I'm a big fan of the flip sides. Sometimes you get burned, but sometimes you uncover a real gem like this one. I knew that i recognized the title on the other side, Popsicles and Icicles, but at the time i was stumped as to what song it actually was... Once i noticed Kim Fowley's name listed as producer, it was a no brainer. Buy this record. So i did. Once i gave it a whirl i knew it as that old song that i hadn't heard in who-knows how long. Hell, for the price i paid for it i'da bought the damn thing for the cool label graphics alone regardless if i "knew" the tune or not. Turns out it's actually a great pair... One's a mid-sixties pop masterpiece and one's, well, the instrumental flip side.
Elvis week is over, but i'm a slouch and i forget things easily. It happens. Whaddya want fer nuthin?!... Anyway, here's another Dread Zeppelin number for your listening dis-pleasure. (Hear a different one HERE.)
This odd little psychedelic freak-out is the flip side of their take on the mighty Zep's Whole lotta love. I've always thought this tune was a lot of fun. Still gets a chuckle out of me to this very day...
There are only so many summer weekends left, why not hit the beach one last time before it gets too cool outside. Get in one last dip in the ocean, soak up some rays, check out the pretty girls.... But just be careful- Chief Brody might not be there to save your ass this time...
I don't claim to know a whole lot, and i don't know how long the Back Beat label was operational, but after finding this one and hearing several others, i'm starting to think that they never released any bad music. It's just one man's opinion. Have a listen for yourself, and you be the judge.
I also don't know much about O.V. Wright, just that he died way too young and still had plenty of singing left in him when he went. Well, at least he gave us what he had when he had it... And here's one of those fine selections.
The flip side of a wonderfully awful cover record i had the pleasure of finding late last winter. The other side is a truly rotten rendition of the Fab Four's 'Twist and shout." CHECK IT OUT. But don't say i didn't warn you- It's baaad...
"Hit" records was a label in the sixties who specialized in releasing half-assed covers of popular songs of the day, aimed at the music buyer on a budget (or the young music lover's thrifty and/or square parents, who didn't know any better.) These records went for like 30 cents, where as an actual Frankie Valli single probably would have ran upwards of a whole dollar at the time. So it is what it is. You and me, we know it as what you'd call: 'a cheap knockoff.' This one's actually a pretty decent version though...
Another selection from the one hit wonder British invasion-era act best known to us Americans for their version of 'Tobacco Road.' Why they called themselves The Nashville Teens will go down as one of the great mysteries in rock and roll. They weren't from anywhere near Nashville, or even America for that matter, and they were grown men...
I guess we'll never know.
When i found this one recently i was hoping it was going to be a cover version of the Manfred Mann tune of the same name (LINK.) When i found that one i was hoping it was going to be a cover of the Small Faces tune of a similar title. Nope, three totally different numbers. But it's cool, i don't mind...
It's too bad that the flip side of this record is such a dud, because this one absolutely stomps.
Dig it.
I haven't featured one with the "Going Places" theme that i've done so irregularly in the past. What say we take a trip to Southtown USA, shall we?
A bit of forgotten 60s girl group pop, with a wailing dixieland horn section... What a cool record! I bought this one a long time ago and remember not really liking it when i first played it, but when i put it on again the other day i absolutely fell in love with it. I don't know anything about the group, but it doesn't matter... Just listen to em sing about it.
It's The Dixiebelles featuring 'Cornbread and Jerry.' Come on people. How could you not love this..?
I'm assuming this song was intended to be the hit, and the flip side was, well, the other song. If you ask me they are both pretty amazing. After you dig this one, go check out the link, you'll be glad you did.
I know it's not his birthday, it;s his death-day, but who can resist a goof-ball tribute record in honor of the king regardless of the occasion. I found this one this winter (post Jan 8th) and have been waiting, patiently waiting oh waiting, for this fine summer day to arrive to share it... Finally, that day is among us.
Church garage sales are great places to find unusual records. As soon as i walked through the door i saw the books, and i knew the records couldn't be too far off. Sure enough, there they were. I started flipping through a stack of 45s when one of the folks running the show came up and said: You collect 45s eh- have you ever heard this old White Sox record? Then he went and fetched a grocery bag FULL of these. There must have been a hundred of them! He said they were donated by someone who got them as leftovers from a promo the team did in 1985, and had been sitting on them ever since.
He sold me the stack of random records for a dollar because he "just wanted to get rid of them." Standard oldies station stuff- Three Dog Night, The Box Tops, etc... Then he threw in about a dozen of the Sox records and told me to "pass them out to my friends." So i ended up tossing him a fin for the lot. I looked around for a bit longer and found an antique camera for a buck, said thanks again and took off.
When i got home i told the wife about my find, and she immediately said: "You have to go back and get the rest." One of the many reasons i love this woman. Back at the garage sale I offered the guy ten bucks for the bag, then realized that i only had seven. He didn't even care, he was just happy to see them go. He said that everything was donated, so it's 100 percent profit for the church. Now, i'm not a religious man, but i do like to think that i did a good deed by taking all of these records off of their hands for them. It's the little things, and i'm just glad i could help.
I got to looking for information out on the interwebs and it looks like the singer was in the White Sox minor league system in the 60s, but never played in the bigs. Info about this record is in short supply. In fact, i found absolutely nothing at all... It's a forgotten artifact.
The wife is friends with a few folks in the Sox front offices, so we're going to see if any of them remember it, and probably give a few copies back to the team.
Any White Sox fans (or anyone) need a copy of this? Shoot me a message, I got about a hundred to spare. I like to trade- Specifically for another record featuring an ex (or then current) sports personality. Talk to me here.
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Finding shit like this is what makes collecting random old 45s such a fun hobby. The stage driver's 'Hiyah!' and whip sound effects make this some of the finest two minutes of sound i've come across in a good long while. I just don't even know what else to say about it...
My new neighborhood is pretty swell. Good resturants, cool bars, a 10 minute walk from the ball park... And the icing on the cake is that i'm within sneezing distance of this dingy old funky little used record store called "Let's Boogie records and tapes". Yes tapes. Just like everything else in the place, the sign is old too. After living here for more than a week now, i finally went in there the other day, met the owner (nice guy- been there 35 years), and picked up a few dusty old 45s. I could spend days in the place shooting the shit with the owner and rummaging through the random-ass stacks of who-knows-what. If i could get that guy to give me a job, i'd be absolutely living the dream...
The flip side of the doo-wop slow-dance standard "There's a moon out tonight" is actually quite the rocker, and as anyone who's visited before knows- I'll take the rocker over the ballad any day of the week. And if it's got a title and/or lyrical content that might be considered slightly offensive by today's overly P.C. standards but was acceptable 50 years ago- even better.
I didn't bother to clean this one, not even the spit and t-shirt method, i just threw it on the turntable with decades worth of crud crusted in the grooves, so it's pretty noisy.
Enjoy!
I enjoy a good satire record when it can be used to commemorate the anniversary of a significant event. Like, say, the Watergate scandal and the events that led to Nixon's resignation on August 9th, 1974. I'm not much of a political history buff, especially stuff that happened when i was still having bath-time in the kitchen sink... I do enjoy a good satire record either way, and this one is educational even. Would i be thinking about the Watergate scandal and/or America's 37th president if it weren't for this particular record? I'm going to just go ahead and say 'No' on that one. So here it is, nearly 40 years later and i'm learning... From a corny old novelty 45...
I did a little interwebbing to try and learn a little more and found this little fun factoid: The record is credited to "The Creep" Which was- The Committee for the Re-Election of the President (CRP, or sometimes pejoratively referred to as CREEP.)
Clever.
From 1973, I'm guessing that this came out shortly after the scandal broke (obviously), but before any serious legal action was taken, there's no mention of specific sentencing or Nixon's resignation in the lyrics. But what do i know, i still couldn't walk or talk when this all went down.
Here's your history lesson for today.
Enjoy the Creep!
Cruising the blog-o-nets this morning and found myself on The worlds worst records reading about and/or listening to some truly awful music, and saw that he just posted the other side of this one. I thought to myself, i thought, Self- i have that record too, i'm going to post the flip side...
So here i am.
This is the follow up to the band's #1 hit in England, Mouldy Old Dough. I believe they were both released in 1972. See the post i did on that one HERE for the full story. That song was (still is, and probably always will be) the only UK #1 single to feature a mother and her son on the recording. That's frontman Rob Woodward's mum Hilda on the olde-timey sounding piano.
Sorry about the lame-o label scan, it's how i did them a year and a half ago and i never re-did this one. I also have the picture sleeve too, but don't have a scan of it at all. It's the "music" that really matters anyway....
Bobby Powell was a gospel singer who made some R&B records in the 60s & 70s which were mostly released on small Louisiana labels like this one. He returned to singing gospel music in the 80s and beyond. Other than that, i don't know much else about the man. I can tell you this however- the FLIP SIDE of this record is a pretty righteous version of C.C. Rider. You really ought to check that one out...
In my half-assed googlenet searches I also learned that this record is either from 1963 or 1965, depending on which website(s) you choose to believe. So basically, i learned nothing. Either way it's a keeper.
Sending this one out to my old lady.
When you move it's like all your stuff was thrown into a blender, mixed up, and dumped into a new set of four walls. I'm not an organized packer either, i tend to just throw whatever is near me into a box, tape it up, and move on...
I know everythings here somewhere, and yet i can't find anything-
but i'll keep searching...
This song is a good example of the exception to the rule. The rule being that the original version of a song is usually better than later recorded versions. In this particular case i prefer the second, more polished recording. Buddy wrote this one for Jimi Hendrix's Band of gypsies album, and it's brilliant. Pure Hendrix. But you can tell that this was the vision he had in mind for the song all along. It was re-recorded and released in 1971 and comes from Buddy's third solo release and first after Jimi's death.
Here's a response i just wrote to a nice anonymous comment leaver. It seemed fitting for a proper post, so here you have it:
I've been absent the last several days because of the recent move. As soon as the dust settles here, i plan on getting back into the record-a-day groove, right now it's tough though. Moving is very stressful, and this move especially was a HUGE pain in the ass. Worst i've ever had to deal with... And i've been around.
It's been a crazy few days. What with the new place, the no internets, etc. It's it's time to start unpacking and lettin it all hang out.
"Aside from pornography, stalking ex girlfriends, tv commercials from my youth, and new and interesting ways for me to ignore my family- this blog has to be the best thing on the internets." -E.S.U. III
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Music and images are presented for demonstration purposes. Nobody's making any money offa this, we're just trying to dig on some tunes. So let's all just relax.
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