Crappy Christmas!

A little something extra for all of you, a huge thank you for following the blog, joining the Facebook group, reading the books and generally making me feel all smushy inside. 20 terrible Christmas records for you to stream or download - a whole album's worth of dreadful Christmas music. Some have appeared on the blog before, some will be new to you - all are diabolical (with the possible exception of Shonen Knife's Space Christmas, which is simply brilliant).

Shonen Knife – Space Christmas

The Sisterhood - Merry Christmas from Tonga, the Friendly Isle

Robin Laing - I’m the Man Who Slits the Turkeys Throats at Christmas

Dick Kent – A Christmas Rose

C3P0 – A Christmas Sighting

Red Sovine  - Billy’s Christmas Wish

Gene Marshall – Evelyn Christmas

Jon Bongiovi – R2D2 We Wish You a Merry Christmas

Sonny Cash – Merry Christmas Polka

Santa’s Pixie Helpers – the Animal’s Christmas Song

The Happy Crickets - Christmas is for the Family

Norris the Troubadour, Seaboard Coastliners - Christmas Time Philosophy

Dick Kent - If Christmas Could Come In July It's Christmas Card Time Again

Dick Kent - Everywhere You Go on Christmas

Eleanor Shaw - Little Piccolo, the Christmas Elf

Little Marcy – C-H-R-I-S-T-M-A-S

Madelyn Buzzard - Christmas is the Love Within Your Heart

The Royal Guardsmen – Snoopy’s Christmas

Tiny Tim – I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus

Father Abraphart and the Smurps – Lick a Smurp For Christmas (All Fall Down)

See you all in 2016!

Christmas Cavalcade 2015 Part Three

Ho! Ho! Ho! Here’s another trio of terrible tinselly tragedies for you, in the shape of the late actor Dan Blocker, former Iron Maiden vocalist Paul Di’Anno and our old friend ‘little’ Marcy Tigner.

Dan Blocker is best remembered for his portrayal of the lovable Eric ‘Hoss’ Cartwright on the TV series Bonanza, which ran from 1959 to 1973, but was axed shortly after Dan died aged 43 of a pulmonary embolism following gall bladder surgery. Dan, who had appeared in a number of western shows – including Gunsmoke, Colt .45, The Restless Gun, Sheriff of Cochise, Cheyenne, The Rifleman, Cimarron City, Zorro, Wagon Train and Jefferson Drum before putting down roots at the Ponderosa Ranch released his version of Deck the Halls on the 1963 album Christmas on the Ponderosa. Featuring all four men in the Cartwright family, this cute little timepiece has since been reissued on CD.

Christmas wouldn’t be Christmas without a decent fright, and nothing in the world of bad records is quite as frightening as the original devil doll Little Marcy, here performing her unique version of the Rosemary Clooney classic Suzy Snowflake from one of the earliest Little Marcy albums Christmas With Marcy.

Finally, Paul Di’Anno’s soulless rendering of the Bing Crosby classic White Christmas comes from the dreadful (and dreadfully misnamed: ‘featuring Denny Laine from Wings’) 1994 album Metal Christmas. I know we kind of ‘did’ heavy metal Christmas last year, but I couldn’t let the season pass without offing this turd up.

Enjoy!

Christmas Cavalcade 2015 Part Two

'On Heavy Metal Christmas my true love gave to me - a tattoo of Ozzy!"

There are certain things that should never happen, no matter what time of year it is. Good will to all men? bah! Humbug! I'm talking, of course, of heavy metal acts covering classic Christmas songs. It's just awful, and it needs to stop.

If they're trying to be sincere, they come across as bombastic and over the top, and if they're trying to be funny they come across as bombastic and over the top. You can't do songs about the birth of Christ if you're supposed to worship satan. Even if you do add a ridiculously over the top guitar solo into the mx. It just ain't right.

And here, to prove my point, are four examples of the genre from some of the giants of the genre, including Ronnie James Dio (Rainbow/Black Sabbath) with Sabbath's guitar legend Tony Iommi and God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen, Alice Cooper (why, Alice? Why?) with Santa Claws is Coming to Town from the 2008 album We Wish You a Metal Xmas; Twisted Sister with Heavy Metal Christmas and Manowar, with their surprisingly straight version of an old christmas carol.

Both Alice (aka Vince Furnier) and Twisted Sister's Dee Snider have gone on record to profess their belief in God; Ronnie James Dio as raised catholic, and according to the late singer's wife, still believed in some sort of superior being. I can't tell you anything about the beliefs of the various members of Manowar, who put out their version of Silent Night in 2013, and frankly I don't really care. Like the other three tracks here, it's shockingly awful.

Enjoy!

Christmas Cavalcade 2015 Part One

Ho ho ho! Yes, it’s that time of year again, time to look at some of the worst Christmas-themed records ever released. And what a doozy I have for you today.

Released in several countries as the B-side to their Jingle Bell Rock, a cover of the 1957 Bobby Helms hit, Jingle Bell Imitations originally appeared (as did its flipside) in the US in 1961 on the LP Bobby Rydell/Chubby Checker – a truly awful album whose ‘highlight’ is a seven minute medley featuring the hitmaking pair singing snatches of each other’s chart toppers. Jingle Bell Rock saw a  UK release in 1962, with a different track - What Are You Doing New Year's Eve - on the B-side.

Chubby, of course, is well known for his hits The Twist, Let’s Twist Again, The Pony and others. He had form: his first release The Class featured him imitating singers including Elvis, Fats Domino… and Bobby Rydell. Rydell is less well remembered here in the UK, although he scored several major US hits in the early 60s, including the Billboard number two Wild One. Both artists were signed to Cameo Parkway records, the company that put out this tosh, and had appeared on each other’s recording sessions before this album. Both artists, now in their 70s, are still performing today, although Rydell’s poor health has caused him to cut down on his work load in recent years.

In 2013 Chubby sued Hewlett Packard over an app that "adversely affects Chubby Checker's brand and value and if allowed to continue, will cause serious damage to the Plaintiff's goodwill and will tarnish his image that he has worked to maintain over the last 50 years." That app, called the Chubby Checker allowed users to enter a man's shoe size to estimate the size of his penis. Chubby’s lawyer (one Willie Gary…seriously, you could not make this stuff up!) was seeking half a billion dollars in damages.

Enjoy!

To download the audio, click on the Tindeck logo and you'll be taken to the download page

Dead Letter Office

Welcome to the 345th WWR post - and the last this year before we begin our annual Christmas cavalcade.

Born in Grand Rapids, Michigan (September 2, 1923) Victor Lundberg was an American radio personality and newscaster best known for his spoken-word record An Open Letter To My Teenage Son, which provided him with a US Top 10 hit in 1967.

The record, written by Robert Thompson, imagines a stern father talking to his teenage son. Whilst the Battle Hymn of the Republic plays in the background, Lundberg touches on such topics as long hair, the existence of God, the Vietnam War, and the expectation that all good Americans should fight for the freedom of their country. The song ends with Lundberg telling his son that, if the teen decides to burn his draft card then he should also burn his ‘birth certificate at the same time. From that moment on, I have no son’. That denouement is slightly at odds with Lundberg’s own liberal views and with the song’s earlier line that ‘your mother will love you no matter what you do, because she is a woman; and I love you too, son’.

The B-side My Buddy Carl, is more representative of Lundberg, and hides a plea for equal rights for people of all colours within a similar, Vietnam-themed soliloquy.

An Open Letter became a surprise hit, making number 10 on the Billboard Hot 100, number six on Cash Box and selling over one million copies, earning a gold disc and a Grammy nomination for Best Spoken Word Recording (it lost to Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen's similar Gallant Men). Encouraged by this success, Liberty released an entire album of Lundberg's musings, also entitled An Open Letter although that failed to chart. In January 1968 Life magazine printed a scathing review of Lundberg’s disc, dismissing it as ‘an item that anybody can hate’.

Victor Lundberg who, according to an article in The Village Voice  (November 16, 1967) spent WWII working for the Psychological Warfare Department (presumably the joint Anglo-American Psychological Warfare Division) died on February 14, 1990. His daughter Terri (commenting on www.unpleasant.org in 2006), stated that Lundberg ‘died a drunken man on state aid in Michigan alone in a run down apartment’. There was no love lost between Lundberg and his family: ‘He was estranged from all of his children and never provided financial or emotional support to any of them,’ Terri wrote.

Unsurprisingly there were a good number of  "response" records to An Open Letter To My Teenage Son, and I’ve included three of the best here for you today: Keith Gordon's A Teenager's Answer, A Teenager's Open Letter To His Father by Robert Tamlin, and Open Letter To The Older Generation by radio and television personality and the World's Oldest Living Teenager Dick Clark.

Enjoy!

Note: I'm trying out a new MP3 player and download site: click on the track to stream the audio or click on the Tindeck logo to be taken to the download page. Let me know how you get on with it!

Welcome To My Life Tattoo

The diminutive actor best known for his roles as Nick-Nack in the James Bond film The Man with the Golden Gun (1974) and as Tattoo in the hit TV series Fantasy Island, Herve Villechaize was born on April 23, 1943 in Nazi-occupied Paris to his English mother Evelyn and French father André Villechaize, a doctor. At a young age he was diagnosed with an acute thyroid condition, resulting in dwarfism and leaving him with a full-grown height of just under 4 ft tall.

A gifted artist, in 1959 he entered the École des Beaux-Arts, two years later becoming the youngest artist to ever have his work displayed in the Museum of Paris. In 1964 he left France for the USA, settling in New York, and taught himself English by watching television. He continued to work as as an artist and photographer, and began acting in Off Broadway productions. He even did some modelling for National Lampoon magazine.

In 1974, after appearing in Oliver Stone’s debut film Seizure he got his big break, landing the role of the tiny villain Nick-Nack in The Man with the Golden Gun. A move to California, where he met Aaron Spelling, resulted in his being cast opposite Ricardo Montalban in a 1977 ABC Movie of the Week pilot called Fantasy Island. A sequel - Return to Fantasy Island - followed in 1978 and a series was soon commissioned. Fantasy Island went on to run for six seasons from 1978-1983, making a household name out of Herve’s character Tattoo and his catchphrase ‘The plane! The plane!’ 

Unfortunately Herve’s newly found fame – and reported $25,000 an episode pay cheque – would also lead to his downfall. He met actress Donna Camille on the set and in September 1980 she became his second wife. The marriage quickly turned sour, with Donna filing for divorce in December 1981. A little over a year later, after demanding the same money for his role on Fantasy Island as front man Montalban, ABC dropped Herve from the show.

Herve quickly found himself short of money and was forced to sell his 2.5-acre and move into a rented house in North Hollywood. It was reported that he would often consume two bottles of wine in a single night – a huge amount for such a diminutive man. His health was suffering too: in increasing pain from internal organs that were too large for his body, Herve was forced to take a cocktail of pills each day to alleviate the symptoms. Unsurprisingly he began to suffer from frequent bouts of depression.

In the early morning of September 4, 1993 Kathy Self - Herve's friend of 14 years - found his body in the yard of his house. Herve had written a suicide note and, ghoulishly, also made and audio recording of his last moments. After saying goodbye to Kathy he aimed his gun into a pillow placed against his chest and pulled the trigger. The tape recorder caught the sound of Herve cocking the pistol and of Kathy arriving on the scene. She rushed him to hospital where he was declared deceased. He was 50 years old. Herve's body was cremated and the ashes scattered at sea. A sad, sad end.

However he did leave us with a legacy. Luckily for us Herve made several stabs at a recording career: in 1980 he released the single Why/When a Child is Born. Both of these tracks also featured on the charity album Children of the World: the Time is Now…and both of these tracks are included here for you now.

Enjoy!

Blather About Bladder

I’m massively indebted to David Noades and WFMU for rediscovering this curio back in 2007, and to eBay and Discogs for helping me land a copy of my own!

It’s not often that you get to listen to the sound of a surgical procedure put to music, but that’s exactly what the Dutch-based pharmaceutical company Norgine (established way back in 1906) decided its’ UK sales force needed to help them sell their laxatives to chemists’ shops around the country in the mid-1960s.

Livingstone Recordings, a short-lived London-based label that specialised in religious recordings and had previously put out an album by Billy Graham, manufactured the disc.  The B-side features A Representatives Visit, an audio vignette which features a Norgine salesman selling Normacol to a GP: ‘can we begin by talking about constipation?’ Ugh! ‘Now let’s jump from the bowel to the stomach’…

But it is the A-side that’s the pip.

Tableau of a Lithotomy was written by the 17th century French composer Marin Marais. A busy man, as well as writing several books of instrumental music and being a court-appointed musician to the king, he also managed to find the time to sire 19 children. The piece, as described on the gatefold sleeve of the disc, is ‘a musical description of a bladder operation’ It appears that Marais intended that Tableau of a Lithotomy would demonstrate the versatility of the viol (also known as the Viola da Gamba), a bowed string instrument similar to the cello.

'Some 250 years ago a French composer, Marin Marais, wrote - to the best of our knowledge - the only musical description of a surgical operation. He called it "Le tableau de l'operation de la taille" or "Tableau of a Lithotomy". This most unusual offering was taken from an old edition of the Library of the Conservatory of Music in Paris; it had not previously been performed in modern times.

Marin Morais (1656-1728) - the greatest player of the viola de gamba of his time - was a pupil of Lulli and a soloist in the Royal Chamber Orchestra at the time of Louis XIV. He wrote profusely and brilliantly for the viola da gamba, but his compositions for this 7-stringed instrument are in such complicated polyphonic style that they defy transcription for the 4-stringed violin-cello and today, unfortunately all but forgotten.

Our recording was made by the famous Dutch viola da gamba player Carel Boomkamp, accompanied by the distinguished harpsichordist, Millicent Silver.

The verbal commentary which you will hear with the music, announcing the phases of the operation as it progresses, is based on the composer’s original annotations, which were intended to accompany the music’.

A lithotomy (from Greek "lithos" (stone) and "tomos" (cut)), is a surgical method for removal of stones formed inside organs such as the kidneys, bladder, and gallbladder, that cannot exit naturally through the urinary system.

Again: ugh!

Apologies for the poor quality of the B-side: I'll replace the link after I've converted my own copy. 

Enjoy!

Cry Me A Loser

There is absolutely no excuse for this.

Yummy Yummy Yummy by the Ohio Express is one of the most diabolical bubblegum hits ever inflicted on the world – a truly wretched record (although, to be fair, it’s not quite as abominable as the follow up Chewy Chewy). So why on earth would the wonderful Julie London – the angel who crooned the definitive version of  Cry me A River – decide to cover it?

You can’t really blame the members of Ohio Express, as the band didn’t really exist. ‘They’ were a studio project put together by Jerry Kasenetz's and Jeffrey Katz's Super K Productions with an ever-changing line-up: at one time Ohio Express featured the four men who would go on to form 10CC. Miss London, however, should have known better.

Born Julie Peck on September 26, 1926 in Santa Rosa, California, Julie London began acting in movies in 1944. Ten years later the sultry singer signed to Liberty Records and issued her first album, Julie Is her Name, in December 1955. Here first four albums were all top 20 hits in the US. She died in 2000, having never fully recovered from a stroke suffered some five years earlier.

Released in 1969 – as her 29^th and last LP for Liberty - London’s album Yummy Yummy Yummy is a misguided hotch-potch of contemporary covers, including Light My Fire, And I Love Her (as And I Love Him), garage band favourite Louie Louie and Bob Dylan’s Quinn the Eskimo (The Mighty Quinn).

It’s beyond ridiculous. And that’s why I’m including it three of the tracks from this awful album here, for your delectation.

Enjoy!

The Music of L Ron Hubbard

You’ll have all heard about L Ron Hubbard, the mediocre pulp sci-fi writer, bigamist, inveterate liar, convicted felon and racist who founded the cult of scientology… a ‘church’ populated by crazies who believe that anyone can attain immortality so long as they have the money.

I don’t need to go in to details here, but unless you’ve been living under a rock you’ll be more than aware of the controversies that surround this so-called religion; the numerous court cases, the allegations of human trafficking, of holding people against their will and the exploitation and blackmail of stupid rich people. As Hubbard once noted: “Writing for a penny a word is ridiculous. If a man really wants to make a million dollars, the best way would be to start his own religion."

I’m not here to poo-poo their bizarre beliefs, to argue about people being dropped down volcanoes millions of years ago, to talk of Xenu or Thetans, to discuss Hubbard’s battle with mental illness (he was diagnosed with schizophrenia: a recent documentary, Going Clear, produced letters Hubbard wrote begging for help with his illness) or even about why Shelly Miscavige, the wife of cult leader David Miscavige, has not been seen in public for eight years – for all we’re interested in today is the godawful ‘music’ made over the years by L Ron Hubbard (usually referred to as LRH).

For Hubbard was not only a writer of fiction, he also fancied himself a musician, writing, producing and helming several ridiculous musical projects in an effort elicit funds from his faithful followers.

Alongside endless albums of lectures, readings and interpretations of Hubbard’s personal philosophy, there are at least four records that fans of bad music need to be aware of: Space Jazz, Mission Earth, the Road to Freedom and the Joy Of Creating.

Space Jazz, conceived as the soundtrack to the book Battlefield Earth, was released in 1982. There were plans too to turn the book into a movie, with Scientology poster boy John Travolta in the lead as hero Jonnie Goodboy Tyler. However the movie did not appear until 2000, at which point Hubbard was long dead (well, his physical body was, anyway) and Travolta – now far too old to play the hero - was cast as the villain Terl instead. The film was a huge flop. However Space Jazz remains an essential listen.

Overseen by Jazz great Chick Corea, the album features dull piano pieces, snippets of comic-book dialogue and childish sound effects. It uses the then-new digital sampling synthesizer the Fairlight CMI throughout – most notably in the utterly ridiculous Windsplitter – an instrumental track that sounds like it was recorded for a ZX Spectrum game and is peppered throughout with neighing horses.

Mission Earth is an altogether different animal, issued as a solo album by guitar great Edgar Winter in 1986. The words and music were written by Hubbard, with the album produced and arranged by Winter. Sessions began in 1985, but were not completed until after Hubbard’s death in January 1986. Apparently Hubbard left detailed instructions and audio tapes for the musicians and producers to follow when making this album, which Winter has described as "both a return to rock’s primal roots and yet highly experimental". It isn’t: it’s perfectly dreadful. Mission Earth was published by Revenimus Music Publishing, the music publishing division of the Church of Scientology, which also published The Road to Freedom the same year.

Credited to L. Ron Hubbard & Friends, The Road to Freedom features John Travolta, Chick Corea, Leif Garrett, Frank Stallone, and Karen Black amongst others. According to the Church of Scientology, the album achieved gold record status within four months of release, although to the best of y knowledge it has jet to be awarded anything like a framed disc from the RIAA.

A March 20, 1986 press release put out by the Church of Scientology announced a series of tribute events in honour of LRH’s birthday, and stated, "Crowds applauded the surprise release of an album of popular music composed by Hubbard entitled The Road to Freedom, featuring leading artists John Travolta, Chick Corea, Karen Black, opera star Julia Migenes-Johnson, Leif Garrett, Frank Stallone, and more than two dozen other recording artists and entertainers." According to Wikipedia, The Church of Scientology directed its’ members to order multiple copies of the album to give to associates as a means to introduce people to the concepts of Scientology. The advertising calls this album "the perfect dissemination tool". Jonathan Leggett of The Guardian wrote that "the lyrics are rotten. At one stage Travolta croons: "Reality is me, reality is you. Yeah, yeah, yeah..." Although praised on websites as 'a musical masterpiece' it actually sounds like the kind of jazz noodle that they used to demonstrate CD players in Dixons in the 1980s." Luckily for us, The Road to Freedom features a performance from LRH himself – the preposterous L’envoi, Thank You for Listening.

And so to The Joy of Creating. Subtitled The Golden Era Musicians And Friends Play L Ron Hubbard, this pile of dross features Isaac Hayes, famously ousted from his role as Chef on South Park after refusing to poke fun at Scientology on the programme – although he was happy to take their dollar when producers Matt Stone and Trey Parker extracted the Michael from other belief systems. Other artists include Doug E. Fresh and our old friends Chick Corea and Edgar Winter.

Cobbled together from Hubbard’s writings and released 15 years after his death, The Joy of Creating (according to the CD booklet) “reminds us that a being causes his own feelings, and this truth alone has revitalized many artists and professionals the world over.” What it actually does is reinterpret the same piece of shabby writing six times, slathering LRH’s words with fake smiles and forced bonhomie. It’s nasty, dated, unnecessary nonsense and sounds like a Cosby Show soundtrack. Just awful.

Anyway, here we have a track from each of these four albums: Windsplitter from Space Jazz, Joy City from Mission Earth, L’envoi, Thank You for Listening, from The Road to Freedom and Doug E Fresh’s The Joy of Creating from the album of the same name.

Enjoy!

Thanks to The Squire for inspiring this week's blog post!

Moon the Buffoon

Two Sides of the Moon, Keith Moon's 1975 solo album, has been described as "the most expensive karaoke album in history". It’s a horrible album made by an inspired drummer who – bizarrely – decided not to play drums (he jumps behind the kit on just three tracks) but to sing instead, even though Keith was not known for his vocal prowess. He had recorded a few lead vocals for The Who, most notably Bucket T (from the Ready Steady Who EP) and Bellboy from Quadrophenia (he would go on to sing Fiddle About on 1975’s Tommy soundtrack; the original 1969 version was sung by the song’s author, John Entwistle), and had recently appeared on the misfiring Beatles tribute All This And World War II singing When I’m 64, but the man known as Moon The Loon would cheerfully - and honestly - admit that he was completely tone deaf.

Inspired by the fact that all of the other members of the Who had been indulging in solo projects (with distinctly different levels of success), Two Sides of the Moon should have been Keith’s moment to shine. However even bringing in a bunch of his superstar friends - including Spencer Davis, Bobby Keys, Rick Nelson, Harry Nilsson, John Sebastian, Ringo Starr, Joe Walsh and Flo & Eddie (Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan from the Turtles/the Mothers of Invention) failed to raise the LA recording sessions above carnage, and the resulting album is a travesty. The bastard cousin of other mid-70’s studio excesses – Nilsson’s Pussycats, the Lennon/Spector sessions that resulted in Roots/Rock ‘n’ Roll and the bloated, brandy and cocaine-fuelled Goodnight Vienna sessions - Two Sides of the Moon shines as a beacon of the unrestrained generosity of the music industry. Who today would fork out $200,000 (well over $1million today) for such an exercise in vanity?

Preceded by a single, a cover of the Beach Boys’ Don't Worry Baby (re-recorded for the album with Keith singing in a lower register: both versions are horrible), the album consists of cover versions – he revisits the Who's The Kids Are Alright, massacres the Beatles' In My Life " beyond all recognition – and new material provided by his pals, including Ringo (who ‘duets’ with Keith on Together), Harry Nilsson and John Lennon, who provided Move Over Ms L. Lennon would later re-record the track as the B-side to his hit cover of Stand By Me.

One school of though has it that Two Sides of the Moon was supposed to be messy: how can anyone take this seriously? The reversible inner cover for the LP, which shows Keith’s naked bottom doing a ‘moonie’ out of his car window, should have been sign enough that this project was meant to be a joke. Why then did he begin sessions for a follow up, shelved after the appalling sales of Two Sides of the Moon?

Recent reissues have added a slew of bonus cuts, including tracks recorded for the aborted second solo album. Would it have been any better? We’ll never know. Moon died three years after this sole solo project came out.

So, to save you the pain of having to listen to the entire album, here are three wholly representative cuts from Two Sides of the Moon, the aforementioned Don't Worry Baby, In My Life and Together.

Enjoy!

Corny Cornes

Big thanks to WWR reader Graham Clayton for suggesting today’s horror.

Born March 31, 1948 in Melbourne, Vietnam veteran (he served with the 7th Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment) Graham Studley Cornes is a former Australian rules footballer, coach, and sports presenter.

Luckily for us, he also fancies himself as a bit of a musician, fronting Cornesy's Allstars, playing guitar and taking on some of the vocal duties. A surprise really, as his vocal prowess – or distinct lack thereof – had already been showcased on his appalling 1977 45 I Gotta Girl, with its glam rock (some might say Status Quo rip-off) pomp, and the equally atrocious B-side Untying the Laces – which drops every football-related metaphor and simile in to the lyrics you can imagine in under three minutes.

Cornes played for Glenelg Football Club in the South Australian National Football League (SANFL) between 1967 and 1982. In 317 games for Glenelg he kicked 339 goals. Graham represented South Australia 21 times, including as captain in 1978. He was selected in the All-Australian team in 1979 and 1980, winning the Tassie Medal in 1980 and the Simpson Medal in 1979.

He went on to become coach of the Adelaide Football Club, and played 47 games with them in 1983-1984. After leaving South Adelaide he returned to Glenelg in 1985 as coach, winning premierships in 1985 and 1986 and also taking them to three Grand Finals in 1987, 1988 and 1990. He was the All-Australian coach in 1987 and 1988, and in 1991 was appointed the inaugural coach of the Adelaide Football Club in their first year in the AFL. Cornes is now a football media personality, hosting televised football matches since the 1990s and writing regular sports commentaries News Limited.

Both sides of this turkey were written by Evan Jones, another Vietnam veteran, who was co-author of The Pushbike Song, an international hit for The Mixtures in 1970. He really should have known better.

Enjoy!

Garbage, Lady.

The GTOs (not to be confused with the male group who recorded for Parkway and scored a hit with a cover of the Beach Boys’ Girl From New York City) were a six or seven-piece girl ‘group’ consisting of Miss Pamela (Pamela Ann Miller, later to become better known as supergroupie Pamela Des Barres and author of the memoir I'm with the Band), Miss Sparky (Linda Sue Parker who, in 1976, would sing on Zappa’s Zoot Allures album), Miss Christine (Christine Frka, who would appear on the cover of Zappa’s Hot Rats album, was Moon Unit Zappa’s babysitter, helped boyfriend Vince Furnier become Alice Cooper  and who died tragically young after overdosing on prescription painkillers), Miss Sandra (Sandra Lynn Rowe, later Sandra Leano, who died of cancer in 1991), Miss Mercy (Judy Peters), Miss Lucy (Lucy Offerall, later Lucy McLaren), and Miss Cynderella (Cynthia Wells, later Cynthia Cale-Binion, at one point married to the Velvet Undrground’s John Cale and who died in 1997). Legend has it that the ladies were given their nicknames by Tiny Tim, who had a penchant for addressing all of the women he met (and the three he wed) as Miss something-or-other.

Although it is usually claimed that their acronym stands for Girls Together Outrageously (and indeed, that’s how it appears on the cover of their one and only album), according to Sid Hochman’s 1972 book Readings in Psychology, (which discusses the girls’ bisexual community and quotes several members of the commune), the GTOs began as ‘a community of seven girls between 18 and 21’ called Girls Together Only, living together in Frank Zappa’s Laurel Canyon log cabin. Miss Lucy (who does not perform on the album but who appeared in Zappa’s movie 200 Motels and sadly died in 1991 of an AIDS-related illness) stated in a filmed interview that Girls Together Only was their correct name.

Originally calling themselves the Laurel Canyon Ballet Company (and, for a short time, adopting the name of the legendarily awful, turn of the century vaudeville act The Cherry Sisters) the girls signed a contract with Zappa, who kept them on a retainer of $35 a week each. The GTOs toured with Zappa and the Mothers of Invention, appearing on stage as dancers and performing covers of songs as perverse as Getting to Know You from The King and I. According to Des Barres they ‘only played a few gigs, maybe four or five’, however, as well as appearing with Zappa and the Mothers they also performed with other Zappa-related acts including Alice Cooper and Wild Man Fisher.

Their only album, the Zappa-produced Permanent Damage, was released in 1969. And what a record it is.

Featuring contributions from Frank Zappa, Nicky Hopkins, Jeff Beck, Rod Stewart, Lowell George, Russ Titleman, Ry Cooder and Monkee Davy Jones (who co-wrote the album’s closing track I'm In Love With The Ooo-Ooo Man and the Beefheart–inspired The Captain's Fat Theresa Shoes), Permanent Damage is in parts naïve, charming and thoroughly horrible. Songs are mixed in with conversations between the members of the group, their friends, and other ‘stars’ including the infamous Cynthia Plaster Caster and Rodney Bingenheimer, known as the Mayor of the Sunset Strip and one of Davy Jones’ stand-ins on The Monkees.

Some of you will love this, some will hate it. Personally although I can see the charm, I find the voices grating and the humour stilted. I’m not a Zappa fan, although I have a lot of time for many of the projects and acts he was involved with. I appreciate him for his boundary pushing and for challenging censorship, but I’ve always found him a bit too clever for his own good. Does humour belong in music? You be the judge.

It’s telling that Frank famously eschewed drugs (apart from caffeine, nicotine and a moderate amount of alcohol), yet members of the GTO’s – and other musicians involved in Permanent Damage - have freely admitted that they were often out of their heads, and this album screams acid trip. “We only lasted a short time because of the drug use,” Miss Mercy told interviewer Steve Olsen of Juice magazine in 2008. “Frank was very anti-drugs, and because of our drug use, he had to get rid of the GTOs.”

Miss Pamela has claimed that Lowell George was fired by Zappa for smoking marijuana (on leaving the Mothers of Invention George formed Little Feat: he died of a heroin overdose in 1979). Zappa himself died of prostate cancer in 1993; he dismissed the idea that it was in any way linked to his smoking. “To me, a cigarette is food,” He observed. “Tobacco is my favourite vegetable.” Frank’s wife, Gail, died earlier this week after a long battle with lung cancer.

Here are three of the songs from Permanent Damage: the album's opener The Eureka Springs Garbage Lady, its closing track I'm In Love With The Ooo-Ooo Man and the ode to Captain Beefheart, The Captain's Fat Theresa Shoes. 

Enjoy!

Hector's House

No Post next week – I’m taking a well-deserved week off – so here’s a bumper bundle of badness to tide you over until I return.

I love 60s French pop music – the freakbeat stylings of Jacques Dutronc, the genius pop of France Gall’s Poupee du Cire and the nutso pairing of Brigitte Bardot and Serge Gainsbourg for example – but why on earth would the world need a French Screaming Lord Sutch (or Screaming Jay Hawkins for that matter)?

Yet that’s exactly what it got in 1963 when Jean-Pierre Kalfon, better known under his stage name Hector, released a handful of records via Philips France.

Not to be confused with the French actor of the same birth name (that particular Monsieur Kalfon is eight years older than our Hector and would launch his own singing career later) our Jean-Pierre was born in 1946 and was only 15 years’ old when he became Hector, the flamboyant singer of the beat combo Les Mediators (which translates as The Picks). Stealing liberally from both Hawkins and Sutch – he used to emerge on stage from a coffin just as Hawkins (and later Sutch) had done – Hector would appear in white tie, tails and cape (as Sutch often did) accompanied (in a nod to James Brown) by his faithful valet Jerome. He was also known to emulate Sutch’s caveman look from time to time. His incredibly (for the time) long, bushy hair earned him the nickname The Chopin of Twist.

Hector et Les Mediators released one 45 single and two EPs (the preferred medium in France at the time) in 1963, including covers of such rock ‘n roll standards as Peggy Sue, Whole Lotta Shaking Going On and Something Else alongside material written specifically for him, including the diabolically awful Hawkins rip-off Je Vous Déteste (I Hate You). During his wild stage show, when he wasn’t imitating Sutch (who would later be photographed with Hector, holding his famous fake axe to the Frenchman’s neck) he would take off other stars of the day… including the Singing Nun! Like Sutch he was publicity-hungry, even going so far as to try and fry an egg on the flame at the tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

After a heated disagreement with Philips over the reissue of a brace of his old 50s covers on a then-current EP he left the company, and Les Mediators - Marc Schleck (lead guitar), Serge Mosiniak (bass), Gilbert Krantz (rhythm guitar) and William ‘Atomic Bill’ Roudil (drums) - behind him. Hector continued as a solo act for a couple of years, issuing EPs in 1964 for Ducaret Thompson (via Pathé Marconi) - Alligator/Mon Copain Johny//La Femme De Ma Vie/Hong Kong - and Polydor (Abab L’Arab [a cover of the Ray Stevens/Jimmy Savile novelty hit Ahab the Arab]/Il Faut Seulement Une Petite Fille//Le Gamin Couché [a cover of the Monkees-related US hit The Gamma Goochee]/A La Fin De La Semelle [a dire French language version of Otis Redding’s I've Been Loving You Too Long]).

After recording an (unreleased) cover of Screamin’ Jay Hawkins’ The Whammy he left France in 1967 and moved to Canada, where he dabbled in artist management and rubbed shoulders with Tony Roman, the man behind Mme St Onge, before returning to Paris and re-emerging in 1970 as part of the trio Hector, Tom et Jerry with the one-off 45 Un P’tit Beaujolais/La Societie. Tom et Jerry had previously recorded as a duo for RCA.

And that was that. No more releases. He became artistic director at Barclay Records and at Pathé Marconi before becoming an actor, appearing in Gomina (1973) and Marriage (The Wedding) (1975) with Jeane Manson. In 1983 Hector bought a packaging machine manufacturing plant in Seine-et-Marne, which he sold on four years later; the following year Philips issued Je Vous Déteste, a mini-album compilation of the six sides he recorded for the company. In more recent years he has made a living out of touring the French r’n’r revival scene.

Last year (2014) Hector resurfaced with several members of Les Mediators at the unveiling of a plaque to mark the Golf Drouot – a club where many of France’s top performers (including Hector et les Mediators) performed between 1955 and 1981.

Anyway, here’s a handful of Hector’s finest. Enjoy!

Jefferson, I Think We're Lost

I’ve been reading about – and listening to a lot of – R.E.M recently; reacquainting myself with one of the finest bands this world has ever seen. It doesn’t really matter if you like them or not, but take my word for it: even if you never got on with their records they were – quite simply – one of the best live acts I’ve ever been fortunate enough to see. I cannot count the number of times I saw that band live, from a pub in London (when they used the pseudonym Bingo Hand Job) to a TV studio in Paris: from a rugby stadium in Wales to the Hammersmith Odeon and a Victorian theatre in Dublin. When R.E.M played live it was a magical, cathartic experience. And I miss them. Although in my humble opinion they should have called it quits a few years before they did, and Around the Sun High Speed Train aside) is bollocks.

Anyway…to the point.

Issued in 1988 on his own Dog Gone Records label, the five track 12” EP Come On In Here If You Want To may be credited to Vibrating Egg but is actually a vanity project from former R.E.M manager Jefferson Holt.

Holt, who was with the band from its earliest days, was dismissed as manager of the world’s biggest act in 1996 – around the same time that they signed with Warners for what was one of the largest deals in recording history at the time: reportedly $80 million for five albums. Both camps have resolutely refused to talk about why he went – in fact the terms of the financial package means that they cannot legally discuss why he was booted out after 15 years’ service, but according to the Los Angeles Times (June 1996)  ‘Holt was asked to leave after members of the group investigated allegations that he sexually harassed a female employee at [their] tiny Athens, Ga., office.

The 42-year-old manager officially left the R.E.M. organization last week after receiving a hefty severance package, sources said. In a phone interview, Holt denied he had ever sexually harassed anyone and said that the decision to part ways with R.E.M. was mutual.

"I've agreed to keep the terms of my agreement with R.E.M. confidential," Holt said. "However, 15 years is a long time, and as time passed, our friendships have changed. I think we found as time passed that we have less and less in common. I've become more interested in other things in life and wanted to spend more time pursuing those interests. I'm happier than I have been in a long time."

Representatives for R.E.M. refused to comment, but released a statement Thursday that said the band and Holt terminated their relationship by mutual agreement. According to the statement, "the reasons for this decision and terms of the termination are private and confidential, and no further discussion of these matters will be made by any of the parties."

Band members were "shocked" when a female employee complained four months ago about Holt's alleged behaviour, one source said. The employee did not file a lawsuit nor register a claim with the Equal Opportunity Employment Commission, but complained to the band that Holt had harassed her with lewd remarks and demanded sexual favours, sources said.

Band members questioned Holt and then spent about three months investigating the allegations, sources said. In May, the band called a meeting and asked Holt to leave the organization, sources said.’ This same story has been repeated in other media, including the New York Times, but Peter Buck, R.E.M’s guitarist, strongly denied that anyone connected with R.E.M had planted the sexual harassment story. Whatever happened, Holt was quickly erased from R.E.M history. Two songs mention him – Little America and Can’t Get There From Here – however whenever they performed Little America live after his departure they changed the lyrics to avoid referencing him.

  

Reviewed by Trouser Press in 1988, Ira Robbins had this to say about Come On In Here If You Want To: ‘A 12-inch of five cool covers by an unknown band on an indie label would normally rate little notice, but Georgia's Vibrating Egg has more than just the good sense to dedicate its record to Leonard Cohen and Viv Stanshall. Raoul Duplott, the unsteady vocalist on these amiable renditions of Procol Harum's A Whiter Shade of Pale, Roky Erickson's Bermuda, an old spiritual and two of Alice Cooper's finest, is none other than Jefferson Holt, then-manager of R.E.M. and founder of the Dog Gone label, surrounded by a host of pseudonymous players. (Hmm...) Good fun, but Holt had best keep his day job.’  

‘Amiable renditions’? A Whiter Shade of Pale is eight and a half minutes of torture, with Holt’s pointless, artless prose followed by Keith Reid’s equally pointless and tortuous lyrics. Bermuda later turned up on the same Roky Erickson tribute album (Where the Pyramid Meets the Eye) that featured R.E.M’s version of I Walked With a Zombie. The two Alice Cooper covers - Be My Lover and Under My Wheels – even with their rewritten lyrics are plain awful. As far as I am aware, the only member of R.E.M who plays (and adds backing vocals) on the disc is bassist Mike Mills. Holt used the pseudonym Raoul Duplott for the project; Mills appears as William B Carr.

Long out of print, here are all five tracks from Come On In Here If You Want To – the aforementioned A Whiter Shade of Pale, Bermuda, Be My Lover and Under My Wheels, plus Particularly Zeke, a spiritual previously covered by Elvis Presley as Swing Down Sweet Chariot on his gospel album His Hand In Mine.

Enjoy!

So Who Likes Gary Glitter?

 

So, who likes gary Glitter?

Ahh, the early 70s; a more simple time when our pop stars were not paedophiles and when the disc jockeys on the nation’s number one radio station were not scared that the next person to knock on the front door  would be a policeman.

Ed ‘Stewpot’ Stewart – born Edward Mainwaring in 1941 - is a British DJ and television presenter, best known for his years working for BBC Radio 1 between 1967 and 1980 (particularly Junior Choice) and BBC Radio 2 (1980-1983 and 1991-2006) and as one of the many presenters of Top of the Pops and Crackerjack on BBC Television. For many years he was also associated with the children’s TV magazine Look-In.

Although he began his broadcasting career with radio Hong Kong in 1961, he’s most closely associated with the BBC. Ed has had an often tempestuous relationship with them: in 1983, he was ousted – along with other old favourites including Pete Murray – by the controller of Radio 2 Bryan Marriott with the rather vicious remark: ‘I am not prepared to let the network stagnate. It is time to inject new blood into our programming, and there is no room for Ed Stewart.’ Ed was ‘shocked and disappointed’ at the sacking. ‘I don’t think I’m any more old hat than anyone else in the network’, he said. His replacement was Gloria Hunniford… 54 weeks older than him.

He had a rather outré private life, meeting his wife to be - ‘I arrived (at her parents) at 7pm and was greeted at the door by what I can only describe as a 13 year old apparition! She was simply stunning’ - when she was barely a teenager (and starting to date her at that age, according to his own autobiography, even though he was 30 at the time) and continuing to live with her after they divorced and she moved her lover in to their house.

But anyway, back to the music. Today’s cuts come from a prime slice of ham entitled Stewpot’s Pop Party, one of a number of albums released under Ed’s name during the 70s. As he was most closely associated with radio and TV shows aimed at children, most of Ed’s recordings feature him narrating (or attempting to sing) kid’s songs and nursery rhymes – his debut was the 1968 45 I Like My Toys, performed with the Save The Children Fund Choir, a cover version of the Jeff Lynne/Idle Race song.

Stewpot’s Pop Party is a kind of precursor to the awful Mini-Pops: in other words the album mostly consists of children singing pop songs of the day in the hope of appealing to other children and failing miserably. Pulled together as a kind of instant kids party - the album is awash with the background noise of laughing, squealing children; the gatefold cover features recipes and games and there’s even an insert with pre-printed party invitation. The record includes four tracks by TRex and one by the Move alongside several songs performed by ‘The Children’ and Stewart’s own inane narration…which, as you’ll hear, includes several references to well-known child molester Gary Glitter.

It’s a period piece from a more innocent age. And it’s truly rotten.

Enjoy!

Absolute Insanity

Brian Wilson – 100% certified genius. The man behind some of the most beautiful pop music of all time. He wrote God Only Knows, easily one of the greatest songs of all time. His reputation should be unassailable.

But he also wrote Smart Girls… a song I would have all but forgotten about if I hadn’t been recording a podcast with The Squire recently.

Brian is a troubled soul; his mid-60s meltdown caused the abandonment of the Beach Boys’ Smile project (an approximation of this missing album finally surfaced in 2011 as part of the essential Smile Sessions box set), signalled the end of the Beach Boys as a major chart act and would lead to decades of pain for him and his family, years of substance abuse, and periods of virtual house arrest from his controversial therapist Eugene Landy before he finally re-emerged in 1988 with the rather wonderful Brian Wilson album an its’ hit single Love and Mercy. He’s since toured the world – both solo and with the band he founded – to great acclaim and released several albums of new and re-worked material.

Following the release of Brian Wilson he set to work on a second solo alum, originally to be titled Brian. He has said that the master tapes from the project – later titled Sweet Insanity - were stolen, although the songs were prepared for release (cassette promos exist) and have since appeared on numerous bootlegs. Five of the songs from the sessions were rerecorded and released on his 2004 album Gettin' in Over My Head, and one - The Spirit of Rock and Roll - which featured Bob Dylan on vocals, eventually turned up on the hard-to-find 2006 Beach Boys album Songs from Here & Back. However several of the songs remain officially unreleased to this day including the track I present for you here, Brian’s misjudged attempt at rap, Smart Girls. I’m breaking with tradition slightly by bringing you a recording that hasn’t officially seen the light of day, but I thought you’d enjoy it anyway.

Smart Girls – with a co-writer credit to Landy - was produced by Matt Dike, the co-founder of Delicious Vinyl and part of the production team behind hits by Tone Loc and Young MC, who chose to sample bits of earlier Beach Boys hits and sprinkle them liberally throughout the song. Wilson played the song on the air during an interview on Dr. Demento's show in 1992.

"Sweet Insanity was never really released,” Wilson said in an interview earlier this year. “You’ve got bootlegs, but it was never released. And I thought some of the stuff was pretty good. It wasn’t the best album I ever wrote. We just didn’t think it was good enough. They were just like demos. We recorded about 10-12 songs, and we decided not to put it because we thought that maybe people wouldn’t like it, so we junked it."

Good choice, Brian. The interviewer, Dave Herrera of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, asked Brian about Smart Girls: “Was that just you fooling around and having a good time?”

“Yeah, we were just having a good time,” Brian answered. “It was fun. We were just kidding. I felt like I was going in the right direction. I thought if I added a little bit more harmony, that people would like (that). Harmony is something that people love.”

Enjoy!

She's A Little Lighthouse

In 1920 one of the most iconic masterpieces in cinema history, Robert Wiene's Das Cabinet des Dr. Caligari, shook filmgoers worldwide. This expressionist, minimalist horror film introduced the world to Conrad Veidt, playing the terrifying Cesare a somnambulist that can seemingly predict the future, and his ‘keeper’, the awful Doctor Caligari… and changed the direction of movies forever.

Hans Walter Conrad Veidt was born in Tieckstrasse, Berlin in January 1893 (many biographies incorrectly state that he was born in Potsdam). he was a poor student, leaving school in 1912 without his diploma, yet within a year he was appearing on stage - in Shaw's The Doctor at the prestigious Deutsches Theatre. In 1914, at the beginning of World War I, he was conscripted into the German Army and sent to the Eastern Front as a non-commissioned officer, where he took part in the Battle of Warsaw. Contracting jaundice and pneumonia, Veidt was evacuated to a hospital; while recuperating, the army allowed him to join another thetaer troupe, this time entertaining the troops at the front.

Deemed unfit for service, he was given a full discharge in January 1917 and returned to Berlin to pursue his acting career. Although he rejoined the Deutsches Theatre he soon moved in to movies, attracted by the larger salaries paid to film actors. Signing first with Deutsch Bioscop, and later moving to the more famous Universum Film Ag (or Ufa), he would go on to appear in more than 100 films, including The Hands of Orlac (1924) and The Man Who Laughs (1928), based on Victor Hugo's novel in which the son of a lord is punished for his father's disrespect to the king by having his face carved into a permanent grin (providing the inspiration for The Joker. Veidt also appeared in the pioneering gay rights film Anders als die Andern (Different from the Others, 1919) which was a huge influence on the Dirk Bogarde film Victim.

He had a leading role in Germany's first talking picture, Das Land ohne Frauen (Land Without Women, 1929), but an early attempt to break Hollywood failed due to his thick, almost impenetrable accent. Then, in 1932 he starred in F.P 1 Does Not Answer, a bizarre science fiction epic about a future trans-Atlantic air service where planes land and refuel on a series of mid-ocean Floating Platforms. Like many talking pictures of the time, multi-lingual versions of F.P 1 were made (several Laurel and Hardy films were made in Spanish, French and German). The German version starred Hans Albers, the French version Charles Boyer and the British starred Veidt - all of whom were compelled to 'sing' a singularly inappropriate ballad about lost love in a lighthouse - When The Lighthouse Shines Across the Bay. 

Soon after the Nazi Party took power in Germany Joseph Goebbels purged the film industry of liberals and Jews, and copies of Anders als die Andern were destroyed (it only exists now in fragments). In 1933, a week after Veidt married Illona Prager, a Jew, the couple emigrated to Britain. He improved his English and starred in the title role of the original version of Jew Süss (1934). Fervently opposed the Nazi regime, he donated most of his personal fortune to Britain to assist in the war effort and became a British citizen in 1938. While in England he made three of his best-known films - The Spy in Black (1939), the Powell and Pressburger film Contraband and The Thief of Baghdad (both 1940).

In 1941, he and Ilona moved to Hollywood, principally to assist in the British effort in making  films that might help persuade the US to come to Britain's aid against the Nazis. Realising that Hollywood would most likely typecast him in Nazi roles, he had it written in to his contract that if he were to play Nazis then they must always be villains. He starred in a few films, most notably A Woman's Face (1941) with Joan Crawford and Casablanca (1942), but in 1943, at the age of fifty, he died of a massive heart attack while playing golf. 55 years later, in 1998, his ashes were interred at the Golders Green Crematorium in London.

But back to Conrad Veidt’s one stab at musical greatness... for it is his version of When The Lighthouse Shines Across the Bay, originally issued on a 10” 78 in the UK in 1933 (backed with The Airman's Song, not performed by Veidt) I present for you today.

Veidt's song seems to have been cut from the British release of the movie, but was put out on an HMV 78, and subsequently reissued – not once, but twice - in 1980 after it had been unearthed by disc jockey Terry Wogan. Veidt's sinister delivery of Donovan Parson's awkward lyrics is one of the most unsettling things I have ever heard.

Unfortunately I have been unable to track down a recording of The Airman’s Song, but here’s Conrad Veidt in all his glory, plus the two tracks that appeared on the two separate 7” reissues (both confusingly given the same catalogue number): I Liked His Little Black Moustache by Binnie Barnes, and Me And My Dog by Frances Day.

Enjoy!