I had a wonderful time: I met some amazing, creative people
and got to visit an incredible city. And, while I was on the other side of the
planet, I had some opportunity to dig around Melbourne’s record stores and
search out a few obscurities for you to enjoy. If you are ever in the city,
check out the shops on Smith Street for some real vinyl bargains!
And here’s the first. Not an Australian recording, but
rather an American one, from the febrile mind of Gary S. Paxton – the man
responsible for the Hollywood Argyles hit Alley Oop and such horrors as
the 1978 anti-abortion abortion The Big A = The Big M, a number I
featured on the World’s Worst Records radio Show once or twice but have not
written about (yet… I shall remedy that very soon). Paxton is not
credited on this particular disc, but he’s there, hiding behind the aliases ‘D.
Sanford’ as co-writer, and ‘White Tornado’ as producer and arranger – a seat he
filled back in 1962 for Bobby (Boris) Pickett’s Monster Mash. Paxton had
previously used the name White Tornado for a one-off single, It's Hard To Be
A Rock & Roll Star When You're Bald & Fat, issued by RCA in 1973.
Issued in the States (and elsewhere, clearly, as this copy
is an Australian pressing) in 1974 at the height of the short-lived streaker
craze, and credited to Flesh Gordon And The Nude Hollywood Argyles, Superstreaker
was a cash-in on the runaway international success of Ray Stevens’ The
Streak, a number one in the USA and the UK. Stevens single had been issued
in the US in February, and Superstreaker followed just one month later.
The disc, incidentally, has no obvious connection to the sex comedy Flesh
Gordon which, although it was issued in the same year, was actually shot
three years earlier.
A rip-off of the Olympics’ Hully Gully, although it
seems to have been meant as a parody of the Streak (an odd thing
considering the original was intended as a comedy record), one British review
dismissed Superstreaker with a withering ‘It’s Just not very funny and
the arrangement is very ordinary,’ however James Hamilton, reviewing the disc
for Record Mirror liked it, saying that ‘With a group name like that
you’d be right to expect a revamped version of “Alley Oop”: what you might NOT
expect, though, is for it to be as good as it is. With lines like “Look up in
the tree, it’s a sugar-cured ham!” – “No, it’s Superstreaker!”, it’s a
veritable laffarama.’ Cash Box thought big of it too, telling its
readers that Superstreaker was ‘a very cute, fun record that stations
will be hopping on for the sheer novelty of it all.’
The B-side, Naked, is a saxophone-led
quasi-instrumental with little to recommend it, composed by the disc’s musical
arranger, Don Tweedy, but I have included it here for completists. Neither side
was a hit anywhere (unless you count hitting the dizzy heights of 120 on the Cash
Box chart), although the A-side was played quite a bit on local radio in
the Philadelphia area.
More soon, but for now enjoy both sides of the 1974 single Superstreaker.
Download Superstreaker HERE
Download Naked HERE
No comments:
Post a Comment