Evangelist Jimmy Swaggart "The Ring Of Fire: A Message To The Youth of America"

You boys and girls that have Beatle records at home...This is the most rotten, dirty, damnable, filthy, putrid FILTH that this nation of the world has ever known. And you parents that would allow this filth to be in your home, you ought to be taken out somewhere and horse-whipped, you hear me?
-- Jimmy Swaggart, "The Ring of Fire", 1968"

When reader Kenny left that comment, referring to the sin-tillating collection "The Big Rumble", I said: well sweet jumpin' Jeebus on a pogo-stick, I have got to have that album, pronto! And long-time M4M contributor Windbag came thru. But no-one's a bigger windbag then disgraced whorin' porn-addict Jimmy Swaggart, who somehow makes his cousin Jerry Lee Lewis look respectable, with his message to "the Youth of America." Presumably then, you European, Asian, African and Latin kids can have all the fun you want. Damn you!

In a most enjoyably hyperventilating manner, Swaggart huffs and puffs against the immoralities of our age. Not too surprising, given the above quote, but he even suggests that the appropriate response to children disobeying their parents is the death penalty. Hey, that's what the bible says! If you're thinking of sampling this album, Meat Beat Manifesto (meat)beat you to it 20 years ago, but don't let that stop you. There's still plenty of nuggets waiting to be mined by the right DJs/sound collagists. I really did LOL out loud when he went off on Mom putting on her miniskirt and going out to dance The Frug! The Monkey! The Watusi! Despite the title, he does not sing any Johnny Cash songs, however.

After 6 discs celebrating Sin City, I think we really need to attempt to cleanse our damned souls now:  
 
Jimmy Swaggart "The Ring Of Fire"

Bothers and sisters, let us give thanks and praise to the Most High Windy!

 

Trying to get caught up on the re-post requests.

So far I have resurrected:

- WiIdman Fischer and Smegma and "An Evening With WildMan Fischer"
- Junkanoo & Goombay 
- Bobby Jimmy & The Critters "Ugly Knuckle Butt" 
- RIAA "USA" 
- "Bah! Humbug: The Alternative Christmas Album"

Alas, the 4 volume "Human Music Anthology" series has gone missing. (UPDATE: not entirely missing; see comments.)

Party Like It's Only $19.99

What better way to note the shockingly sudden passing of Prince then with this 1999 release by mashup pioneers the Evolution Control Committee? Prince, and in particular his song "1999," serve as the jumping-off point for all manner of avant-tard shenanigans. The ECC (recording under a number of phony "band" names) are joined by such sample-sound stars as Wobbly (doin' the John Oswald 'plunderphonics' thang), Wayne Butane with another one of his funny sound collages, Realistic, and Fossil aka Pea Hix of the great Optigonally Yours, who remind us that Van Halen's "Jump" is kind of a "1999" rip-off. ECC's own tracks range from Weird Al-ish parodies, such as the Oktoberfestive "Polka Like It's 1999," to dense, challenging noise-fests.

Party Like It's Only $19.99 

Listening to this album is an appropriate way to memorialize another great who died today, Richard Lyons, one of the founders of the legendary culture-jamming collagists Negativland. They don't have a track on this disc, but their influence is certainly all over it. Since Don Joyce has also died within the past year, I wonder if the band will continue. Maybe they should recruit some of the talent featured here. Or People Like Us, or The Bran Flakes. Or me! Can I join?!

"THE BANYAN TREE": Groovy '60s Soundtrack to A Lost Film

Hello, and welcome to another episode of "Mysteries...of the Mysterious." I am your host Mr. E. Train. Today, we shall explore the baffling riddle of a film from the late 1960s entitled the "The Banyan Tree." A film so obscure that it is not mentioned on IMDB, or anywhere else on the internet. Indeed, the only proof of its' existence is three curious 45 rpm records, six songs total. 

Alex Burton of Dallas' KRLD radio

And what swell, swingin' sides they are indeed. Up-beat go-go beats, snappy horn charts, Beach Boys harmonies, sitars...the Now Sound for the "Now Generation." How could anyone not love a band called The Pickle Platter doing "Chant of the Dead Temples." (What the hell was this film about anyway?!). Or the absurd title song: "Hey hey hey, Mr Holy Man!...send me on a trip, around my mind!"  It's safe to say that The Apple Corps, the Puget Sound and The Pickle Platter were not real bands, but studio concoctions.

If YOU have any idea who are the forgotten talents behind this music, let us know. Because the daughter of Dallas, TX radio man Alex Burton inherited these historical oddities from her fur-coat clad father, was suitably impressed, and put them all up on the youtubes in the hopes that maybe someone out there knows something about the film and these records and can fill us in.

The only clue is in on the record label: "Marty Young Productions." Apparently they were a small Dallas TX film production house formed in 1967 that made religious films, educational shorts, etc. The film probably had something to do with India.

"The Banyan Tree" (6 songs)

Not everything is on the internet. There are still things we do not, perhaps were not meant to know. Is this yet another mystery...of the mysterious?

LAS VEGAS DAMMIT! Six Disks That Sing of Sin

I don't have to say much about this stupendous, endlessly entertaining collection of audio celebrating Sin City because it's compiler Don-O, the cat who previously slipped us the "Xanadu" tribute comps, has spilled plenty of virtual ink his own self. Take it away, Don-O: 

The Las Vegas story (for track listings, liner notes, artwork, etc)

Take heed! Apart from the nonstop cavalcade of music from all eras and genres, and the comedy/spoken word tracks, there are numerous vintage radio and tv spots recorded off the Vegas airwaves years ago by Don-O himself. Bravo, sir, and thanks for preserving true Vegas, before djs spinning top 40 replaced the tuxedo-clad lounge entertainers, before dining and shopping surpassed gambling as Vegas' top earner (making what is now essentially Rodeo Drive East a helluva lot more expensive), before the ruthless, criminal, but fun-loving mob were replaced by giant soulless corporations, before...

LAS VEGAS DAMMIT! vol1
LAS VEGAS DAMMIT! vol2
LAS VEGAS DAMMIT! vol3
LAS VEGAS DAMMIT! vol4
LAS VEGAS DAMMIT! vol5
LAS VEGAS DAMMIT! vol6

Offensive Humor + Space-Age Music = ROY AWBREY's "Laugh It Up!"

This is one of the greatest bad comedy album I've ever heard, an amazing documentation of mid-'60s culture at its' sick weirdest. I was personally knocked out by the fact that side 1 is recorded in my own San Fernando Valley stomping grounds, in a bowling alley cocktail lounge that I've actually been to. And what a side it is: when he isn't showing off his expensive Space-Age accordions' many hi-tech goo-gaws to the point that this is almost a demonstration album, he throws in one dud of a joke after another. It's just like a Neil Hamburger album, but while Neil's worst-comic-ever routine is the shtick of post-modern performer Gregg Turkington, this is the real deal: there is no, I mean NO audience reaction to any of his jokes. It's both hilarious and ghastly hearing him die on stage like this. Then sometimes when he completes playing a song, obviously fake crowd sound effects are ludicrously dropped in, making it sound like the Royal Room has the TARDIS-like ability to fit thousands into its small space.

Joined only by a drummer, Awbrey performs snippets or sizeable chunks of standards like "12st St Rag," "Never On Sunday," "Twilight Time", "Alley Cat," "Moonlight Serenade," and "Holiday For Strings," interspersed with jokes. It all ends with a lengthy, furious boogie-woogie jam (complete with drum solo) that must have had those suburban savages a-whoopin' and a-hollerin', dancing around the joint wearing novelty cocktail napkins on their heads. Just listen to that fake applause!

A newspaper ad has him billed as "the King of Comedy," leading Kliph Nesteroff to wonder if that's where Scorsese got the idea for his film of the same name...

Side 2, recorded in Anaheim (in a county south of L.A.) is an altogether different beast, a song-free non-stop cavalcade of bad jokes, usually of a naughty or lewd nature, in front of an actually appreciative audience. Rape jokes! "Queer" jokes"! More rape jokes! What is wrong with you, Orange County?!

That album cover makes it clear that his live show took it all to another level: a toilet-seat guitar! A three-boob bikini top! And that fact that there is zero biographical info on Awbrey out there makes me wonder if I didn't just dream up this whole thing.

ROY AWBREY "Laugh It Up!" (1965)

This blog has been on hold for a while, but, as I reported in the previous post, it looked like my hard drive with all my latest-and-greatest (including a number of vinyl rips) had died. I recovered most of it, and will endeavor to make up for lost time. Lots of stuff in the pipeline, dear maniacs, thanks for your patients. 

THE BIG RUMBLE! Uncensored Scenes of the Nightmares of a Weirdo

(Back up, by request: Roky Erickson live, Jonathan Brandmeier, Bah Humbug, and CURL ACTIVATE 2: More '80s Hip-Hop Novelties.)
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Never before in the history of blogging has there been such a SHOCKING collection of '50s/'60s audio atrocities! You'll flip your wig (or your switchblade) when you...HEAR riotous rock'n'roll and rancid radio ads! HEAR bad-boy bikers blowin' rhythm-and-blues! HEAR their rockabilly "rumble" with rival gangs! These heathen hot-rodding hoodlums and harlots are on a one-way drag race to HELL!

Music For Maniacs, the blog that brought you such SIN-tillating compilations as "Voodoo Dance Doll," and the banned-in-Boston "Hubba Hubba!," are back with an all-new spine-tingling collection of virgin vinyl rips and recorded-off-YouTube sound selections, many of which have never been digitally available before! There are other similar collections of this sort of teen trash, but these songs have (so far as I know) not been previously compiled.

Starring in this festival of forgotten (forbidden?!) 45s: a teen-aged (and unrecognizable) Scott Walker, still going by the name Scott Engel; gay novelty act Sandy Beech; one Mike Minor, possible the only lounge crooner to tackle juvenile delinquency; a Frank Zappa production; both a song by the Cheers (featuring future game show host Bert Convy) and a cover of the Cheers' hit "Black Denim Trousers" (that I think I prefer to the original); Harold Lloyd Jr - yes, the son of the hanging-off-the-clock guy - who had a short, strange life; and since every psychobilly/Cramps-related comp features Link Wray's "Rumble," we're including a different Wray rumbler that might be an even better tune.

Volume 7 of our ongoing survey of mid-century sleazy-listening sounds is in limbo - on a hard-drive that has apparently crashed. A drive I bought to be a backup for my main drive!  Damn thing (a Passport) is less then a year old. Hoping it can be recovered. So we're jumping to Vol. 8.

As Oliver Reed sings:
"Black Leather, Black Leather, Smash Smash Smash!
Black Leather, Black Leather, crash crash crash!
Black Leather, Black Leather, Kill Kill Kill!"

"LOWBROW Vol. 8: The Big Rumble"

1 ad - "The Thrill Killers"
2 Link Wray - Rumble Rock
3 Jeff Daniels - Switchblade Sam [one of the more surreal, hysterical rockabilly boppers I've ever heard, describing some kind of orgy between Long Tall Sally, Stagger Lee, and, er, Charlie Brown?]
4 Oliver Reed - Black Leather Rock [from the film "(These Are) The Damned"]
5 The Shadows - The Rumble
6 ad - "High School Hellcats"/"Hot Rod Gang"
7 The Cheers - Chicken [presumably inspired by the "chickie run" scene in the James Dean film "Rebel Without a Cause"]
8 The Champs - Experiment In Terror [like Link Wray, those "Tequila" boys The Champs did in fact record more than one song]
9 The Diamonds - Daddy Cool
10 ad - "The Wild Rebels"
11 Bill Woods - Go Crazy Man
12 Alexander (Sandy) Courage - Hot Rod Rumble (Main Title)
13 Bob Peck - Sweet 16 [cool song Bob, but you're still the poor man's Tom Lehrer!]
14 Ray Smith - Rockin' Bandit
15 The Orange Groove - Street King [it's a shame we'll never know what geniuses made this brilliant quasi-Middle Eastern bad-boy oddity for a budget label]
16 Don Lonie Talks With Teenagers (excerpt)
17 Scott Walker (aka Scott Engel) - Good For Nothin' [Wow, before I came across this 45, I had no idea about the pre-Walker Brothers rockabilly past of Scott W.]
18 Homer Denison Jr - Chickie Run [hello, sound fx!]
19 Steve Karmen - 'Teenage Gang Debs' theme
20 ad - "Fiend For Flesh!"/"Road Rebels" [alas, these films, scarcely released in the first place, are considered lost]
21 Hal Blaine & the Young Cougars - Green Monster
22 Hells Angels (dialogue)
23 The Diamonds - Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots
24 The Rotations - The Cruncher [not "The Crusher"! but an early Zappa production]
25 Die Crazy Girls - Der Feuerstuhl (Leader Of The Pack) [is she saying "buzz off, buzz off" in this German Shangri-las remake?]
26 ad - "She Devils on Wheels"
27 Epitones - The Mighty Rumble
28 Sandy Beech - Leather Jacket Lovers [amazing that this outrageous s&m parody was released back in the '60s; how did they get away with it!? Er, well, maybe J. Edgar Hoover dug it, he was a pretty kinky cat...]
29 Harold Lloyd Jr w/Page Cavanaugh - Daddy Bird [from the terrible film "Frankenstein's Daughter"]
30 Mike Minor - Rumble In The Night
31 Hash Brown - The Rumble
32 ad - "Bury Me an Angel"
33 The Crickets - I Fought The Law [yep, 'twas a post-Buddy Holly Crickets that wrote and first recorded this classic; why was it not the hit that Bobby Fuller's version was? Perhaps  the reference to a "zip-gun", the homemade rubber-band-powered gun that punk kids used, was too controversial; changing it to "six gun" removed it to a safer Old Western past]
34 Vicki Young - Riot In Cell Block #9 [the Leiber and Stoller hit for The Coasters (dba The Robins) gets a female makeover]
35 Barry Green (aka Barry Blue) - Shake A Tail Suzie [a Suzuki 'cycles promo]