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!
In a post I made a couple of years ago, I detailed the publication history of The Beatles Monthly Book, a a magazine put out by Beat Publications Ltd. which had an original run from 1963 to 1969, with a subsequent revival (consisting of reprints and new material) from 1976 to 2003. In that post, I mentioned that the publisher, Sean O'Mahony, had also released a similarly group-dedicated Rolling Stones Book during the same period in the mid-60s.
"Between 1964 and 1966, the Stones issued THE ROLLING STONES BOOK (also
known as “The Rolling Stones Monthly Book”), the equivalent of the
Beatles’ ‘The Beatles Monthly Book’, as well produced by British
publishing company Beat Publications Ltd. The first issue came out on
June 10 1964, and continued to be published monthly until November 1966,
with a total of 30 numbers. Each one featured approximately thirty
pages (size 8 X 6.25 inches) containing updated information about the
group, as well as exclusive photos, interviews, song lyrics, etc. The
Beatles Monthly Book closed down temporarily in the early ’70s, but it
was revived later, first reprinting the originals, but then as a
launching pad for UK Record Collector magazine, and finally shutting up
in January 2003, while ‘The Rolling Stones Book’ had only the original
edition."
As noted above, unlike The Beatles Book, the Rolling Stones-centered magazine was never republished or revived after its initial run, and as such it has been somewhat difficult for fans of the group to find... until now.
A German Stones fan by the name of Christof made a special effort back in 2020 to create top-quality .pdf copies of every issue, and he kindly but briefly made them available for download. By special request, he recently provided me with copies of the entire print run - which I now happily bestow unto you. Here for your enjoyment are all thirty issues (plus a bonus edition) of The Rolling Stones Book, again formatted for viewing on your computer or printing, if you're so inclined.
Thanks once again to Christof for his diligent, dedicated efforts, which have been greatly appreciated by me and I hope by you all as well!
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
Once again, here's my annual post commemorating the death of Fall major-domo and 'Godlike Genius' Mark E. Smith, who slipped this mortal coil four years ago today.
There's even less to talk about in regards to The Gruppe this year. As I've noted in prior commemorative yearly posts, the silence in FallWorld continues to settle. The last post on the Official Fall Website was in February 2018, the month after
Mark died, and its discussion board has been dormant, with the last new
post in May 2020, nearly two years ago. The "unofficial" (and in my opinion, better) website The Fall Online website hosted its last posting in June 2020. At
least The Fall Online Forum there is still fairly active, with new posts and
discussions almost daily. But I've definitely noticed a decrease in the scope and level of activity there. At least there are some Facebook group sites, such as "Mark E Smith & The Fall: It's Not Repetition, It's Discipline" and "The Mighty Fall", trying to hold up their end. But it's distressing to see widespread memories of my all-time favorite band gradually fading away.
Imperial Wax was on hiatus for most of 2020, as the COVID moratorium on live music entered its second year. However, in October of last year, the band played its first gigs in almost two years, and continued with another one earlier this month. They appear to be expanding their concert slate in England and on the Continent further into the year, and have mentioned that they are in the process of writing their second album, which currently has an unknown release date scheduled.
Brix and The Extricated, Brix Smith-Start's much-maligned band made up of former Fall stalwarts, a group I have heaped tons of scorn and derision on over the years, appears to be no more - thank God. Brix announced that she would be releasing a solo album, Valley Of The Dolls, later this year, and also putting together an all-female band made up of "post-punk feminists", including former members of My Bloody Valentine, to take out on the road sometime this spring. With typical modesty and humility, she added that the group would be "going under the name Brix Smith or possibly Brix Smith Group, I haven’t
decided yet. It’s time for me to put my money where my mouth is and take
it out there!"
(Man, the narcissism and relentless self-promotion NEVER ends with her, does it?)
Not much more left to say, so I'll just get to the music. For your review this year, I'm offering a compilation of reinterpretations/re-imaginings of some classic Fall tunes, all done by French artists. I love sets like this - not only do you sometimes get interesting, off-the-wall takes on songs you know well and love, this album also shows the worldwide reach and influence of The Fall's music. I highly recommend it.
Here for your perusal is The Fall: A French Tribute, released on Teenage Hate Records on November 15th, 2019. Enjoy, and use this disc to keep Mark E. Smith and his band in your thoughts for just a little while longer. 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'm sure that for many of you visiting this blog, the name of Leslie Bricusse, who died this past October 19th at the ripe old age of 90, won't ring any particular bells. But for a time in the '60s and '70s, the man was a giant in music, particularly in musical theater. His work provided the world with several beloved and memorable tunes which are now regarded as popular standards.
Born in London in 1931 to a wholly nontheatrical family (his father was a newspaper circulation manager), Bricusse gained entrance to the prestigious University of Cambridge, majoring in languages. While there, he quickly found a place in the college's famous amateur theatrical troupe, Footlights, an organization he eventually became president of during his senior year (later, beginning in the 1960s, Footlights alumnae came to dominate British comedy, producing such celebrated performers as David Frost, Douglas Adams (The Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy), National Lampoon's Tony Hendra, Stephen Fry, Hugh Laurie, and several members of the Monty Python troupe).
As president of the Footlights, he co-wrote and appeared in the 1954 revue Out of the Blue, the first Cambridge revue to reach the West End (London's equivalent to New York's Broadway theater scene). The success of this show caught the attention of longtime West End music hall star Beatrice Lillie, who took Bricusse under her wing as her leading man in her own popular revue, An Evening With Beatrice Lillie. Lillie's show played in both London and New York, and through it Bricusse was established as a "name" in international musical theater. He remained with Lillie's show through the end of the 1950s.
Late in that decade, while on a cruise in the Indian Ocean, Bricusse caught the show of the ocean liner's featured performer, British radio star, screen actor and occasional pop singer Anthony Newley. The two became acquainted while at sea, and began making plans to work together on a musical production. The pair's first collaboration, 1961's Stop The World - I Want To Get Off, was a smash hit in both the West End and on Broadway. The show included Bricusse and Newley's show-stopping song "What Kind Of Fool Am I?", which eventually won a Grammy Award as Song Of The Year and is currently a popular standard. The pair followed this show with another Broadway musical success, 1965's The Roar Of The Greasepaint - The Smell Of The Crowd, a show that was nominated for several Tony Awards that year.
Fresh from their Broadway triumphs, Bricusse and Newley moved into the world of movie music, with their first effort turning out to be a classic; in 1964, they wrote the words to composer John Barry's theme for a James Bond movie coming out later that year - Goldfinger. This tune - sung the HELL out of by Shirley Bassey - is still considered the all-time greatest Bond movie song:
Bricusse scored the title theme to another James Bond movie, You Only Live Twice, in 1967. The song is regarded as another Bond classic and was a huge hit for Nancy Sinatra that year. From that year onward, Bricusse concentrated his work in film scores and movie musicals rather than with stage productions. This included 1967's Doctor Doolittle (a notorious box-office bomb for its time, that still produced a hit song, the Oscar-winning "Talk To The Animals") and 1970's Scrooge (featuring another popular hit, "Thank You Very Much").
But in 1971, again collaborating with Newley, the pair produced the work they are most known and revered for. They were commissioned to write all of the songs for a musical fantasy film being directed by Mel Stuart and starring Gene Wilder - Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory. This movie is chock-full of Bricusse/Newley classics, including "The Candy Man", a revised version becoming a big hit for Sammy Davis Jr. the following year (in fact, his only #1 song):
But probably the most beloved song from the Willy Wonka soundtrack is the one sung by the title character, the great "Pure Imagination".
In the past fifty years, this song has been covered and remixed hundreds of times by a wide variety of artists, including Lou Rawls, Mariah Carey, The Muppets, Barbra Streisand and Primus.
Willy Wonka the movie was not a huge success when first released, barely making back its production costs, and the original owners and producers (Paramount Pictures and Quaker Oats) sold off the rights to the property to Warner Bros. for a pittance a few years later. The film really didn't become widely seen or popular until the advent of home video in the mid-1980s, gradually growing its status from a cult film into a widely-loved classic. Eventually, Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory was selected for preservation in the United States National Film Registry by the Library of Congress in 2014 as being "culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant".
However, the flick's soundtrack was almost immediately recognized and celebrated as something special. Bricusse and Newley's work received Willy Wonka's only Academy Award nomination that year, for Best Original Score (it lost to Fiddler On The Roof). The soundtrack album was first released on Paramount Records in 1971; here's the complete track listing, for your edification:
"Main Title (Golden Ticket/Pure Imagination)"
"The Candy Man"
"Charlie's Paper Run"
"Cheer Up, Charlie"
"Lucky Charlie"
"(I've Got A) Golden Ticket"
"Pure Imagination"
"Oompa Loompa"
"The Wondrous Boat Ride"
"Everlasting Gobstoppers/Oompa Loompa"
"The Bubble Machine"
"I Want It Now/Oompa Loompa"
"Wonkamobile, Wonkavision/Oompa Loompa
"Wonkavator/End Title (Pure Imagination)"
In 1996, Hip-O Records (in conjunction with MCA Records, which by then owned the Paramount catalog), released the soundtrack on CD as a "25th Anniversary Edition".And in 2016, Universal Music Group and Geffen Records released a 45th Anniversary Edition LP. In all, these multiple releases seemed like overkill/a money grab by the respective labels, since every version had the exact same songs listed above on it.
Leslie Bricusse continued to write music and lyrics for several movie and stage productions throughout the remainder of his life... but Willy Wonka will probably always be the one he'll be most remember for. In honor of his long and productive life, here's Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory (Music From The Original Soundtrack), put out by the labels noted above in their respective years. 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:
RIP to Everett Morton, drummer for the classic '80s ska revival band The Beat (known more familiarly in the States as The English Beat), who died last October 8th at the age of 71. His innovative, syncopated drumming anchored the band through three studio album releases (1980's Special Beat Service, 1981's Wha'ppen, and 1982's I Just Can't Stop It) and innumerable live appearances up to the group's breakup in 1983. Afterwards, Morton teamed up with former group member Saxa (on saxophone, obviously) and new vocalist Tony Beet to form The International Beat, releasing a album, The Hitting Line, in 1991, followed by Dance Hall Rockers in 1996. Even after the demise of his original band, Morton stayed friendly with former Beat frontman Ranking Roger (Roger produced and participated on The International Beat's first album), and in later years the two performed as a version of the original Beat all across the UK, up until Roger's death in 2019.
Back in the day, The English Beat was one of my mainstay ska revival bands (along with The Specials and Madness). I aurally devoured any and everything they put out, and recall being bitterly disappointed when I heard of the group's demise... so much so that for years afterward, I avidly followed the former members of the old band in their new projects. For a while in the mid-80s, I was a fan of Fine Young Cannibals (guitarist Andy Cox and bassist David Steele's pop/rock/jazz project with vocalist Roland Gift), whose music was a far cry from the Beat's ska beat. In 1984, I bought All The Rage, the debut album of General Public, vocalists Ranking Roger and Dave Wakeling's post-breakup band (with Mick Jones from The Clash and Horace Panter from The Specials). And in the early 90's, I never missed an opportunity to see Special Beat, an amalgamation of members of the two ska revival giants, whenever they played Washington, DC (as I've mentioned long ago...).
But somehow, I missed out on The International Beat's music until long after its release. I must say I enjoy this album very much. Its sound is closer to the softer, poppier Wha'ppen-era Beat music, rather than the harder, straight-ahead ska sound of the band's debut album. But that is not to say that The Hitting Line is without merit. In my opinion, of all the post-breakup releases, Morton and Saxa's album comes the closest to replicating the old English Beat vibe.
But here - judge for yourself. In honor of the life and work of Mr. Everett Morton, I proudly offer you all The Hitting Line Crosses The Border, Dojo Records' 1992 rerelease (with bonus tracks) of The International Beat's original debut album, The Hitting Line, from the prior year on Triple X Records. This will be a welcome addition to your ska revival collection!
In any event, 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:
As I did during this time last year, the following are a series of posts regarding possibly less
heralded/recognized musicians and artists who died in 2021 who will be sorely
missed.
Richard H. Kirk, a founding member of influential English industrial/electronic band Cabaret Voltaire, died on September 21st at the age of 65.
Cabaret Voltaire came together in the early 1970s, when Sheffield, England resident Chris Watson, an admirer of Brian Eno's early work, began experimenting with his own self-made electronic music gizmos. His early noodlings caught the attention of fellow Sheffieldite and Eno devotee Kirk, and the two began working together making sound collage tape loops. Kirk began adding traditional instruments into the mix, and late in 1973 enlisted his friend Stephen Mallinder to add vocals and bass guitar. The band began appearing live at venues in the central UK in the spring of 1975, but these performances leaned more towards performance art than actual concerts. Their provocative stage antics led to some highly raucous and violent incidents in those early days (with injuries incurred by both audience and band members), but with the rise of punk rock in the late '70s, audiences became more accepting of what Cabaret Voltaire had to offer. By the end of that decade, the group was sharing bills with the likes of Joy Division and Gang Of Four. Their debut album, Mix-Up, was released in 1979, the first of over a dozen LPs put out during the band's initial run (they broke up in 1994, only to reform in 2014. albeit with Kirk as the sole remaining member).
I didn't know anything about Cabaret Voltaire until the mid-80s, during my senior (First Class) year at the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, MD. That year, an underclassman nicknamed "Rock" moved into my company. Rock was the antithesis of what the standard template for a military officer was or should be - he was tall, gaunt and geeky, in a young Ric Ocasek-sort of way. And he had both a biting wit and a semi-rebellious attitude, features that did not serve him well with the Academy leadership and hierarchy.
But he had superb musical tastes, and he and I began bonding over our shared enjoyment of bands considered to be outside of the popular mainstream. Rock turned me on to groups like Pere Ubu and Bauhaus with its various offshoots (like Tones On Tail and Love & Rockets). And he was the one who introduced me to Cabaret Voltaire, playing "Crackdown" from the album of the same name for me one weekend afternoon. But even with exposures to that album and songs like "James Brown" and "Sensoria" from their next disc Micro-Phonies, I can't say that I was a huge CV fan until after I graduated and moved to Athens, Georgia for a few months. As I've mentioned before, mid/late-80s Athens was a musical hotbed, and the University of Georgia's student-run radio station, WUOG, was amazing, always playing interesting stuff. And one day they spun the song "I Want You", off of the group's latest disc The Covenant, The Sword, And The Arm Of The Lord:
That was the tune that hooked me, and I immediately ran out to purchase the album.
The Covenant, The Sword, And The Arm Of The Lord was one of Cabaret Voltaire's most contentious and controversial albums. From Wikipedia:
"Cabaret Voltaire struggled with several censorship issues with Some Bizarre and Virgin Records upon the release of the album. The original title... was forced to be shortened [to The Arm Of The Lord] in the US to avoid reference to a former American white supremacist
organization. Musically, the album featured a more abrasive,
sample-heavy sound than its predecessor and contained many sexual
innuendos in the lyrics, to which Virgin Records took objection. Several
speeches by Charles Manson were also mixed in between songs."
Virgin laid down the law to the band, saying that there had to be a charting single released from this album, otherwise they would be dropped from the label. In response, Cabaret Voltaire cheekily wrote and directed the above video for the brutal "I Want You" (they later admitted the song was about masturbation). Shockingly, the move worked - the album made the British Top 60, calming the label's fears (the band still left Virgin for EMI for their next album in 1987).
Long before the original band's first dissolution, Kirk had begun releasing solo albums, the first of which being 1980's Disposable Half-Truths.
He released six more solo LPs prior to the breakup, then significantly
increased his output in the 1990s, with releases and collaborations
under his own name and scores of aliases (including Sandoz, DR Xavier,
Biochemical Dread, Electronic Eye Dark Magus and Wicky Wacky) dabbling
in not only the industrial, but the techno/dance genre as well. Not only was he a pioneer, but he was prolific, and will be sorely missed.
In celebration of the life of Richard H. Kirk, here's a copy of my favorite Cabaret Voltaire record, The Covenant, The Sword, And The Arm Of The Lord, put out by Virgin Records in November 1985. Remember, enjoy, and - as I always say - 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:
Time for some of my annual Christmas postings... and my first selection for this year is a doozy!
As mentioned in a previous post, the television program The Brady Bunch premiered on ABC in the fall of 1969. The show was extremely popular with kids in its first couple of seasons, but that popularity wasn't reflected in the overall Nielsen TV ratings, which ranked The Brady Bunch somewhere near the middle (at best) to the back of the pack. Still, the network and the producers wanted to further capitalize on the program's pre-teen popularity, and early in the second season, someone came up with the inspired idea of releasing an album full of Christmas standards sung by the kids as something that might appeal with their target audience.
It goes without saying that this recording was not exactly a labor of love by anyone involved... The kids (Barry Williams ("Greg"), Maureen McCormick ("Marcia"), Christopher Knight ("Peter"), Eve Plumb ("Jan"), Mike Lookinland ("Bobby") and Susan Olsen ("Cindy")) weren't particularly enthused about doing it - except for perhaps McCormick, who had some limited vocal experience, the rest of them had little if any significant singing talent to exploit. Facing this fact and the relative brevity of time allotted to cut this disc, the production staff were even less happy to be involved in this project (album producer Tim O’Brien, who was
also Paramount’s house producer, was later quoted as lamenting trying to pull something listenable
from “six little kids who could not sing”). And network management could have cared less about the resulting quality of the finished product - they just wanted something related to their semi-hit show out before the holidays. In that atmosphere, production commenced in mid-October, 1970.
Recorded in less than two weeks, the album mixed group sing-alongs with
solo performances on classic holiday standards (“We
finished our vocals in one afternoon, and then listened intently as the audio
engineers used every gimmick, trick and echo chamber in the book to get us at
least up to ‘listenable’ status,” recalled Barry Williams). None
of the tracks are especially memorable; frankly, most of them are jaw-droppingly horrible renditions that soon segue into the realm of "Oh my God!" hilarity. A prime example of this is their version of "O Holy Night", which I only recently listened to for the first time in years. The song starts off semi-tolerable, until it reaches the chorus... at which point I burst out in incredulous laughter at its stunning awfulness. The label had the cojones to actually release a single from this album, Susan Olsen's lisping rendition of "Frosty The Snowman" - there wouldn't be another.
It's not like there weren't any decent Christmas numbers to pull from the show; mother Carol Brady (Florence Henderson) laid down a beautiful performance of “O Come All Ye Faithful,”
featured in the series’ only Christmas episode, that for some reason was not among the selections (I guess they just wanted to focus on the kids - bad decision).
All in all, this record, in my opinion, has all the hallmarks of a recording of an amateur holiday pageant from some elementary school in the Midwest - good enough for parents and attendees to have a memory of their child warbling off-key Christmas songs, but nowhere near good enough to actually release for purchase.
One of the other weird things about this album is that the kids recorded it
"in character". As shown below, some of the songs say "lead vocal by Bobby Brady, Jan
Brady", etc., not by the actors' names.
This thing was pushed out the door so fast, they obviously didn't spend a lot of time on spell checking or proper song annotation - "Marcia Brady's" name is spelled "Marsha" here; and some of the lead vocals are credited to the incorrect child.
These are the correct lead vocals for this disc:
1) The First Noel - Mike 2) Away in a Manger - Maureen 3) The Little Drummer Boy - all 6 kids 4) O Come All Ye Faithful - Eve 5) O Holy Night - Maureen & Barry 6) Silent Night - all 6 kids 7) Jingle Bells - all 6 kids 8) Frosty the Snowman - Susan 9) Silver Bells - all 6 kids 10) Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer - all 6 kids 11) Santa Claus is Coming to Town - Barry 12) We Wish You a Merry Christmas - all 6 kids
Not exactly the mark of a quality production.
Anyway, for good or ill for you this holiday season, here you are: The Brady Bunch Kids' debut album, Merry Christmas From The Brady Bunch, released by Paramount Records on November 2nd, 1970, and rereleased on CD (and renamed Christmas With The Brady Bunch) by MCA Records in 1995. Get ready...
Whatever your reaction, 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:
For those of you who have been watching and enjoying Peter Jackson's Beatles documentary Get Back on Disney+ over the past week: This site has long had an offering available directly related to this streaming TV program, as one of many "secret posts" I'd hidden throughout this blog over the years (I'm sure that, with a little thought (traveling down the road/running the gamut from A to B...) you can guess what that offering entails...).
Where is that secret post, you may ask? Well, it could be somewhere in here... or possibly here... or maybe here... (but definitely NOT here - this would be a particularly POOR place to look... đ). Either way, I'm not tellin'!
With October 31st just around the corner, and longtime horror hostess Elvira (or more specifically Cassandra Peterson, the actress who plays Elvira) in the news recently due to the revelations in her recently published autobiographyYours Cruelly, Elvira: Memoirs of the Mistress of the Dark, I thought I might post a couple of her Halloween-related compilations.
The first Elvira music compilation came out in 1983, a couple of years after Peterson auditioned for and won the job of presenter for a revival of a popular Los Angeles-area weekend horror show featuring old scary movies called Fright Night. The program (renamed Elvira's Movie Macabre) featured her now-iconic character Elvira, Mistress Of The Dark, a saucy, sarcastic, 'Valley Girl'-type tricked out in heavily-applied horror-film makeup, a huge black beehive wig and a tight-fitting, low-cut black gown which displayed Peterson's ample chest. Elvira not only introduced the decidedly Grade-B, -C and -Z films, she would often interrupt the flicks during the program to poke fun of their overall crappiness, in addition to making racy double entendres and jokes about her boobs. She quickly gained notoriety and popularity in the region, and parlayed that success to appearances on Johnny Carson's Tonight Show and other programs (like CHiPs and The Fall Guy) which brought her nationwide fame.
Her first release, Elvira Presents Vinyl Macabre - Oldies But Ghoulies (Vol. 1), was a quickie collection of Halloween/horror-related rock and pop hits and standards by the likes of Bobby "Boris" Pickett and Sheb Wooley, slapped together by Rhino Records in the early years of that label's existence. As such, Peterson/Elvira had little to do with or on the album, other than record a couple of intros/outros and appear on the cover in all her glory. Despite its relative generic October music presentation, today this disc commands high prices, probably because the record was never rereleased on cassette or CD.
The follow-up to this initial release was Elvira Presents Haunted Hits, put out in 1988. Actually, in some ways, this album serves as sort-of rerelease of Vinyl Macabre, as it reprises a number of songs that were on the first compilation (like "Monster Mash", "Purple People Eater" and "Haunted House"), while adding a substantial number of other holiday-related tunes, some rather popular and renowned. In case you're interested, here's the lineup:
Monster Mash - Bobby 'Boris' Pickett & The Crypt-Kickers
Haunted House - Jumpin' Gene Simmons
Ghostbusters - Ray Parker Jr.
Out OF Limits - The Marketts
The Blob - The Five Blobs
The Creature From The Black Lagoon - Dave Edmunds
The Purple People Eater - Sheb Wooley
The Addams Family (Main Title) - Victor Mizzy
Twilight Zone - Neil Norman & His Cosmic Orchestra
Welcome To My Nightmare - Alice Cooper
End Of Side One - Elvira
Beginning Of Side Two - Elvira
Halloween Spooks - Lambert, Hendricks & Ross
Dead Man's Party - Oingo Boingo
Little Demon - Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Horror Movie - The Skyhooks
I Put A Spell On You - Screamin' Jay Hawkins
King Kong - Big T. Tyler
Attack OF The 50-Foot Woman - The Tubes
I Was A Teenage Werewolf - The Cramps
Voodoo Voodoo - LaVern Baker
The Creature (From Outer Space) - The Jayhawks
Full Moon - Elvira
Martian Hop - The Ran-Dells
Attack Of The Killer Tomatoes - Lee Lewis
Elvira's Outro - Elvira
Elvira was a little more involved on this album; in addition to her commentary, she's even provided a full song to sing, "Full Moon" - a lightweight, synth-poppy confection that doesn't hold up well next to the other classics included here. But all in all, in my opinion, this is probably the best of the compilations released under her name, due to the breadth, scope and volume of fun Halloween music offered here. It was a bestseller for the label when it was released, and remains a perennially popular disc.
But the success of the ...Haunted Hits album seemed to lead to some unfortunate decisions/choices for the next Elvira compilation, Elvira Presents Monster Hits, released six years later. It appears that someone (either Peterson herself or the producers) believed that the big selling point for the earlier set was the increase in Elvira's voice and presence. So for this new one, the decision was made to ratchet up the "Elvira factor" - more than one-third of this short (28 minute long) album is centered on her. This includes two original songs, "Monsta' Rap" and "Here Comes The Bride (The Bride Of Frankenstein)" - both generally bland, worthless songs that do little more than take up space that could have been better utilized by including more classic and well-known Halloween songs. The track list for this brief release is as follows:
Introduction - Elvira
Monsta' Rap - Elvira
Little Demon - Screamin' Jay Hawkins
Feed My Frankenstein - Alice Cooper
Monster Mash - Bobby 'Boris' Pickett
Nightmare On My Street - DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince
The Addams Family - Joey Gaynor
Here Comes The Bride (The Bride Of Frankenstein) - Elvira
Outro - Elvira
Also note that this comp includes several repeats from Elvira's previous releases, making the existence of this one somewhat redundant.
In years to come, Rhino would release a couple more Halloween compilations under Elvira's name, all to gradually diminishing returns: Revenge Of The Monster Hits in 1995 and Elvira's Gravest Hits (an 'best of' (*eye roll*) album devoted almost solely to tunes crooned by her) in 2010, along with Heavy Metal Halloween in 2009. But these have done little to decrease the fame of Peterson's signature character; Elvira remains popular and active to this day.
Anyway, here for your spook-tacular pleasure are two discs to make your haunted holiday complete:
Elvira Presents Haunted Hits, released in 1988; and
Elvira Presents Monster Hits, released in 1994
Both were put out by Rhino Records.
Enjoy, and have a wonderful, safe and happy Halloween! 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:
Various Artists - Elvira Presents Haunted Hits: Send Email Various Artists - Elvira Presents Monster Hits: Send Email
Wow, man - Charlie Watts... We lost a GIANT today, ladies and gentlemen, and an inspiration to rock drummers everywhere. The consummate, detached, sardonic professional and perfectionist, who grounded The Rolling Stones with his steady, yet innovative beats for nearly sixty years.
I've been going through the multitude of remembrances, eulogies and tributes to Mr. Watts all afternoon since I heard the news. Of all of them, I feel that Rob Sheffield captured the manner, spirit and essence of him the best, in the article filed earlier today in Rolling Stone magazine. Honestly, what more need be said?
In honor of the late drummer, I'm offering up for your enjoyment not a Rolling Stones album or rarity, but the loose and rollicking jam session members of the band recorded with two longtime friends and session players (pianist Nicky Hopkins and guitarist Ry Cooder) one night in the spring of 1969, while The Stones were in the middle of recording tracks with producer Glyn Johns for their upcoming album Let It Bleed. The quintet shambled and shuffled through a few loose bluesy originals (penned by Watts, Cooder and Hopkins), along with a couple of blues covers they liked.
It was all a big goof, and at the time it was done, they had no intention whatsoever of releasing the songs. In the original liner notes, Mick Jagger describes the album as "a nice piece of bullshit... which we cut one night in London, England while waiting for our guitar player to get out of bed. It was promptly forgotten (which may have been for the better) ..." As such, it sat around in the vaults for years, until one day a bored Johns retrieved it. Johns said of the album: "[It] was just a joke really, just a laugh. I recorded it and they played it, and then, I don't know how long later [ed. note: nearly three years, actually], we dug the tapes out, I mixed it and they stuck it out on an album. It didn't really warrant releasing really, but it was okay, a bit of fun, and there's some good playing on it." The disc charted briefly in America, eventually peaking at #33 on Billboard, but did nothing in the UK.
To this day, this release is generally reviled and disowned by Rolling Stones purists, who equate the recorded performances here to that of A Toot And A Snore In '74, a recording of a similarly loose (albeit drug-fueled) jam session by John Lennon, Paul McCartney, Harry Nilsson and Stevie Wonder in Los Angeles in the spring of 1974. But I feel that comparison is unfair, and unwarranted. Despite its slapdash nature, there is some good playing on this disc, and at best it shows The Stones unadorned, belting out numbers like the bar band they started out as. All in all, it's definitely worth a listen.
So here it is for you all to do just that - Jamming With Edward! ("Edward" was Nicky Hopkins' nickname), recorded on the evening of April 23rd, 1969, and released on Rolling Stones Records on January 7th, 1972. Enjoy this in the spirit in which it is offered, in honor of the life and legacy of the sublime and now-immortal Charlie Watts. 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:
R.I.P. to Isaac Donald (Don) Everly yesterday at the age of 84, the last surviving member of the Everly Brothers (Phil Everly died in 2014) - if not THE greatest, certainly the most influential rock 'n' roll duo of all time. The Everly's close harmonies were a major influence on rock greats like The Beach Boys, The Beatles, The Bee Gees, and especially Simon & Garfunkel. They hold the record for the most Top 100 U.S. singles by any duo, and trail only Hall & Oates as the duo with the most Top 40 hits. The Everly Brothers are recipients of the Grammy Lifetime Achievement Award, have a star dedicated to them on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and have been inducted into the Vocal Group Hall of Fame, the Rockabilly Hall of Fame, the Musician's Hall of Fame (for Don's innovative rhythm guitar riff on their early hit "Wake Up, Little Susie"), the Country Music Hall of Fame, and of course the Rock Hall of Fame, where the group was included as part of the inaugural class of genre pioneers in 1986. Rolling Stone magazine ranked The Everly Brothers at #33 on its list of "The 100 Greatest Artists Of All Time".
(I list all of these superlatives because, although it seems the duo are all but forgotten today, they were the real deal, and no joke.)
With their greatness basically pretty self-explanatory, I don't think I need to go into great length here with this posting on the background, whys and wherefores of The Everly Brothers. I'll just cut to the chase, and pony up the music...
The duo had their first breakout hits on Cadence Records in the late 1950s, finding massive and widespread success with classic songs like "Bye Bye Love" and "Wake Up, Little Susie" (both 1957), "All I Have To Do Is Dream" and "Bird Dog" (both 1958).
After three years at Cadence, the Everlys signed with Warner Bros. Records in 1960 and stayed with the label for a decade. Their early years at Warners were their most successful, with their first label release, "Cathy's Clown", topping the charts and selling eight million copies. Other early '60s Top Ten hits included "Walk Right Back" and "Crying In The Rain". Although their star faded somewhat in America with the advent of the British Invasion, The Everly Brothers remained very popular and successful in the United Kingdom and Canada for the remainder of the decade.
Here for your listening pleasure is the Everly Brothers compilation The Price Of Fame, covering the first five years (1960-1965) the group was at Warner Bros., and including not only every release from that period, but a number of alternate takes and outtake sessions. Every early huge label hit is here, along with re-recordings of some of their early Cadence music. This is a massive set... but I feel it's an essential one for fans of the Everlys and for rock fans in general.
The compilation was put out by the celebrated German label and reissue specialists Bear Family Records on January 31st, 2006. Since its a Bear Family release, you know it's going to be thorough!
Anyway, enjoy, and let me know what you think. Thanks and farewell to you, Don - the choir in Rock 'n' Roll Heaven just got a little better. All the best to you and your brother, wherever you are.
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
[I began putting this one together back in mid-2018... but discovered
some problems with the discs that took a while to sort out, and by the
time I did so, I'd moved on to other write-ups. Guess I'll finish this
one up now...]
I found this rarity available for download a couple of months ago [ed. note - early 2018], from an obscure music website, Kangnave (which appears to have been actively added to for a couple of years in the mid-2010s, but hasn't seen a new posting since 2015). Here's the description the blog moderator put up regarding this:
This is a pretty insane project put together by my pal Vince B. from San
Francisco a few years back. As the title indicates, this is a homemade
12 x CD-R (!) compilation of punk bands fronted by female vocalists from
1977 to 1989. More like a giant mixtape than a compilation, as he only
made 36 copies which he sent to friends and people who submitted
material. You may notice that some of the bands didn’t have a steady
female vocalist (The Lewd, etc.) but he still included songs that were
sung by another member of the band. This is as international as it gets,
with stuff ranging from world famous Blondie or Crass to the most
obscure Eastern European cassette compilation veterans. The boxset came
packaged in a handnumbered fancy translucent lunchbox enclosing all 12
CD-Rs, a stack of full-colored cards featuring comprehensive tracklist
and artwork/info, as well as a manga pin-up figure! Talk about a labor
of love.
Like the guy above said, this is a pretty incredible worldwide collection of decent to excellent punk vocalized by women - here's the lineup for all twelve discs:
Disc 1:
1. Blutsturz – Schweigen (Demo) (Germany, 198?) 2. Penetration – Money Talks (England, 1977) 3. PyhĂ€koulu – Painajainen (Finland, 1986) 4. VulpeSS – Me Gusta Ser Una Zorra (Spain, 1983) 5. The Comes – Panic (Japan, 1984) 6. Suicide Squad – New Kids Army (Australia, 1980) 7. Rivolta Dell’Odio – Altari Del Terrore (Italy, 1984) 8. Sick Things – Anti-Social Disease (England, 1977) 9. Accident (a.k.a Accidents) – True Detective (USA, 1979) 10. Dishrags – I Don’t Love You (Canada, 1979) 11. Ăltimo Resorte – Hogar, Dulce Hogar (Demo) (Spain, 1981) 12. The Fastbacks – Someone Else’s Room (USA, 1981) 13. Anorexia – Rapist In The Park (England, 1980) 14. Phobia – Pretend You’re Not Crazy (USA, 1978) 15. Androids Of Mu – Bored Housewives (England, 1981) 16. Sort Sol (With Lydia Lunch) – Boy-Girl (Denmark/USA, 1983) 17. Tappi Tikarrass – Skrid (Iceland, 1984) 18. Flowers – After Dark (Scotland, 1979) 19. The Rentals – I Got A Crush On You (USA, 1979) 20. Pariapunk – Double Face (France, 1987) 21. Amsterdamned – Traditie Amme Balle (Netherlands, 1982) 22. Dr. Zeke – Vild I Skogen (Sweden, 1979) 23. The Lewd – Magnetic Heart (USA, 1982) 24. Au Pairs – Kerb Crawler (England, 1980) 25. Mo-Dettes – White Mice (USA/Switzerland/England, 1979) 26. Stripes – Weekend Love (Germany, 1980) 27. Violators – The Fugitive (England, 1980)
1. Pervers – Asozial (Germany, 1984) 2. Hugh Beaumont Experience – Moo (USA, 1983) 3. Inocentes with Meire – Ri Dos Hippies (Brazil, 1984) 4. Ruggedy Annes – Hollow Heroes (Canada, 1985) 5. Blowdriers– Berkeley Farms (USA, 1979) 6. Rap – Accident (Japan, 1985) 7. Decadent – Opposition Proposition (USA, 1982) 8. Warriors – Born To Ride (Japan, 1987) 9. Bambix – Little Miss Sunshine (Netherlands, 1989) 10. Super Heroines – Death On The Elevator (USA, 1981) 11. Cherry Vanilla – The Punk (England, 1977) 12. Hari-Kari – Prey For Peace (USA, 1983) 13. Kleenex – Ă (Switzerland, 1979) 14. Chute De Esperma – No Keremos (Spain, 1984) 15. Revo – Fuck The School (Netherlands, 1980) 16. The Fall – Hotel BlĂŽedel (England, 1983) 17. Der RiĂ– Images (Germany, 1985)
As the compiler mentioned above, in some ways, the title of this set is a misnomer... although many of the bands featured in this compilation (such as The Raincoats, Kleenex, The Slits, Hans-A-Plast, etc.) are indeed all-woman groups, a good proportion of the songs being offered here are by unisex bands that just happened to have a woman as a lead singer (like X, Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, Chumbawumba and X-Ray Spex) or groups that let one of the female members sing a song or two (like The Fall, 45 Grave, The Rezillos, and the like). Perhaps a better name for this would have been A Reference of Female Voices in Punk Rock 1977-89... but maybe I'm just nitpicking. All in all, the selection here is superb...
Unfortunately, the initial set of downloads burned from this blogger's copies were NOT superb. I had a heck of a lot of issues with some of the song files, especially in the last five or six discs - some files were incomplete, others hopelessly corrupted. So I made the time and took the extra effort to cull out the crap and find replacement files for some of these bands from other sources. Considering the level of obscurity of some of the tunes provided in this set, it goes without saying that it took a while for me to track everything down. But in the end, I think I did. So the set I'm offering here is a clean and uncorrupted as you're going to find out there for the time being.
Apparently, this set was featured on the Dangerous Minds website a few years ago - but still linked back to the Kangnave page, with its wonky files. Here for your listening pleasure is my repaired version of A Reference Of Female-Fronted Punk Rock 1977-89, a fan-compiled boot of twelve discs containing over 300 slices of quality punk and post-punk from the heyday of this music. 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 started this one way back in 2017, but for some reason never got around to finishing it. Here you go...]
Back when I was a kid, my parents discouraged us from drinking much in the way of soft drinks. There was never that much soda in any of the houses where we lived, and that that was present was generally reserved for the grown-ups; the kids had to make do with things like milk, water, juice and occasionally Wyler's and/or (in some cases, stunningly culturally inappropriate) Funny Face fruit-flavored drink mixes. I suppose at the time it was just one of the ways and methods our folks used to watching out for our health and well-being - and being a parent now, I can sympathize with and relate to that attitude. But when I was a child, it felt like a heavy blow, as if we were being unfairly and arbitrarily deprived of something that other kids had ready access to.
However, my grandmother (on my father's side) had no such compunctions; she always had a plentiful stock of stuff like RC Cola, 7-Up and Mr. Pibb readily at hand in big half-gallon (later two liter) bottles at her house, and during our visits there she would spoil us unmercifully with near-unlimited access to this carbonated nectar ("unlimited", that is, until my folks would inevitability step in and order us "not to drink all of Grandmama's soda"). I don't think my parents fully understood that that limited availability only served to make us children desire it more, and make it seem more "special".
Even with all of that, once I got older and began living (and shopping) on my own, I can't say that I became a big pop drinker. To this day, my non-alcoholic beverages of choice continue to be water, milk and OJ (so I guess my parents did that right after all). I do keep cans of soda in the fridge, and have never prevented my own children from having them when they felt the desire. In doing so, I think I've kept them from equating soft drinks as special treats, as I once did, regarding them now as just another choice that they can take or leave. And I think that tactic has been successful; they are not big soda guzzlers either.
I think that this info will not be regarded as good news by the big beverage bottlers - Keurig Dr. Pepper, PepsiCo, and the longtime industry giant, The Coca-Cola Company - all of whom have invested hundreds of millions of dollars in advertising revenue promoting their products and exhorting us to drink more-More-MORE! These companies have gone to great lengths to convince/coerce the public to consume mass quantities, with some campaigns more memorable than others. Those of us of a certain age fondly recall this classic Dr. Pepper commercial:
Or this memorable 7-Up commercial, featuring the talents and voice of the incomparable Geoffrey Holder:
And this, probably the gold standard as far as soft drink commercials are concerned, the 1971 "Hilltop" ad for Coca-Cola, featuring a reworked version of the New Seekers' song "I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony)" - a song so popular that not one, but TWO versions of it, both made the U.S. Top Ten in 1972 and went Gold:
Coca-Cola had long been the industry leaders in innovative, creative product promotion. The company began placing ads in national magazines as early as 1904, and by the end of that decade, their advertising budget exceeded $1 million per year, an extraordinary sum for that time.
The very design of the unique and world-famous Coca-Cola bottle in the 1910s was a deliberate choice to differentiate the brand from that of other cola competitors. Coke was one of the first brands to feature Santa Claus prominently in its print ads, beginning in the 1930s, an association that has remained to this day. And from the dawn of the 20th century, the firm made heavy use of celebrity endorsements, beginning with popular singer Hilda Clark in 1901.
For over fifty years, Coca-Cola engaged the services of the D’Arcy Advertising Company as its official ad agency, and the union was very successful. But in 1956, Coke ended its relationship with D’Arcy and transferred the company’s advertising account to McCann-Erickson, Inc. The aim was to more successfully utilize new media like television, areas that McCann-Erickson was more in touch and in tune with. The new agency proved its worth quickly with the first two Coca-Cola campaigns it managed in the 1950s – “The Sign of Good Taste” (1957) and “Be Really Refreshed” (1959). Pop performers from the period, such as the McGuire Sisters, The Brothers Four and Connie Francis were involved in these successful efforts (note that, at the time, Coke didn't appear to be very interested in utilizing rock 'n' roll stars and making inroads into the youth market... curious).
The next major McCann-Erickson campaign was “Things Go Better with Coke,” which began in 1963. For this campaign, there was an explosion in the number and quality of ads, and the number of top contemporary music stars involved, making up for that dearth in the earlier campaigns. As mentioned in Allmusic.com:
During the 1960s, it wasn't unheard of for rock & roll groups and
music performers to lend their voices to commercial jingles... But in the '60s, artists of surprisingly high stature were willing (and artists of
surprisingly middling stature were asked) to lend their talents and skills to the cutting of product advertising jingles. Any act with lesser stature than The Beatles or The Rolling Stones was fair game to be approached by an advertising agency with some hope of success.
McCann-Erickson (backed by Coca-Cola's huge checkbook, I'm sure) convinced some huge stars of the period to record radio and/or television commercials under the “Things Go Better with Coke” campaign. These artists were asked to incorporate the “Things Go Better with Coke” slogan into a commercial-length song, which was generally inspired by one of their big hits (for example, Tom Jones’ Coke commercial uses the melody and arrangement of his signature tune “It’s Not Unusual”):
Again, from Allmusic.com:
It may seem monotonous -- most of the spots include the phrase "Things Go Better With Coke" -- but the variations are fascinating, and it is a chance to hear these acts having what can only be considered fun with their respective sounds. There is a kind of surreal fun to be found in these sounds -- many of the tracks run well over a minute and are done in each artist's straight style, whatever that might be. The second of three Roy Orbison numbers here, for example, is in his hardest rocking style of the mid- to late '60s, while the third blatantly imitates "Oh, Pretty Woman." [Other] acts... completely absorb the Coca-Cola lyrics into their own respective sounds.
Acts who participated include the aforementioned Tom Jones and Roy Orbison, along with The Supremes, The Tremeloes, Jan & Dean, The Moody Blues, Boyce & Hart, Marvin Gaye, Gladys Knight & The Pips, Gary Lewis & The Playboys, The Easybeats, Ray Charles, The Box Tops, The Bee Gees, Aretha Franklin, and many, many more. All in all, the "Things Go Better With Coke" campaign, which ran until 1970, was a smashing success, and to this day the phrase is probably second only to "It's The Real Thing" in regards to a signature, recognizable brand slogan.
Initially, there doesn't appear to have been any great interest in preserving these ads for posterity; I think both the company and the performers themselves considered them to be for commercial use and generally disposable. So the origin and sourcing of this album is pretty scanty and sketchy, to say the least. It appears that these songs were all but forgotten about for over twenty-five years, until someone at McCann-Erickson corporate headquarters pulled them all together in the mid-1990s as an in-house thing, commemorating and celebrating their innovative and successful 60's ad campaign. As such, it was initially produced in very limited quantities (only about 100 copies or so) - it was definitely not done by a studio. It probably would have remained an internal ad agency document if some enterprising and on-the-ball individual hadn't recognized its significance and historical value, nabbed a copy and began marketing it as a hard-to-find blank-label bootleg CD in the late 1990s. However, even that effort was short-lived; this album has been off the market now for close to twenty years and has become a difficult find on the Web, and/or an rare, high-priced purchase from sites like eBay.
With this being an unlicensed, unregulated bootleg, even its format and track listing vary from version to version, with different album covers (as shown here) and song listings. The original boot release listed a total of sixty-four cuts, but actually only included sixty-one, for some reason. I can't recall where or when I ended up acquiring my copy from, but it appears I hit the jackpot - my version of this compilation includes over ONE HUNDRED tracks, both short and long radio commercials done by dozens of artists. The quality throughout this comp is generally good to excellent, although the American material is slightly lower in fidelity for the most part (The Box Tops' tracks in particular reveal some surface noise, and seem to be the only tracks taken from sources other than tape). And the final song, "Come Alive", appears to have been appended on to my version as a joke, as "Come Alive" was the late-60's slogan for Coca-Cola's bitter (no pun intended) rival, Pepsi-Cola.
Anyway, here for your listening pleasure is the hard-to-find but enjoyable bootleg compilation Things Go Better With Coke: Sixties Coca-Cola Commercials 1965-69, original release date unknown. Have a listen to these short but interesting and classic blasts of '60s radio ephemera, and as always, let me know what you think.
(...and, if I may, might I suggest you enjoy this auditory experience while imbibing the thirst-quenching soft drink of your choice; I won't make any recommendations - I'm sure one brand in particular will somehow come to mind...)
Please use the email link below to contact me, and I will reply with the download link(s) ASAP:
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…
