Swim With The Go-Go's (The Guy-Guy Go-Go's, Not The Girl-Girl Go-Go's)

 


































Was quite happy to hear from Roger Yorke of the '60s vocal trio The Go-Go's who sang on the delightful oddity "The Munsters" we posted last year. After pestering the poor guy for information, he most graciously filled us in on the story behind the album. 

The Go-Go's consisted of Yorke, Bill Wild, and Jim Infield, backed by the legendary Hollywood session cats, The Wrecking Crew (currently the subject of an excellent documentary film, by the way.) Mr. Yorke says: 

It was the three of us on vocals along with most of the best studio musicians of the time, including Leon Russell, Glen Campbell, etc.. All the songs including instruments & sound affects were recorded at the session at RCA Hollywood. We did do some travel & TV appearances as the group with special full head form fitted masks from Universal Pictures. We even got to spend time on the original TV Show set.

[Any surviving videos of their tv appearances?!]

Both the Munsters and The Go-Go’s was quite a musical transition for us with Joe & Hal [producers Joe Hooven & Hal Winn] being in their forties & fifties, I re-wrote & re-arranged the songs as much as I was allowed. Bill Wild and I had played around town very successfully in groups and progressed well in our careers. Jim Infield lived in Germany at last contact I had a few years ago. I now produce and manage singing artists after being executive A&R for the Majors.

I wondered if any legal action was ever considered against those New Wave Valley girls who would use the name in the '80s. Not only did that not happen, Yorke tells us that 

RCA owned the name Go-Go’s and I worked with and promoted the girl’s group.

Ha, that's great. The Go-Go's also released an album under their own name of Beach Boys/Jan and Dean-type vocal surf rock. The opener "(They Call Him) Chicken Of The Sea" boasts not only cool chicken-scratch guitar, but tells the nutty story of the title character who's afraid of water: anti-surf music? Also most dig-able: the 3-chord garage rocker "At The Beach," the Phil Spector-ish "Do The Malibu," the cover of Eddie Cochran's "Summertime Blues." I'm glad scuba divers and snorkelers finally get a boss tune of their own in "Underwater." And what's not to love about a song called "Peek-A-Boo Swimsuit"?

I would be flattered if you posted Swim With The Go-Go’s. I was the only one who surfed and we all lived in California.

There are many stories to tell…

THE GO-GO'S - Swim With The Go-Go's [1964]

A1	(They Call Him) Chicken Of The Sea
A2	Lonely Girl
A3	Summertime Express
A4	Goodbye Winter
A5	Kingfish
A6	Summertime Blues
B1	Underwater
B2	On The Beach
B3	Do The Malibu
B4	Peek - A - Boo Swimsuit
B5	Sand Swimmer
B6	Swim Time U.S.A.

Much thanks to Roger Yorke!! 
 

T.V.O.D.: 2015

I have obviously fallen off my new-post-every-few-days schedule, but yes, I'm still alive (and well), and have been receiving your always-appreciated emails, musics, DVDs, etc. There's no shortage of material for this here web-log. Guess I've been too busy watching TV...

How did I not see this before?! A recent live version of the greatest song ever about animal homosexuality is up on Vimeo: 

Tom Wilson Weinberg - "Lesbian Seagull" / interview

You know that Mr. Will Grove-White is the right kind of people since he's a member of the mighty Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. But brilliantly performing the Beach Boys on nose flutes, and no other instruments?! One can only bow down: "We're not worthy!"

And here's your WTF? of the day: a nine-minute long concert, also on Vimeo, by an 
Odd-stralian named, er, Dumbshit: 

DUMBSHIT live 4/24/15

Our source for all good things Down Under, Buttress O'Kneel, has played with Mr. Dumbshit a few times, and even after having been an acquaintance of him for a good decade or so, is still a bit perplexed by his, shall we say, lack of regard for traditional musical standards. How self-aware is he? One wonders "...if he is and just doesn't care, or if he's kidding, or if he's doing some kinda meta-kidding-outsider combo...  he normally plays some weird indian stringed instrument, this is the first time i've seen him play a casio - adds a whole other element.  with classic songs like "my housemate's a fuckwit" and "exposing myself to the moon", he's always fun to watch."

This guy's gotta make some recordings.

The NOW SOUNDS Of Outsider Music

Had a request to re-up Tony "The Cool Casanova" Fabbri. Sometime after I wrote that post in 2013 I acquired a full-length CD by the man, which I just posted in its' entirety. HIGHLY recommended for outsider music enthusiasts.

France's super-swell toy-pop maestro Carton Sonore remixed acapella tracks from one of outsider music's founding texts, Daniel Johnson's "Hi, How Are You?" album, adding his trademark ukulele/musical saw/ocarina sound. Only complaint: too short! More, s'il vous plait.

Carton Sonore - Mini Orchestre Pour Daniel Johnston

(By the way, the latest Cartone Sonore release is 4 bits of spacey loveliness, like Joe Meek on Casios.) And in other outsider music news:

Ms Marilyn Miles sez: "I am a 64 year old grandmother with no music background that likes to write anointed poems."  She's put up a short album entitled "Welcome Marilyn To Area 19" on every conceivable platform, and you can listen to most of it HERE. It's a kind of concept album about the UFO/Marilyn Monroe connection, or something like that. She doesn't sing, but recites clunky verse over r'n'b loops that are only a small step above Wesley Willis' pre-set beats. A couple songs about her encounters with space aliens are certainly interesting, but the real gem here is "Nice Man," a tale of an encounter with a different kind: a weirdo pervert. Gets me laffin' out loud every time. Her prim, schoolteacher-esque vocal delivery is the icing on the cake.  And remember: "My spoken words are from a real experience direct and indirect."

For individual songs, I used to use DivShare, but as it is now apparently kaput, I'll try using Box.com. You can listen, or download by clicking on the downward-pointing arrow in the upper right. Let me know if it works or not, gang!

MsMarilyn Miles "Nice Man"

And who doesn't like experimental electronic psychedelia by 7 year old girls? Stinky Picnic, an old favorite of ours, returns with another name-your-price download album, and once again li'l Ponky Pie Pea (as she is now known) is joined by dad to discuss such crucial matters as hamsters, doggies, rainbows and "A Fungus And A Mungus And A Wungus."
 
"Hamster World"

PIck Hit: the doo-woppin' "No, It's A Smiley Love Heart." The family that plays together, stays together.
 

Happy Tax Day, America!

Was just gonna re-up both sides of the outsider oddity that is Ah-Ah Allen's "Kick The IRS" single, but why stop there? Behold!

A wee Taxday Mix

Ah-Ah Allen - Kick The IRS
Ah-Ah Allen -Montana I'm So Proud of You
F.U.2 - Tax Exile (late '70s fake-punk)
Lenlow - To the Taxmobile! (classic mashup from 2004: Beatles vs Surfaris vs "Batman" theme)
rx - Taxman Obama (The Prez "sings" the Beatles)

My fellow Americans! Remember, April 15 is the day to show Uncle Sam your love.

HUBBA HUBBA!: The Big Band Beat of Bad Girls and Burlesque

Back up by request: Roky Erickson's kids party, and "Carnival in Paradise."

Seeing as how our previous collection of mid-century sleazy-listening music is, by a wide margin, the most popular post of the year so far, I guess I'd better keep feeding you cool cats and crazy kitties more rarities and vinyl obscurities from the Golden Age of Bad Taste:

In the heydey of burlesque, dancin' goils twirled their tassels and bumped their rumps to live bands, not to a dj playing Salt n Pepa or Motley Crue. MCs, specialty acts, and comedy teams were also on the bill if for no other reason than to keep up the pretense that these were "variety shows" - something for everyone! - and not just lewd displays of wanton flesh. Tho the burlesque show format may have been created to skirt (so to speak) the censors, it ended up working quite well as an all-around entertainment package, surviving to this day. There's probably a 'burly-q' revival show near you now.

But this stuff is from the original era, the 1940s - 1960s (I'm aware that burlesque preceeds the '40s, I just don't know of any earlier music). The first track is  apparently   recorded live "in the field" from an album called "Burlesque Uncensored." I was gonna post the whole album, but it's actually in print thru Smithsonian Folkways (your tax dollars at work?)

Apart from the expected bump-and-grind jazz, there's also some wild early rock n roll, exploitation movie radio ads and dialogue, low-budget lounge combos, and show-tunes (e.g. Natalie Wood in "Gypsy," the Gyspy Rose Lee biopic, and another version of the "Take it off the E-string" song that was featured on vol 1).  And then there's the one musical moment from the infamous '60s S&M sound-effects album, "Tortura!"

I also recorded some burlesque film soundtrack music off videos, performed by anonymous sleaze-meisters. This was some years ago when I recorded these, and I can't find most of those films on the YouTubes now.  Too bad, the "Snakes" one in particular was great: a campy guy shouting "Snakes!" and running off camera, followed by a girl dancing with an actual, live enormous boa constrictor-type beastie. Towards the end, she even starts to put the snakes' head unto her mouth. A search for "snakes + burlesque" didn't come up with anything, but if any of you-all know this one, send us the links, pleeze!

And for some great reading whilst listening to this music, check out our pals at  
Decadent History for a plethora of fascinating articles. Learn your history, kids! 

Lowbrow Vol.3 Hubba Hubba! - A MusicForManiacs Collection

01 "Burlesque Uncensored" - lobby talker-chorus line-strip tease
02 Natalie Wood-Let Me Entertain You [from "Gypsy," 1962]
03 "Angels Wild Women"
04 Perez Prado - Exotic Suite of the Americans (excerpt)
05 Kay Kyser His Orchestra - Strip Polka [The Andrews Sisters also recorded this popular '40s Big Band number]
06 Dick Dale & His Del-Tones - Take It Off
07 "Varietease" - Betty Page, Bobby Shields [video soundtrack]
08 "The Naughty Stewardesses"
09 Dick Contino & Eddie Layton - Blues in the Night [accordionist Contino isn't just a James Ellroy character; in fact, he's real, alive, and still performs] 
10 Barbara Stanwyck - The G-String Song [from the 1943 film "Lady of Burlesque", recorded off video]
11 Big Jay McNeely - Striptease Swing [sax wildman, veteran of LA's legendary Central Ave scene, is also still alive and blowin']
12 Eddie Wayne [actually surf/session guitarist Jerry Cole] - Dig Ye Deep
13 Jayne Mansfield - Suey [the great blond bombshell is backed here by a pre-fame Jimi Hendrix!]
14 Ricky Vale & The Surfers - Ghost Surfin'
15 "Nurses for Sale"
16 John Barry - The Stripper [nope, not the David Rose hit (see below); yep, the James Bond soundtrack guy]
17 Ernie Freeman - The Stripper [Freeman's the man who brought Sinatra into the r'n'b scene with "That's Life"]
18 "Porno Photos"
19 "Tortura" - untitled (Track 21)
20 "Snakes"
21 Snakes! [burlesque film soundtrack]
22 The Knight Beats - Going To Town
23 Hal Blaine & The Young Cougars - Gear Stripper [Blaine is possibly the most recorded drummer in history; he's certainly one of the few to record a drag-race/burlesque fusion song]
24 The Bangers - Baby Let Me Bang Your Box, Part 1 [this r'n'b shouter is, of course, referring to the lady's piano]
25 John Buzon Trio - Ill Wind
26 Voodoo Virgin - [burlesque film soundtrack]
27 Stan Kenton - Blues In Burlesque [No, that's not Tom Waits singing, it's drummer Shelly Mann, with Maynard Ferguson blowin', from 1951]

All tracks safe for work! We like wholesome sleaze around here.

We'll Be Right Back After These Brief Messages...

Let's get commercial...

Back in 2008 we posted a hilarious radio spot from the conservative religious group Focus on the Family responding to a law passed in Colorado that allowed trans-gendered people to use public bathrooms. Recently we received this fairly genius bit of animation that illustrates the ad, making it even funnier. It comes to us courtesy of Mutant Lab, who are clearly doing the Lord's work. Work it, girl!

A clever, amusing new music video by Los Angeles rocker Taylor Locke finds the artist tooling around town in a motorized easy chair, the comfy kind one might find in a living room. The video makes it look like a cheesy tv commercial for what I thought couldn't possibly be a real product, but upon further investigation, the website appears to be real. Ok...What could one possible do with one of these things? I doubt that they're street-legal. It certainly does make music videos more interesting (along with the nekkid lady!) The catchy power-pop music is quite good, too.

Sound collagist I Cut People have a mordantly funny new on-line album that slices and dices innumerable American media sound bites, revealing the existential angst, neuroses, and anxieties contained in bland public service announcements, cheerful commercials for medications, news broadcasts, and chat shows. The tracks are brief and the whole thing flies by fairly quickly, but it's not background music. Attention must be paid to catch the rapid-fire edits in such wickedly surreal cut-ups as "Ebola Vacation" and the lewd, rude "Watch Me, Innocence." Listen for free, buy for cheap:

I Cut People: "Miserable Day"
Bandcamp page

We now return you to our usual programming...

Music For People Who Really, Really Really Like to Limbo Dance

Does anybody still dance the limbo? You know, you bend over backwards to shimmy under an ever-lowering pole, to the catchy strains of calypso music.  Don't know if any actual Caribbean peoples did the limbo, but plenty of post-war suburbanites who'd sipped a bit too much rum sure did. And this has to be one of the strangest artifacts of the limbo craze - a instrumental version of the hit Chubby Checker song "Limbo Rock" stretched out for the length of an entire album. Hollywood session vet Billy Strange (that's his guitar on Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang," among a million other credits) and his crew keep things interesting throughout, with funky percussion breaks, and exotica-like atmospheric interludes featuring grown men a-whoopin' and a-hollerin'. There's plenty of soloing, ranging from cool jazzy to almost rock 'n' roll. 

Exotica music is fine and dandy for polite cocktail sipping, but when the drinks kick in, what are you gonna dance to, eh, eh?  I'll tell you what: "Limbo Rock pt 1" and "Limbo Rock, pt 2".  For those moments when you want to, quite literally, drink someone under the table.

Billy Strange and Telstars - Limbo Rock

Now if only a band called Billy Strange and the Limbo Rock did an album-length version of "Telstar"...