February 6, 2010

Africa – NSFW

This risque little gag was found in a 1970s pocket laff book from a Zurich thrift store, circa 1990. According to our translation software, the white explorer is saying: “From these splendid gusts of wind, I discover all the charms of Africa…”

True, it’s a weak punchline for a pubic hair joke. And yes, it is kinda weird that she has no nose. But bear in mind this is a German cartoon.






Desmond Dekker – “Pretty Africa”

Rick at 12:21 am

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January 27, 2010

Yes, Chewing!

I love Black Black gum. It’s a dose of explosive mintyness and nourishing caffeine that helps me fuckstart my brain at those times when a cup of coffee would be overdoing it. (Just the gum, though. I tried the Black Black brand candy once and did not care for it.)

It’s occurred to me that for me, Black Black seems to occupy the role for which an Ethiopian feller might use khat. Except that gum-chewing is a filthy habit that sometimes messes up the soles of people’s shoes later on. Khat doesn’t really seem to have much of a downside except that it has a weird foreign name and some Africans find it pleasurable, which always makes certain folk nervous.

My brilliant analogy with khat means the Drug Enforcement Administration will no doubt be arresting my Japanese gum import connection any month now. My only prayer shall be that politicians and powerful drug warriors will continue to not read this blog.

The Moody Blues – “Question”

(Enjoyment of the Moody Blues can be enhanced with a nice blast of caffeine.)

Rick at 3:06 pm

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March 24, 2006

Good Guys Wear ‘Em

Say, babies, get in on what’s happening. Here’s an item that’s always groovy. It’s not gonna wear out; it’s not gonna be out. It’s gonna be in. Be in. Wear it to Be-ins. Wear it to Love-ins. Wear it to… Turn-ins!

Your nazi helmet is factory fresh and comes with a choice of personalized decals. Made of the finest organic plastic, this item will never become obsolete. Kids – get your own helmet club! Plan secret meetings. Wear your helmets to school. Compare your genuine now helmet to Dad’s old one! Guaranteed complete protection in all demonstrations…

Hey, kids! Get uptight with your outtasight nazi helmet today!

(From You Are What You Eat (1968). Long time thanks to the Hound.)

Nazi Helmet ad (:57)

UPDATE: Corrected the name of the movie (thanks, Squeaky!) and discovered that this piece was on a track by Peter Yarrow of Peter, Paul & Mary. According to Wikipedia, Pete pled guilty in 1970 to taking “immoral and indecent liberties” with a 14-year-old female fan, and served three months in prison.

Rick at 8:45 pm

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March 20, 2006

Mothra Monday

This is not the place to learn all about the Toho Films pantheon of creatures. I don’t know a whole lot about Mothra, but I’m picking up a few facts here and there. She was an adversary of Godzilla and, for all I know, they became fast acquaintances or maybe secret fuck-buddies in later films… you know how fickle these radioactive monsters can be. Perhaps Ivan Lerner can step in and fill in the blanks. Or you can do your own research. This is the goddamn internet, in case you haven’t noticed.

What’s clear to me, and anyone else, is that Mothra is a giant moth. Let’s pause a moment and let that sink in. A moth. Possibly the most harmless pest in terms of battle, a fluttering, delicate moth can – what, nibble on your linens? Does Godzilla end up after the melee with raggedy-ass holes in his/her underwear? (Just kidding. Everyone knows Godzilla doesn’t wear any underwear.)

(...Damn, that’s sexy.)

As an aside, you can find out all about Mosura’s fragile ego and mothy powers right here. And this other page has the original version of the theme, as well as storyline summaries, smart links, cool photos, lyrics and translation.

The real movie came out in 1961, then was remade in 1996, probably because somebody imagined that was somehow necessary.

The U.S. credits for the original movie had Jerry Ito’s name listed as “Jelly Ito.” How excellent is that?

Anyway, I found an old cassette tape that has this tune which I’d assumed was by girl duo the Peanuts as those adorable little twin Japanese maidens (the Shobijin) that worship an enormous moth. This must be from a record I own called Godzilla Legend III: Dialogue of the Infantians by Makoto Inoue, which is apparently slavish synth interpretations of the original Akira Ifukube score, made in 1983. I like to imagine it’s the Peanuts on vocals, but for all I know it’s Pink Lady in a karaoke bar. Got your wings on, good buddy?

“Mosura” (theme)

Rick at 11:58 pm

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March 12, 2006

Hop on Pop

The Shakes played the other night at a French restaurant in Los Angeles. I got pictures to prove it.

One thing that I’ve grown to appreciate about the Shakes is their consistency. These youngsters are in it for the long haul. Lemme tell ya, kid – I seen ‘em come and go. This combo might have one of the most generic names imaginable (I suppose we can be grateful they didn’t call themselves Rock Band), but the Shakes seem to lack the sort of deluded megastar ambition that leads to the breakup of lesser bands. They bring a garagey roughness to the academic sixties-worship you hear from certain other devotees of the Kinks and Small Faces. Peter and Janet are infamous for deflating any hint of show-biz mythmaking in the live show – specifically with their tendency to mumble self-deprecating commentary or inside jokes, or by overexplaining that which needs no introduction.

On Friday, it seemed like they were consciously trying to avoid these pitfalls, because whenever Peter would begin to elucidate the origins of a particular song, the rest of the band would quickly step all over each other with “shut up and play!”-type objections, which piled upon one another until somebody actually did start playing. But the Shakes never degenerate into fisticuffs; no one goes away bloody.

Bass player Janet Housden dislikes it when friends mention she formerly hit drums for Redd Kross. Guitar/frontman Pete Gilabert is another “scene veteran” (as we old folks like to put it) who was in merseybeat group the Stool Pigeons as well as other bands that are shrouded in mystery. Keyboard nut Dan Collins is a funny fellow and an excellent DJ on Killradio.org, where he spins the finest in 1960s-70s non-hits. Andrew Chojnacki is no longer their drummer, but the new guy is really good.

These first two selections below are from the Gigantes Del Pop! album on L.A. pop mogul Jim Freek’s Teenacide records. The Britney cover is from the 2002 debut record. Monsieur Freek says that the new Shakes CD is due out on 6-6-06. I can’t wait.

The Shakes – “In My Hair”

The Shakes – “Sicker”

And here’s that blast from four years back:
The Shakes – “Oops! ...I Did It Again”

Rick at 2:52 pm

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March 2, 2006

Biker Movie Thursday

This is one of my very favorite artifacts: the original soundtrack from the film Naked Angels (1969) on Frank Zappa’s Straight record label. Today we’re presenting only the first tune on the album – the “Naked Angels Theme” – and sparing you the lame-ass studio boogie boredom that follows it. I wouldn’t waste your time.

But check out this churning fuzz monster. Many folks who are into biker instrumentals like to rave about Davie Allan & the Arrows (and they’re consistently good) – but Simmons & Steirling’s brash, nakedly commercial Naked Angels is A-list material. Hey, just because you’re a studio hack doesn’t mean you can’t cook the amps into overdrive and bust out a prime squealing bit of rough-trade road mythology once or twice in your lifetime. (UPDATE: Jeff Simmons is not a hack.)

The misogynist cover of this LP instantly attracted me, with its glamorous desert rape photo and sundrenched sleaziness. The movie’s very obscurity added to its mystique… which wore off slightly when I finally saw it, with Ivan Lerner, who curated a biker film festival at Anthology Film Archives. To be blunt, it didn’t leave much of an impression; though, as I recall, the filmmakers reused the “Theme” several times, like Curtis Mayfield’s “Pusherman” in the movie Superfly. Maybe it’s time for me to watch it again with fresh eyes.

And perhaps the “Naked Angels Theme” does go on a couple measures too long… but that makes it the perfect length to saddle up your gleaming chopped hog for a four-minute wind-swept freedom run, all the way down the endless highway, to that enormous new beige mega-mall they just opened.

Pleasant shopping, sucker.

Jeffrey Simmons & Randy Steirling – “Naked Angels Theme”

Rick at 12:03 am

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December 23, 2005

Teardrops

Let me be absolutely clear; these high holy days are kicking my ass. Certainly you all have noticed my weak levels of posting… you have, haven’t you?

Anyhoo, since the Toestubber (that’s me) will be mostly incommunicado until a couple days after Xmas – way up in the hills of beige-ass Fresno County – here are a handful more totally soul-groovin’ songs by the Equals to help you cope. To paraphrase Sara Lee, nobody doesn’t love this band. So cheer up, put on your dancing ‘fro and let’s get to mingering! And be sure to have a Merry whatever, suckas.

The Equals – “Honey Bee”

The Equals – “The Skies Above”

The Equals – “Just Me and You”

The Equals – “Michael and His Slipper Tree”

Rick at 12:09 am

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December 16, 2005

The Voice of Nations

Are you a romantic? You like perfect songs about love and death? Do you have a high tolerance for cabaret-style tunesmithing? Do you appreciate when raw emotional sincerity is smoothly blended with bitterness and desperation? Do you agree that the French language has a certain je ne sais quoi? If not, move along, pal – yer blockin’ up traffic.

Jacques Brel is one of my favorite singers, and I have never heard him sing a word in English. I would not want to hear such a thing. When I was a kid, my mother used to play his records, and my brother and I mocked them mercilessly in an attempt to portray ourselves as badasses. I believe that hearing his casual, precise enunciation when I was that young helped me when I was learning French in high school, even though Monsieur Jacques sang a kind of Bruxellois a French teacher might not like. And now, of course, I am recommending you dig the music – whether or not you understand what he’s singing about.

Although he’s revered in France and his native Belgium as the French-speaking world’s own Frank Sinatra (with perhaps a little Bob Dylan thrown in), Brel’s American exposure has mainly consisted of this retarded piece of horrible hippie shit. (The video actually features one great clip of JB hisself singing “Ne Me Quitte Pas”; too bad this gem is found inside the movie equivalent of a drippy fart.) Brel was also a publicly avowed atheist, a ballsy stance that earns him special Toestubber miles which can even be redeemed after one’s death.

Brel the pop star always looked freakin’ cool as hell, exuding that kind of suave handsome/ugly combo I often relate to for some strange reason: Smoking a fag in literally half the photos ever taken of him, tousled hair from driving his sports convertible, tailored dinner jacket… the complete early-’60s jetsetter intellectual, frozen in time. That’s how it seemed, anyway. He often sang partly in Flemish, and about the Flemish ladies (“Les Flamandes,” among others). He famously stopped performing a few years before the cigarettes finally croaked him in 1978.

There are lots of records you can buy, but precious little video footage, with apparently one exception: After obsessing over these songs during a busy xmas season, I’m seriously thinking about purchasing what must be the most expensive DVD set in history. What the fuck.

In 1973, Alex Harvey of the Sensational Alex Harvey Band did a tango version of Brel’s “Next” and named their best album after it. SAHB is a post for another day, but this is the most rocking Brel cover you’ll ever hear (beating out even Sinatra’s reworking of “Je Ne Quitte Pas” as “If You Go Away.”). I love the way the soldier’s story introduces itself as a light, cheesy farce and then suddenly takes a nasty, apocalyptic turn into full-on existential horror. “Next…”

Jacques Brel – “Ne Me Quitte Pas”
Jacques Brel – “Amsterdam (live)”
Jacques Brel – “Marieke”

Sensational Alex Harvey Band – “Next”

Rick at 11:42 pm

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November 6, 2005

Stand Back and Take a Good Look

There are all kinds of orthodoxies in music appreciation. Some people worship at the altar of “simple and catchy.” You can even add “dumb” to the formulation, depending on whether you prefer the lyrics of the Rolling Stones or ? & the Mysterians. I used to religiously tape the radio show of WFMU’s DJ The Hound, who played vintage rock ‘n’ roll, blues and r’n’b and occasionally made declarations to the effect that there was no good music made after 1970, except for the Stooges. (I dunno, he might have played a Slade song once.) The liner notes of the excellent Back From the Grave series of 1960s garage-punk feature the humorous musings of Crypt Records mogul Tim Warren as he verbally slashes and burns all categories of music that do not engender a particular primal response. To be fair to these guys, they were trying to be funny, and their single-mindedness uncovered some genius songs, and changed my life. Check out Norton Records / KICKS Magazine for further study.

I don’t know where power pop fits into all this. The received wisdom in the garage scene used to be that decent primitive rock died around the time that hardcore came to life.

In the past, I have defended these borders and waged these battles. I’m kinda simple; I like simple songs. But music can do a lot of different things in many ways. For me, it’s just not interesting anymore to hate bad music – much more rewarding just to love the good stuff, and leave it at that.

The Nerves were Jack Lee (guitar/vocals), Paul Collins (drums) and Peter Case (bass).

Those guys were doing high-energy “power pop” in front of punk crowds way before some record exec even decided the term needed to be invented. Ignore the suits. It’s all in the songwriting, kids.

Paul went on to form the (Paul Collins) Beat, whose first album is the absolute gold standard for power pop. Go to the official website and download videos from a live show (on the 1979 Ramones tour) for free! Do it! Also, check out his new country band. Peter Case formed the Plimsouls. There’s a very interesting article about Peter’s strange musical journey here.

The Nerves – “One Way Ticket”
The Nerves – “Hanging on the Telephone”
The Nerves – “Stand Back and Take a Good Look”
The Nerves – “Paper Dolls”

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This is not an apology, but simply an admission that I’m not posting as often as I’d like to be. There are quite a few well-written blogs that cover the music scene. The only hope this one has of maintaining its audience is with steady rockin’ updates… So don’t worry. Once I shake this depression, we’re gonna be right as rain, you and I.

Two awesome books I’m currently reading:

Big Dead Place: Inside the Strange and Menacing World of Antarctica by Nicholas Johnson

Nick Johnson writes about the actual Antarctica (the one that’s ruled by pinch-minded government bureaucrats and the Raytheon Company) in a comedic style stripped of romance, earning him a permanent disbarment from the South Pole’s worker hives. Tales of horrifying waste disposal, Human Resources blunders, skua culture and massive frozen hot dog stockpiles are balanced with the author’s detailed obsession with the history of the region’s early explorer heroes, a modern version of whom – Eirik Sonneland – contributes the book’s forward.

Hip Hop Files: Photographs 1979-1984 by Martha Cooper

Bomb All Lines! This insider’s photobook should be your companion piece to the excellent DVD documentary Style Wars – a must-see for those who are fascinated by this mysterious lost era before graffiti, breakdancing, “turntablism” and street/subway style spread throughout the entire planet like a virus. Thanks again, Chris!

Rick at 3:40 pm

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October 26, 2005

Paystub

Okay, I have a reputation as a spelling/grammar nazi. Not the kind of nazi that thinks bad spellers should be rounded up and exterminated; I’m the friendly kind of “nazi,” the kind that thinks it’s okay not to capitalize “nazi,” for example. In general, though, bad English rankles my testicles when it gets in the way of the writer making himself clear.

On my way to and from work, on Hollywood Boulevard, I pass a billboard advertising the Dr. Phil Show. It leaps out among a sea of similarly stupid signs.

“You’ve Got Your Battles.
He’s Got Your Back.”

Fuck this idiot! my mind screams. Is there a slogan more lumpy, more sandbagging to the ear? Unctuous smarm aside, this just reads poorly. Both sentences, on their own, make sense. But together, they make poop. (That last thing is the sort of on-the-one-hand, on-the-other-hand play on words the Dr. Phil people were shooting for; let me demonstrate how they failed.)

“You’ve Got Your Battles.” This is a broad, idiomatic statement. It is abstract, but could be literally true depending on how you define a battle. The “your” is redundant, because everything you’ve “got” is yours by definition, but that’s okay, because this comment is meant to be the kind of nurturing verbal hug you might get from a close friend or analyst/therapist, and certain soft redundancies are poetically pleasing.

Yep – you might say, reading the ad copy from the comfort of your automobile – I sure do have my battles, yes, siree… but what’s that got to do with the mustachio’d bald dude? Continue…

“He’s Got Your Back.”

Dumb.

The expression “having someone’s back” probably originated in the military, and has come to mean protecting a comrade from attacks which he or she can’t see, such as assaults from behind. It could never be literally or even figuratively true – it is an idiom with only one meaning. Although you do indeed possess your battles, the fat doctor does not actually own your back. If you tried to imagine Dr. Phil literally holding your severed spinal column while you stood beside him clutching an armful of battles, you’d end up confused. The slogan would only work if at least one of the literal images it brings forth could resonate. They can’t, because both sayings are separate abstractions that do not complement each other. One is passive, the other is active. They use the verb “to have” in different ways. The only thing the two statements have in common is that a retard paid lots of money to put them in my face.

You may think I’m taking this a bit too seriously. I’m not gonna be a crybaby about it. Sure, there are plenty of badly-written billboards. The crime here is not simply that an ad for an abusive emotional parasite has a bit of a tinny sound. What makes it offensive is that some illiterate copywriter actually thought he/she was being clever by splicing together two clashing idioms, merely because they contain words that are similar. Can you imagine a poor announcer having to read that shit? What inflection could render the proper soothing tone of well-meaning meaninglessness? I guess that’s why they make the big bucks.

When it comes to using down-home turns of phrase in creative, healthy ways, no one beats the country & western genre of music. The dearly departed Johnny Paycheck used to sing a song by the great George Jones with a very clever use of a similar device. It has been known to make me weep.

Johnny Paycheck – “(I’ll Be Over You) When the Grass Grows Over Me” (MP3)

Rick at 12:45 pm

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October 24, 2005

A Chorus of Jap Children

Here’s a record I bought, on my Japanese vacation, for 1200 yen:

I watched Ultraman when I was a kid. Not many people know this, but I used to be able to pose on one knee, cross my wrists and shoot laser beams at my enemies. This 7” has six Ultraman themes, typically a crooning adult male leading a chorus of Nippon waifs to bombastic 1960s pop-martial arrangements, cheesy as can be. I picked three of them for ya.

Ultraman track 1 (MP3)
Ultraman track 2 (MP3)
Ultraman track 6 (MP3)

That last one is a softer version of the theme song I remember from the Ultraman TV show.

This reminds me of one of my most treasured LPs, stolen from me by some psychologically ugly, cold-blooded creature in the 1990s. It was a Japanese collection of soundtrack music for animation shows such as Astroboy, Gigantor and 8-Man. It included super-fine quality stickers and pages of beautiful artwork including frigging schematics for Astroboy! Well, now it’s probably been sold for drugs. Fortunately, I still have one of the best tunes left on a crusty old cassette I’d made long ago. If you can identify the following music, go ahead and rub my nose in it.

Japanese TV theme (MP3)

Rick at 10:30 pm

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