Did Frank Zappa somehow predict Mötley Crüe?

Frank Zappa (black tux, yellow shirt) on the cover of his Tinseltown Rebellion album.

The infamous glam metal outfit Mötley Crüe formed in 1981, the same year Frank Zappa released his mostly-live Tinseltown Rebellion album. Why is that significant? Well, the title track of Zappa's LP is a screed against the shallow, image-conscious music scene in Los Angeles. Two genres, punk and new wave, are mentioned specifically in the harsh, satirical lyrics. The song is about how musicians in L.A. were more concerned with how they looked than how they sounded, leading to a glut of crappy, amateurish music. According to "Tinseltown Rebellion," the bars and clubs in Hollywood were being besieged in the early 1980s by "record company pricks" looking for flash-in-the-pan acts to exploit and then most likely abandon after "a week or two perhaps," and there were plenty of young musicians lining up to be exploited in this way.

In his lengthy Zappa-analyzing book, The Negative Dialetics of Poodle Play, author and punk loyalist Ben Watson takes Frank to task for unfairly and inaccurately portraying punk rock here. Real punkers, he insist, did not use cocaine, as Frank alleged in "Tinseltown Rebellion." Sure, the arena rockers of the 1970s snorted plenty of the stuff, but punk was rebelling against all that. Besides, Watson argues, punk rockers couldn't have even afforded coke if they'd wanted it back then. It was an expensive drug, and punk was commercially negligible in those days. I might argue that Zappa also mentions new wave, a slicker, more commercial genre that rose from punk. Certainly by 1981, some new wavers were selling enough records, tickets, and T-shirts to afford cocaine. Whether they did or not, I don't know. But they could have if they'd wanted to, is my point.

Maybe Frank Zappa was just using the terms "punk" and "new wave" because those were the only labels available to him at the time to describe a kind of music that was cropping up in Los Angeles in the 1980s. I mentioned at the start of this article that Mötley Crüe formed in '81. They were, of course, a fixture of the Los Angeles club scene in the 1980s, but I don't think anyone would describe them as punk or new wave. Not by a long shot. Instead, they were part of a movement now known as "glam metal" or "hair metal," a subgenre that definitely did regrettably emphasize image at the expense of music. Zappa would not have known who Mötley Crüe were when he wrote "Tinseltown Rebellion," but that's nevertheless the band that comes to my mind when I hear this song. Take a listen.

Mötley Crüe at the Whisky.

So now we get into specific references in the lyrics. The song starts: "From Madame Wong's to Starwood to the Whisky on the Strip, you can hear the crashing, blasting strum of bands that come to be real hip." Okay, I can't find any documentation that the Crue ever played Madame Wong's, an establishment that catered to punk acts, but they were famous for their appearances at both Starwood and the Whisky A Go Go. So two out of three ain't bad. Here's another line from the song: "So off they go to S.I.R. to learn some stupid riffs and practice all their poses in between their powder sniffs." That's Studio Instrument Rentals, a famous rehearsal space in Los Angeles. When you go to S.I.R.'s website, one of the first things you'll see is a paragraph about the company's history: "Artists including Miley Cyrus, Queen Latifah, Snoop Dogg, Katy Perry, Jane’s Addiction, KISS, Mötley Crüe, Green Day, No Doubt, Maroon 5 and Mariah Carey all call SIR home." So another reference checks out.

And what about those "powder sniffs?" Well, Mötley Crüe is justly famous for its love of chemical intoxicants. Even the cover of their official autobiography, The Dirt, is designed to look like a Jack Daniels label. The band is most closely associated with alcohol and heroin, but they did their share of cocaine, too. In my research, I even found a cute little story about lead singer Vince Neil buying a baggie of cocaine that turned out to be baby powder. The unnamed band in the song plays music that is "real dumb" and "somewhat insincere." Check and check. (Though the Crue's masterpiece, "Girls, Girls, Girls," is probably very close to their hearts.) Zappa also mentions "leather groups and plastic groups and groups that look real queer." The Crue certainly wore plenty of leather, and their over-the-top stage makeup gave them an androgynous appearance. So, once again, the song fits them very well. Zappa did not accurately predict the Crue's longevity, however. While there probably were plenty of flash-in-the-pan groups on the glam metal scene in Los Angeles, Mötley Crüe stayed popular for decades, only recently retiring.

Again, let me emphasize that "Tinseltown Rebellion" is not about Mötley Crüe. It couldn't have been. When Frank Zappa wrote it, the band was just starting out. But what the song manages to do very well is predict where the Los Angeles music scene was heading in the 1980s. Mötley Crüe simply exemplified that era better than just about any other band.

"Nice marmot."

I left the candles and Scrubbing Bubbles mascot as is, to preserve the sense of gentle whimsy.

The original magazine cover and the 1970 LP.

An image as instantly powerful as the one above should not require any explanation, but I will provide one nevertheless. Back in September 1956, a now-defunct magazine called Man's Life ran a cover story with the extremely memorable headline "WEASELS RIPPED MY FLESH," accompanied by an illustration of a shirtless man actually being gnawed upon by angry weasels. The original story by Mike Kamens is available online if you'd care to read it. 

Meanwhile, those four magic words made such an impression on experimental rock weirdo Frank Zappa that he used the phrase as the title of a cacophonous, mostly-live album by his band, the Mothers of Invention, in 1970. That album's gory cover, with a ghoulishly memorable painting by Neon Park, has become an icon in its own right, even being included on Rolling Stone's list of the greatest LP covers of all time. 

Anyway, I thought I'd take the hapless adventurer from the original Men's Life cover and transplant him to a more domestic setting, specifically the bathtub of one Jeffrey "The Dude" Lebowski from The Big Lebowski. As Lebowski fans know, the Dude has his own memorable run-in with an angry ferret, though he famously misidentifies the creature as a marmot. Gaze upon this image, dear reader, and reflect that however badly your Monday may be going, it cannot compare to this fellow's day. Count your blessings then, scarce though they may be.

One Song at a Time: 'Sweet Sixteen' by Big Joe Turner

He lived up to his name: Big Joe Turner, the Boss of the Blues.

A good purchase.

The wonderful thing about greatest hits records is that you generally purchase 'em for the two or three songs you know really well, but they can point you in the direction of some other just-as-essential tracks you never would have known about otherwise. 

Case in point: Big Joe Turner's Greatest Hits. I purchased a copy of this compilation CD at a very decent (and probably long, long gone) used record store in Joliet, IL about twelve years ago. I'd just rewatched Clue and had "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" rattling and rolling around in my head that day, and the disc was only a couple of bucks. What the hey? That, my friends, was a good purchase. 

Big Joe Turner stands out from the other early pioneers of rock & roll. For one thing, he was about twenty years older than most of them. Born in 1911, he would have been in his forties by the time he became a national star, crooning for the kiddies. "The Boss of the Blues," they called him. He kept on performing until the 1980s, when he finally died at age 74 in 1985. (So weird to think he could have seen Back to the Future.) A thick-necked, broad-shouldered mountain of a man with a voice to match, Turner had been a bouncer in his younger days and looked like he could still whoop your ass between songs. 

He's the exact opposite of most of the male pop stars of the 2010s, who tend to be skinny, androgynous, "sensitive" white boys with high, thin, squeaky voices. I'm referring to the Biebers, Sheerans, Timberlakes, Smiths, Levines, and Styleses of the world. All those banty roosters put together wouldn't equal one Big Joe Turner.

 Anyway, one of Big Joe's less-remembered yet completely captivating hits is a slow blues lament from 1952 called "Sweet Sixteen." It was written by, of all people, recording industry super-mogul Ahmet Ertegun, who would go on to be (according to the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame) "one of the most significant figures in the modern recording industry." Ahmet had co-founded Atlantic Records just five years previously. Frank Zappa named one of his kids after this dude, if that's any indication.

As I see it, there are three stars on "Sweet Sixteen": singer Big Joe Turner, songwriter Ahmet Ertegun (who is slyly credited as "Nugetre" on the label), and pianist and orchestra leader Vann "Piano Man" Walls (1918-1999). It is Walls we first hear on the record: a few pretty, sad, isolated chords which, to me, sound like the musical equivalent of gentle falling snowflakes. Then, he hits us with the powerful triplets we expect to hear from piano-based blues of this vintage, accompanied by mournful, sympathetic saxophones. 

After a few bars, Big Joe himself steps up to the microphone to tell us, as slowly as possible, about his failed relationship with an impressionable, restless younger woman: "When I first met you, baby/You were just sweet sixteen/You just left your home, baby/Sweetest thing I've ever seen." Later in the song, Joe lets us know his ex-paramour was a runaway. "Now," he says, "you're gonna run away from me, too." 

When I think about the couple in this song, I always think about the relationship between gangster Odell Robbie (Samuel L. Jackson) and naive young "country girl" Sheronda (LisaGay Hamilton) in Jackie Brown, except that the girl in this song seems to be a lot more impetuous and headstrong than the meek, misguided lass in the Tarantino film. The part of the song which really sticks with me, though, is when Big Joe Turner -- out of nowhere -- starts telling us about his family. "Well, my brother, he's in Korea/And my sister, down in New Orleans/Well, my mother's up in Heaven/Lord, what's gonna happen to me?"

Joe's Record Collection: Frampton comes apart

Don't hate me because I'm beautiful: Peter Frampton at his mid-1970s peak.

Peter Frampton's I'm in You.

The record: I'm in You (A&M, 1977 - SP 4704)

The artist: Peter Frampton

History: It doesn't happen much (or ever) these days, but back in the 1970s, a live album could really turn an artist's career around. It happened for KISS with Alive! in 1975, and it happened in an even bigger way that very next year for journeyman rocker Peter Frampton with the similarly-titled Frampton Comes Alive!

Born in 1950 in Beckenham, England, Peter Frampton had made something of a name for himself as a singer and guitarist in such bands as the Herd, which he joined at age 16, Humble Pie, and Frampton's Camel, and he'd done some prominent session work for George Harrison, Harry Nilsson, and others. He signed with A&M as a solo act in 1972 and released a handful of studio LPs to middling sales, until an album simply called Frampton staggered up to #32 in May 1975 and went gold.

In January 1976, A&M released the singer's first live album, Frampton Comes Alive!, which was recorded at San Francisco's famed Winterland. FM stations took a liking to it, and the LP caught fire. By February 1976, it was the #1 album in the country. In all, it logged ten weeks at the top of charts and sold ten million copies.

Great news, right? Well, yes and no.

The live album made Peter Frampton a household name and brought him to a much larger audience than he'd ever known before, but a hit that big brings with it a certain amount of backlash. To say the least, the stakes were awfully high when Peter and his band returned to the studio to make the follow-up. Though his commercial triumph had been a long time coming, Peter Frampton was an out-of-nowhere sensation to many listeners.

Critics and other rockers were also rankled by Frampton's "pretty boy" image: the flowing blond locks, the delicate facial features, the bare chest -- all of which were prominently featured on the cover of I'm in You. It seemed like everyone was waiting for his star to fall.

Alanis Morissette: The Frampton of the '90s.

I'm in You, while not an outright flop, was the beginning of Peter Frampton's commercial decline and the start of his status as a pop culture punchline. That trend would be greatly accelerated the next year when the singer made the ill-advised decision to co-star with the Bee Gees in the Robert Stigwood-produced mega-flop Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, a movie musical based on the Beatles' 1967 concept album.

In 1979, Peter's last year as a hit-maker, Frank Zappa released his most successful album ever, Sheik Yerbouti, whose opening track, "I Have Been in You," was a direct swipe at the title track from Frampton's record. In his failure to top Frampton Comes Alive!, Peter Frampton might seem similar to Michael Jackson, who was haunted by Thriller for the rest of his life. But Jackson scored major hit albums before and after that career milestone.

To me, the Peter Frampton story is analogous to that of Alanis Morissette. A former child star, Alanis had been a pop singer for a few years in the early 1990s, with two albums that had been successful in her native Canada before she released Jagged Little Pill (1995), the worldwide #1 smash that ultimately sold 33 million copies. That album was Alanis' Frampton Comes Alive! and inspired a similar backlash. Its follow-up, Supposed Former Infatuation Junkie (1998), was her I'm in You -- the pretty successful sequel that still felt like a commercial disappointment and signaled a popular decline.

Ultimately, both Peter Frampton and Alanis Morissette adopted the old philosophy of "if you can't beat 'em, join 'em" and simply revisited their past triumphs. In 2005, Alanis released an acoustic remake of Jagged Little Pill and managed to sell 300,000 copies. In 1995, the very year of Alanis Morissette's greatest popularity, Peter Frampton finally released Frampton Comes Alive! II. A deluxe, 25th anniversary edition of the original would come out six years later. Their chart-busting days are over, but both Peter and Alanis have endured as touring acts whose fans still turn out, albeit in smaller numbers.

All Music Guide says: Four stars. "A surprisingly laid-back album steeped in lyricism and craftsmanship, particularly in the use of overdubs on even the harder rocking numbers." - Bruce Eder [link]

Was it a hit: Yes, but not the success Frampton and his label were hoping for. It peaked at #2 on the album charts, was certified platinum, and landed three singles on the charts -- the title track (which also hit #2), "Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)" (#18), and "Tried to Love" (#41). By most standards, that would be cause for celebration, but after Frampton Comes Alive!, it was a letdown. After one more modest hit album and single in 1979, Peter never reached the Top 40 on either chart again. What went up had come down.

Cameron Crowe

Choice excerpt from the liner notes: Rolling Stone's Cameron Crowe, years away from directing Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous (and, uh, We Bought a Zoo), acknowledges that Peter had a daunting task ahead of him when recording the follow-up to Frampton Comes Alive!, but the critic assures us that "Frampton has risen to the challenge of his incredible success with authority. From sweeping acoustic melodies (played in part on his idol Django Reinhardt's original acoustic guitar) to all-out electrical virtuosity. There is a new vibrancy about this music."

The album's fancy inner sleeve contains further liner notes from Peter himself. He dedicates the album "to all of You" for"the confidence" you've given him, but he still sounds a little nervous. "I was bubbling with ideas and trying not to compete with myself," he writes. "Even so, subconsciously there was an underlying pressure to 'out do' the last album." Underlying Pressure might have been an excellent alternate title for this LP.

Frank Zappa: "I'm in you!"

The listening experience: Not nearly as painful as I'd feared. I'm not a Peter Frampton fan; this album was one I got from (I think) my aunt and uncle's collection. Before this, my knowledge of Frampton was pretty much limited to the misbegotten Sgt. Pepper movie. That notorious flop holds a grim fascination for me; I own the DVD, the soundtrack on CD and vinyl, and the tie-in paperback book. I also knew Frampton from his guest appearance on The Simpsons, where he gamely mocked his image as a rock dinosaur, and Frank Zappa's scathing parody.

Onstage, Zappa would preface "I Have Been in You" with a monologue about Peter's exploits with teenage groupies, and the phrase "I'm in you," always uttered in a taunting, cartoonish voice, became a running joke in Zappa's show. After that, I feared I'm in You would be a wussy, pseudo-rock embarrassment. It's not that at all. Well, it is that just a little in spots (the title track), but I'm in You definitely didn't deserve to be a career-killer.

Bruce Eder was right; this is a laid-back album, as mellow as lime Jell-O. Frampton was under the gun when he made this LP, but you can't hear it in the songs, which mainly just plod along quite amiably. A few go on too long, particularly an eight-minute slog called "Won't You Be My Friend," but that's to be expected of a 1970s rock album.

Eder was right about the "craftsmanship" part, too. I'm in You is one slick endeavor. Frampton and his band have a tight, cohesive sound, and the production work -- by Frampton himself -- is very professional. I'm in You has a rich, satisfying sound I found very gratifying. As Michael Parks said in Kill Bill, Vol. 1, "Well, a sure and steady hand did this. This ain't no squirrelly amateur."

Frampton's singing is a lot like his guitar playing: strong, supple, melodic, and kind of anonymous. His songs, too, are pleasant and tuneful, but for the most part, they soon fade from memory. One track in particular, "St. Thomas (Don't You Know How I Feel)," seemingly takes its inspiration from two of the most famous songs from Frampton Comes Alive!: the title from "Do You Feel Like We Do" and the melody from "Baby I Love Your Way."

On Side Two, Frampton calls in the cavalry. Mick Jagger makes an uncredited but unmistakable cameo on "Tried to Love." (Frampton thanks "Mick" in the liner notes but doesn't give a last name.) And then Stevie Wonder lays down one of his intricate harmonica parts on "Rocky's Hot Club," one of I'm in You's catchiest songs.

The album closes with a double shot of very credible Motown covers: "(I'm a) Road Runner" and "Signed, Sealed, Delivered (I'm Yours)." There are no real stinkers on this LP, no major missteps; all it needs is a sense of urgency or a strong reason to exist. Frankly, a live audience might have provided just that.

What probably doomed this album more than anything else, though, was its terrible cover: Peter in a coquettish "seductive" pose, wearing shiny pink pants and an unbuttoned blouse with lace cuffs. Coupled with the implied sexual boast (masquerading as sensitivity) of the album's title, that cover would be enough to kill anyone's career.

Overall grade: B

Ray Collins (1936-2012)

The original lineup of the Mothers of Invention. That's Ray in the upper right hand corner.

I was very sorry today to learn of the passing of Ray Collins, who along with Frank Zappa founded one of the greatest rock groups in American history, the Mothers of Invention. As a way of paying tribute to Ray, I'd like to play you a particular favorite of mine from the group's catalog. It's a track called "I'm Not Satisfied" from the Mothers' 1968 album, Cruising with Ruben and the Jets. Zappa's interest at the time was in creating outrageous musical satire, while Collins wanted to make what he called "beautiful music." Both traits are evident in this track. Zappa crafted the Cruising album as an over-the-top parody of 1950s rock, but you can hear the sincerity in Ray's voice as he sings the plaintive lyrics.

Before we go, I'd like to play just one more tune for you that showcases Ray's skills as a songwriter. It's a doo wop number called "Memories of El Monte," which Frank and Ray wrote for the Penguins (of "Earth Angel" fame) in the years before the Mothers came into existence. I think you can hear the love and respect that both Collins and Zappa had for the Penguins and their lead singer, Cleve Duncan, who unfortunately also passed away in November 2012. It's a great goddamned record, that's for sure.

P.S. - Just one more. I couldn't end this Ray Collins tribute without including this perfect parody of lounge singer crooning from the Mothers' sophomore album, Absolutely Free. Enjoy.

The Shaggs: The only true "teenage" music I've ever heard

The Shaggs: (from l to r) Betty, Helen, and Dot Wiggin

One of the great ironies/injustices of popular culture is that the music specifically marketed to teenagers is getting progressively more polished and "perfect" with each advance in technology, while the teenagers themselves remain -- as always -- bumpy, lurching, and awkward. There's an odd disconnect between the relentlessly smoothed-out, robotic, studio-crafted pop being released by a group like One Direction and the messy, utterly human vulnerability of that group's fans. Teenage music bears no resemblance whatsoever to teenage life. A yawning chasm exists between the two.

Mick: Handsomely un-handsome

This gap is nothing new, exactly. Past teen idols, like Frank Sinatra and Elvis Presley,  must have seemed superhuman to their fans, too. But Frank and Elvis both exuded a raw, quite human sexuality that largely eludes today's teen pop stars, who are "sexy" only in quotation marks and present a only a sanitized abstraction of carnal appeal to their fans, without any of that messy fluid exchange ruining it.

It's interesting that, during the 1960s, the British Invasion allowed a new type of entertainer to capture the teenage imagination. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones were not conventionally handsome in the Sinatra/Presley tradition. They had big noses, big lips, bad teeth, and cheekbones that jutted in at odd angles. I was just watching a documentary about the Stones last night called Crossfire Hurricane, and it was fascinating to see the Stones in their 1960s prime via newsreel footage. They looked sort of gawky and malformed, with carelessly floppy hair and sallow complexions, and yet they were driving their female fans into a state of erotic frenzy. At last, the weirdos had won! 

But it didn't last. The 1970s brought a new generation of generically handsome, neutered teenage idols (David Cassidy, Bobby Sherman, Donny Osmond) who set the precedent for those to come. And now, I guess, we have Justin Bieber, the platonic ideal of the safe, boring, utterly harmless pop star, a kind of life-sized Ken doll for the girls of Young America to play with for a few years. Kind of a pity.

All of this brings me back to the topic of the Shaggs.

I couldn't possibly tell you the entire saga of this astonishing all-female 1960s singing group composed of sisters from a working class New Hampshire family. You'll have to rely on this quirky but affectionate New Yorker article by Susan Orlean for the details. Here's an overview: in 1968, a Fremont, NH mill worker named Austin Wiggin decided to fulfill the deathbed prophecy of his mother, who proclaimed that Austin's then-teenage daughters would be famous. Austin pulled the girls out of school and forced them to become a rock band, even though the girls had no musical inclination whatsoever and definitely did not want to become performers.

Only one of the daughters, Dot, had any enthusiasm whatsoever for her dad's dream, so she was elected to be lead singer and songwriter of the resulting group, dubbed The Shaggs in honor of the Wiggin sisters' shaggy hairdos (and supposedly, the shagginess of the family dog). Despite their total lack of aptitude and success, The Shaggs soldiered on for 7 years, playing local gigs for audiences who either tolerated them politely or heckled them outright. The band finally ended in 1975 when Austin died, and the Wiggin girls -- no longer kids by then -- went on to lead very ordinary, non-musical lives.
 

The Shaggs' lone, infamous LP

Before the group's sad, drawn-out death, however, The Shaggs recorded and (barely) released one extraordinary album: 1969's Philosophy of the World. Though only a handful of copies were originally pressed, the utterly strange LP went on to become a cult favorite with avant garde rock musicians (including Frank Zappa and NRBQ) and influential critics who discovered it years after it was recorded. The album has been reprinted several times over the years and has also been released on CD and MP3.

For completists, there's even a collection of Shaggs rarities, live recordings, and outtakes called The Shaggs Own Thing, plus a hip indie-label tribute album called Better Than the Beatles. Even better, the strange, vaguely sad story of the Shaggs was the basis for a charming off-Broadway show, The Shaggs: Philosophy of the World, which I have seen and enjoyed. The musical tours quite a bit, and I was fortunate to catch it at Chicago's Lookinglass Theater a few years back.

But what about the original music itself? What's it like to listen to The Shaggs? Many listeners find it torturous, verging on unlistenable. For three demure New Hampshire girls, The Shaggs make a powerful racket, clanging away at their out-of-tune instruments with abandon. In particular, drummer Helen Wiggin seems to be in a world all her own. Throughout the album, there are lots of what music teachers would call "wrong notes," and the three ladies cannot seem to agree on a collective tempo, key, or time signature. Susan Orlean was right when she described their melodies as "squashed and bent." The album sounds like it was left out in the sun on a hot day and melted.

If Philosophy of the World weren't from 1969, you'd guess it to be some kind of primitive punk music, but the rawness of the music is at odds with the sweet simplicity of the lyrics. The Shaggs sing about looking for a lost cat ("My Pal Foot Foot"), the importance of obeying one's parents ("Who Are Parents?"), praising Jesus ("We Have a Savior"), and how nice it is to have a radio ("My Companion"). Austin Wiggin seems like he was a dictatorial parent who did everything in his power to keep the world away from his girls and vice-versa, so maybe the transistor radio was one of Dot Wiggin's few links to the outside world. Another recurring theme on the album is the foolishness of straying too far from one's home. "Little Sports Car" ends with Dot and her sisters singing, "I learned my lesson never to roam, never to roam, never to roam."

The late, great Crow's Nest in Crest Hill, IL

The main appeal of Philosophy of the World, to me, is that it provides a rare glimpse into the brain of a genuine teenager, without the interference of grown-up producers or executives. It's like an adolescent's diary brought to musical life, and for once the lurching, awkward bumpiness of the music matches the emotions of the singer. Nowhere is this more true than on the album's title cut, which is the first Shaggs song I ever heard.

"Philosophy of the World" was included on a 2000 compilation of so-called "outsider music" I purchased at a great, now-defunct record store called the Crow's Nest near my home in Joliet, IL. As I drove home from the Crow's Nest, I popped the disc into my car's CD player, and that song came blaring out of the speakers. I was entranced. I was hooked. I knew I had to get every last bit of Shaggs music out there. Fortunately or unfortunately, there's not much. Once you own Philosophy of the World and The Shaggs Own Thing (both of which have been combined onto a single CD simply called The Shaggs), there's not much to get, other than the tribute album. Although many people would struggle to get through even a single Shaggs song, I've listened to their entire catalog many times -- and none more so than this track:



P.S. - The rarities compilation is well worth checking out, too. It contains some later studio recordings by the group, some of which demonstrate that the Wiggins had been indeed practicing their instruments at least a little. One song in particular I love is "You're Something Special to Me," which contains a lyric that summarizes my own mindset: "Please don't speak unkind words to me. That would make me unhappy." Very simple, of course, but very true as well. If "Philosophy" was too much for you, maybe this will be more your speed.

10 mind-bending novelty records inspired by Batmania!

The hills are alive with the sound of Batman!

The 1966-1968 Batman series is, without fear of exaggeration, one of the great accomplishments of Western Civilization in the Twentieth Century. I need hardly list its many attributes here, but one of the best side effects of the show was that it created a merchandising bonanza whose impact is still being felt on Ebay today. Everybody wanted a slice of the Bat pie, so to speak. Naturally, this included the always-greedy music industry. The show's indelible Neil Hefti-composed theme song became a Top 10 smash hit for the Marketts (a surf rock combo whose "Out of Limits" is prominently used in Pulp Fiction) and was covered by a whole host of artists in a variety of styles. But that was just the beginning! Batman-related novelty singles and albums flooded the market in 1966 and 1967 -- some of them recorded by people in the show's cast, others recorded by opportunists looking to cash in on the fad. Here's a sampling of some of my personal favorites:

1. Dickie Goodman - "Batman and His Grandmother"



Dickie, formerly half of the duo of Buchanan & Goodman, was the king of the so-called "break-in" records. These were audio comedy skits which take the form of fake news reports and use clips of pop songs in place of people's answers. Both with Bill Buchanan and on his own, Goodman used his "break-in" records to comment on seemingly every political and cultural trend in America between the 1950s ("The Flying Saucer") and the 1980s ("Hey, E.T.!"). You didn't think he'd skip the Bat fad, did you? By the way, that weird clip which is used to represent the grandmother (the high-pitched "Ah! Ah! Ah!") is from "Juanita Banana" by Henri Salvador, who in turn cribbed the melody from the "Caro nome" aria from Verdi's Rigoletto.

2. The Scaffold - "Goodbat Nightman"



The Scaffold were a satirical British musical trio of the 1960s who enjoyed several years of chart success in their native country, including the #1 hit "Lily the Pink." Their records are funny and well-made and still hold up pretty nicely today. All this would be pretty impressive, until you consider that one member of the group was Mike McGear, a.k.a. Mike McCartney, brother of Paul. With that perspective, the accomplishments of the Scaffold seem sort of insignificant. For you Monty Python fans, another member of the Scaffold, Roger McGough, makes a cameo in The Rutles. He's the Liverpool poet who only gets to say two words before Eric Idle cuts him off.

3. Burt Ward - "Orange Colored Sky"
4. Burt Ward - "Boy Wonder, I Love You"





It seems almost inconceivable, but somehow Burt Ward -- Robin himself -- teamed up with one of the leading lights of avant garde rock, Frank Zappa, to make these records back in 1966. At the time, Zappa was preparing the debut LP of his band, the Mothers of Invention, for MGM Records when he was hired as an arranger and composer for these sessions. "Orange Colored Sky" is a warped, wildly off-key take on an old standard, while "Boy Wonder" is a hilarious Zappa original.

Here's a whole article (not by me!) about the Ward/Zappa connection. Enjoy!

 5. Adam West - "The Story of Batman"



While this article is mainly about Bat songs from the show's heyday, I had to make an exception for this unreleased 1971 single which Adam "Caped Crusader" West recorded for the Dunhill label. Truly, this song puts the "bat" into "bat shit crazy" with West giving listeners some less-than-practical advice about what to do with their 45s. Batman only lasted two seasons, but West could never quite hang up the cowl for good. He reprised his signature role on Legends of the Superheroes (a two-part live-action special from 1979), and voiced the Dark Knight in several animated series, including The New Adventures of Batman (1977) and Super Friends: The Legendary Super Powers Show (1984-1985). More recently, West has occasionally been called upon to play Batman (in addition to playing "Mayor West," a fictionalized version of himself) on Family Guy. Speaking of which, please watch this montage of Adam's best moments on that show.

6. Link Wray and His Raymen - "Batman Theme"

I promised I'd limit myself to just one remake of the famous theme, so I chose this blast of unruly gutbucket guitar by one of the pioneers of loud, ugly rock & roll, Link Wray. Link more or less paved the way for punk and heavy metal with an instrumental called "Rumble" in 1958, which heralded the arrival of the so-called "power chord" and which ushered in the era of intentional distortion. (Link supposedly helped create his signature sound by punching holes in his amplifier with a pencil.) Link's songs, always a favorite among juvenile delinquents, were heavily used in the early films of John Waters. The music that plays over the opening credits of Pink Flamingos, for instance? That's Link. His combative version of the Batman theme is especially notable because it features some spoken dialogue, with Link himself portraying the Caped Crusader. ("Right again, Robin!")

7. Frank Gorshin - "The Riddler"



Along with Burgess Meredith and Cesar Romero, impressionist Frank Gorshin was one of the B-list celebrities who suddenly found himself attached to the hottest show on television when he guest starred as The Riddler on Batman. Naturally, he wasn't going to let this opportunity pass by without recording at least one cash-in record. He basically just talk-sings some "joke book"-type riddles over a rockin' beat. The song goes very well with the Batusi dance, too.

8. Peggy Lee - "That Man"



This record is an example of how pervasive Batmania truly was in '66. Peggy Lee was a phenomenally popular jazz singer (plus songwriter and actress) for decades, but even she couldn't resist the siren song of the Bat. But our Peggy plays it a bit cooler than most. Notice the song is called "That Man" and not "Batman." Still in all, the song's lyrics are unmistakably inspired by the series. She not only copies the template of Robin's "holy!" catchphrase ("Holy popcorn!"), but she tosses in some of the show's trademark onomatopoeia for good measure.

9. Sun Ra and the Blues Project - "Joker is Wild"

This one takes a bit of explaining. Sun Ra (1914-1993) was unquestionably one of the most eccentric and bizarre musicians of the last century. Born Herman Poole Blount in Birmingham, Alabama, the jazz bandleader/poet/philosopher took on the extra-terrestrial "Sun Ra" persona and claimed to be from Saturn. Nevertheless, he had a nearly six-decade career as a respected and cultishly-adored figure in the music industry. From the 1950s onward, he led a constantly-evolving ensemble generally known as the "Arkestra." And, as you can probably guess by now, several of these folks decided to get in on the Batman trend in 1966. Only they didn't record a mere single in the crimefigher's honor. Oh, no. They did a whole album! Credited to "The Sensational Guitars of Dan & Dale," it was titled Batman and Robin and featured comic book-style graphics on the cover. The selection above is only one of twelve cuts.

10. Jan and Dean - "Robin, The Boy Wonder" (and so much more!)



You know who else decided to devote an entire album to Batman? Yep, those golden gods of surf pop, Jan and Dean, who released Jan and Dean Meet Batman that fateful year of 1966. J&D may be familiar to modern audiences because of their hits like "Dead Man's Curve," "Surf City," and "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena," but if you spend any quality time perusing their discography (highly recommended!), you'll soon learn that these guys had a profoundly goofy sense of humor and did not take themselves one bit seriously. While the Beach Boys were changing the face of pop music with Pet Sounds, Jan and Dean were releasing an entire LP's worth of songs and skits about a costumed superhero. Imagine a band doing anything like that today! Jan and Dean Meet Batman is such a weird pop culture curiosity that I've decided to leave you with a few more selections from it:





Isn't the Internet a marvelous thing?

"Newly Wed" by the Orchids (Parrot Records, 1955)

Frank Zappa's favorite record. I've heard it dozens of times, and it never gets old. Hope you enjoy. BONUS: Try and figure out exactly what's happening in this song. I've never been able to.

(today's zomby) AND THE SPIRITUAL FOREFATHERS OF BEAVIS & BUTT-HEAD!

Who's he talking to? Who am I talking to?

Before you jump to conclusions, the word "it" could refer to any number of things. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Speaking of which...

The boys are back.

Beavis and Butt-head returns to MTV tonight after a 14-year absence. I thought it was an appropriate time, then, to revisit a cartoon which to me seems like a clear antecedent of Mike Judge's animated creation. I'm referring to Jac Mac & Rad Boy Go!, a 1985 student film by then-up-and-coming animator Wes Archer. This is a film I remember seeing on cable TV in the 1980s, and it's uncanny in the way it anticipates Beavis in both its humor and its character designs. I'm not sure if Mike Judge saw this cartoon, but he later hired Archer to work on two of his series, King of the Hill and The Goode Family. Archer's greatest claim to fame is as one of the original animators for The Simpsons, dating back to the Tracey Ullman Show days. Archer went on to direct several Simpsons and Futurama episodes. What can I say? The guy's a one-man animation studio!

But, hey, enough of my yakkin'. It's cartoon time!



Wow, after Alley to Bali and Apple Andy, this is the third cartoon I've featured on my blog with characters being tortured in hell for their sins! That must be a resonant theme for me!

Before we leave this topic, I'd like to play you a song which has always reminded me of Beavis & Butt-head. It's a track by Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention called "Let's Make the Water Turn Black," and it appeared on the group's legendary 1968 anti-hippie album We're Only In It For the Money. (Warning: This song is pretty disgusting.)



Strange but True: Zappa based this song on the antics of two acquaintances, guitarist Ronnie Williams and his brother Kenny. Apparently, Ronny and Kenny lived together in a little shed on their mother's property and really did do some of the gross stuff mentioned in the song. Sadly, Kenny died of a drug overdose some time during the 1970s (his drug problem is mentioned in the song), but Ronnie is alive and living in Arizona. Here's a picture of Ronnie in his younger days, holding a white Stratocaster:

And he looks so hygienic, too!

Gaze, children, upon the original Beavis!

An absurdly NSFW remix of Khia's "My Neck, My Back"

Khia meets Frank Zappa in a very odd way.

Here is my take on Khia's immortal -- and astonishingly dirty -- hit song, "My Neck, My Back." I've given it a retro-futuristic setting with a melody taken from Frank Zappa's "Peaches en Regalia." I hope you enjoy.

josephablevins · Pussies En Regalia (Khia vs. Frank Zappa)

And if you liked that, here's a mashup of "No Sleep Till Brooklyn" by The Beastie Boys and "Friday" by Rebecca Black.

josephablevins · No Sleep Till Friday (Rebecca Black vs. Beastie Boys)