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Violinski: One hit wonders perform their musical shit sandwich, ‘Clog Dance,’ 1979
07.11.2013
11:18 am
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Violinski was the side project of Electric Light Orchestra’s Mik Kaminski. Their “Clog Dance” was a huge hit in the UK in 1979, reaching #17 in the singles chart after BBC Radio 1 used the instrumental number under the reading of the Top 40 countdown.

It’s terrible. Not much else to say about it. I doubt that even The League of Gentlemen‘s hapless former rocker “Les McQueen” would would look back with fondness had he been in Violinski and not the rhythm guitarist of “Crème Brulee”...
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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07.11.2013
11:18 am
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‘Hey Baby, I’m Your Telephone Man’: ‘Sexy’ double entendre novelty hit of the 1970s
05.31.2013
03:45 pm
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Singer/model Meri Wilson recorded several double entendre novelty songs—inane, catchy ditties totally inappropriate for little kids to sing—which is, of course, why her naughty little number “Telephone Man” became so unstoppable in the summer of 1977:

“Hey, baby, I’m your telephone man
You just show me where you want it and I’ll put it where I can
I can put it in the bedroom, I can put it in the hall
I can put it in the bathroom, I can hang it on the wall
You can have it with a buzz, you can have it with a ring
And if you really want it you can have a ding-a-ling
Because-a hey baby, I’m your telephone man”

Those of your reading this who are of a certain age are no doubt groaning in pain at the memory.

Wilson had a follow-up number called “Peter the Meter Reader.” She later updated her biggest hit to “Internet Man.”
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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05.31.2013
03:45 pm
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‘White Bird’: The ultimate 60s hippie anthem?
05.14.2013
02:36 pm
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Thomas McGrath’s post this morning about Kenneth Anger, Bobby Beausoleil and the Manson Family reminded me that I should look for a live clip of It’s A Beautiful Day’s classic “White Bird” and post that. It’s been lingering on my DM “to do” list for quite a while now.

White Bird” is a song that most music fans (at least those of us of a certain age) will instantly recognize. It’s a Beautiful Day were “Summer of Love” San Franciscan contemporaries of The Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and Santana and their lilting rock, jazz, folk, classical style was unique in that context. They were neither very “proggy” or “fusiony. They certainly weren’t very psychedelic, either, but they made lovely music that still evokes an era splendidly, even if they are remembered primarily for just this one song. “White Bird” is one of the ultimate hippie anthems and has been a staple of FM radio for decades.

Ironically, bandleader and violinist David LaFlamme later said of “White Bird,” that the oh so pretty ditty was inspired by living in gloomy, soggy Seattle without a car:

“Where the ‘white bird’ thing came from ... We were like caged birds in that attic. We had no money, no transportation, the weather was miserable. We were just barely getting by on a very small food allowance provided to us. It was quite an experience, but it was very creative in a way.”

The group was managed by Jefferson Airplane and Moby Grape minder Matthew Katz, but the association was apparently an unhappy one and the band went through various personal changes before finally breaking up in 1974. Lead singer Patti Santos died in a 1989 automobile accident, but LaFlamme keeps the It’s A Beautiful Day flame burning with occasional live appearances and reunion shows.

In the clip below, taken from the 1972 documentary Fillmore, It’s A Beautiful Day perform “White Bird” while Bill Graham pontificates on the flower power generation. Sadly, they cut away to Graham speaking just as LaFlamme was about to go into his violin solo.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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05.14.2013
02:36 pm
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Daft Punks: Do ‘The Crunch’ with The RAH Band, 1977
05.13.2013
12:32 pm
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Yesterday when I posted “‘Pepper Box’: The funkiest space-disco synthpop rare groove record of 1973,” it occurred to me that I should also post another long-forgotten instrumental one-hit wonder, “The Crunch” by The RAH Band, a studio “group” helmed by Richard Anthony Hewson.

Hewson is an English producer, arranger, conductor and multi-instrumentalist who has worked with the likes of The Beatles, James Taylor, Fleetwood Mac and Carly Simon. He was the sole member of The RAH Band and played all of the instruments himself.

When the song made it to #6 in the UK pop charts in 1977, a band was put together for a Top of The Pops performance (that’s not Richard Hewson playing the keyboards). Although this video is crazy and great, the original track is still way better than even this super-flipped-out live stomper. Despite what’s seen in the clip, the original song’s arrangement used no synthesizers, only electric guitar and an organ with pedal effects.
 

 
The Rah Band returned in 1985 with another hit record (and another TOTP’s appearance), “Clouds Across the Moon.”
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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05.13.2013
12:32 pm
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‘Pepper Box’: The funkiest space-disco synthpop rare groove record of 1973
05.12.2013
11:38 am
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I dare you to listen to this insanely catchy instrumental number and then try to scrub it out of your head. As with Hot Butter’s “Popcorn” and “Apache” by The Incredible Bongo Band, two similar hit instrumental songs of the same vintage, it cannot be undone. You’re stuck with this “Pepper Box” by The Peppers for life after just one listen (mind you, not that this is a bad thing!)

‘Pepper Box’ was originally supposed to be a TV commercial jingle, but producer Roger Tokarz, thinking he might have a “Popcorn” on his hands, held back and offered his client something else. Tokarz asked Pierre Alain Dahan and Matt Camison to expand on his theme and “Pepper Box” was born, ultimately selling over 3.5 million singles.

I read the above album cover being described as “self explanatory” on the Internet. That cracked me up.
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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05.12.2013
11:38 am
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Christian anti-sex education pamphlet from 1968
05.07.2013
09:35 am
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Is the School House the Proper Place to Teach Raw Sex?, written by Gordon V. Drake in 1968, was a Christian conservative pamphlet against teaching sex education in public schools.

What gets me is the “raw” part. It kind of has a porny title, right?

Via Christian Nightmares

Posted by Tara McGinley
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05.07.2013
09:35 am
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‘I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman’: Whistling Jack Smith
02.19.2013
03:01 pm
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I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman” was a novelty one-hit wonder by a chap who called himself Whistling Jack Smith. Actually it wasn’t one chap, it was two. Trumpeter John O’Neill (who also more famously whistled the melody to Ennio Morricone’s theme from The Good, The Bad and The Ugly) actually recorded the song, but it was a fellow named Billy Moeller (stage name Coby Wells) who you saw on the album cover and strutting around like an idiot on the pop shows of the day.

Billy was the brother of Tommy Moeller of Unit 4 + 2 (a one-hit wonder in their own right with a song called “Concrete and Clay”) and a roadie for the band. The songwriters, Roger Cook and Roger Greenaway would late pen “Long Cool Woman in a Black Dress” for The Hollies.

The name Whistling Jack Smith was a take-off of ‘20s era singing sensation Whispering Jack Smith. The song’s original title was “Too Much Birdseed,” which is still good, but not nearly as good as “I Was Kaiser Bill’s Batman,” eh?

Regarding the video, can you imagine how humiliating a thing like this would be to do for money? Pretending to whistle? (Whistle-syncing?) And he’s not even the one doing the whistling in the first place, making him like the Milli Vanilli of whistle-syncing. Working in a McDonald’s would be a less embarrassing gig!
 

Posted by Richard Metzger
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02.19.2013
03:01 pm
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Before there was KISS, there was ‘mime rock’: Say hello to The Hello People
02.15.2013
02:21 pm
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In a genre unto themselves, one we can all be thankful never took off, the concept of “mime rock” and The Hello People sprang from the mind of longtime manager and record producer Lew Futterman. Futterman, who at one point managed Ted Nugent and produced many of his albums including Cat Scratch Fever, was also managing a group of musicians who had been taught painting by the father of French mime, Étienne Decroux. Decroux was impressed with how quickly these musicians learned to paint and reasoned they could do the same with mime and apply it to music to create an entirely new art form.

Inspired by this notion, Futterman formed The Hello People, who would go on to appear on The Tonight Show and The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour, eventually touring with Todd Rundgren during the ‘70s, as well as opening for comedians Richard Pryor and George Carlin. The Hello People released four albums during the ‘60s and ‘70s for Philips and ABC-Dunhill, but their second album, the cult classic Fusion from 1968 is probably their best known, mostly notable for the anti-Vietnam War song “Anthem” which was banned by several radio stations. You can see a clip of the band performing the song, introduced by the Smothers Brothers below, as well as their mime act in full effect during a 1978 appearance with Todd Rundgren performing “Bread” on The Midnight Special.

It’s like the perfect shit storm… bad folk, lead flute(!)... mime!
 

The Hello People, Todd and pals sharing a post-show smoke sometime in the 70s.

Real Gone Music are making The Hello People’s cult classic Fusion available for the first time ever on CD. After all “Mime is money, money is mime.” Or something like that.
 

 

Posted by Moulty
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02.15.2013
02:21 pm
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‘Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye’: One-hit wonders, Steam
01.02.2013
08:34 pm
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Everyone who has been to more than, say, two, major sporting events, has, of course, heard “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye,” the ultra catchy 1969-70 smash hit from Steam. But have you ever seen the group who sang it?

Steam were a band formed after the fact to front a throwaway b-side written and recorded by Paul Leka, Gary DeCarlo and Dale Frashuer. Gary DeCarlo described “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” as “an embarrassing record.” When Mercury Records decided to release the number as a single, the songwriter/performers did not wish for their reputations to be sullied by this “insult” as DeCarlo put it, so they made up a fictitious band.

They called this group of Ron Swanson lookalikes, “Steam” and sent them out on the road to promote the record, which hit #1 in the US in December of 1969 for two weeks and went on to sell 6.5 million records.
 

 
Click here for the far cuter Bananarama cover version of “Na Na Hey Hey Kiss Him Goodbye” from 1983.

Posted by Richard Metzger
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01.02.2013
08:34 pm
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Bill Paxton was in an awful 80s New-Wave band. James Cameron directed their music video
11.15.2012
08:32 am
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And, YES, it is everything you thought it would be. And by that, I mean it is bad. So very bad. The video is a drawn out spaghetti western narrative, leading into a song that is just the offal of the 1980s.

Before he was a household name, Bill Paxton was one half of the long-forgotten 80s New Wave band, Martini Ranch, along with Andrew Todd Rosenthal. Their Holy Cow album (actually two EPs, later compiled as an album) contained a single called “How Can the Labouring Man Find Time for Self Culture,” which featured Devo’s Alan Myers and Mark Mothersbaugh (the number was also produced and engineered by Devo guitarist Bob Casale). To compound the bafflement, Cindy Wilson of The B-52’s, and actors Judge Reinhold and Bud Cort (“Harold” from Harold and Maude) also appeared on tracks.

The star-studded line-up of such a terrible project only proves what I have always suspected; Bill Paxton is a goddamn charming weirdo.

Below, the “long” version of “Reach” directed by James Cameron:
 

 
The even more 80s (as if that is possible) video for “How Can the Labouring Man Find Time for Self Culture,” directed by Rocky Schenck (who took the above PR shot):
 

Posted by Amber Frost
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11.15.2012
08:32 am
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