Back in the days of Los Angeles' wild-n-whooly pre-punk "Freak Scene", The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo were filling large theaters with their outrageous performances. And if you think that name sounds familiar, yes indeed, Danny Elfman would eventually inherit the group from brother Richard and pare it down to the hugely successful band Oingo Boingo, who would then in turn serve as the springboard for Elfman's even huge-er career as a soundtrack composer. Somewhere in the world right now, the theme to "The Simpsons" is playing. But this was Elfman's first score, and possible his best, an utterly weird, wacked-out, and wonderful assortment of short instrumentals ("Factory" wouldn't sound out of place on The Resident's "Commercial Album"), and theatrical vocal numbers from Elfman (as the Devil); star Susan Tyrrell, an actual Oscar nominee who made the admirable decision to toss away movie-star life to make films with the likes of Andy Warhol and John Waters; and - yes! - Herve Villachaize, the little fella with the thick accent who played Tattoo on Fantasy Island, who can be heard in the "Finale." Also featured: "Yiddishe Charleston", which sounds just like its title: a Jewish boogie-woogie; the Dr. Demento swing-era standard "Pico and Sepulveda," and the amusingly flatulent nonsense vocals of performance artists The Kipper Kids (one of whom is married to Bette Midler?!) sung over some vintage jazz novelties. All of which perfectly complements big brudder Rick Elfman's hysterically surreal, non-PC classic midnight movie. The year was 1977: Richard was retiring from the group to pursue a video career, and Danny was ready to steer it from its glam-era theatrical origins into New Wave rock band territory. Nothing here really sounds like Oingo Boingo, tho. Much to this album's credit, it doesn't really sound like anything you've heard before.
Various versions of this soundtrack have been released over the years. This is the most complete.
Don-O is the very busy culture-vulture who slipped us "Ultimate Ultimate Xanadu" last year, a sampling of the numerous cover versions of songs from the 1980 musical film "Xanadu". A film I still have not seen (the likes of Olivia Newton-John and ELO barely budge my interest-meter), but Don-O makes an interesting point in the debut ish of his new 'zine "Space-Age Ashtray" that "Xanadu" fits snuggly into the world of classic Las Vegas and mid-century Space-Age/tiki culture, the sort of stuff that sends my interest-meter skyrocketing. So, hmm...
He's back with 20 more "Xanadu" soundtrack covers ranging from solo acoustic to full-blown disco orchestrations. Along they way we encounter: an a capella choir, Marie Osmond and Andy Gibb, an Asian language cover, lo-fi live recordings, no-fi grungy rock, lots of Broadway-style warbling, and a vocal choir singing a medley of ELO hits, not all from "Xanadu." Take a hit of ultimate Xanax! Er, I mean:
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, liveenormous 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!
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.
Not just the ultimate Xanadu collection. No way, we leave that to other, poorer blogs. We've got the Ultimate Ultimate Xanadu collection. Two disks worth of covers of songs and documentary snippets relating to a film I've never seen. But since the wiki entry on it says that it was the inspiration for "the Golden Raspberry Awards to memorialize the worst films of the year", then maybe I should see it. Apparently there's a sizeable cult for this 1980 "romantic musical fantasy film" - these 2 disks are boiled down from a 20-disk fan collection. Tho it's heavy on the electro-disco and ELO outtakes/rarities, there is still a variety of sounds here. Particular faves: Klaus Wunderlich's disco organ instrumental (in my world, '70s discos don't have DJs spinning the BeeGees, they have old guys playing the organ); what sounds like an inept school or amateur theater cast (disk 2, track 4); a Japanese pop-punk girl band called Tiger Shovel Nose; Hemes House Band (and I usually hate house music); and a "bossa-nova toy pop" version of the title song. Tho I suspect I'd like a bossa-nova toy pop version of anything. Brazilian band La Sound even covered the entire soundtrack (?!), tho we get just one song from it here (disk 1 track 16), a nifty lounge finger-snapper. This plethora of Xanadu-nocity comes to us courtesy of Don-O, the man behind the Hour of Crap podcast, the Twilight World 'zine, and many other useful pursuits. This was originally a project of his Xanadu fan site, in which he whittled down the collection of Robert Porter, who ran a Jeff Lynne fan site. Lynn is of course the man behind the Electric Light Orchestra, who provided much of the music for "Xanadu." Didn't think I would like this much, but the unrelenting, irresistible perkiness of the damn thing wore down my resistance, and I was happily bopping around to all this nonsense. Drive yourself and everyone around you crazy with lots and lots of versions of an Olivia Newton-John disco showtune! "A place where nobody dared to go": Ultimate Ultimate Xanadu disk 1 Ultimate Ultimate Xanadu disk 2
Thanks to Don and the Xanadu Preservation Society.
Recently we posted an album by "The Rattles," a curious early German take on rock-n-roll. The Lords were another band from the '60s pre-Krautrock era, very famous and successful in their homeland, but more likely to rise eyebrows and cause mutterings of "WTF..?" from elsewhere. Their English lyrics in particular are, er, interesting. And how 'bout those fashion-challenged album covers?
"Some Folks By The Lords" (1967) is largely a collection of covers, many of them strangely inappropriate for an alleged rock band to be performing. Perhaps they and/or their audience simply didn't know enough about American music to make genre distinctions. Or maybe they were geniuses who realized it didn't matter: "Miss Otis Regrets" may be a Cole Porter showtune, but it's still a great song. Much of it, like "East Virginia" and "Sing Hallelujah," are inspired by 'down-home' folk and gospel. "San Miguel" is sung in a ludicrous Spanish accent on top of their usual sometimes-thick German accent. And I must admit: "Greensleeves" made me giggle.
"Ulleogamaxbe" (1969): No more fake-folk Americana covers - it's fake UK psych this time. Tho it's two years after the fact, they finally betray a 'Sgt Pepper' (or at least a BeeGees) influence, what with all the strings, horns, and "poetic" ambition. After six songs of this, we get an unexpected proto-metal garage fuzz blast in the excellently apocalyptic "The World Is Falling Down". The frantic "Fire" could be a Roger Corman exploitation film theme song. Musically, "Poor Chin-Lee" is a Pet Sound-alike; vocally and lyrically, however, not even Brian Wilson was this weird. On "Cut My Hair" they "get back" to basic rock n roll, tho I don't recall Little Richard ever penning lyrics that detail instructions to his barber. The bonus single "John Brown's Body" goes back to the American folk/gospel of the first album, but now with added flutes and intrusive sound-collage elements. And it's b-side is a cover of Eddie Cochran's "Somethin' Else" that out-punks the Sid Vicious version of a decade later. Apparently, these guys will do any style at least once, and do it strangely. Does anyone have any idea what that album title means?
"Shakin' All Over '70" is a bit of a hodge-podge, with a few tracks repeated from "Ulleogamaxbe." The title track recasts the rockbilly swinger into a "heavy" acid-rock-with horns biker stomper. "Feeling Chicago" is a response to modern bad-man ballads like "Rocky Racoon" or "Bad Bad Leroy Brown." "Four O'Clock In New York" is a swell bit of Bay City Rollers-ish bubblegum, while the chicken-squawking "Talk About Love" from 1970 might be the most ridiculous thing these guys did, and that's saying something. Needless to say, it's one of my favorites.
Elsewhere, the flower-power sounds continue as if it were still the Summer of Love. The fact that they cover not one but two songs from the "Hair" soundtrack suggest that they either never really understood what rock'n'roll was all about, or they were just went straight for mainstream commercialism. I actually love "Hair," but it's purely musical theater, hippie culture depoliticized and sensationalized for tourists. In any case, it's pretty awesome to hear 'em try to wrap their accents around the wordy nugget, "Manchester England."
Finally! "Jesus Christ Superstar" the way it was meant to be done: with Muppets. Not "real" Muppets. But mock-Muppets are better than none at all, no? Muppet Christ Superstar Happy Jesus Zombie Day, everybody!
Like I was saying...Listen for free, buy if you like. This batch is loosely associated by a shared fascination with the surreal and fantastic, injecting a little much-needed magic into our world.
- Ergo Phizmiz "Idiot": The prolific madman across the water has two more winners. This one's a generous 18 tracks of mostly instrumentals (w/some sampled vox) cobbled together out of found-sounds and whimsical instruments. "Ornidisco" is a dance track ingeniously fashioned entirely from sampled bird sound effects. "Night on The Town" is an absurd disco raver performed entirely acappella (complete with beatboxing) that's as funny as it is funky. Avant-garde, or just good ol' British eccentricity? Price: free. - Ergo Phizmiz "Music for Pleasure": "A 17 track behemoth of Ergo Phizmiz's singular take on guitar based rock'n'roll & pop music." Yep, these ramshackle constructions suggest actual rock music, sometimes in the Neil Innes or Syd Barret vein, with much Kink-y garage punk energy. Bonus points for reviving Bobby Goldsboro's '60s bubblegum gem "Little Things." Album title = truth in advertising. Price: £7.
- Doctor Midnight "Crotch Rocket Extremities and/or Popular Culture Atrocities": What the ..? This short (12 tracks in 23 minutes), utterly unpredictable album makes as much sense as that album title. This duo comes from Alabama, not with a banjo on it's knee, but plenty of other noises: sound effects, screaming, computers, piano, marimba, guitars, and scary hillbilly voices that may be sampled, or may belong to the band members. My fave moment is when "Chocodino" almost turns into a remake of Steve Reich's "It's Gonna Rain," followed by 38 seconds of "There Ain't Shit On TV!" Price: free. Paul and Pierre "Eggs Benedict With Mr Wu On The Seahorse Monorail": Pierre is the man behind naive/ toy-pop masters Carton Sonore; this time out he's joined by Scottish warbler Paul Vickers for actual songs, but still retaining the whimsy of past projects. Acoustic instruments like musical saw and mandolin meet Casio-tronics to realize sea shanty-like sing-alongs replete with fantastical imagery. Well written, wonderfully evocative, effortlessly enjoyable. Price: €7, tho the super song "Lon Chaney" is free, and you know a song has to be good if it's about Lon Chaney. -Zlata Sandor/Shaun Sandor "Band on the Moon": If you're pressed for time, here's 5 minutes of a father and his 4-year-old daughter singing about the kinds of things you would expect little girls to sing about, e.g.: party balloons, animals, and playing on the moon. C'mon, how can you not like this? Price: $1.00.
Timur and the Dime Museum "X-ray Sunsets": These Angelenos conjure up a dark carnival for accordion, ukulele, violin, and on the rollicking "Distance Of The moon," a spot of toy piano, with a bona-fide opera singer up front; I featured their amazing take on Nine Inch Nails' "Closer" here previously, but this album is all original and it's all good. Don't be surprised if David Lynch uses the dreamy doo-wop ballad "Asleep At The Wheel" in his next film. Flamboyantly theatrical without quite being campy. Recommended, even if you hate opera. Price: $7.
Tho he was hardly an indie band/ bedroom producer like the above, I still would like to point out that - holy crap! - there are now 48 Fela Kuti albums now available on Bandcamp.
You asked for it! Perhaps inevitably, the subject of this album, the music gods' gift to drag queens everywhere, came up in discussing the "Disco Sellout" collection recently posted here of mainstream music stars' late '70s disco cash-in records. Unlike those individual songs, Ethel Merman, the 70-something star of stage and screen musicals, cut an entire album of confoundedly inappropriate showtunes set to a well-produced orchestral disco beat. "The Ethel Merman Disco Album" is widely known and loved by bad/strange music fans, and one that lives up to the legend. 'Twas even re-issued on (now out-of-print) CD back in 2001, with a bonus track that I don't have, as I took this off my vinyl.
All the songs are lengthy "extended disco versions" (only 3 tracks on side one!) which begin with interminable kick-drum thump thump thumps, intros, and then - finally - La Merman starts singing after like a minute and half. It is so worth the wait. Merman hated disco and refused to sing over it, so after initially singing with a pianist, they took her voice and, lacking today's beatmapping technology, then tried to fit her vocal tracks over the disco backing. It sometimes sounds slightly off, a bit wobbly.
And then there's her vocals: Merman was one of the last singers left from the pre-microphone days, when live theater performers had to belt out songs with operatic fervor to hit the back rows. Rendered here, it's the musical equivalent of the hammy actor "chewing the scenery." Ethel sounds like she's ready to bust a gut as she bleats out "There's NOOOOO business like SHOOOW business!," on a track later famously sampled by Negativland. Pretty much the reason why the phrase "camp classic" was coined.
1 theres no business like show business 2 everything's coming up roses 3 i get a kick out of you 4 something for the boys 5 some people 6 alexanders' ragtime band 7 i got rhythm
Back in the days of Los Angeles' wild-n-whooly pre-punk "Freak Scene", The Mystic Knights of the Oingo Boingo were filling large theaters with their outrageous performances. And if you think that name sounds familiar, yes indeed, Danny Elfman would eventually inherit the group from brother Richard and pare it down to the hugely successful band Oingo Boingo, who would then in turn serve as the springboard for Elfman's even huge-er career as a soundtrack composer. Somewhere in the world right now, the theme to "The Simpsons" is playing.
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