Are You Safe And Warm, Volume One

Are you safe and warm? Well, ARE YOU? HUH?

Sorry, I didn't mean to come off so aggressively. First impressions and all that jazz. What we have here is a compilation I've concocted and properly posted to a prominent for-profit mix hosting service. If you are so inclined, you can listen to it here. 

It seems like an appropriate sentiment, since a large chunk of the country which normally doesn't see any snow, suddenly got A LOT of it, and some of the rest of us – well, we got ice instead. I truly hope people are being safe and doing well during this exhausting nightmare.

A couple things before we dip into this tasty sound stew. First off, the compilation, as could probably be gleaned by the "cover" art above, is sourced entirely from 45 rpm records from my personal collection. Why? Anyone who has the sort of tastes and predilections that I do regarding music, will probably understand. There's something innately endearing about putting the single on the turntable and positioning the arm; about trying to make a fun, quality mix of tunes on the fly (as subjective as that might be); about that faint hint of analog media that can come across when playing vinyl; about the process of pulling records you might not have played in quite a while out of their boxes, blowing the dust off, inhaling the particulates and gasping while screeching "Record lung!" 

But I digress.

 

 In terms of content, all of these tunes are from the 1950s and '60s – what I believe to be a nice assortment of fun r&b, twangy instrumentals, honky tonk numbers and even some nutso oddball novelty tunes.  I hope you enjoy!

Herbert Hunter with Band - Dr. Feel-Good (Spar, 1962): We start things off with Mr. Hunter's ode to big women. He likes 'em 400lbs or bigger! 

 

Johnny Cavalier And The Keynotes - Rock'N Chair Roll (Hi-Class, 1959): We move from the kitchen to the living room with this one. Johnny C and the boys may have only released this one single for Hi-Class, but it's been comped frequently on some Buffalo Bop comps and other euro-released rockabilly comps of dubious origin.  Sure, Johnny may have some trouble with finding a key to sing in, and keeping time while doing so, but if you shut your brain off and get into the groove, you'll have a great time!

 

Danny & Gwen - Deep Dreams (Liberty, 1962): The Danny and Gwen noted is actually a duo comprised of Vikki Carr (Gwen) and Jerry Naylor (Danny), who took over as singer for The Crickets after Buddy Holly's untimely demise. This tune, however, is the b-side to their "Submarine Race" single, and is likely devoid of either of their participation. It might just be a couple of studio session folks making some instrumental filler to pad out this release for Snuff Garrett, but damn if it doesn't sound dreamy. In a deep way. 

 

Shaye Cogan - Ain't Nobody Home (Gee, 1957): Shaye Cogan, born Helen J. Coggins, was an actress and singer who cut a few singles for Gee Records between the mid 1950s and 1960. She appeared in a 1957 teensploitation rock 'n' roll film called Mister Rock and Roll with Alan Freed, Little Richard, Clyde McPhatter, Frankie Lyom & The Teenagers, etcetera. I know her best as Cousin Matt in Abbott & Costello's 1951 film Comin' Round The Mountain.

 

Junior Tamplin with Orchestra - Baby Is A Boxer (Mercury, 1953): There's a stompin' vintage R&B tune about pretty much everything, if you're willing to look for it. And as far as I know, this is the best one out there about being in a relationship with a lady pugilist (even if it might just be a metaphor)! 

 

Tommy Nelson and Band - Hobo Bop (Dixie, 1960): If you're looking for a romping rockabilly tune about ridin' the rails and living the Boxcar American lifestyle, then this is it, my friends! Tommy apparently only cut two singles between 1960 and '61, but went on to sling other singers' discs as a disc jockey for KGFF in Shawnee, OK. He reappeared in the late '60s and early 1970s with a single and a locally pressed country covers album.

 

 

Duke Jenkins And His Orchestra - Shake It (Cobra, 1957): It's hard not to obey a command like this when the rhythm is so right! If this won't put the zip in your step, then you might need a doctor.

 

 

Willis "Gator Tail" Jackson And His Orchestra - Wine-O-Wine (Atlantic, 1952): Willis Jackson, aka Mr. Ruth Brown, legendary jazz  tooter and bluesman, brings his tenor sax to eleven for this slappin' ode to sippin' grapes!

 

 

Billie (Smeeke Smoke) Smith & The Good Beat's - The Whammer (Rae Cox, ?): I have no idea when this single came out, likely sometime between the early and mid 1960s, based on the Rae Cox label's other output noted on Discogs. As for Billie (Smeeke Smoke) Smith or the Good Beat's? Another blank wall. Sure there was a glut of soulful instrumentals released in this time period, but the funky organ and sax combo here, backed up with the popping popcorn drums, make this one funky toe tapper that is likely to get your ear drums groovin'!

 

 

 

Denny Reed - Hot Water (Trey, 1960): Here's a fun one that I initially heard on DJ Henry's The Record Roulette Club radio program, and it genuinely made me laugh out loud. Something I definitely needed then, so I pass this along to you all in hopes that it provides a chuckle for you as well. Denny was an Illinois-born crooner who released a handful of singles sporadically throughout the 1960s, and then came back in '77 with his Elvis tribute/cash-in "The King (Has Met The King)" when EAP went to that jungle room in the sky. Back up vocals on this are by the Crunk sisters, Donna and Pam, whom I know nothing about but applaud their artistry.

Skip Manning - Devil Blues (Empire, 1960): Allegedly the Skip Manning this groovy Calypso-inspired beatnik popcorn torch song is credited to, is actually R&B legend Phil Flowers. Why he adopted the pseudonym for this one-off is unclear, but if you're looking for a tune to soundtrack your next groovy Halloween-themed espresso party, you ain't going to find a better one than this!

Joe Sherman And The Arena Brass - The Green Hornet (Epic, 1966): The Caped Crusader isn't featured in this particular compilation, but his less successful brother of the mid-60s crime fighting airwaves gets a stunning send up here thanks to NY composer and musician Joe Sherman.

Jeff Barry - The Face From Outer Space (RCA Victor, 1960): 1960 seems to be the landmark year for tunes in this mix, and while there are some wild ones in here, this one is destined to take the cake and do something insane with it! A visiting face from outer space (no body, mind you – or even a head for that matter!) comes to Earth and meets our narrator, then things get even weirder! Yowza!

 

The Artesians - Trick Bag (Norton, 2003): Just to be clear, the release date on this greasy garage stomper is 2003 because before the fine folks at Norton got a hold of the archival recordings, The Artesians hadn't released anything. Active in the Pacific Northwest garage scene that brought us The Sonics and The Wailers (among others), this group existed from 1963 - 1965, recorded seven songs but failed to actually publish anything before they went kaput. This is the first of two Norton reissues that are in this mix. If that irks you for some reason, please let me know and I'll give you your money back.

Little Sonny Jones - Winehead Baby (Imperial, 1954): New Orleans piano man gives us this bluesy romp about having a booze-dependent significant other!

 

 

The Shades - Shady Lady (Ardent, 1961): Another one-off instro from this enigmatic group.  This raucous guitar instrumental is a somewhat sloppier version of what The Ventures did so well, but smoking nonetheless.

 

 

Impacts - Soup (Watts, 1959): Soup is good food, just not for every meal. Or so I've been told. Here we have a culinary horror story in r&b group sound narration. The ending is perplexing though funny. Why would you need a doctor to point out that your wife has no teeth? This group recorded from the late 1950s into the early 1960s, sometimes under the name The Blue Chips.

 

 

The Copycats Featuring Kimo & Sabbe - The Abominable Snow-Man (Prince, 1960): I don't know anything about the Copycats, though there's destined to be a zillion or so short-lived garage groups from the late 1950s and early '60s with the same moniker. And Kimo and Sabbe? They are as elusive as the subject matter for this fun novelty tune. Sure, Bigfoot pops up from time to time in annals of niche jukebox singles (Googie Rene's "Big Foot", for example), but how often do you hear a jaunty tune about the yeti? This sounds like a lost Stan Freberg production or something!

 

 

Nervous Norvus - The Fang (Dot, 1956): Next we leave the snowy heights of the Himalayas, for the red planet Mars. "Transfusion" might be Nervy Norv's most well-known single, but why tread already trodden groove ground when we have this hefty slice of koo-koo nut cream pie right here?! With a title like, "The Fang," you'd think the tune might be about a werewolf or a vampire, but no, here we have a cool, hip Martian's ode to himself. He rocketed to Earth in his crib to show all the hep cats and cool chicks how to be way out! Zorch!

 

 

 

Benny Joy - Rollin' To The Jukebox Rock (Norton, 2003):  This is the second Norton reissue in the mix. I have no idea when the original was released, I'd have to guess somewhere between 1957 and 1959 based on the tune alone, and various compilations that have been put together of Joy's work over the years have either not identified it's actual recording or release dates, or given dubious ones like 1977, which might be when it was pressed to an acetate for collectors or something, but clearly not when it was originally cut. Rollin' to the jukebox sounds like a good idea, if you could travel back in time to find one that stocked tunes like this. When you think about wandering into a bar nowadays, realizing that if there is a juke box, it's likely to be digital and feature Imagine Dragons and Taylor Swift rather than anything like this, you might opt to just stay home with your records.

 

Joe Maphis - Lonesome Jailhouse Blues (Starday, 1964): The King Of The Strings picking out a tune of wrongful imprisonment and barred-window blues.

 

 

 

The Kelly Four - Guybo (Silver, 1959): The Kelly Four were a group of Hollywood session players who also served as Eddie Cochran's backing band until his death in 1960. You can tell these guys had chops, I mean listen to that guitar! Sounds like it's going to start on fire with strummin' like that!

 

The Blendells - Huggie's Bunnies (Reprise, 1964): This Mexican-American Los Angeles group had a minor local hit with their version of Stevie Wonder's "La La La La La." In fact, it's the a-side to this much more impressive instrumental. I have no idea who Huggie is, or what his bunnies are all about, but I bet they cut an impressive rug with this jam to dance to. Maybe the bass could've been miked a bit better for the intro, but who am I to say?

Nino Tempo with Pete Rugolo And His Orchestra - Jack The Ripper (RCA, 1960): So, I guess we have a contender for that Halloween-themed espresso party I mentioned with the Skip Manning tune featured on this comp. This is the b-side to a single featuring the theme to the 1959 British film of the same name, after American film distributor Joseph E. Levine bought the picture to distribute in the U.S. and replaced the score with music by Pete Rugolo. This hip finger snappin' ditty about the Butcher of Whitechapel makes it sound like he should be featured on an episode of Peter Gunn or Mr. Lucky! I don't know that we're exactly honoring the memory of the women slaughtered by the guy by referring to him as a "kooky spooky" like he's a villain in a children's cartoon, but it'll definitely get your turtleneck twitchin'!

The Caltones - Get Offa The Telephone (Verve, ?): To round things up we have this fun number from a one-off Verve release. I have no data on the release date for this, but why not go ahead and just say 1960-ish, huh? The flip of this one is another great ode to the Beats, called "The Beards." This kooky novelty tune may just be imparting a bit of sage advice we can all heed in this modern madness.

Enjoy! Another volume with somewhat different contents will arrive in another week or so.

The Horror Of Party Beach

That's right, everybody! Get ready to do the Zombie Stomp with the way-out Del-Aires, while bearing witness to a strange invasion from the sea by unusual monsters looking for blood!

Anyone who is even remotely tuned in to the goofier (read "joyous") back alleys of popular culture, is probably familiar with this movie. Long story short, actor and industry gadfly Del Tenney decided to try and cash in on the surf culture craze of the early 1960s and the drive-in draw of monster movies at the same time by making a monster-in-the-surf film; not in sunny California where Gidget was shimmying with the Beach Boys, but in the chilly waters of the Atlantic off the New England coast! It was touted as the first horror musical (which is inaccurate because the infamously dull The Incredibly Strange Creatures Who Stopped Living And Became Mixed-Up Zombies beat it to the punch by months.) The movie has been dismissed as one of the worst movies of all time, and ravaged by everyone from Leonard Maltin to Stephen King, but darn if it isn't fun enough to survive. 

In 1989, Indiana Junk Rock band Sloppy Seconds included an homage to the film on their album Destroyed, and a decade later the movie gained cult film stock points when it was featured on an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Click to watch trailer for The Horror Of Party Beach.

Great, you might say. That's all neat-o and everything, but what am I doing here, on this blog thingy, reading about it? Well, it just so happens that in 1964, a fumetti-style photo comic of the film was published by Warren Magazines, the gang that gave us Creepy, Eerie, Vampirella, and other horror-themed comic titles. This over-sized photo comic essentially breaks the film down into stills, tweaking a few things here and there. For example, in the comic version you can see someone has gone through and painted big scary piranha teeth into the mouths of the monsters. In the actual film, the creature's mouth is full of mollusk-like protuberances that make it look like it's walking around with a mouth full of hot dogs. 

I have a copy this here publication, and thought, since we're dealing with actual horrors and dangerous weather here in the upper Midwest, why not try to bring a little levity and joy into things. Should you be so inclined, the entirety of the The Horror Of Party Beach comic is available for download here, to peruse at your leisure.*

*Note about the files: The magazine was scanned in single page jpeg format. The download is an uncompressed file folder containing the jpegs. 

Ghosting The Waves with The Phantom Surfer!

Howdy from the not-so-Great White North! 

Aside from the usual extreme temperature advisory (we're supposed to have wind chills at or around -35 degrees Farenheit over the next 48 hours), we're also currently under siege by our own government. This isn't a political blog in any way, shape or form – if anything this is my one surcease from the constant barrage of all of that – but I'd be remiss if I didn't at least mention it. 

The current luau status: unlikely.

Long story short, there's a lot of reasons folks here in Minnesota are staying inside right now. And, of course, what so often happens here during the most brutal depths of the winter months, at least for me, is that I start romanticizing and longing for the warmer days of summer. 

Well, I can't move May closer to January, so the next best thing (I guess) is to try to invoke a sense of the warmer climes with a bit of summer-related ephemera. And today's comes in the form of a haunting surfer story from Ghostly Tales #71, published in January of 1969 by Charlton Comics.

Aside from the obvious signature on the Jim Aparo cover above, there are no credits to be found in this comic. The story in question, " The Phantom Surfer", is clearly illustrated by Steve Ditko. Whether he wrote the script for it as well, I have no idea. 

The story is ok for what it is. It has characters making odd choices and the ending has sort of a fun conclusion (I almost said "twist") that you can predict the second Larry decides to surf out to impersonate the mythical phantom surfer. Ditko's art here is fine. It's not my favorite period of his. I enjoy a lot of his early pre-Marvel work for horror and dark fantasy titles like The Thing and This Magazine Is Haunted, and of course the initial runs of Spider-Man (whom he co-created) and Dr. Strange (whom he created). In my opinion much of his work that followed appears sloppy and amateurish and the characters he created for DC Comics like Hawk & Dove, The Creeper, The Question and Shade, The Changing Man are silly half-baked embodiments of Ditko's worldview or oddly complicated notions rather than competent or interesting comic book characters. 

You can see that my copy is in pretty rough shape. Some of the pages couldn't be scanned straight on because of how deteriorated the spine is, but please do enjoy this spooky, summery surf tale via Steve Ditko and magazine host Mr. L. Dedd. I've included the ads from this particular issue because I thought they might be enjoyed as part of the nostalgia of the reading experience.

Surf's up!

To Zine Or Not To Zine! [with 2 Free Zines!]

 That is the question! 

Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of overhead and effort with no promise of dissemination, or to just say, "Yeah, I really like making them and sharing them, but they're just going to sit in a closet somewhere until I recycle them in eight months, because ain't nobody giving a toot about what I have to say about what I give a toot about!"

It's a conundrum that's puzzled the minds of creative types for centuries. That's why Hamlet ultimately scrapped his zine, Moody Leotard Lads, and decided to upend his royal household. I guess the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I do love me a good zine, though. I made them in high school and college, sought them out at comic conventions and record shows over the years, and even held long-standing subscriptions to a few (does Video Watchdog count as a zine?).

So, about a week ago I had what I deemed a great idea for a new zine; I'd settled on the titles Junk Drawer or X-Ray News. I thought Junk Drawer would be a good title because it could metaphorically encompass the scattershot menagerie of seemingly unrelated interests I would include: everything from record reviews and other music highlights, vintage comic book history, film insight, jabber about literature, art, graphic design and, well, who knows what else. Certainly not me! X-Ray News was gleaned from a Hercule Poirot book – The Labors of Hercules (1947) – and I thought it sounded cool. Almost like a Richard Sala comic or an obscure The Fall b-side or something. 

I'd even mapped out the first two issues. One would be about beach/surf culture, specifically from a Midwesterner's perspective ('cause you know we got 'em here, too), and would include reviews and info about my favorite surf records, spotlights on some fun beach-related films, etcetera. The second issue I had started to sketch out was related to party planning. What? That seems abstract and pointless, you might say. Back when VHS was king of the home media and companies needed a constant flow of product to spice up quickly stagnating production catalogs, all kinds of needless (and downright odd) novelty videos were released, providing everything from the opportunity to get fit with grannies to learning how to be a hit at any party. There were apparently a whole lot of "How To Party" adjacent videos produced, and a heck of a lot of them are up on the internet for casual consumption. So, obviously, someone needs to uncork this magic and get it out to the world, right?! Pair that with some of the most bizarre party snack recipes from cookbooks of yore, and tips on making the perfect party mixtape, and BAM: you got yourself a very niche publication that might appeal to...only you.

And then that voice that sneaks in when you're caught up in the gusto of a new creative endeavor, filtered into my thoughts; y'know, the one that says "No one wants this! You're going to spend a chunk of change to make a publication that isn't saleable. Why don't you divert your time to a worthwhile hobby and take up clog dancing or something?" 

"Isn't this blog a digital version of that idea, already?" you might say. Yeah, I guess. But I'm sort of stuck on physical media and the artifact is kind of the charm of the medium.

So here I sit, concept in hand and unsure which definition of "execute" I should pursue with it. I'll probably just continue with this here online thingy, because that's free and I can include video and audio media, I guess.

Aside from using this blog to ruminate on my own artistic insecurities, I thought it might be a novel idea to include full copies of two of my most recent zine productions. One on pinball and another on...well, the goal was to have all original material with the set parameters of it making me laugh while I was making it. They were both produced under the title 4PM FRIDAY, with the idea that 4 PM Friday is the gateway to the weekend! So, y'know, fun times were ahead and whatnot. That hasn't actually been a reality since I was sixteen years old, but it wasn't the worst title idea I'd come up with when workshopping it.

If you read these and like them, feel free to download and share them. Please just give me credit when you do so.

Enjoy!

* You can download/read 4PM FRIDAY: PIN BALL ZINE here.

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* You can download 4PM FRIDAY "BEACH STAR" ZINE here.