WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Ponderosa Stomp at Lincoln Center NYC

Don't even think of missing the one and only Ponderosa Stomp next week. It's the swingin'-est, funkiest, rockin'-est musical entertainment show ever put on anywhere at anytime. It's only great. And it's blasting into New York City for three crazed nights of soul, rockabilly and swamp pop and most of it will fly out over the WFMU airwaves!

For the uninitiated, in the past decade the Stomp has been responsible for celebrating the legacies and careers of the unsung heroes of rock & roll, soul, garage, swamp pop and the unnameable (i.e.: Legendary Stardust Cowboy). What began as a hobby for organizer Dr. Ike Padnos and his Mystic Knights of the Mau Mau has exploded into a multi-faceted musical, cultural and educational juggernaut. And it's a hell of a lot of fun. This ain't no schlub oldies show--this is the real deal. If you can, see this in person. As a backup plan you can listen to most of it on the radio. In either event, prepare to have your world rocked.

Here's what you need to know:

July 16th (Midsummer Night's Swing):
Ponderosa Stomp: The Get Down
(broadcast live on Music To Spazz By Thursday July 16th 7-11pm)

* William Bell - a principal architect of the Stax/Volt sound.
* The Bobbettes – girl group known as the ‘Harlem Queens’ known for their hit, “Mr Lee”
* Bo-Keys - authentic, greasy Memphis soul stew w/ Stax Records stars
* Harvey Scales - a hard-hitting soul man, writer of  "Disco Lady" and “Love-i-tus”

July 17th (Midsummer Night's Swing):
Ponderosa Stomp: Best Dance In Town
(to be aired on Music To Spazz By Thursday July 30th 8-11pm)

* Joe Clay - New Orleans’ proto-rockabilly genius, appeared with Elvis
* The Collins Kids – 50’s TV faves, this brother/sister duo features double neck guitar pyrotechnics
* Deke Dickerson & The Eccofonics - the nitro-charged country and rockabilly specialists
* Carl Mann - Sun Records artist had his first hit with Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa”

Songs We Taught The School of Rock

Last month The Paul Green School of Rock hosted two WFMU benefits--one at Asbury Lanes and one at BB King's. Paul runs a network of rock music schools for the after-school junior high and high school crowd and he's been at it successfully for quite a while. Based out of Philly, he's constantly compelled to clue his kids in to the very best music he can dig up. That still doesn't explain why he offered to set up a couple of  benefits for the station based on the two ipod-less hours he spent on the Jersey Turnpike tuning in my dumb show. The caveat for bagging the dough was that I had to come up with the songs that the kids should play. I figured that junior high school already sucks so bad that I couldn't make it much worse. So one cautionary night, me and Bingo the Chimp got out the dart board and about 75 songs were selected amid much confusion.

Both shows were inspired successes. Lots of fun and high school hoopla was had. It was like the last scene in Carrie but without all the blood. Asbury Lanes was a total nut-job blast and the spirit of Bracey "Lover's Curse" Everett's spirit was summarily summoned rock and roll style. BB King's brought special guests a-plenty: Bowie/Lennon guitar slinger Earl Slick, Dirtbombs shouter Mick Collins and bad seed Miriam Linna on drums.

Thanks to Jenn and Layney at Asbury Lanes (and Jeff Mulan and Ken Freedman for working the merch). Huge thanks to Irene Trudel for lugging equipment and spearheading the crack recording team of Scott Konzelman, Rob Christiansen and Glenn Luttman for the BB King's show. Extra special thanks to Mark Biondi, Tina Kerekes and especially Paul Green for setting up this whole thing up and also everyone who came out for these events. The biggest accolades of all go to the kids from Chatham, Cherry Hill, Philly, Monmouth County, Princeton, Bergen County, Wilmington, Port Washington and the School of Rock All-Stars: you totally rock and you roll now get back to homeroom because Mr. Downs has a surprise quiz after the frog dissection.

After the jump are a mess of videos and mp3s.

The Don Martin Dictionary

In 1837 Paterson township seceded from Essex County, New Jersey. It became the silk production capital of the country when it was incorporated into burgeoning Passaic County. Paterson would eventually stake its claim to several pivotal figures of the 20th century and at one point or another they all called Paterson their home: Lou Costello, William Carlos Williams, Uncle Floyd, Allen Ginsberg, Bert Wheeler, Rubin "Hurricane" Carter, Prince Randian and today's blog topic hero--Mad's Maddest Artist, Don Martin.

At some point in the 21st century an obsessive genius/knucklehead spent too much time compiling the only database that matters. This link is especially for those who need to know right now what the Batmobile with a flat tire sounds like.

The Don Martin Dictionary

Hank Willams, Jr. Redux

Randall Hank "Bocephus" Williams served time early on for sins uncommitted. His father, the greatest country performer the world had ever known, rolled seven on the way to a gig, leaving his three year old son a dubious legacy to repair. Forced to perform at dog and pony shows, Little Hank lived in his father's shadow, trod in his father's footsteps and out-cliched every horrible cliche connected with vicariously living someone else's life before hitting puberty. With the help of stage mother Audrey, Junior charmed the nostalgia-crazed Nash Vegas hicks with his Hank Williams Mini-Me act. When he wasn't wailing about that lonesome ol' whistle, Junior recorded duets with Connie Francis and slogged through M-G-M's syrupy back catalog of misses and non-hits.

In the early seventies Junior finally broke away from the never ending Hank Sr. dark ride. One too many sorry ass Luke the Drifter, Jr. LPs had taken its toll on the weary singer and Randall was ready to change up horses. He fired his band and then fired his mother and started recording songs that didn't suck nearly as bad. He happily fit right in with the burgeoning outlaw country freaks that were dotting the musical landscape. Seeking inspiration in the boozy excesses of his old man, Hank partied like it was 1975 (it was), recorded more albums, grew a beard and then left it on the side of a mountain along with the rest of his face during a drunken camping trip. Resourceful surgeons created a new face with skin from his buttocks and Ol' Assface soldiered on.

After years of trolling in search of the elusive whatsit (and perhaps spurred on by his 600 foot tumble down Mt. Ajax), Bocephus recast himself as the go-to buffoon of Redneck Royalty--a dumb-ass Don Quixote whose various moronic misdeeds are still legendary in their scope. Hank cultivated a sexist, Everclear-swiggin', cocaine-snortin', hard-livin', a-ready-for-some-footballin', NASCAR-loving persona, working his hick shtick like a 90 foot Ray Stevens character come to life. Hank's latest nut-jobbed transgression centers on his intention to run for the U.S. Senate against Tennessee Republican incumbent Bob Corker in 2012.

Three Favorite LP Covers At the Moment

Monkey Milking a Goat

If you run into me in a bar or somewhere and I have this hazy, far off look in the eyes or I don't remember your name or I'm just standing there softly muttering to myself--chances are I'm thinking about that monkey milking a goat sequence from Mr. Robinson Crusoe (1932). Not to be confused with other monkey milking goat sequences, this is the one that features Josephine the Monkey and Constance the Goat as comic foils to a decrepit Douglas Fairbanks. What appears to be a throwaway gag, this scene serves as much more--it's a pivotal moment in the character development between Jo and Connie and to a lesser extent Rooney the Dog. (Their subtle interplay has been previously discussed at length by failed auteur Peter Bogdanovich in his 1977 treatise Alone in a Darkened Room.) The Monkey and the Goat gave the Depression-ravaged audiences brief flashes of the inherent hilarity that only a monkey milking a goat can provide.

Lensed on the crest of the talkie takeover, Mr. Robinson Crusoe is remembered by sickos and film aficionados as Josephine's talkie debut. In 1929, Lionel Barrymore, inventor of the boom microphone (which is still in use today) tested his invention on Josephine and was instantly enchanted by her nuanced monkeyshines. She was known on the United Artists lot as a professional who wore clothing when required and kept her dung-flinging to a minimum between takes. The versatile capuchin had already appeared as an extra in Sadie Thompson (1928) and her success in Mr. Robinson Crusoe propelled her to featured roles in Washee Ironee (1933) and the talkie remake of Too Many Highballs (1933). Only days after signing a five year contract with Fox, Josephine met a watery demise when she was flushed down the toilet at a Lloyd Hamilton party that got out of hand.

Not much is known about Constance the Goat except that she was a runner-up for Miss Oak Ridge Tennessee of 1926. She quit the film business shortly after Crusoe's release but was drawn out of retirement in the late thirties when she was briefly paired with Charley Chase for a series of unfunny two-reelers at Educational.

If you're willing to part with seventy-six creaky minutes that you'll never get back, you might enjoy the entire public domain Mr. Robinson Crusoe. For the rest of you, please partake of this two minute clip and prepare to spend your remaining days softly muttering to yourself in a dark corner of your local bar.

Los Shakers!!

Prepare to witness the greatest rock & roll video of all time. Then follow this link to Gaylord Fields' Los Shakers blog post and this link to Michael Shelley's interview with guitarist Osvaldo Fattoruso.

The Fake Popeye

Beware The Fake Popeye. For he will rot your brain as he bores you with his fake theme song. This kiddie record is credited to the Peter Pan Orchestra and Chorus but it sounds more like the Peter Pan Bus Line. The label features a creepy old whistling guy in a nightcap while the flip boasts a be-smocked youth cobbling boots. No one claims writing credit and if the label didn't say "NON-BREAKABLE" I would've smashed this clunker years ago.

After writing the above piece I realized that the 365 Days Project already weighed in on this dumb record!

Popeye Side A (mp3)
Popeye Side B (mp3)

My First Mass Emailing Since I Was In a Band

Sorry for the mass emailing but due to troubling times at WFMU I have to make a first time non-Nigerian scam request for your help. I hate asking for anything. If I were to ask for anything it would be an egg and cheese on a hard roll with french fries and a coffee but unfortunately I'm not here today to ask you for that. (I really wish I were.)

As you might have heard, FMU is nearing the end of its annual beg-a-thon, and frankly we haven't been doing so hot money-wise. Yeah, the economy stinks, but due to a confluence of expensive problems hitting the station at the same time, our fund raising efforts have been a little off this year. There's a litany of expenses that FMU has to pony up to but my favorite bill to pay is the one for getting that repeater transmitter installed on the top of 4 Times Square. We're talking a strong New York City clock-radio signal there! Wanna listen to Fool's Paradise on a transistor on the beach in what's left of Coney Island? Yeah, we can do that if we get that 4TS antenna plugged in. Radio lives!

Station Manager/ Former and Current Elder Scapegoat Ken goes into antenna details and other stuff here:

http://www.wfmu.org/marathon/index.shtml

It costs a hell of a lot to run the best non-commercial radio station in the world and we do it primarily by not compromising our principals: no commercials, no underwriting and no money from The Man. The unpaid DJs are free to do the best programming that they're able to do. The end result? We entertain the pants off you.

So---
If you've ever won tickets on my show
If I've ever played a song you requested
If I've ever plugged your band or event
If I've ever played your band on the show (it's possible, right?)
If I've ever answered a question (correctly or incorrectly) or sent you an mp3 via email because you asked me to
If I've ever played even ONE SONG that really made your day

Then please toss us some loot between 8-11pm EDT tonight and we won't discuss this embarrassing plea for help ever again. Even a small pledge is fine. There'll be lots of prizes and fun stuff and I personally assure you that the next year of programming will be worth your while, musically speaking. Of course, feel free to pledge to any show as it all goes to the same place.

Thanks!

pledge phone number: 800-989-9368
pledge online: wfmu.org

Give the World a Smile

  In November of 1924, while attending the Stamps School of Music in Jacksonville, Texas, Otis Denton and M. L. Yandell were each paid five bucks cash by Dean of the School Virgil Oliver Stamps to write the topic of today's blog, Give the World a Smile. In 1925, Frank Stamps and the Wheeler Brothers recorded it on the Victor label and two years later the Stamps Quartet took a swing at it and sales of the disc soared heavenward. Sporting what sounds like Bluto the Sailor on lead vocals, the Stamps distinguish what might have been a routine release with a scatted-out, pre-doo-wop hillbilly breakdown after the last chorus, thus ensuring the record's place in the Crazy White Gospel Hall of Fame. The Stamps grabbed World as their theme song and it's served them well throughout the years.

Give the World a Smile - The Stamps Quartet (mp3)

Former Blackwood Brothers bass singer J. D. Sumner, famous for his solo recording of Blessed Assurance where he hit the lowest note ever recorded by a human voice (a "double-low" C according to the Guinness people), purchased the Stamps Quartet franchise and brought them in as Elvis Presley's backup group in the 1970s. The Stamps have enjoyed a hallowed career and are still knocking around Menudo-like in one form or another today.

Less is known about The Corley Family. In the winter of 1929 a Columbia field recording unit came through Dallas on a search for new talent and The Corley kin got caught up in the heady whirlwind of Amateur Hour promises. Lacing up their Sunday best, The Corleys leaned into their cover of Give the World a Smile with a fury fueled by the fiery desire to ascend to the next plane or at least out of the impending Dust Bowl. Striking a hauntingly optimistic tone, the Corleys switch it into high gear when someone holds a kid up to the ribbon microphone for the second half of every chorus. That's the part that kills me every time and makes holy mincemeat out of the Stamps' version of the song.

Give the World a Smile - The Corley Family (mp3)

The Moose Calling Record

"...the call is not a mooing. Give it a lot of life, as you are not imitating a simple sound--you are speaking the language of a living animal."

French-Canadian leading man Guy Provost started his career as a member of the distinguished theatre troup "Les Compagnons de St-Laurent." In the 1950s he was was toasted from Ottawa to Kamloop as a consummate thespian in theatre, TV and movies. By 1970 he was grinding out moose calling records. 

The Moose Calling Record genre attracts a special breed of record collector: cheapskates. I picked this baby up a few record fairs ago and have regretted it ever since. For this, the Louie Louie of Moose Calling Records, Provost leans into his urgent spiel with only the ruthless vigor that one can muster while accompanied by sound effects of a female moose urinating in a lake.

Side One: The Art of Calling (mp3)

Side Two: Call of the Cow Moose without Narration (mp3)

Buddy Holly on Line One

Bad business decisions practically defined Buddy Holly as much as his role as a rock n' roll icon/pioneer/visionary/legend/statue/freakish cult figure (for some). During his short musical career, Holly ended up on the losing end of many legal entanglements (like signing away co-writing credit to producer Norm Petty) however double-crossing Decca record executive Paul Cohen was one of Buddy's savviest business moves.

After a couple of dud releases, the suits at Decca were scratching their heads and wondering out loud whether they didn't sign the right hick rock 'n' roller. A&R suit Paul Cohen took the brunt for this misfire and was held responsible for the Holly account. After expertly steering the careers of Red Foley, Kitty Wells, Webb Pierce and Patsy Cline among others, he was badly out of his element with these Young People and their pimpled rock 'n' roll transistor crap. He spoke hillbilly, mainly to hillbilly adults--but rock 'n' roll? Cohen thought he'd ride this fad out like he did with the rumba and the mambo but this noise wasn't going away so fast. He could care less about rock 'n' roll and even less about that pest from the west: gangly, four-eyed Buddy Holly. "The biggest no talent I have ever worked with," muttered Cohen under his breath as he went over the crunched numbers for Holly's releases again. He sat in his late winter office and exhaled loudly. A cold wind whooshed by the thirtieth floor and Cohen sank in his chair and removed another Cuban from the walnut humidor. These numbers were not good. The phone rang. It was Buddy Holly on line one.

Holly assumed that Decca had dropped his contract and he was fine with that--he just wanted permission to re-record the songs that Decca had no intention of releasing. Due to various screw-ups, Holly's last session at The Quonset Hut in Nashville was a big fat waste of time. It didn't help that they had to find a last minute bass within twenty minutes or that producer Owen Bradley was running late for a waterskiing appointment (wtf?) or that Webb Pierce dropped by with some terrible idea about raising the octave on "That'll Be the Day." It was a total Nashville three hour rush job and Buddy and his band felt bulldozed by the experience. The session yielded zero out of five usable takes (at least according to Decca) and Buddy's recording career was stillborn. The Decca suits shipped the Quonset Hut master tapes into cold storage and resumed playing golf on their office carpets with sideways plastic cups.

On Thursday afternoon, February 28, 1957, Buddy threaded his reel to reel tape recorder and dialed up the long distance operator. Holly was getting the royal Decca treatment from the New York boys and he wanted his songs and he wanted out. He especially wanted that Quonset Hut clunker where Webb Pierce weighed in with the crummy advice. Buddy knew "That'll Be the Day" had hit written all over it and his instincts were never better. Three days earlier Buddy and his band re-recorded a killer demo of "That'll Be the Day" in Clovis, New Mexico with future song-stealing headache Norm Petty. Holly had plans to peddle the demo to Moe Levy up at Roulette. That's how bad things were. Even Levy was starting to look good.

The operator connected Buddy with Milt Gabler's secretary but Gabler was allegedly in the recording studio and not waterskiing on the day in question. The operator next rang up point man Paul Cohen.

Buddy Holly phone call (mp3)

Didn't much matter that Cohen wouldn't budge on the five-year ownership clause; Buddy ended up selling the future hit to Brunswick and when Decca got wind of that they tried to sue Brunswick until they realized that they owned Brunswick and all the carpeted golf games stopped on the thirtieth floor for five minutes while Accounts passed around the memo.

"Back on those dates I don't even remember which guy was Paul Cohen and which guy was Owen Bradley or who the engineers were. It was like, they were the biggies and we were just dips. We didn't groove with them or anything." --Crickets drummer Jerry Allison.

23 Seconds with Lassie

Karate Elvis Style

In the spring of 1372 the Ming Dynasty kick-started the modern karate kraze by bringing old school martial arts to the Ryukyu Islands of Japan. It was a relaxing hobby until 1609 when the Shimazu clan (the first cats to use firearms) got in everybody's business and the Okinawa Elders did thus decree an all out ban on weapons. This led to the widespread use of punching and kicking and gouging. To keep up with the demand for savvy senpais, those already trained in the martial arts assembled makeshift classrooms and hired receptionists. Three hundred and forty-nine years later in an army base in Fort Hood, Texas, the exotic open-handed techniques of the Orient found an unlikely zealot in the form of the Rock and Roll King of the World.

In the 1950s, Elvis Presley--all purpose sleepwalker and fan of Mario Lanza 78s and chocolate milk, was Sun Records' most successful foray from the darkness of unsold hillbilly noise. In an early interview Elvis mentioned that he "was studying to be an electrician but got wired the wrong way," and he wasn't too far off the mark. A loyal devotee of Captain Marvel, Jr., Presley carried a five battery police flashlight like a scepter while his own candle flickered tenuously within. He rose and expanded like a human Pac-Man, squandering his days searching for clouds that resembled Joseph Stalin and nurturing his Norman Bates complex. Blessed/cursed with a notoriously short attention span, Presley tore through hobbies and interests with the feral randomness of a three week old chimp. He actually owned a chimp ("Scatter") and after much hilarity, the poor monkey found himself delegated to a spare room along with slot car tracks, fireworks, religious booklets and other sundry forms of spent distraction.

One hobby that Elvis stuck with for almost his entire adult life was the martial arts, specifically karate. He had his first taste of the chop-socky in boot camp and would excitedly expound on its history and meaning to anyone who was forced to gamely listen. Karate's teachings and theatrics complimented his superhero obsession nicely and he devoured books on the subject. Elvis' voracious appetite for knowledge was matched only by his voracious appetite.

Dave the Spazz's Top 17 Live Shows of 2008

The shows I caught in 2008  were riddled with strangeness and brilliance, but most importantly they rocked & rolled and on occasion told mother-in-law jokes. In no particular order, here's a random rundown of 2008 Fun Times rock & roll style. To kick off the list, we have a video of of Event #7: Four year old Staten Island Sensation Ike Sato-Chalmers belting out Bobby Troup's (Get Your Kicks On) Route 66.

1. The Trashmen, Turf Club, St. Paul, MN
2. OV Wright Tribute Show, Memphis
3. Ponderosa Stomp, New Orleans
4. James Brown Jr. aka Black Velvet at the Tip Top Bar and Grill, Brooklyn
5. Beach Boys, Englewood, New Jersey
6. Jay Black, Westbury Music Fair
7. Ike Sato-Chalmers, Freddy's Bar, Brooklyn
8. A-Bones Booze Cruise to Shea Stadium
9. DEVO, McCarren Pool, Brooklyn
10. Allen Toussaint, Blue Note, NYC
11. Don Rickles, Town Hall, NYC
12. Chuck Berry and Little Richard, Westbury Music Fair
13. Mary Weiss, Blender Theatre, NYC
14. Sato and Jonny, Lucky Cat, Brooklyn
15. Ronnie Spector & Rabbit Factory Soul Revue, McCarren Pool, Brooklyn
16. Motorgators and Barberries, Some Bar in Williamsburg
17. Tony Orlando, Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon, NYC

Joe Franklin Smut Reel

I know--those are four words that should never be uttered at once but it's too late now. I've already said way too much about about Joe Franklin so I'll just invite you to enjoy this raw nostalgic footage of the iconic talk show host's big adventure: "Glamazons On Parade."

Astro Bowl

It ain't over till it's over and Astro Bowl was over for keeps when it finally shuttered its doors in the spring of '99. I was offered a ride out to Jersey to roll some games a few weeks before the business went south and I jumped at the chance. Astro Bowl was located about 15 minutes outside of the Lincoln Tunnel in the bustling Allwood section of Clifton, New Jersey. Laid out 1960s style, with the exception of the cheesy computer scoring system (the one with the little animated pins going up to heaven), Astro Bowl was once the pride of the Styertowne Shopping Center. By the time I got there the intoxicating sparkle of the lanes had long since vanished. Creaky and dank, redolent with overflowing ashtrays, the lobby stank of foot spray and sticky soda syrup. Dusty glass cabinets boasted blue ball point pen championship stat sheets and the faded league night photos of triumphs gone by. An inescapable finality overshadowed the din and clatter of the automatic pinsetters. As I laced my size nines, I could sense that a great deal of sordid and raucous business had transpired in this joint. A lot of kiddie parties went down in those lanes over the decades and more than likely many an ill-shaven face was abruptly slapped in the cocktail lounge.

Astro Bowl was opened in 1959 with great fanfare by Lawrence "Yogi" Berra and Phil "The Scooter" Rizzuto--two Yankees buddies who were probably looking for a legit hangout to greet the huckleberries while they could sock away a little something-something for the chilly post-season years. Luxuriating in one of mankind's finest follies, they brought in their brothers to keep the lanes waxed and the counters polished just so. Sometimes Yogi would tend bar and bowl with the customers while Scooter would chat with fans over a cannoli. Sure, the malaprop spouting geniuses hedged their bets by hawking Yoo Hoo and the Money Store, but they always found their way back to the bowling alley (which was initially called the "Rizzuto-Berra Bowling Lanes" before they sold the ownership). Hard to believe that a 40-lane paradise that kicked off to such frenzied hoopla would struggle to stay open, and ignominiously shut down, not even giving the Brunswick 2000 ball return machines a chance to greet the new millennium.

Squee Gee (The Happy Little Clown)

I was never a record collector. I'm still not. I just accumulate this junk. However, I did start digging records at an early age. While the grown-ups were in the living room getting sloshed to Allan Sherman and Broadway show tune LPs, I was holed up in the bedroom, barely out of the crib and spinning my favorite 78s ad nauseam. It was the dawn of my existence and already there was some useless flotsam that I was obsessing over. One of the flotsams in question was a Clancy Brothers LP that made me lose it every time. The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem: A Spontaneous Performance Recording! Oh man, did that float my toy boat. I quickly wore out the grooves on the first track on Side B--a cut called Tim Finnegan's Wake. It was all about this guy that was so drunk that his pals thought that he was dead and at his wake he sat up and asked for more booze. Don't know why this tale resonated so strongly with me, but I needed to hear that Clancys number at least fifty times a day. Even at two years of age, the hereafter via a dumb novelty song weighed heavily upon my soft baby head.

For reasons unknown, I was also enamored with a live Pete Seeger LP. It was an ugly looking Folkways record, abysmally recorded in a dank MacDougal Street club. It was OK, but no Tim Finnegan's Wake. I would have more run-ins with Mr. Seeger in the following years--tossing my cookies on his boat on a sixth grade field trip and more notably, decades later standing in line behind him in a sleazy Times Square bodega. Pete impressed the locals when he approached the counter and betraying an unbridled enthusiasm, loudly chirped out his order: "I'll Have A Slice of Banana Bread and a Gooooooolden Delicious Apple!!" While his plinkety-plunk banjo music does nothing for me now, I gotta admit that he's a swell guy and anyone who's that happy in a bodega deserves to live forever.

I don't know why they were still selling 78s in the sixties but I guess because of squirts like me there was a market for them. In step with his insidious scheme, Walt Disney secured a lock on the Peter Pan kiddie record racket and he pimped out his insipid mess to pee-wee's everywhere. My bag at the time was sitting in a large cardboard box and watching the Mickey Mouse Club, so the Disney people definitely had my number. Subsequently, a couple of songs from Dumbo the motion picture grabbed my attention and a disturbing tale about a little red schoolhouse had me appropriately terrified of the first grade. Not sure if Disney had anything to do with this, but the Peter Pan 78 Squee Gee (The Happy Little Clown) found its way into my record collection. It wasn't long before Squee Gee and his idiotic theme song solidly possessed all the chambers of my fragile, unblemished coconut. Allegedly flitting about like a careless ne'er do-well, the enigmatic Squee Gee was ascribed the ability to make each day a holiday and I wasn't the doubting type. Squee Gee had his line of jive down tight and who was I to question his upside-down pinwheeled logic? They were starting early--these messianic Manson wannabes in their clown whites and ice cream cone hats. I inspected the grooves of the record and spun it incessantly. That's when I knew that I would either have to kill Squee Gee or be Squee Gee.

Squee Gee (The Happy Little Clown) mp3
Give a Little Whistle mp3
When I See An Elephant Fly mp3
In the Little Red Schoolhouse mp3

Emerson, Lake & Prima

Louis Prima swung in the 20's, swayed in the 30's and bopped in the 40's. After decades of inspired composing, trumpeting, bandleading, singing and vamping, Prima hit his creative peak in the late 50's and early 60's where he rightfully ruled the musical roost in Las Vegas, Planet Earth and the swingin' galaxies beyond. There was no one alive or dead that didn't dig the sounds of Louis Prima. The late 60's and 70's weren't as sympathetic to his talents, but as long as there was a dark cocktail lounge and the broads ran hot and cold, Prima valiantly swung on through the love beads and the incense and when duty called, the peppermint schnapps. No slouch in the progressive jazz department, Prima jumped on the hippie/experimental sound with the dizzy ferocity of a beatboxing Joe Franklin. Keeping it contemporary, Prima traded in his Gleeby Rhythm for two suitcases of the finest tan Naugahyde threads and hit the 70's like a custard pie on a mound of shit. The liner notes to The Prima Generation '72 say it all:

The PRIMA GENERATION is now, yesterday and tomorrow. If you're 2 or 82, there is a place for YOU in the PRIMA GENERATION.

I picked up The Prima Generation '72 a few years ago at the WFMU Record Fair. I rode back home on the subway, pretending nonchalantly to be holding the Greatest Record of All Time, little realizing the vinyl mystery that I newly possessed. Conceived to cash in on That-Which-Cannot-Be-Cashed-In-On, Prima slides through a dozen rotten cow pies on this LP, surfing a musical smegma at the tail end of a long and storied career. From questionable covers ("I Never Promise You a Rose Garden," "It's Impossible") to inept originals ("What you Hear is What You've Got"), Louie ladles on the charm like flies on day old shrimp scampi, all the while employing an impeccable artlessness that borders on narcolepsy. As late career-defining hunks of glop go, Louis and the gang confidentially nail several coffins shut all at once on this clunker. Truth is, this record kinda stinks.

One crummy instrumental on the album is distinguished by its tantalizing title: Sympathy for the Devil (M. Jagger-K. Richards) A bizarre hybrid of Hugo Montenegro and Emerson, Lake & Palmer, Prima's take on Sympathy is a bewildering, jazzy mess that shares a similarity to the Stones original in name only. It starts out like the Schenectady Playhouse production of Jesus Christ Superstar and then it devolves into a soundtrack for a porno movie featuring squirrel puppets--and you wanna know something? It's the best track on the LP. I guess this is the equivalent of The Surfsiders recording Bitches Brew.

Sympathy for the Devil (mp3)

Al Oster and the Frozen North

A sunscreen has yet to be invented that can block out the dizzy euphoria one feels after too many years in the Land of the Midnight Sun. Deep in the Frozen North, sequestered in the wild 27,000 square mile expanse that is the Great Yukon, one lone hillbilly is the rock & roll master of his snowy domain. Clubbed over the head by the Spell of the Yukon at an early age, Al Oster has spent his entire life singing about the majestic charms of the frozen wasteland to anyone who would listen. Oster's first 45 on his own Tundra record label is his best. He's still out there, decades later, warbling his chilly verses to the indifferent North Wind. The next time you have an opportunity to swing an Eskimo, raise a Popsicle to the Mr. Freeze of Rockabilly.

Midnight Sun Rock (mp3)
Next Boat (mp3)