There is a (relatively speaking) lesser-known recording of David Bowie’s “Rebel Rebel” that was done in New York in 1974 and commonly known as the “U.S. Single Version.” Some of you will know this, some of you won’t. Even if you do, it’s fun to hear it again.

This furious variation on the song, released only as a 7” record (backed with “Lady Grinning Soul” and attributed only to “Bowie”) was out just for a few months when it was withdrawn and replaced with the album version. It’s a more uptempo, far more aggressive take on “Rebel Rebel” with Bowie himself allegedly playing all the instruments, save for the frenzied congas which were played by Geoff MacCormack.

Bowie’s guitar sounds like Keith Richards playing a rusty Strat through a transistor radio and he’s added the chorus of the “li li li li li li li li li li” bits not present on the LP version. It’s heavily phase-shifted and the vocals are a bit more shouted. All in all, I think it’s actually slightly superior to the better-known album track, although I love that one, too. Just an opinion.

This was (and still is) the loudest cut record I have ever heard. If you drop the needle on this baby with the stereo at a normal volume, it will blow your speakers (and ear drums) out. It always sends me diving for the volume knob before my speaker cones blow.

Here’s something from a posting about “Rebel Rebel (U.S. Single Version)” from the merry audiophile maniacs at the Steve Hoffman Forums:

Rebel Rebel (Bowie): three different versions exist. The familiar version was released in edited and remixed form (4’22” instead of 4’31” and much more echoey than the album version) as the the first single from Diamond Dogs (RCA LPBO 5009). The Australian Rebel Rebel EP (RCA RCA 20610) features a shorter 4’06” edit. Further mixes of this version are found on bootlegs: a ‘dry mix’ (“BBC Version”) was released on Absolutely Rare (no label) and The Axeman Cometh (DB003) has a “Mix 1”, supposedly from a 1973 acetate, but this version is very similar (if not completely identical) to the regular single edit.

The second version (often referred to as the US or “phased” version) is rumored to be played entirely by Bowie. It was released in May 1974, three months after the first issue, but only in the US, Canada (both RCA APBO-0287) and Mexico (RCA SP-4049). The US single version was re-released on several bootleg singles and albums, before officially appearing on Sound + Vision II and the 30th Anniversary 2CD Edition of Diamond Dogs.

There are two versions that you can pick up on Discogs. It’s the Hollywood pressing that’s the really crazy loud one.

The performance of “Rebel Rebel” on David Live has a similar arrangement to US single version.
 

Lip-syncing to the more familiar album edit on Dutch television’s TopPop in 1974. Afterwards, Bowie is presented the Dutch Edison award for sales of Ziggy Stardust and served “an old fisherman’s drink” called Schelvispekel.

 
They’re back. Brown Acid: The Twelfth Trip returns with another heaping helping of obscure and unknown gems of heavy psych, freak outs, proto-metal riffmeisters, and pre-stoner rock from long forgotten acts. This volume sees unearthed hard rockers from Louisville, Minneapolis, San Francisco, Dallas, Youngstown, Hawaii and other more far-flung locales.

Just imagine being a 75-year-old guy getting an email from Brown Acid compilers Lance Barresi and Daniel Hall about a one off single a band you were in recorded 50 years ago. And they want to release it. And they want to pay you, too?

“I essentially go through hell and high water just to find these records,” Barresi says. “Once I find a record worthy of tracking, I begin the (sometimes) extremely arduous process of contacting the band members and encouraging them to take part. Daniel and I agree that licensing all the tracks we’re using for Brown Acid is best for everyone involved, rather than simply bootlegging the tracks. When all of the bands and labels haven’t existed for 30-40 years or more, tracking down the creators gives all of these tunes a real second chance at success.

“There’s a long list of songs that we’d love to include,” Barresi says. “But we just can’t track the bands down. I like the idea that Brown Acid is getting so much attention, so people might reach out to us.”

Keep ‘em coming, lads!

Brown Acid: The Twelfth Trip will be available everywhere on LP, CD and download on April 20, 2021. Order Brown Acid: The Twelfth Trip from RidingEasy Records
 

 
On April 22nd, New York City’s avant psych fuzz-rockers White Hills will premiere their new live set Splintered Metal Sky: The Concert exclusively on the newly launched platform Supernovasect, an online space presenting special weekly events that occur one-time only.

When 2020 began, the band—Dave W (guitar, vocals, synths) and Ego Sensation (bass, drums, synths, vocals)—were preparing an extensive US tour that would lead up to the release of a new album in the fall and then a European tour to support the record. We all know what happened next. Undaunted the duo opted to record a concert showcasing the album for people to watch at home. The catch is, it airs just the one time, so use it or lose it. Splintered Metal Sky: The Concert was filmed at Martin Bisi’s legendary BC Studios in Gowanus, Brooklyn with renowned producer Bisi (Sonic Youth, Swans) helming the audio board. A small, masked video crew transformed the recording studio into an atmospheric concert hall.

The show will air on April 22, 2021 at 9PM EST/CET/PST/AEDT on Supernovasect.

Splintered Metal Sky, the album, made it onto The Quietus’ Best Psych Rock of 2020 list, and here’s the video, below, for White Hills’ latest single, “Digital Trash.”

A trailer for ‘Splintered Metal Sky: The Concert’

The late Lemmy Kilmister hanging out in bed. Photo by Ray Palmer.
 
2021 marks my seventh year here at Dangerous Minds. During my time here I’ve posted over 1200 articles on everything from satanic strippers, Axl Rose threatening to kill David Bowie, puppet porn, a fringe film featuring an adult baby, and on several occasions, the subject at hand today-Lemmy Kilmister. On September 12th, 1987, Motörhead released their eighth studio album, Rock ‘n’ Roll with Phil “Philthy Animal” Taylor back behind the kit. Prior to the release of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Lemmy had played a meaty role in director Peter Richardson’s film Eat the Rich for which Motörhead configuration of Lemmy, Würzel, Phil Taylor, and Phil Campbell had written and recorded the film’s ripping theme tune (which also appears on Rock ‘n’ Roll), specifically for the film. The soundtrack itself is nearly exclusively comprised of Motörhead and if you’ve never seen it (a massive critical flop upon its release, it deserves the cult status it now holds), I highly recommend you add it to your “must view” queue.
 

A still from ‘Eat the Rich’ featuring Lemmy and actor Ronald Shiner.
 
Sadly, like Eat the Rich, Motörhead’s eighth record was also a bit of a letdown for their fans, and even Lemmy has reflected dimly on Rock ‘n’ Roll alluding that it was a “waste of time” (as noted in Lem’s 2002 autobiography White Line Fever). At any rate, regardless of this blip in the vast heavy metal continuum that is/was Motörhead, the point is this—with more than a few silver and one gold record (1980’s Ace of Spades), under their bullet belts, Motörhead were a force to be reckoned with. This was, of course, especially true of Lemmy Kilmister. We’re all familiar with the notion that “looks can be deceiving,” and one should “never judge a book by its cover.” Yet, this is what inevitably happens all the fucking time. Including the time Lemmy got into bed with Emma Freud, the host of the UK television show Pillow Talk, and the great-granddaughter of the founding father of psychoanalysis, Sigmund Freud.

And, as the title of this post states, things get really weird and super uncomfortable fast, and stay that way for nine excruciatingly long minutes. The majority of the awkwardness was caused by some of the dumb questions posed to Lemmy by Freud.

Usually, guests of Pillow Talk would wear their pajamas on the show, just like Freud. As I’m pretty sure Lemmy didn’t actually own any PJ’s, Lemmy showed up dressed as Lemmy, fingers full of his signature silver rings, and got under the covers. As the show begins we hear Freud musing about how she selects guests for her show. Such criteria included being “terribly attractive,” “very handsome,” and “extremely sexy.” For lots of people, Lemmy checks all those boxes and I’m not gonna be the one to say he doesn’t because he checks all those boxes for me as well. Unfortunately, the show rapidly becomes super uncomfortable thanks to Freud’s cringey questions. Perhaps she was merely trying to get a rise out of Kilmister or, respectfully, she just didn’t do her research on Kilmister and Motörhead – the latter being a point Lemmy politely takes Freud to task for. As one YouTube commenter noted of the exchange, Lemmy managed to “intellectually spank her while whacked out on speed,” over and over again. This nine minutes from the life of Lemmy Kilmister is one for the ages, folks.
 

Adrian and Ari, early 80s, photo by Kishi Yamamoto
 
On-U Sound released their comprehensive New Age Steppers reissues, four studio LPs (1980’s New Age Steppers, 1981’s Action Battlefield, 1983’s Foundation Steppers and 2012’s Love Forever), Avant Gardening, a newly compiled collection of outtakes, rarities and a 1983 John Peel session, and a five CD box set titled Stepping Into A New Age 1980 - 2012 earlier this month, and today they posted two previously unseen vintage promo videos, which you can watch below.

If the New Age Steppers moniker is unfamiliar to you, Mark Stewart of the Pop Group—himself a participant—called the band “the only ever post-punk supergroup.” New Age Steppers (“stepper” refers to a particular reggae riddim, and is a word in Jamaican patois meaning both dancer and criminal) was more of a long term project helmed by producer Adrian Sherwood and Ari Up of the Slits, than it was a proper band, with a revolving door cast of musical notables that included the Pop Group’s Bruce Smith, Public Image Ltd’s Keith Levene, a young Nena Cherry, Sounds editor Vivien Goldman, Steve Beresford, Slit Viv Albertine, Raincoats violinist Vicky Aspinall, Rip, Rig + Panic’s John Waddington, and vocalist Bim Sherman. The foundation of the New Age Steppers sound was provided by Eskimo Fox, Style Scott, Crucial Tony and George Oban, musicians who’d worked with Aswad, Burning Spear, Prince Far I and Gregory Isaacs and extensively with Sherwood. (There is a lot of personnel overlap in Adrian Sherwood’s various projects and it’s difficult to say where one “band” truly ends and another begins, certainly during his early 80s output.)
 

 
The New Age Steppers’ self-titled debut album is an incredibly trippy musical experience. The music is both spacious and spacey. The haunted vocals languid and distant, just floating along in the mix. Inventive sound effects that have been sliced, diced and transformed into something you don’t even know what it is anymore. Time and space are distorted. It’s the dark stuff, druggy, even a little scary. When I first heard it—as part of a cassette only release (which came in a plastic bag with a snap top and poster) titled Crucial Ninety that came out in 1981—it was still a good two years before I would ever hear Jamaican dub, so my idea of the “dub” concept was nearly entirely formed by the first two New Age Steppers albums and a Slits b-side. As a testament to just how far out the sounds were that Sherwood was able to squeeze from his mixing desk, when I first started exploring reggae, none of the “proper” JA dub I was finding sounded nearly as weird or as hard as the New Age Steppers or Creation Rebel and I was initially very discouraged! Crucial.
 

“Radial Drill” (original video)
 

“Fade Away” (original video)

 
Luke Haines’ new album Luke Haines In ...Setting The Dogs On The Post-Punk Postman was supposed to be coming out tomorrow, but the COVID-19 thing threw a bit of a spanner in the works of the worldwide vinyl pressing supply chain, so it won’t be in stores before some time in April. The follow-up to Beat Poetry for Survivalists, last year’s collaboration with REM’s Peter Buck, this new album see Haines holding forth on topics such as the eccentric Scottish musician and humorist Ivor Cutler, Japanese underground director Shuji Terayama, why he’ll never return to the city of Liverpool, Andrea Dworkin, and suicidal pumpkins.

I asked Luke Haines some questions via email about the album’s first video.

What inspires a song about a former Stasi spy?

So, the original idea for the song came from the 2018 Salisbury poisonings of former Soviet spy Sergei Skripal and his daughter, carried out by alleged KGB operatives. That was the inspiration but it’s not about that. It’s kind of about this very male obsession with surveillance and freedom of speech. There’s another song on the album about a middle-aged guy who is obsessed with U Boats and ‘numbers’ stations. Middle-aged male paranoia. The song was kind of a late entry from me on the Peter Buck album, so I held it back, ‘cos I thought it sounded groovy.

What sort of fucked-up Communist bloc guitar are you strumming in the video?

The guitar is an early ‘70s Tonika. It came from Minsk, in pieces. Every Tonika was handbuilt to vague specifications. The Russians had very little to go on when it came to guitar design with no access to Fenders and Gibsons or much western rock music. It has a reputation, on the internet at least, as being the worst built guitar in the world. Not true, it’s an absolute motherfucker of an instrument. I reckon you could run it over with a Soviet tank and it would still play.

When you’re wearing the toupee, the fake moustache and glasses, you look exactly like an ex-girlfriend of mine’s dad. He was in fact from a Soviet bloc country and he did have a toupee, and a moustache although I think his was real. He was always dressed like he bought his clothes by weight. Clearly you are a master of subtle disguise. Do you reckon you’d have made a good spy?

The video was based on these pictures. All shot in my flat which hasn’t been decorated since 1983 and looks like a Stasi interrogation centre anyway.

As to whether I could cut the mustard as a spook, it depends on whether the ultimate aim is towards chaos or order. The jury is out, but any welterweight songwriter would probably make a pretty good spy.
 

 
Here’s how Third Man Records’ Dave Buick describes his reaction to first hearing the music of Magic Roundabout:

“I walk in to the studio, Warren [Defever] is working away. Feedback, hypnotizing bass line, perfect female vocal harmonies and a drummer so minimal you just know they are standing coming out of the speakers. All I could see was stripes and paisleys. I became instantly obsessed with tracking down this mystery band’s complete discography. ‘They don’t have a discography you say?’ Just like that my obsession had become dangerous and unhealthy.”

The footprint left behind by Manchester’s Magic Roundabout was a small one. During the band’s incarnation in the later part of the 1980s, they released just one song. “She’s a Waterfall (Parts 1 and 2)” was included on a 1987 fanzine cassette compilation titled Oozing Through The Ozone Layer that was put together by Mark Webber of Pulp, which also included two Pulp numbers as well as songs by Spacemen 3 and the Television Personalities. They were in good company, clearly. The Magic Roundabout was supposed to put out a flexi-disc, but that never happened and the band—who opened for the likes of The Pastels, Blue Aeroplanes, Spacemen 3, Loop, My Bloody Valentine, and Inspiral Carpets—broke up.

The tapes of several songs they’d recorded were thought to be lost, but were recently unearthed by former Pale Saint Ian Masters and restored by Warren Defever (His Name Is Alive) for a full-length Magic Roundabout archival compilation that will come out later in the year.

For now, feast your eyes and ears on “Sneaky Feelin” which is now available—backed with “Song For Gerard Langley” (he of Blue Airplanes fame)—on a 7” vinyl single from Third Man Records.

Ian Masters wondered “How did the music industry miss these talented teenagers? They were fucking idiots, that’s how.” He’s not wrong.
 

 
Pulsallama were an all-girl bass and percussion band in New York City circa 1980 to 1983 who put out two singles and played at nightclubs like Danceteria and Club 57. Their distinctive sound—think a more chaotic, shambolic, New Yorkier version of Rip, Rig and Panic, Bow Wow Wow or Bananarama (especially “Aie a Mwana”)—can work wonders on an unsuspecting dancefloor. They played jungle rhythms on kitchen utensils and wore 50s cocktail dresses. Their songs were often about themselves—“Pulsallama’s On the Rag” for instance, or the Pig Latin-ized “Ulsapay Amallay.” Described as “thirteen girls fighting over a cowbell,” the band’s membership actually topped out at twelve early on, but quickly dropped down to seven, including, at one point or another Andé Whyland, Ann Magnuson, April Palmeri, Dany Johnson, Jean Caffeine, Kimberly Davis, Lori Montana (who was married to PiL’s Keith Levene at the time), Katy K, Diana Lillig, Charlotte Slivka, Min Thometz, Stace Elkin, Wendy Wild, and bassist Judy Streng. Ann Magnuson—who left the band shortly after it was formed to get killed by David Bowie in The Hunger—came up with the name, a portmanteau of her Pulse-Matic blender and a llama.

Here’s a brief description of Pulsallama from Jean Caffeine’s old website:

In 1980, this damsel moved to New York to become a fabulous nightclub D.J. and stumbled upon Club 57, church basement which was a clubhouse to Downtown celebrities such as the late John Sex, Keith Haring and Wendy Wild where the Ladies Auxiliary of the Lower East Side (founded by Ann Magnuson - star of stage, screen and Bongwater) were banging on percussion instruments and hanging up meat bones in preparation for their “Rites of Spring Bacchanal.” Jean joined on drums and Pulsallama was born.

Pulsallama toured the East Coast as well as England and opened several shows for the Clash. They released a controversial, yet comical ditty, “The Devil Lives in my Husband’s Body,” for London’s Y Records which was a hit on alternative and college stations. Pulsallama was beloved for their rhythmic cacophony, theatrical stage antics, props and costumes, and their primal, yet glamourous absurdity. They had lots of fun, got their picture in Interview magazine and had 15 minutes of fame.

[Fun fact: Jean Caffeine was also seen briefly as the “roadkill” at the beginning of Richard Linklater’s classic cult film, Slacker.]

The group’s music was released by Slits manager Dick O’Dell on his Y Records imprint, making Pulsallama labelmates with Pigbag, Shriekback, Sun Ra, Glaxo Babies and the Pop Group, but they weren’t much of a real group, more of a “why not?” proposition when they found their first gig enthusiastically reviewed in the NY Rocker. After that they decided to start rehearsing and learning to play their instruments. They opened for the Clash on a handful of East coast dates on the “Combat Rock” tour and in fact recorded an entire album with producer Butch Jones that was lost in limbo when Y Records folded and no one had $15,000 to get the tapes back from the studio. That loss of momentum, and the difficulty of keeping everybody in a seven member group happy, caused Pulsallama to dissolve in 1983.

Modern Harmonic have released a recently rediscovered “live in the studio” session recorded for a French radio station as Pulsallama on CD and vinyl. It’s not exactly the album they recorded, no, and it’s also more of an EP than an LP (spinning at 45rpm), but it’s still more Pulsallama than anyone’s ever heard before, and therefore of interest.

Pulsallama were included in the Museum of Modern Art’s Club 57: Film, Performance, and Art in the East Village, 1978–1983 exhibition in 2017.
 

 
“The Devil Lives in My Husband’s Body” video, below, was directed by Dangerous Minds pal Paul Dougherty:
 

 
Pulsallama (in an early performance with Ann Magnuson still in the group) on Paul Tschinkel’s legendary Inner-Tube cable access program:
 

 
April Palmieri and Kimberly Davis of Pulsallama interviewed by Jennifer Ley on the Videowave cable access show:

 
“Ungawa Pt. II (Way Out Guyana),” the B-side of “The Devil Lives In My Husband’s Body”
 

 
A rare glimpse of Pulsallama live:

 
Two songs below, “Oui, Oui (A Canadian in Paris)” and at 6:00 “Pulsallama On the Rag”:

Vince Locke’s artwork for the 2017 Cannibal Corpse album ‘Red Before Black.’ The concept for the image was to capture the victim’s perspective as they are about to die.
 
If you’re a fan of Buffalo, New York death metal band Cannibal Corpse, then you know the artwork of Vince Locke. Kerrang! magazine has called Locke “a man who reinvented the meaning of the word “disgusting.” If the title of this post rings a bell, it should, as one of the many comic book ventures Locke has worked on—including Neil Gaiman’s epic The Sandman—the graphic novel A History of Violence (1997) written by John Wagner. The novel would later be adapted into David Cronenberg’s 2005 film of the same name. Locke’s work in A History of Violence earned him a Haxtur Award (Spain) for Best Long Comic Strip.

Locke’s masterful work with both Cannibal Corpse and with the ultra-violent zombie comic Deadworld is pretty legendary within the interwoven worlds of heavy metal and comic books. The impact of Deadworld was so seismic at the time that, according to Locke, it was in the early stages of development before The Walking Dead turned the world of zombies on its necrotizing ear. A huge fan of the classic horror filmography he cites his favorite Hammer film as the ultra-creepy Masque of Red Death starring Vincent Price. This checks out, as Locke liberally uses the color red in his paintings because there is so much BLOOD. His long collaboration with Cannibal Corpse was initiated by Cannibal Corpse vocalist Chris Barnes, who called Locke up telling him he had a job he “might be interested in.” In 1990, Locke would create the artwork for CC’s record Eaten Back to Life and thus began a goretasticly beautiful relationship which would go on to inspire other artwork within the death metal arena. However, trying to out-gross Locke (long considered an “honorary” member of CC) and his artfully repulsive work is next to impossible. Trust me. In his teens, Locke had some formal art instruction, later studying art for two years in college before he dropped out to pursue comic book illustration. His work with Cannibal Corpse, as noted by Kerrang!, has been censored and even banned around the world.

In 2009 Locke combined Cannibal Corpse and his love of illustration into the graphic novel. Evisceration Plague named after CC’s eleventh record from 2009. The individual stories in the book are based on the songs on Evisceration Plague like “Evidence in the Furnace,” “Shatter their Bones,” something I hope never becomes a thing, “Scalding Hail.” Here’s more from CC’s bassist Alex Webster on how Locke was able to bring the band’s lyrics to “life”:

“Vince Locke has done an incredible job turning our lyrics into blood-soaked and vicious illustrations for the Evisceration Plague comic book. He really has captured visually what we were trying to convey lyrically. His artwork has brought our macabre songs to life in truly explicit fashion…fans of graphic horror will not be disappointed.”

While this kind of artwork might not be for everyone, it is important to bring up the fact that Locke’s work with Cannibal Corpse changed the trajectory of the genre as it relates to how bands use imagery to further connect to their audience. And without a doubt, Locke’s work connected with fans across the world and then some. And though I shouldn’t need to say so, the images you’re about to see are like watching a Lucio Fulci film on PCP. Speaking of the great Italian master of gore, in 2018, Locke was enlisted by the incredible Eibion Press to illustrate a graphic novel adaptation of Fulci’s 1981 film House by the Cemetery. Like the other Fulci titles in Eibon’s catalog, it’s bloody fantastic. Lastly, in April of 2021 Cannibal Corpse will release their fifteenth album, Violence Unimagined with Locke’s artwork gracing the cover. If you haven’t eaten recently, are not easily offended, and feel as though “you’ve seen it all,” click here to see Locke’s latest cannibalistic conjuring for Cannibal Corpse.

If you’re in the Long Beach, California area, you may make an appointment with The Dark Art Emporium to see an exhibit featuring work by Vince Locke, Ryan Bartlett, and Brian Mercer which opens on March 13th.
 

Artwork by Locke for the cover of Deadworld #1 (1986).
 

The original artwork for the cover of Deadworld #7 (1988).
 

Deadworld #9.
 

Deadworld #10.
 
More after the jump…

 

Although its, uh, cultural cachet, I suppose, has fallen in recent decades, a doofy poem called “The Desiderata of Happiness” used to be something that you’d see on the walls of doctors’ and dentists’ offices, at your grandmother’s, a great aunt’s house, or maybe in the very home that you yourself grew up in, during the 1960s and 70s. (At one point the hippies even adopted it.)

You don’t see it so often today, but it’s still around. Now that you’ve had your attention called to it, the next time you see it (normally as a varnished wooden wall plaque in a junk shop) you’ll remember this post (and wince).

Here’s an example of the proto-New Age almost meaningless wisdom you will find in “The Desiderata of Happiness”:

You are a child of the universe,
No less than the trees and the stars;
You have a right to be here.
And whether or not it is clear to you,
no doubt the universe is unfolding as it should.

“The Desiderata of Happiness” was written in 1906 by a lawyer named Max Ehrmann, but it was unknown during his lifetime. Its slow burn to popularity began in the 1950s when a Baltimore pastor printed it up in some church materials. The poem’s advice to be humble, live a clean and moral life and to even have respect for dipshits (it doesn’t use that exact term, of course) seems simplistic even by Forrest Gump standards, but for whatever reason this thing struck a chord with the public. (You can read more about its history at Wikipedia).
 

 
In 1971, a “groovy” American radio talkshow host by the name of Les Crane (once married to Gilligan’s Island‘s Tina Louise and considered by some to be the original “shock jock”) narrated a spoken word/musical version of the poem (avec gospel choir), that reached #8 in the Billboard charts and won a Grammy for Best Spoken Word Performance of the Year. It was on the British pop charts for 14 months.

The following year, a parody version titled “Deteriorata” was created by the National Lampoon’s Michael O’Donoghue, Tony Hendra and Christopher Guest (The words were Hendra’s, the music is Guest’s) released as a single and on the classic Radio Dinner album. Melissa Manchester sings on the record. The humorously ponderous reading was handled by Norman Rose, who was THE voice over announcer of the era. You’ve also heard his voice in Woody Allen’s Love & Death and The Telephone Book.

There are a few then current references in the song that might need some context for listeners almost fifty years later: The line about your dog’s diet refers to a TV dog food ad which wondered, “Is your dog getting enough cheese in his diet?” The “Remember the Pueblo” bit refers to a rightwing bumper sticker rallying cry about the capture in 1968 of the USS Pueblo by North Korea. “Do not bend, fold, spindle or mutilate” was a phrase employed on government checks. And again, bear in mind that narrator Norman Rose would be the equivalent to say, Morgan Freeman or James Earl Jones reading it today.

Years later, Les Crane was asked about “Desiderata” and said “I can’t listen to it now without gagging,” adding that he preferred the Lampoon’s piss-take. Eventually the parody became better known than the original hit record due to frequent spins on the Dr. Demento radio show. Below is the original version, Les Crane version:
 

 
“Deteriorata,” the National Lampoon parody: