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All articles copyright Wilhelm Murg, and submitted to the Hunch Club with his permission.
Thanks a Hunch Wilhelm!
DEMOLITION ROCK'N'ROLL: THE HASIL
ADKINS SOUND
FUN WITH UNINTENDED RECORD SPEEDS || THE DEVIL'S MUSIC || FLUX
ART; LET'S DANCE!
THE BANANA SPLITS || AFRO-DESIA: THE EXOTIC SOUNDS OF
MARTIN DENNY
ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK: CRUMB || MARTIN DENNY: HYPNOTIQUE / EXOTICA VOL
III
TURNING BASE VINYL INTO GOLD
Subject: Wilhelm's Articles For Your website
Date: Wed, 15 Jul 1998 18:58:44 -0700
From: clearsky@galstar.com
To: beagleperson@geocities.com
Yo, Christine;
I hope you are not upset that I remember your name via the Stephen King novel (I never
read it, but it was a good film.) Here's some early COOL & STRANGE articles and
reviews I thought you might be interested in reading. Please note that the articles below
were written before the untimely demise of Anton LaVey and John Denver. Neither article
was meant to be overly disrespectful. As always, post 'em, E-mail 'em, do whatever you
like. Just keep the copyright intact.
Remember; you break what you buy.
Until Next Time,
Wilhelm
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___________________________________________________
DEMOLITION ROCK'N'ROLL: THE HASIL ADKINS SOUND
copyright 1997, Wilhelm Murg "Dear Mr. Adkins;
Senator Robert C. Byrd has forwarded a copy of your latest recording . . . I am very
pleased by your thoughtfulness in bringing these particular selections to my
attention." -Richard Nixon
Hasil Adkins' classic recordings from the 50s and 60s are some of the wildest, primal
examples of rock'n'roll to ever be pressed. He's famous for his love of sheer volume. The
secret of his trademark style is in pinning the V.U. needles to the red. His voice is
usually so distorted that it sounds like his lips are wrapped around the microphone. This
only adds to the excitement of his intense idiosyncratic rhythm; it's as if there's too
much sound coming out of the man for a mere machine to capture.
Hasil's fired-up delivery and out of control guitar beating makes the simplest subject
matter, like "My Baby Loves Me," sound like a caveman having a hormonal seizure
in the head cheerleader's underwear drawer. He has an intensity that's dirt honest. He's
not a "nice" boy underneath like Elvis, nor is he as demanding as Jerry Lee
Lewis; Hasil is truly a wild man who keeps time with his libido.
His first release was a home brewed single from 1961; "She's Mine" backed with
the first of his poultry trilogy, "Chicken Walk." Both tracks have Hasil's
off-kilter intensity, but in retrospect, they were just a rumble before the storm. His
second release, "The Hunch" b/w "She's Gone" (1963) was a full frontal
attack of the Hasil Adkins sound.
Unfortunately, the world just wasn't ready Hasil's aural bombardment. "The Wild
Man" had to wait two decades, after punk and industrial had been invented, before he
his style became accepted. When the elusive spotlight finally shined on him, Hasil seemed
to appear out of nowhere, armed with thirty years worth of hard rockin' songs about hot
women, potted meats, welfare programs, and decapitations. He became the godfather of a
musical style that would become the id of pop culture; "Psychobilly!"
The history of rock'n'roll had to be revised.
"Elvis" Hasil "Haze" Adkins was born in 1936 in a three-room, tar
paper shack his daddy built in the hills of West Virginia. Hasil didn't bother to go to
school; he was too busy building hot rods, brewing moonshine, fighting the law, chasing
women, hunting for his supper, and beating out his own unique style of hardcore rockabilly
in his bedroom. The early photographic record of Hasil shows that American Style coolness
was never a problem for the wild man. From his short-on-the-sides haircut to his classic
leather jacket, it's pretty obvious that the man was hell-bent on becoming either a rocker
or a convicted felon.
Some thought hard rock was dead by 1960, but the news didn't reach the hills. While the
first wave of rock legends were petering out, Hasil was just getting warmed up.
The Haze didn't know how to go about the business of becoming a rock star, so he made up
his own rules as he went along. When Hasil first saw a record by "Jimmy Rodgers"
he figured The Singing Breakman played all the instruments himself, and since no one could
keep up with The Haze's frantic strummin' anyway, he turned himself into "The One Man
Band: Hasil Adkins and his Happy Guitar."
The happy guitar was often strung with fishing wire, or whatever other type of sting that
happened to be handy. Hasil's percussion instruments evolved from the primordial lard
bucket to a drum kit he bought off the Rock-A-Teens. His voice could go from a yodel, to a
hair raising scream, to a high pitched woman's voice, then back to his normal singing
style in a matter of seconds. He knew how to turn anything with a speaker into a guitar
amplifier, and he has customized tube radios and jukeboxes for maximum volume. Fueled by a
two gallon-plus a day coffee habit, The Haze hollered, abused his guitar and used both
feet for his foot rhythm instruments all at the same time.
These early recordings were preserved on paper records cut on a Preston Record Machine and
early home reel-to-reel tapes he made in his bedroom. Any mixing he did was with an open
mic from one machine to another. Never one to worry about safety tapes, Hasil played his
paper records and cheap tapes for thirty years before they were released; even the
original masters sound like scratchy thrift shop finds.
But the ruckus is only half the magic, the real hoodoo is in the lyrics, where The Haze's
metaphors barely cover the naughty bits. His classic auto-erotic recording of "The
Hunch" leaves little to the imagination. The song was inspired by the style of
gyrating movements the girls of West Virginia did to his legendary live performances. It's
suppose to be a dance song, but in the breathless bridge of "uh-uh-uh,
uh-uh-uh," one gets the feeling that the dance got pretty wet.
"Sex Crazy Baby," contains some of his most distorted vocals on record (and
that's saying a lot!) It's an autobiographical howlin' blues about a woman calling him up
for phone sex ("Sex! Sex! Sex! Talk all night long!") Hasil's thick grunts
replicate the sound of a distorted orgasm coming over a late night phone line.
As in all primal beings, Hasil is just as obsessive over food as he is over sex. Sometimes
it's hard to determine where one begins and the other ends in his lyrics. He has survived
by hunting the woods around his house, and he keeps to a strict Ren & Stimpy Diet of
pure meat. His trilogy of chicken songs, "Chicken Walk," "Chicken
Twist," and "Chicken Flop" (there's no telling how many other chicken
tracks he's laid down,) are dance numbers combined with poultry imagery. Hasil's
"chicken rhythm" is like a blues "boxcar rhythm" pumped-up on 4000
main-lined milligrams of caffeine. It's obvious that somewhere, across the dance floor of
Hasil's wish fulfillment dreams, he has seen millions of American teenagers cavorting like
barnyard fowls. "Do yourself up on the floor, do yourself where ever you go, common,
baby, do the chicken, chicken walk, push in and a-push out, push in and a-push out."
"D.P.A. On The Moon," is one of Hasil's most surreal lyrics where he combines
space aliens, his love of meat, and his love of government social programs all in one
strange little package. The song is based on a dream Hasil had of government agencies
spanning across the galaxy. It opens with The Haze and his girlfriend eating commodity
meat (a recurring theme,) and commodity peanut butter and cheese on the moon. He later
finds himself eating candy on Mars ("that's where they make those Mars Bars,")
where he meets a little green man who has lived on commodity meat all his life.
Regardless of your politics, it's hard not to feel for Hasil when he sings about getting
on the "W.P.A." (to a heavy Chuck Berry rhythm,) or needing a job in
"Reagan Blues." He's not some pop star remembering his roots; Hasil probably
needed a job at the time was laying down the tracks. You could hear the rumble in his
stomach were he not yelling so loud about wanting food.
The Haze is most famous for his decapitation trilogy; "We Got A Date," "I
Need Your Head," and the happier sounding (but no less disturbing,) "No More Hot
Dogs Ha Ha." All three songs are one sided-conversations (or meditations)
"sung" to a woman about cutting off her head and hanging it on the wall.
"We Got A Date," and "I Need Your Head" are both moaned in a low
creepy voice to a jumbling guitar tuned in hell. Hasil throws in some blood curdling
screams, a few Pete Puma excitement wheezes and some unintentional throat clearings for no
extra charge.
"No More Hot Dogs Ha Ha" (another song dealing with meat, of various types,) is
straight ahead rockabilly snottiness. It was inspired when Hasil went on what was suppose
to be a dirt cheap date, but then the girl asked for a hot dog. I'm not sure if Hasil
realized the (hymenal AND phallic) symbolism of the lyrics as he gleefully sang
"Cummon, Baby, Don't a-you be late, I want chur head, I wannit tonight . . . Now
honey, don't you be afraid, coz I'm gonna cut your head off, about have pass eight . .
.You can't eat no more hot dawgs, a-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha."
Hasil's backwoods lifestyle only adds to the Ed Gein feel of the trilogy, but he just sees
them as Halloween songs. All three tracks were released in the mid-1980s at the height of
the Psychotronic/Gorenographic/Z-horror movie frenzy. It was perfect cruisin' music for
the drive to the video store.
The song that really put Hasil on the map is "She Said," originally released in
1964. "She Said" is one of those indescribable three chord wonders that hit the
wax just right. Hasil was able to combine confusing sexuality, meat, other worldly
creatures, semi-understandable lyrics, and his frantic guitar style into a 2:40 symphony.
"She Said" opens with a talking blues introduction about waking up one morning
in bed with a male creature that looks "like a dying can of commodity meat" (at
least that's one interpretation of the lyric "looked like a guyin' can a gate duh
model E bee.") It breaks into a throbbing rhythm on the chorus; "and he said, he
said; 'Wooo E ha-ha-ha-ha."
This is followed by three verses about driving a girl to a secluded spot, where she keeps
jumping out of the car and pulling her hair over her eye (I've always seen a country fried
Veronica Lake in the part,) and she also says "Wooo E ha-ha-ha-ha." The song is
a blistering celebration of unbridled back-seat lust.
The Cramps, legendary archaeologists of wild-haired rockabilly, covered "She
Said" in the early 1980s. Both Hasil's original single and various live Cramps
versions of the song were showing up on bootleg and import albums. The seeds of
"psychobilly" were spewed.
But once again, the news didn't make it to the hills.
In the 1980s, Billy Miller and former Cramps drummer Miriam Linna, co-founders of
"Kicks" Magazine (and early Hasil fans,) made a pilgrimage to the hills and
found the master in his humble shack. From 1961-1976, Hasil had been releasing a single
roughly (in every sense of the word,) once a year and writing songs for the even more
obscure Big Al Waller. It turned out that while he wasn't releasing anything, he was still
recording (in his bedroom, in the shack, in the hills.) He began sending tapes to Miller
and Linna by the pound. Choice selections from his 30 year back catalogue were released on
their Norton record label.
In 1986, Hasil made his way to New York City where he opened for such acts as Public Image
Limited, and recorded THE WILD MAN album for Norton (backed on some tracks by Miller's
band, The A-Bones.)
Musically, it was like someone had gone back to the Eisenhower era in a time machine and
changed history. Overnight, bands that would have previously been influenced by the early
punk scene were suddenly adopting the sound of the original D.I.Y. hardcore hillbilly from
hell. Hasil's albums were being placed on the shelf next to the Sun rockabillies. The old
saying about The Velvet Underground holds true for the wild man; not many people bought
Hasil's records, but everyone who did started their own band. Hasil has appeared at
"Sleazefest," the "Woodstock" of garage-psycho-delic, biker-surf,
greasy-kid-stuff-rockabilly, and Jethro-Bodine-double-naught-spy guitar bands. He has
become the grand old man of the cool and the crazy, the Dali Lama of the damned.
Hasil has continued to record over the years, and he has never lost his original
inspiration. His vision has come to fruition; he's seen caged, fur bikini clad girls do
The Hunch. His belated success has only changed him a little; he now lives in a trailer
behind his tar paper shack (which true believers can now trek to; check out the shack's
web site*.)
As Don King would say "Only in America!"
-Wilhelm Murg, 4/97
* - listed as "The Hazel Motel" (that's how THEY spell Hasil on the sight.) Good
Pictures.
Note: Biographical information on Hasil was culled from the many great, inspirational
articles that Miriam Linna and Billy Miller published in "Kicks," the greatest
rock'n'roll magazine to ever hit the streets. Check out the source! -WM
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FUN WITH UNINTENDED RECORD SPEEDS
By Wilhelm Murg, Copyright 1996
Any bad vocal album is a Chipmunk record waiting to happen, just change the speed. I first
discovered the importance of having different phonograph speeds when I was in the second
grade. Right before Christmas vacation our teacher brought in an album of disgustingly
sweet Christmas carols. After three days of this saccharine aural assault, I put the album
on at 45 RPM. The whole class liked it a lot better.
Personally, I wouldn't have gotten through the 1970s if it hadn't been for The Bee Gees'
"Staying Alive" on the Saturday Night Fever album bumped up to 45.
While speeding up a bad album can help to lampoon it, sometimes it simply makes more
sense. The day I bought Frank Zappa's Joe's Garage Parts 2 & 3 I listened to the first
three sides at 45 RPM before I realized I had it on the wrong speed. For forty minutes, I
thought Zappa had gone crazy released an entire two-record set in his patented Munchkin
style (it could happen.) The guitar solos were amazing. Since that initial experience,
I've never liked the album at 33 1/3.
Conversely, slowing down a single to 33 1/3 can also be interesting.
Once again, back in the second grade, I had a cousin who hated his in-laws. He used to
entertain me by asking the phonograph questions like "What did the elephant say when
my mother-in-law jumped on top of him?" then he would play the "OW!" from a
James Brown single at 33 1/3. "What did my father-in-law say when he got hit in the
head with a baseball bat?" The phonograph would answer in slow motion, two octaves
below middle C; "OOOOOOOOOWWWWWWW!!!" We used to kill the whole afternoon like
that. We tried playing James Brown at 16 RPM, but it was too scary.
During the 1980s, British post-punk bands were releasing 12-inch singles without speed
indications. Since 12-inch singles were never standardized (some were mastered at 33, some
at 45,) there were a lot of arguments over whether New Order was suppose to be a dance
band or an ambient group.
For some reason, my record dealer first played me Bauhaus's "Bela Lugosi's Dead"
at 33 1/3, even though it's one of the few import singles that did have a speed indication
on the label. I've always like the single at both speed. Every time someone says that
Bauhaus is just British junkie music, I always tell them that they need to hear the
"extra-long/extra-Gothic" versions.
I still own Public Image Limited singles that don't sound right regardless of how you play
them.
For awhile I thought I was the only person listening to platters at the different
revolutions per minute, but then I read that The Butthole Surfers' favorite record was The
Starland Vocal Band's "Afternoon Delight" single played at 33 RPM. If you ever
come across the single in a garage sale, I highly recommend it. Instead of listening John
Denver's clean cut ranch hands chirping about a nooner, you can knock it down to 33 and
hear the deranged cousins of Ed Gein groaning about going to the trailer park and blowing
off the afternoon dropping ludes. They don't sound like they're going anywhere for a few
days.
If you want to know something really scary, early Chipmunk records still sound like The
Chipmunks at any speed.
- Wilhelm Murg, 9/96
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THE DEVIL'S MUSIC
By Wilhelm Murg, Copyright 1996
Unplugging a turntable and manually playing a record backward is an art unto itself.
While hip-hop pioneer Grandmaster Flash turned unplugged turntables into a new instrument,
a more disturbing trend came out of the Christian right around the same time;
organizations were formed to listen to records backward in order to expose pro-Satanic
"backward masking."
The idea was simple; all musicians worshipped the devil. This included everyone from Ozzy
Osbourne to Kenny Rogers. In order to convert our nation's youth to the devil, these
musicians wrote lyrics which, when played backward, contained Satanic messages. According
to some psychologists of dubious merit (most of whom were staff members at T.V.
evangelical collages,) our brains subconsciously hear everything both forward and
backward. Ergo, anyone who has ever heard one of these records is a Satanist waiting to
happen.
In reality, listening for backward masking seemed more like an initiation rite for members
of these Christian groups; they had to under-go this bizarre form of sensory overload
until they heard the devil taking to them. Anyone who didn't hear demonic messages after a
few weeks of this torture probably didn't get to stay in the group.
There is no scientific proof that listening to a message backward effects the mind,
however there is a lot of anecdotal evidence that listening to everything else backward
can drive a person half-crazy.
Backassward listening was pioneered in the 1960s by the fifth Beatle himself, Charles
Manson. Goodtime Charlie, according to numerous acid-drenched testimonies, spent a lot of
time reading The Revelations while listening to Beatle records both forward and backward.
Manson "heard" The Beatles say "Charlie, Charlie, send us a telegram,"
in The White Album which was the signal to begin the apocalypse by first taking out
Folder's coffee (or something like that.)
As in any sane society, this revelation lead legions of young people to play
"Revolution 9," a track that makes no sense forward, backward in order to find
the missing clues to Paul McCartney's death (Hey! Why didn't they cover that in The
Beatles' Anthology?) The opening repeated drone of "Number nine," is suppose to
be saying "Turn me on, Dead Man" backward, but it actually sounds more like
"Turn ee on Deb mon." I once heard a T.V. evangelist explain that this
discrepancy is due to the speaker having an English accent. What the . . .?
The most famous example of "backward masking" is Led Zeppelin's "Stairway
to Heaven." The line "There's still time to change the road you're on," is
suppose to say "Here's to my sweet Satan" ("woe bwa ears ta mice wheat say
in,") when played backward. This, combined with Jimmy Page's interest in magic,
spooked a lot of people. I know one sixties casualty who got rid of his Zeppelin
collection because he was convinced that John Bonham's death was caused by Page dabbling
in "the black arts" (there was also something in the rant about Elvis at Burger
King, but I didn't take notes.)
While backward messages were being "found" in the lyrics of such popular acts of
the 1980s as Black Oak Arkansas and Anne Murray, the true high point was when not one, but
TWO backward satanic messages were "found" in the theme song to "Mr.
Ed." "That is of course unless . . ." when played backward is suppose to
say "Sing the song for Satan" ("sang the song or sade in,") and
"Well listen to this . . ." contains the message "Satan's the singer"
("sade in da sing gear.")
This lead to a mass burning of "Mr. Ed" records April of 1986 (and in case
you're confused, YES, I do mean the 1960s sitcom about the talking horse.) Keep in mind
that these were also the same people who wanted "The Smurfs" taken off the air
for promoting transsexual necrophilia (and if anyone out there has a copy of that episode,
I'd sure like to see it. I'll trade you my episode of Mighty Mouse allegedly snorting
cocaine.)
I am not making this stuff up!
The main thing the "backward masking" scare achieved was slightly higher sales
of some "Satanic" records (The only reason I bought the "Mr. Ed" theme
was to hear Wilber singing the song for Satan.) The free publicity from this hysteria also
lead to actual backward messages showing up in albums (recording a message, then playing
the tape backward when mixing a track.) The Cramps, Philip Glass, Christian Death, The
Plasmatics, Prince, and countless other merry pranksters, mixed-in actual backward
messages just for the hell of it.
This method of releasing actual backward messages seems to have started with Tommy James
and The Shondells' Crimson & Clover album. Side two contains the message;
"Extricate the quadruped from the vehicle and constabulate into something nutritious,
and when the aurora arises in the heavens, I will return and compensate thee amply."
Okay, maybe that one sounds better backward on the CD release.
I should note that the founder of The Church of Satan, Anton LaVey is a organist and
prefers old standards like "Taboo," "Witchcraft," and "Devil
Moon." Hopefully, this information
won't lead to a mass burning of Les Baxter records.
That's all for now. After all this research, I've got to take my turntable into the repair
shop.
- Wilhelm Murg, 9/96
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FLUX ART; LET'S DANCE!
(published as MANIPULATING THE MEDIUM in conjunction with "FUN WITH
UNINTENDED RECORD SPEEDS"))
By Wilhelm Murg, Copyright 1996
Scratches, and other forms of vinyl mutilation, tend to be the domain of the avant-garde.
The composer and philosopher John Cage went out of his way to make sure that his
compositions were never played the same way twice. Through purposely vague directions,
computer generated randomness, and indeterminate methods (such as rolling dice to see when
each instrument would come in,) Cage's music achieves a fresh, chaotic new sound with each
performance.
Cage did not like records, as the performances were unchanging and from the past (as
oppose to "the now.") To off set this preservation problem, scratches came into
play.
In Cage's classic conceptual piece "4'33," a musician does NOT play anything for
4 minutes and 33 seconds. The idea is to allow the audience to hear the natural sounds
around them (Marie Osmond once performed the piece on the television show "Ripley's
Believe It Or Not.") The LP recording of "4'33" allows the scratches and
the hum of the turntable to make the music.
A multi-disc lp set of Cage's music was suppose to have been released with no inner
sleeves. Each record would be scratched in a unique pattern from rubbing against each
other in shipping. I've never been able to find out if this set was actually released.
Since learning Cage's philosophy, I have found many scratchy copies of his records that I
enjoy to this day.
Following Cage's lead, Christian Marclay released Record Without a Cover, a recording of
scratches and snippets from scratchy records. Ideally, the platter should have actually
been released without a cover, but someone put them in sleeves for shipping. Marclay has
also released Footsteps, a record of footsteps which were literally walked on before being
released, and the self-explanatory Record Without Grooves.
Industrial music maker Boyd Rice, a.k.a. Non, is suppose to have released some of his
early records with extra holes drilled in the labels. You could play the records on the
different holes for different effects. Unfortunately, by the time I finally found a Non
record, he had quit adding the extra holes. It was quite a letdown.
A locking groove is achieved by recording music on a record all the way to the label, thus
causing the needle to kick back and repeat endlessly. This may have worked in the early
days of lps, but automatic turntables usually lifted the arm after a couple of passes.
The conceptual composer Erik Satie (1866-1925,) wrote a very short piano piece,
"Vexations," with a note at the top of the score; "To play this piece 840
times in a succession, it is best to prepare oneself in advance in complete silence and
grave immobility." In the 1960s, John Cage lead a team of pianists, including future
Velvet Undergrounder John Cale, in "Vexations" only "complete"
performance. When pianist Peter Dickinson released an album ending with the piece, he
recorded it four times and added a locking grove to simulate the repeats. It's not very
effective. Of course, now that was have CDs, we can have "Vexations" repeat 840
times, but it should be noted that Satie only mentioned playing the piece 840 times, he
didn't say anything about listening to it.
The best locking groove effect comes at the end of Lou Reed's seminal industrial album
Metal Machine Music. The album is four sides of harsh electronic noise which, thanks to
the locking groove, never ends. In case you're interested in finding a copy, please note
that Metal Machine Music is only for those who find Throbbing Gristle too melodic.
Multiple grooved albums are a little harder to explain. Instead of having one groove that
the needle plays on, there are two grooves mastered on one side of an album, running
side-by-side. There's no way of knowing which track you are going to hit when you put the
needle down.
There was a horse racing game that used a multiple grooves effectively; you placed bets on
a horse then played the record. I believe there were 7 different outcomes (7 grooves,) to
the race.
While scratches and locking tracks mess with your needle; multiple grooves can mess with
your head. "Hidden" songs on CDs (appearing on the final track a few minutes
after the disc seems to be finished,) are the digital equivalent to multiple grooves, but
they're just not as much fun. While any moron will notice the "hidden" song the
first time they play a CD all the way through, I know people who owned Monty Python's
Matching Tie &Handkerchief for years before they found the extra set of tracks on side
two.
There are a few people out there who have discovered ways to play with the CD medium.
Composer Gil Ray has noted that you can put in a sound effects disc in a multi-CD player
and hit "shuffle," thus hearing jarring sound effects between songs (it's time
to buy that Hanna-Barbera sound f/x disc.)
Todd Rundgren has released a disc with sections of songs on each track, which when
shuffled, turn into different songs with each play. Unfortunately, only high end CD
players have the ability to shuffle without a break between tracks (and let's face it,
most people with high end players are more interested in listening to Boston on Gold
Discs.)
It might be awhile before CD playback becomes as flexible as turntables, but the
technology is already there. With hypertext novels and multi-player computer games already
available, it's only a matter of time before indeterminate discs appear on the market. One
day "hidden" songs and loops could be as hard to detect as computer viruses.
- Wilhelm Murg 9/96
Postscript: One reader corrected my term "locking grooves." He said that a
locking groove is a loop. I know that one of the members of Sonic Youth released such a
record. However, the reader, like me, was at a loss when it came to defining the correct
term for the phenomenon I refer to in this article. I still don't know what the correct
term would be. - WM 7/98
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THE BANANA SPLITS
Wilhelm Murg, copyright 1996
The Banana Splits: "Kellogg's Presents The Banana Splits" Two 7" 45 RPM EPs
offered from Kellogg's Cereal, 1969. Hanna-Barbera Productions 34578 & 34579 (A Past,
Present, and Future Production by David Mook for Hanna-Barbera Productions)
For those of you too young to even have a hazy memory of the 1960s, there was a movement
in television that basically initiated the young post-boomer generation into the
mind-bending world of psychedelics. During the Summer of Love, those of us in the first
grade sat hypnotized every Saturday morning watching Cereal commercials that looked like
they were produced by Kesey's Merry Pranksters (one was so intense that it sent a friend
of mine into an epileptic fit.) I've often wondered how much the late-1960s Saturday
Morning cartoons factored into the psychedelic revival of the late 1980s (for that matter,
how many gangstas are being bred today by "Bill Nye, The Science Guy" teaching
physics via rap music?)
The height of kiddy-psychedelia was achieved with The Banana Splits, four guys dressed up
as Hanna-Barbera characters living in a strangely 2-dimensional world (i.e.-half the
furniture was painted onto the set backgrounds.) The line-up was Fleegle (guitar and
vocals,) the flustered, lisping dog who seemed to be the leader; Bingo (drums &
vocals, kind of the Mickey Dolenz of the band,) a day-glo orange monkey sporting late
1950s, streamline sunglasses; Drooper (bass & vocals,) the granny glasses wearing
lion; and Snorty (keyboards and effects, kind of the Brian Eno of the group,) a mute, pop,
elephant who sported jumbo, proto-Elton John, pink sunglasses. The quartet worked in the
nude, except for the glasses and their bright red English bobby helmets with bananas on
the crown (you can make up your own jokes.)
Each show was basically twenty minutes of cereal commercials inner-cut with The Bananas
doing slapstick between some of the dullest action-oriented cartoons ever produced.
Hanna-Barbera included music video segments on each show complete with melting lighting
effects, and pictures of other Hanna-Barbara characters (Atom Ant, Huckleberry Hound,
et.al.) floating by inside of pop-op, Rickie Tickie flowers. I've never understood why the
music segments were included; no records were available except for these two 7" EPs
offered by mail from the back of Kellogg's cereal boxes. Hanna-Barbera should have
attempted another cartoon chart-busting sensation like The Archies. The Banana Splits
records are far more sophisticated than anything The Archies (or many of the real pop
groups of the time,) created.
As for avant-garde packaging, the record label has two Bananas making a circle design.
It's conceivable that this may have been designed before The Beatles started putting fruit
on their labels, and it came nine years before The Rutles' half-peeled banana logo for
Rutle Corps. Personally, I like to think it was a tribute to Andy Warhol's cover to The
Velvet Underground & Nico, but Warhol and Hanna-Barbera were such masters of Pop that
they could have just been on the same wavelength.
The set opens with the jangling "Tra-La-La Song (One Banana, Two Banana)" used
as the theme for their show. It's a good catchy song for a cartoon, but it's not exactly
the "Duck Man Theme." "That's The Pretty Part of You" is a classic
sounding pop ballad fro the mid-1960s, complete with aped Bill Medley vocals. "It's a
Good day for a Parade" reeks of early San Francisco pop with a few whistles and
noises thrown in for good measure, kind of like John Sebastian meets Spike Jones. It ends
with a child crying as the singer attempts to get him to look at the parade. "The
Very First Kid on My Block" is the highlight of the first record; Sitar inspired
guitar twangs, Magical Mystery Tour cum Herb Alpert horns, harmony closing background
vocals. I like the hermetic images in the words; "I was the first to lose her, all I
did was amuse her 'til she had her fill and left me with a bro-ken heart that is men-ding
still."
The second record hits the turntable running with Barry White's Stax/Volt inspired
"Doin' The Banana Split," (which was also used as the closing theme of the
show.) The song sweats! The Big Maestro's probably the only person who could effortlessly
mix the sexual metaphors of 1960s dance records with the joy of making and eating a banana
split; "We're doin' it, doin' it, doin' it, doin' the banana split y'all, we'll be
sliddin' it, feelin' it, scoopin' it, dippin' the banana split y'all . . . OW! WOO! HEY!
Dip in, scoop one time, OW! Dip in, scoop two times, OW! OW! Dip in, scoop three times.
AAAAAAAAAHHHHHH! Hey! Lookie here, now everybody should be slidin', WOO! Now Peel all you
boys and girls out there . . . Whip it! A-Whip it! A-Hey! Hey! Hey!" You get the
idea.
The closing lyrics are mostly just "WWWWWWWWWWHAA!!!" and
"YYYYYYYYYAAAA!!!" but done with conviction.
"I Enjoy Being a Boy (In Love With You)" is Simply one of the best Psychedelic
tracks EVER! A friend from New York told me that it's getting heavy airplay up there.
Crunchy Vanilla Fudge organ, sitar riffs from the guitars, a rather strange staccato
"Cha-Cha-Cha" background vocals sets the mood for one of the most confusing love
songs since Love's Forever Changes; "I live in a cucumber castle, on the bank of a
cranberry sea, and starfish dance under my drawbridge, and blackbirds may nests in my tree
. . . I-a-I-a-I enjoy being a boy in love with you, in love with you girl, oh ye-ah."
"The Beautiful Calliopa" opens kind of like Martin Denny using instruments
procured from the local Toy'R'Us, but the song is killed by the bland vocals (it sounds
like the same guys who do "The Tra-La-La Song" picking up a few extra bucks.)
The Al Kooper co-penned "Let Me Remember You Smiling" is good 1960s pop, but
it's just doesn't measure up with the rest of the record.
It's a tragedy that The Banana Splits never got any airplay at the time. If these records
had become hits, just think of what the 1996 revival concert would have looked like.
Postscript: One reader wrote to say that there was a Banana Splits album, but it is
apparently very, very rare. I still haven't even seen the thing listed anywhere.
-WM-7/98
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AFRO-DESIA: THE EXOTIC SOUNDS OF MARTIN DENNY (SCAMP SCP 9702)
Review by Wilhelm Murg, copyright 1996
After exploring the south seas in his earlier albums, The Godfather of exotica turned his
attentions toward the dark continent. The change in imaginary venue seems to have
refreshed Denny; Afro-Desia jumps out of the speakers like a frenzied witch doctor at the
height of a ritual mating dance. Every song on the album has a edge to it, pushing
instrumental and vocal harmonies to the breaking point, then back again.
Afro-Desia is actually a collaboration between the exotic maestro and The Randy Van Horn
Singers (best known for "The Flintstones'" and "The Jetsons'" theme
songs.) The legendary singing group contributes greatly to this musical safari, adding
both their trademark ultra-smooth vocals and surreal cartoon zaniness to the mix.
The opening "Tsetse Fly" buzzes back and forth between the speakers in a stereo
effect that rivals any RCA demonstration record. "Ma'Chumba" includes some of
the funniest pseudo-African mumbo jumbo this side of a Bugs Bunny cartoon. Freed and
Brown's over recorded "Temptation" sizzles, then climaxes in explosion that will
even have non-smokers reaching for a cigarette. "Simba" is vintage Denny with
the added effect of what sounds like a kazoos duet. Industrial fans will be delighted when
they hear the "Abungalu, abungalu" opening of "Mumba" (darkly sampled
in Chris & Cosey's CORE: A Conspiracy International Project.)
While this Scamp disc stays true to the sound of the original vinyl release (right down to
the occasional speaker distortion,) I miss the depth of Rhino's superior sounding
Exotica!: The Best of Martin Denny (where four tracks are duplicated.) Also, full price
for a 33 minute CD is a little steep. A second album could have been added to fill up the
rest of the disc.
These quibbles aside, the booklet includes good liner notes and a beautiful reproduction
of the classic cover (featuring "Exotica Girl" Sandy Warner; pant, pant, pant!)
Afro-Desia is an essential aural odyssey for anyone interested in exotic music.
"Bazooba-zooba."
-Wilhelm Murg 9/96
Postscript: The producer of this reissue thanked me for the review, however he also
pointed out parts that I had missed. I stand corrected; this Scamp disc sports a superior
remastering job than the Rhino release, which is missing some echo and even a few seconds
of the opening song. -WM, 7/98
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ORIGINAL SOUNDTRACK: CRUMB (RYKODISC 10322)
review by Wilhelm Murg, copyright 1997
Music is essential to the life and work of Robert Crumb. Along with his many other
fetishes, Crumb has an obsession for early jazz and blues 78s and the accompanying label
artwork. Crumb has also used blues musicians as a subject for a lot of his comix, and he
is the leader of the Cheap Suit Serenaders, his old-timey string band. One of the many
revelations to come out of the film is Crumb's early fetish for Bugs Bunny. Crumb admits
that he learned to draw so he could create his sexual fantasies on paper. It's not hard to
infer that he became a master of the "Funny Animal" style of cartooning due to
this...uh... unique feeling for that waskally wabbit. His love of early 78s may also be
due to the all the hot jazz used in early Warner Brothers cartoons (i.e.- Funny Animal
Porn.)
If the pre-pubescent Crumb had found this CD in some neighboring black woman's garage, he
would probably only rate it "half-wood." It's not that the music is bad, in fact
the playing, sound, and compositions are all first-rate, it's just that it's not what it
should have been. Director Terry Zwigoff wanted to use old Jazz recordings for the
soundtrack, but he didn't have the budget to buy the rights, so he had pianist David
Boeddinghaus and guitarist Craig Ventresco transcribe and perform tunes from his personal
78 collection. The piano pieces work well both in the film and on the disc, especially
Joseph Lamb's "Ragtime Nightingale" and Scott Joplin's "A Real Slow
Drag." The Guitar pieces suffer the most. While solo acoustic guitar rags might sound
good on the street, the style isn't really made for home entertainment (unless you just
can't get enough NPR .) It's simply impossible to recreate the ambience of an old 78. The
reason to buy this disc is for one song: "Last Kind Words Blues" by Geechie
Wiley, which is heard over the opening montage of Crumb's sketches. I don't know anyone
who's seen the film who hasn't been moved by this haunting meditation on death. Crumb
talks in the documentary about the despair in old blues records, and Wiley's voice is a
prime example; a strong defiance in the face of hopelessness. "If I get killed,
please don't bury my soul, ah, probably just leave me out, let the buzzards eat me
whole." Here the song is presented in it's full three minute version (it was edited
in the film.) The B-side "Skinny Leg Blues" is thrown in as an added bonus. It
might seem expensive to pay full price for one single, but even if you could find a copy
of the Wiley single, it would cost you a lot more.
-Wilhelm Murg, 3/97
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MARTIN DENNY: HYPNOTIQUE / EXOTICA VOL III (Scamp 9714-2)
review by Wilhelm Murg, copyright 1997
The apply entitled HYPNOTIQUE is a 1958 experiment in ambient-exotic soundscapes. It marks
the first time Denny had strings and singers at his disposal, and he rose to the occasion,
creating his most serious statement without losing his trademark sound. The album is as
concerned with mood as it is with music, and the "mood" is one of suspension, in
turns romantic, ominous, serene, and tragic, but often it simply flows and leaves you to
your own inner-impressions. In the opening of "Jungle Madness" you know your not
in "Quiet Village" anymore. "Jungle Madness" is actually an
introverted version of Denny's famous hit, but with minor instead of major chord changes:
The piece simply floats in space. "Chinese Lullaby," "Voodoo Drums,"
"Hypnotique," and a powerful version of Gershwin's "Summertime," all
continue the hazy liquid dream sequence. Even when Denny breaks the ambience with his 19th
century Japanese-Dixieland rendition of "St. Louis Blues," it seems to be a part
of the overall concept, like a pitstop in the middle of an R.E.M. cycle.
EXOTICA VOL. III is vintage Denny, which no fan should be with out, but it suffers in
comparison to HYPNOTIQUE. Denny turns Duke Ellington's "Caravan" into a bongo
busting stereo extravaganza, only outdone by the tueti (i.e. - hammering on a hollow log,)
percussion attack on "Mama Iti E Papa E ." Denny even throws in some harpsichord
on "Ring Oiwake." Scamp has done a great job remastering these recordings in
their original mix (Rhino reversed the stereo channels in the tracks they used in their
Denny anthology.) The CD comes with liner notes by Mr. Denny himself (in which he
describes some voodoo ceremonies he attended,) and the original LP artwork is beautifully
reproduced, including the surrealist Sandy-Warner-On-A-Platter cover of HYPNOTIQUE. Two
great albums for the price of one makes this the bargain of the month. Mix a zombie, slap
on the disc, and find out how the old school tranced out.
-Wilhelm Murg 2-97
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Dear Christine,
Here is an article do what you want with it. Hope your dogs are doing well.
Until next time.-Wilhelm
TURNING BASE VINYL INTO GOLD
By Wilhelm Murg
(Keep in mind that this article is about Tulsa, Oklahoma record stores. It will be
published in a future issue of Tulsa's Infinity Press, however, as always, I retain all
rights.)
Today every mallrat record store is pushing the same product to an ungrateful nation while
robots commandeer our radio stations and play the exact same music regardless of where the
broadcast is originating. But there was a time when madmen ruled the local record trade.
Once upon a time in the 70's, the streets of Tulsa were littered with strange, oddball
little independent record shops that catered exclusively to particular genres of music.
Each store had it's own ambience, it's own personality, it's own look, and it's own
distinctive smell. It was a time when buying a record was an adventure.
One of the more mind-bending places you could shop was White's Records.
"White's" was something of a misleading name as Mr. White was an
African-American entrepreneur who specialized in soul, the blues, and jazz music. You must
remember that this was all taking place in the early 1970's when the epic struggle for
civil rights was still fresh in everyone's mind and the world was finally embracing the
roots of American music. Radio had yet to be segregated. It was possible for a record
store to be based in black music and not only survive, but prosper.
White's mothership was located at Lewis and the 36th Street North, in a building which is
now Joe Johnson's Auto Body Shop. The building was (and still is) an ugly mustard-colored
affair, but in the frenzied leftover psychedelic aesthetic of 1971, someone bought a
gallon of black paint, and presumably a controlled substance, and composed a wildly
asymmetrical design that seemed to have been influenced by everything from African motifs
to comic art and graffiti. The result was a beautiful mess, an eye-catching eyesore on a
kamikaze mission that refused to blend into the landscape.
But all the energy that went into the outward appearance of White's first store was turned
inward for it's sister shop, located between Frankfort and Hartford on 46th Street North
in what is now a virtually abandoned shopping center (however, even abandoned, the area
still seems to draw a lot of foot traffic on a Saturday night.) The sister store had an
amazing collection of Jazz, Blues and obscure black comedy albums (like LaWanda Page's
blue stand-up discs with Slick and Skillet.) To my barely pubescent ears, the collection
was like a thunderbolt from outer space. The first time I ever heard John Coltrane was in
that store. But the real acid test was appening in the back, in the blacklight room. Every
icon of the 1970's was taped up in there, glowing before your eyes; Wyle E. Coyote
strangling The Roadrunner over the legend "Beep Beep My Ass," beautiful,
topless, Nubian goddesses sporting afros that made up a third of their height, Satan
burning through a floor where a pentagram had been painted, the melting Statue of Liberty
with The Beatles heads on Mount Rushmore, and the usual suspects; magic dragons, tacky
sexual cartoons, band logos, and hypnotic designs. There were so many images that you
could read a newspaper just from the glow the posters were giving off. White's Records
disappeared some time in the late 1970's.
Catering to a more upscale audience was The Gramophone Shop, located between Peoria and
Lewis on 15th Street. The Gramophone Shop was run by an Englishman, David Hedges, out of
the basement of his elegant home. The only major draw back was that he also did all the
cooking in the family, so the store was always filled with odors from the kitchen, usually
stews and beans. Hedges was anal retentive about classical music. You could hum three
notes from one part of some obscure motet and he could usually pull a copy of the piece
you were asking about from his personal collection of ten thousand LPs. While Hedges'
obsession was a great plus for local record collectors, the quality control could get very
tiresome. I remember looking for a piece by Satie that was only available from a record
label Hedges didn't want to soil his store with. I had to debate with him as to why I
needed the piece before he would order it. Hedges closed his shop in the late 1980's when
he moved back to England. His wonderful store and home is now a mortuary, which I still
see as an ominous sign for Tulsa Music.
Probably the most illegal music store to ever get a business license in Tulsa was Tape
City, a true Mom & Pop store located a few blocks North of 21st street on Harvard. It
was run by a nice older couple who looked like the last thing they should have been doing
was bootlegging music next to an elementary school. While they sold new and used 8-tracks,
cassettes, and reel-to-reel tapes, their bread and butter were these jukeboxes that had
8-track recording heads built in (these were not hot-wired garage collages; though I never
saw these machines anywhere else, they were beautifully manufactured.) The trick was
simple; you go in, find a bunch of hit songs you wanted, then put in your coins and buy a
tape that was just the right length and you had your own customized 8-track tape version
of a K-Tel album. I had a girlfriend who was hooked on these stupid tapes. The major
letdown was, like all jukeboxes, there is a random factor in how the songs were
programmed, thus "Kung Fu Fighting" would be followed by "You Light Up My
Life," followed by "Ramblin' Man," followed by "Slow Ride" (the
single edit, of course.) I'm not proud; I admit to doing the seventies. In the early
seventies, a series of hippie-owned record stores opened up, such as Honest John's (which
is now Starship,) Big Bad John's (next to The Fontana Theater,) Greer's Records and Tapes
(with three locations,) and The Rubicon (on Peoria.) But one always had the feeling that
there were just not enough local hippies to keep so many stores open (though there were
enough stoners in the area to keep the two main headshops, Starship and Oz, open to this
day.) Each of these stores were marked by the same look; a lot of hairy guys with blank
stares grooving to the music under posters that attempted to look like Roger Dean
paintings from Yes album covers. It was hard to get out of there without being called
Dude, or Man. I'm sure a lot of the profits from these stores simply went up in smoke.
There was also considerable trade going on in the used record stores around Tulsa. Most of
the used record stores were run by a small group of people who seemed somewhat incestuous
in their business dealings. I believe they all learned from working with one another, but
I could never tell who the godfather of the organization actually was. There were
Wolfman's Records, Wizard's, Discovery Records, Golden Sounds, and The Record Alley. Myths
and legends abound about the group; from one stealing the other's name, to one stealing
the other's product (rumored to have had a court settlement for lifting $20,000 in
scratchy records,) to one raising money for a D.U.I. by having a dollar sale one
afternoon, thus losing every decent title in stock in one dumb move. Most of them are
still in the record business, but I don't believe any of them currently have a store.
However, the all-time coolest store in Tulsa was Lee's Records, run by an aging rockabilly
who, even in his mid-life crisis, was still pumpin' his Grecian-Formula black pompadour.
Lee's was one of those places where rock'n'roll wasn't just a business, it was a way of
life. In order to make a purchase you had to approach a shrine filled with Elvis
memorabilia which also worked as a right handy counter top. While other stores were
obsessive about having clean copies of the latest hit records, Lee's catered to a crowd
that didn't care as much about quality or hits as they did about simply having a slab of
rock'n'roll history. A standing ashtray regally stood at the end of every record aisle.
The wall had a display of just about every country, western, and rock'n'roll star to play
The Cain's standing with Lee (though a bloodstained Sid Vicious was noticeably absent.)
One life-changing moment I had at Lee's was when the former
teeny-bopper-turned-grandmother was going through a stack of 1950's rock'n'roll magazines
and came upon a cover featuring Ricky Nelson in his prime. She said, "Just look at
this picture of Ricky," then swooned. It was the first time I fully realized the
transcendental state of sexual awakening that teen idols caused, even producing
palpitations a quarter century after the fact, with Ricky s libido jumpin' across time,
space and the netherworld. Lee's moved and I lost track of them, but it was one of the
greatest experiences I ever had buying records.
The death of the independent record store came about with Peaches, which later turned into
Buttons, and is now Blockbuster Entertainment. Peaches was a record warehouse with over a
million dollars in inventory. Virtually every domestic record in print was sitting there
in the middle of Tulsa.. Around the same time Woodland Hills Mall also came in and
suddenly there was no need to go anywhere else for records. Radio stations started
narrow-casting and putting certain songs in heavy rotation. AM radio was turning into an
all-talk format. MTV homogenized popular music taste from coast to coast. The days when
the local disc-jockey could play anything he wanted were long gone. Music became contained
to such an extent that even the local Sears could stock the records that were likely to
sell.
Though we have independent music dealers in the area, I miss the days when you could go
into a record store and have no earthly idea of what you were going to come out with.
(The author would like to thank to Doug Miller for driving him around to find these
abandoned record stores one Saturday Night.)
-Wilhelm Murg, 3/99
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