than ten years after their dissolution, I noted that the group seemed to have been all but forgotten, both by its former recording label and by turn-of-the-century electronic/dance music fans... which was a pity.
So I was very happy and surprised to receive a message yesterday from Peter Rivett-Carnac, former sample master and multi-instrumentalist for Single Gun Theory. Seems that Mr. Rivett-Carnac hasn't been sitting still since his former band's demise (I'll correct myself here now, and note that the group - comprised of vocalist Jacqui Hunt, Kath Power on background vocals and synthesizer, and Rivett-Carnac - never officially broke up; it's more like the members just sort of drifted apart into other interests). Peter got married and moved to Singapore in the early 2000s, where he and his wife raised two daughters. But he remained active in music while there, writing songs and handling production duties for less-heralded electronic groups like The Gaza Strip and Joyless. And just recently, he began releasing his own music, under the nom de plume the real ok boomer.
Here's the email message I received from him:
"Hey, I noticed a nice post in your blog about Single Gun Theory from a few years ago. I’m one of the co-founders of SGT, and I’ve just launched my first-ever solo project, so I thought you might be interested in it (yes, shameless self-promotion). :)
My attempt at a press release is below - I hope it’s helpful."
Along with his note came the attached 'presser':
Pete Carnac from Single Gun Theory has just released his first EP under the artist name "the real ok boomer”.
It's cheerily titled Consume. Be Silent. Die., and is mostly downtempo / lo-fi / chill-hop, with female vocals, some anti-war politics and a dash of metaphysical mumbo-jumbo.
I hope you get a chance to listen! Please contact pete@therealokboomer.com if you’d like more information.
I had a listen to the tracks Peter put up on his Soundcloud site (located here), including "Signal" and "Com Truise - Persuasion System", and was pleased with what I heard there. Rivett-Carnac has moved far beyond what he was laying down with SGT two decades ago, into a more ambient, mellow groove that still harkens back in some ways to the sound of his former band. What's interesting is that in some of these tunes, like "Engage" and "Mockingbird", he couples these beats with some highly politicized sample vocals. The combination is both hypnotic and thought-provoking... at least to me.
Here's the video for "Signal", the leadoff track from this EP and probably my favorite song so far off of it:
I am always surprised and excited when I find that an artist I post about has taken the time to read my longwinded screeds and respond in kind; it's happened a couple of times in the past, with the late Chris Sheehan (The Starlings) and members of The Veldt. I'm glad to see that Peter also saw that there are still music fans around who enjoyed and appreciated his old band. And in that spirit, I hope that you SGT fans out there take the opportunity to listen to what Peter has been up to recently. I guarantee you won't be disappointed.
Here's the Soundcloud link again for Consume. Be Silent. Die. EP and other non-EP tracks; go to it and feast your ears on these offerings... and as always, let Mr. Rivett-Carnac and I know what you think.
(As a bonus, here's a great interview that Peter and Jacqui gave to Chaos Control Digizine back in 2016, discussing their time in Single Gun Theory, their thoughts regarding the current state of electronic music, and then-recent projects they're both working on - good information within!)
I read online a couple of months ago that the first weekend in October, 2019 was the first in decades where not a single network aired a block of animation on its Saturday morning schedule. The CW, the very last holdout, transitioned that weekend to live-action educational programming. It is truly the end of an era.
It's been a long time coming, I guess. NBC stopped airing Saturday morning cartoons in 1992, with CBS throwing in the towel a couple of years later. ABC, the last of the old-time Big Three networks, maintained their weekend animated slate for another decade, before also calling it quits in 2004.
I suppose in this day and age, having a morning full of animated shows is sort of unnecessary. With several cable channels specifically dedicated to children's programming, kids today don't have to wait until the weekends anymore to get their cartoon fix. In addition, streaming services like Netflix and the new Disney+ channel are also available to fill that void. And with these expanding broadcast options, advertisers no longer have to direct their kid-centric toy, game and snack ads at that old four- to six-hour network cartoon window every weekend - they can spread those commercials around. It's no coincidence that when the advertising money from these producers left the networks, so did the shows.
Another stake in the heart of the Saturday morning cartoon were new Federal Communications Commission (FCC) rules in the 1990s that mandated the networks to provide at least three hours of educational programming each week. The networks weren't about to mess with their prime-time schedules to meet this requirement; they all found the best place to do so was in the weekend morning slots. Now, it's debatable just how "educational" the programs are that replaced the cartoons... but as far as the FCC is concerned, these meet the letter of the law. So be it.
But still, it's sad to see another old tradition being pushed by the wayside. Back when I was a kid, Saturday morning was the best time of the week! My brother and I would get up extra-early on Saturdays, get a bowl of cereal and milk (we learned from our parents to pour those into bowls without making a mess at an early age; after their long workweeks, they were happy to sleep in on Saturdays and let us tend to our breakfast ourselves...), and plop down in front of the TV for hours of
entertainment. It would start with the syndicated shows on our local stations - like Barbapapa, Kimba The White Lion, Deputy Dawg and Hashimoto-san - before settling in for the network programs that usually started at 8:00 am. Some of my favorites from that time included The Wacky
Races, Hong Kong Phooey, Hot Wheels, George Of The Jungle, The Hair Bear Bunch, The Pink Panther, Star Trek: The Animated Series, The Shazam!/Isis Hour, and of course, The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show. We would camp out in front of the tube for hours, until either our parents woke up and shooed us away, or until American Bandstand/The CBS Children's Film Festival/Soul Train came on in the early afternoon - that was the signal that the morning cartoon block was over.
And if you're old enough, I'm sure you recall the Saturday morning cartoon preview specials the networks would air the Friday night before the new season started. When I was a kid, those were some of the most anticipated programs of the year! Here's one that aired on NBC in 1974, featuring the debut of new shows including Land Of The Lost and Run, Joe, Run:
(I think the most memorable preview show for me was the 1973 ABC preview special, hosted by the comedy team of Burns and Schreiber - this was the one that
featured the debut ofSuper Friends, the first Justice League program. My friends and I were flabbergasted - a show featuring EVERY major superhero?!? I was so excited, I could barely sleep that night! And as far as I was concerned, the next morning, the show delivered, in every aspect. Looking back at it now - the poor animation, stilted dialogue, and the annoying, unnecessary and essentially useless sidekick characters Wendy, Marvin, and Wonder Dog - it's hard to see what all the fuss was about. But back in the early '70's, this show was IT.)
Children's TV programs have been broadcast in the Saturday morning time slots since practically the dawn of television. But in the early days (the 1950s through the mid-1960s), the majority of animated shows consisted either of reruns of Warner Brothers and MGM theatrical cartoons, or reairings of animated shows that had previously been shown in prime time a few years earlier, like The Flintstones, The Jetsons and Jonny Quest. The remainder of the networks' Saturday-morning schedules were filled by reruns of black-and-white live-action series made in the 1950s, usually westerns like The Lone Ranger and Roy Rogers, or old comedy shorts by The Three Stooges, Our Gang/Little Rascals, or Laurel & Hardy.
It wasn't until the mid-60s that first-run original animated series
began to dominate the time period, led by a boom in superhero cartoons, both authentic (Spider-Man, The Fantastic Four, Birdman And The Galaxy Trio, Space Ghost) and parody (Underdog, The Super 6, The Mighty Heroes). This era also heralded the rise of the music-based animated program, ushered in by the debut of The Beatles series on ABC in 1965.
This show was a massive and immediate success; the very first episode garnered a ratings share of 52 (meaning more than half the televisions on at that time were tuned into the show), then unheard-of for a weekend program broadcast at 10:30 am. All of the networks then recognized the power and potential profitability of having a popular musical group associated with their Saturday shows. But instead of using established groups like The Beatles (who would undoubtedly demand a share of the profits a successful show could bring), the networks instead attempted to create original fictitious bands, wholly owned and controlled by the corporation, that could be exploited 100%. Here are some early examples of these attempts to create pop acts from Saturday morning kids series, and my recollections of these programs.
The Banana Splits
By my estimation, the first of all the cartoon pop bands... but not by much.
In 1967, Hanna-Barbera Productions contracted with puppeteers Sid and Marty Krofft to design sets and costumes for a new show the studio was producing, with a format loosely based on the then-popular Rowan & Martin's Laugh-In, featuring a musical group of anthropomorphic characters. The Kroffts came up with four characters: Fleegle, a greenish brown dog who serves as the band's guitarist; Bingo, the drummer, a grinning orange gorilla; bassist Drooper, a bright yellow lion; and Snorky the pink and grey elephant on keyboards.
The Banana Splits Adventure Hour (also simply known as The Banana Splits) premiered on NBC on September 7th, 1968, with its memorable theme song:
(Man, when I was a kid, I used to see them frolicking in that amusement park, and thinking that had to be the greatest amusement park on the planet!)
The show featured quick-cut comedy bits interspersed with band member interacting with one another and their friends/adversaries (including the Sour Grapes Bunch, a group of tough little girl characters who intimidated the Banana Splits in every encounter), and animated cartoon and live-action segments, such as the serial "Danger Island" (directed by a then-unknown Richard Donner) and the animated Three Musketeers shorts. The show also featured a new song every week, performed by the group.
All of the Banana Splits' music was done in the studio by session musicians; none of the TV characters were involved in any way in its production. But the breadth of talent involved in the writing and recording of the band's music was impressive; songwriters included greats like Barry White, Gene Pitney, Jimmy Radcliffe and Al Kooper. The sole band album, We're The Banana Splits, was released on Decca in 1968, and features tunes by all of these musicians (fondly-remembered classics from the programs, incuding "We're The Banana Splits", and White's funky "Doin' The Banana Split"), along with the show's theme song.
The Banana Splits had a successful Saturday morning TV run, airing on NBC for two years, then entered syndication in 1971. The show was a staple of weekday after-school television for the next decade, throughout my elementary and junior-high years, so I (and many others, I'm sure) absorbed multiple viewings of each episode. The program was also the springboard for the Krofft brothers' entry into TV production. NBC picked up their series H. R. Pufnstuf in 1969, which was launched via a special hour-long Banana Splits episode that fall.
So every time I see these goofy, funny, brightly colored characters and hear that "Tra-La-La" song, it always takes me back and makes me smile.
The Archie Show
Archie Comics Publications, Inc. (or Archie Comics for short) began life as MLJ Magazines in 1939 (its name was based on the initials of its three founding partners), and initially focused on superhero titles. Their leading character was The Shield, one of the first superheroes decked in in patriotic red-white-and-blue garb, predating Marvel (then Timely) Comic's Captain America by more than a year. Other heroes appearing in MLJ titles during this early period included The Hangman, The Black Hood and The Wizard.
In late 1941, drawing inspiration from Mickey Rooney's popular series of Andy Hardy movies, publisher John Goldwater (the "J" in MLJ) created the character of Archibald "Archie" Andrews with staff artist Bob Montana. Archie and his friends, including best friend Jughead Jones, rival Reggie Mantle, and love interests Betty Cooper and Veronica Lodge, debuted in Pep Comics #22 in December 1941. Archie
quickly became the company's standout character, appearing in his own self-titled magazine, Archie, a month later - a title that is still in print today. And within a couple of years, the publisher had changed its name from MLJ to Archie Comics. The popularity of Archie led to the publication of a series of related titles from the 1940s through the 1960s featuring the character and his pals - Life With Archie, Archie's Pal Jughead, Archie's Girls Betty And Veronica, Little Archie, Archie's Jokebook Magazine, Archie's Madhouse, Archie And Me, Betty And Me, Reggie And Me, etc. - all of which were popular as well and long-running hits (some are also still being published to this day).
Filmation Studios was founded in 1962, and in its early years focused on creating animated TV commercials. The studio tried to branch out into network animated series, but their early attempts (including a Marx Brothers cartoon and a series featuring a boy and his dog - reminiscent of the famous "Tom Terrific" shorts featured on Captain Kangaroo in the late '50s) failed to sell. The company almost went under, before they were approached in early 1966 by DC Comics, who wanted to produce a Superman cartoon series for TV. The New Adventures Of Superman debuted in the fall of 1966 and was a smash hit, running on CBS for four years; this and other subsequent late-60s cartoon programs DC commissioned Filmation to produce (including The Adventures Of Batman, The Adventures Of Superboy, and Aquaman) saved the studio.
Looking for other potential animated projects beyond superheroes, Filmation approached Archie Comics in the winter of 1968 to gauge their interest in an animated Archie series. The publisher was immediately receptive, and by the fall of that year the program, The Archie Show, began appearing on CBS at 10:00, just after The Wacky Races and before The Batman/Superman Hour. The Archie Show was the very first Saturday morning cartoon to incorporate a laugh track (The Flintstones and The Jetsons had also used laugh tracks earlier in the '60s, but it should be remembered that these shows first broadcast at night in prime time, and weren't initially necessarily targeted towards an adolescent audience), a production technique that, due to the subsequent popularity of the program, was used extensively in weekend animation series for the next decade.
Here's the opening:
Every episode followed pretty much the same format, a seven- to eight-minute story featuring one or more of the Archie characters, followed by Archie demonstrating the "Dance Of The Week" (such as "The Betty", "The Weatherbee" and "The Hamburger Hop"), then a song performed by the gang's band,
The Archies, followed by the second seven/eight minute story and the ending credits. The songs on the program were performed by session musicians assembled by record label owner and former Monkees manager Don Kirschner, with male vocals by Ron Dante, the lead singer for the '60s pop band The Cuff Links, and female vocals initially by Toni Wine (who co-wrote The Mindbenders' hit "A Groovy Kind Of Love" in 1966, and who went on to be one of the voices in the Meow Mix cat food commercial jingle ("Meow meow meow meow, meow meow meow meow...") which ran for over thirty years), then later by Donna Marie and Merle Miller.
The first Archies album, The Archies, was released on Calendar Records in late 1968. Most of the songs on the disc were penned by acclaimed songwriter Jeff Barry, who wrote (either solo or with his then-wife Ellie Greenwich) such classic pop hits as "Da Doo Ron Ron", "Do-Wah-Diddy", "By My Baby", "Tell Laura I Love Her" and "Leader Of The Pack". The first single off of this debut disc was "Bang-Shang-A-Lang", and it did reasonably well, reaching #22 on the Billboard charts that year
(the album itself made it to #88). But it was a single by the group off of their second album Everything's Archie, released in mid-1969, that made a bigger impact.
"Sugar, Sugar" was also written by Jeff Barry, in collaboration with Andy Kim. After a slow start that spring, the song shot up the charts, holding down the #1 spot on the Billboard Hot 100 for four weeks in September, 1969 and reaching the top position in ten other countries, including Norway, Mexico and South Africa. "Sugar, Sugar" also topped the Billboard year-end charts as the Number One song in America for 1969. To date, it is the only time a fictional band has held an annual top spot. Altogether, between 1968 and 1970, The Archies placed six songs in the Hot 100, with another Top 40 hit ("Who's Your Baby") joining
"Bang-Shang-A-Lang" and "Sugar, Sugar", and charted five albums. The disc I'm providing here, also titled The Archies, is a compilation of the band's biggest songs, put out by 51 West Records in 1979 and re-released by Sony Music Special Products on CD in 1992.
The original Archie Show format ended after one season, but CBS commissioned various iterations of Archie - The Archie Comedy Hour, Archie's TV Funnies, Everything's Archie, The U.S. of Archie, etc. - every year over the next decade. The programs weren't exactly groundbreaking or innovative, but as a kid I found them a reliable constant... like the long-running The Bugs Bunny/Road Runner Show, an anchor for the rest of the network's Saturday morning slate.
Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp
Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp was a live-action series created by Mike Marmer and Stan Burns (two former writers for the late '60s comedy spy series Get Smart) that began airing on ABC on Saturday mornings in September 1970. The premise of Lancelot Link was similar to that of Get Smart - a clandestine group of spies (the "Agency To Prevent Evil", or "A.P.E.") combating a evil international organization (the "Criminal Headquarters for the Underworld's Master Plan", a.k.a. "C.H.U.M.P.") intent upon taking over the world. However, the conceit here was that all of the roles were played by chimpanzees overdubbed with human speaking voices to match their mouth movements.
While that concept sounds straightforward, in practice it was reportedly difficult to pull off. From a magazine article on the show regarding the process: "...to make the dialogue fit the chimps’ lip action, Burns and Marmer went to ridiculous lengths. Voiceovers were ad-libbed on the set, giving birth to beautifully absurd moments of the chimps breaking into songs at the end of sentences or spontaneously reciting Mother Goose rhymes just so it would look right."
They reportedly pulled out all the stops for this show, with an enormous budget (by Saturday morning TV standards; some source refer to "over seven figures") spent on location filming, intensive animal training, wardrobe and props - including multiple minibikes for the chimps to ride during chase scenes, and even a frickin' vintage Rolls Royce Silver Cloud for the villain to ride around in! The results were both surreal and hilarious, with the shows full of wacky monkey hijinks.
In addition to the main spy story, each weekly episode would also feature a musical segment (hosted by "Ed Simian") performed by Lancelot Link's all-ape band, The Evolution Revolution. The band of chimps, all dressed in period psychedelic garb and positioned with musical instruments, would belt out their latest tune (it was revealed in a later episode that these songs were actually coded messages to other A.P.E. agents). Most of the music was written and performed by Steve Hoffman, a longtime L.A. session player and member of various minor late '60s psychedelic bands such as The Proposition and The Mystic Astrologic Crystal Band.
The following taken from an interview with Lancelot Link producer Bob Emenegger, which I found on the Badcat Records website:
"One day I met with Allan Sandler who owned a large TV production studio. I had done the score to a feature film he produced called Frazier, the Sensuous Lion. Not a big hit. He was producing Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp for television with Carol Burnett Show writers [Stan] Burns and [Mike] Marmer. Allan asked me to score Lance Link - which was a blast! For the songs, I brought in Steve Hoffman who I had used on several Honda TV spots. He was a gem of a find. His talent was perfect for Lance Link, both singing and writing. Steve was an unknown vocalist, from a group that TV producer Clancy Grass used. He was/is an untrained musician who played guitar left handed. Steve composed most of the songs on the album, I did several as well ("Rollin' In the Clover" was one I co-wrote with Steve). I produced the LP exactly as if I was doing a TV commercial or background music for a film. It was not written to be bubble gum music - I penned the songs to fit the show. As I recall, Steve did all the vocals and overdubbing and we recorded in a studio that ABC/Dunhill set up. The band was made up of studio players - about 7 musicians, 2 brass with a percussionist on chimes also. It's possible the score may have called for more instruments at times. The videos were shot later to match the completed songs. They even played the tunes for the chimps - who were all over the place until they heard the music and began to play in sync to the beat.
As part of the marketing for the program, in late 1970 an album of songs from the show, titled Lancelot Link & The Evolution Revolution, was released on ABC/Dunhill Records. The tunes on the album, all sung by Hoffman, are mostly bubblegum pop, but as Emenegger mentioned above, not 100% bubblegum - many of the songs featured hints of hard guitar rock (like in "Teaser", "Live" and "Magic Feeling") and trappings of psychedelia (such as in "Daydreams"). Overall, in my opinion, this is actually a fantastic album and a prime example of pop from that period, good enough to stand on its own without reference to the TV show the music was derived from.
Altogether, just seventeen episodes of Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp were produced. Though according to sources, it had a network run of only four months (to January 1971), I recall watching it as a child for a couple of years after; I believe that ABC aired reruns of it into 1973, usually on Sunday mornings. In any event, I have fond memories of this zany, crazy, funny program and the songs from it.
The Bugaloos
The Bugaloos was a live-action Sid and Marty Krofft production that aired on NBC beginning in the fall of 1970. The main characters were a music band made up of - yes - bugs (actually, humans in insect outfits: Joy, the butterfly and lead singer; Harmony, a bumblebee, on keyboards; ladybug drummer Courage; and I.Q., a grasshopper on lead guitar) who were enormously popular in the land were they lived, the day-glo Tranquility Forest. They were all very hippie-dippy and peace-loving (as befitted the times, I suppose), but they were constantly under attack by a witch with a musical bent, Benita Bizarre (played by Martha Raye), who was jealous of their success and who wanted to destroy them so that her awful music would be dominant in the land.
The group consisted of four British teenagers, cast from more than 5,000 hopefuls earlier in the year (one of the finalists for the role of I.Q. was none other than Phil Collins; after being passed over for the role, he joined Genesis later in 1970). The show's theme song was composed by Norman Gimbel and Charles Fox, who later went on to pen the wildly popular themes for '70 shows such as Happy Days, Wonder Woman and Laverne & Shirley. This one, however, was NOT their most deathless composition:
In terms of look and premise, this was a very weird and surreal show, especially looking back on it from this time and place - then again, what Krofft shows of the period weren't? But back when it first aired, it was probably my favorite Saturday morning program. In fact, during the 1970 Christmas season that year, my dad took me to the Navy base where he was stationed in Norfolk one weekend to meet Santa Claus and receive one of the gifts they were handing out to Navy kids that year; I recall being very upset at having to go see Santa, since it was at the same time The Bugaloos were on!
At around the same time at the Lancelot Link album was released, The Bugaloos also released a self-titled album of their own on Capitol Records, featuring studio versions of songs presented on the show, sung by the cast members. This album is straight-up early '70s pop, reminiscent of music that groups like The 5th Dimension were putting out at the time. As such, there's nothing on this disc that's immediately compelling (at least to me). However, one cut off of this album, "For A Friend", actually charted, reaching #118 on the Billboard 200 that December.
The Krofft brothers had big plans for The Bugaloos, and as the first season wound down, they began preparing for the production of shows for Season 2, along with a feature film. However, the producers failed to notify the actors of their plans. As a result of this miscommunication, all of the British cast, believing the show was cancelled after 1971, returned to England - which ticked the Kroffts off royally. So both the second season and the movie deal fell through, and NBC just aired Bugaloos reruns for the 1971-72 season. Krofft Productions was hardly affected by this turn of events; their original network program, H. R. Pufnstuf, was still being aired on the network as well, and in 1971 they produced a new show, Lidsville, for ABC that had a two-year run. As a result, The Bugaloos are scarcely remembered today... except by folks like me, who look back on that strange but sweet and gentle show and smile.
Josie & The Pussycats
Josie McCoy was created by cartoonist Don DeCarlo (the person most responsible for developing the current look and design of Archie, Jughead, and their friends in Archie Comics magazines after their creation by Bob Montana) in the late 1950s. The character was named for DeCarlo's wife, and after he failed to interest anyone in featuring Josie in a newspaper strip, she began appearing in her own title, Here's Josie, in Archie Comics in early 1963. For the first few years of its existence, the comic book, featuring redheaded Josie and her friends (including ditzy blonde Melody and nerdy, bespectacled brunette Pepper), had storylines similar to that of the other Archie Comics titles (teenage romances, jealousies and rivalries; high school events; and other wholesome trials and tribulations).
A major change to the magazine's plotline came in the 45th issue, published in December 1969, when Josie and Melody decide to form a musical band, The Pussycats, with a new girl in school, Valerie. The comic book's name was also changed at that time from Josie to Josie & The Pussycats. From that point on, most of the stories centered around the band's adventures as they traveled to and performed at gigs across the country and around the world. Josie & The Pussycats quickly became one of Archie Comics' most popular titles (eventually being published well into the Eighties).
As mentioned above, Filmation's The Archie Show, the first cartoon series based on one of the Archie Comics characters, began airing on CBS in 1968 and became a huge success, not only on television but also in music, with "Sugar, Sugar" topping the charts worldwide in 1969. Filmation's rival animation studio, Hanna-Barbera Productions (run by longtime film and TV cartoon veterans William Hanna and Joseph Barbera), saw how successful (and lucrative) the Archie program had become, and was eager to emulate that success for their own company. After trying on their own - and failing (initially) - to create a show called Mysteries Five, about a teen rock band who solved mysteries between gigs (a concept that eventually evolved into Scooby-Doo, Where Are You?), Hanna-Barbera went to Archie Comics to see if the publisher had another property/character the studio could exploit for a show similar to The Archie Show. They were provided with Josie & The Pussycats.
In prepping for the series, scheduled to begin airing in 1970, Hanna-Barbera began assembling a real-live Josie & The Pussycats singing group, with the recordings to be produced by an entity called La La Productions there in Los Angeles. Early plans for the show included a live-action Pussycats performance at the end of every episode, so La La Productions began a search for three women who could match the comic book versions of the characters in resemblance and singing ability. This led to a now little-known conflict and controversy early in the production process:
La La's head, Danny Janssen, found who he thought were the perfect visual/singing doubles for the group: Kathleen
Dougherty (referred to as Cathy Dougher) as Josie, Cherie Moor (later known as Cheryl Ladd, of Charlie's Angels fame) as Melody, and Patrice Holloway (sister of Motown star Brenda Holloway) as Valerie. When Janssen presented the trio to Hanna and Barbera to finalize the music production deal, the studio heads asked Janssen to replace Holloway with another singer/actor; they had decided to present The Pussycats on TV as an all-white group and had already altered the appearance of the character - this despite the fact that Valerie had initially been conceived as black by Archie Comics, and had been appearing as such in the comic book for the past year. La La Productions refused to recast Valerie, threatening to walk away from the project, and the two companies engaged in a month-long standoff before Hanna-Barbera finally relented, changing the cartoon Valerie back to being black and retaining Holloway. Thus, Valerie became the first regular black female character on a Saturday morning series. But that whole attempt to "whitewash" the group reflects poorly on Hanna and Barbera, and in my mind taints their otherwise storied contributions to film and animation.
On the 'plus' side, however, word quickly spread around Los Angeles about the stand Janssen had taken. To show their gratitude, a number of the most notable soul session players in the city offered their services to La La Productions and the upcoming Josie & The Pussycats album at a fraction of their regular fees (and, by the way, the live-action segment of the show never panned out).
Josie & The Pussycats was broadcast on CBS starting in September, 1970. The shows were an amalgamation of plot devices from shows such as The Archie Show and Hanna-Barbera productions such as Scooby-Doo and Johnny Quest. Wikipedia provides the following succinct generic description:
Each episode would find the Pussycats and crew en route to perform a gig or record a song in some exotic location. Somehow, often due to something Alexandra [the twin sister of the group's manager, she traveled with the band for no apparent reason, as she had no discernible managerial or musical role; she was jealous of both Josie's success and her romance with her boyfriend Alan and constantly attempted to sabotage both] did, they would accidentally find themselves mixed up in an adventure/mystery. The antagonist was always a diabolical mad scientist, spy, or criminal who wanted to take over the world using some hi-tech device. The Pussycats would usually find themselves in possession of the plans for an invention, an item of interest to the villains, a secret spy message, etc., and the villains would give chase. Eventually, the Pussycats would formulate a plan to destroy the villain's plans and bring them to justice, which result in a final chase sequence set to a Pussycats song.
The Pussycats would succeed in capturing the villain and get back to their gig/recording session/etc. The final gag always centered around one of Alexandra's attempts to interfere with/put an end to the Pussycats' performance and/or steal Alan away from Josie, which would always backfire on her.
However, the show's opening featured a kickin' and now classic theme song:
Capitol Records released a self-titled Josie & The Pussycats album on December 15th, 1970, featuring performances by Dougher, Moor and Holloway of a few cuts from the show (mostly written by Danny Janssen), along with covers of recent popular tunes originally done by bands such as The Carpenters ("Close To You") and The Jackson Five ("I'll Be There"). Ironically, most of the lead vocals were provided by Holloway, including those for the show's iconic theme. In addition to the LP, Capitol released two singles from the album, "Every Beat Of My Heart" b/w "It's All Right With Me" and "You've Come A Long Way, Baby" b/w "Stop, Look and Listen", and licensed four more non-album singles to Creative Products as a promotional tool, making these discs available only through mail order with box tops from Kellogg's cereals.
Hanna-Barbera and Capitol were hoping that lightning would strike twice with the release of this album. But the Josie & The Pussycats album and related singles never came close to emulating the success of The Archies. Sales came in far below expectations, and plans for a national tour by the band were scrapped. It's hard to nail down exactly why this music failed; perhaps the market was flooded in 1970 with bubblegum/pop albums from bands both real and fictional (The Pussycats not only had to compete with all of the other releases detailed in the post, but 1970 also heralded the rise of both The Jackson 5 and The Partridge Family, whose early success sucked most of the air out of the pop market that year). It's a shame, really - the songs the band put out at that time were gorgeously produced and beautifully sung, and like the Lancelot Link disc, could have easily stood on their own merits without the TV association.
In 2001, Rhino Records gathered up every known Josie & The Pussycats song, including all of the album and singles releases along with alternate versions and seven previously unreleased Capitol recordings, fully remastered the music from the original tapes, and released Stop, Look and Listen - The Capitol Recordings in an extremely limited-edition set. Only 5,000 of these discs were ever produced, and afterwards the album was completely deleted from Rhino's catalog.
It goes without saying that this release is now rare as hell, with copies (if you can find one) selling for in excess of $300. I searched for well over a decade for this recording, and was finally just recently provided with a digitized copy by a new music friend I met via this blog - thank you once again, Christian! And now I am happy to share my good fortune with you all...
As for the Josie & The Pussycats show, sixteen episodes were produced for its first season, and were rerun during Josie's second season (1971-72) on CBS. In 1972, the format was changed to feature the band in interstellar adventures, and the show was retitled Josie & The Pussycats In Outer Space. Another sixteen episodes of this series were produced, and rerun through 1974. Afterwards, reruns of the original series were aired on both CBS, NBC and ABC over the next two years, making Josie & The Pussycats one of the few Saturday morning cartoons to air on all three networks during its existence (the only other one I can think of is The Bugs Bunny Show).
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Thanks for coming along on this brief walk down Memory Lane with me, and looking back on some of the great (and not so great) cartoons and shows from half a century ago (geez - it really HAS been that long!) and the music associated with them. And when you can, raise a cold glass of Nestle Quik in tribute to and in mourning for the classic Saturday morning children's program, now gone the way of the dinosaur. Oh well... at least we still have albums like these left to listen to, to give us "old timers" a taste of what we enjoyed so much back then, and younger folks a sense of the time period, and what they might have missed.
In any event, enjoy, and as always, let me know what you think.
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
The Banana Splits - We're The Banana Splits (1968): Send Email The Archies - s/t (1979): Send Email Lancelot Link & The Evolution Revolution - s/t (1970): Send Email The Bugaloos - Bugaloos (1970): Send Email Josie & The Pussycats - Stop, Look & Listen - The Capitol Recordings (2001): Send Email
Saying "Thanks" for the music you receive from here costs you absolutely nothing, and yet is worth quite a bit to me… If you can't bother leaving a comment on this blog for the first album/set we send you, don't bother making a request For a second album…
