I’m on the road again. As usual I randomly loaded up my phone with music from my archives. This time I included the album, “Music To Watch Girls By” from the Bob Crewe Generation.
It’s a song that's infectious and also reminds you of a Pepsi commercial which of course it was originally written to be a Pepsi commercial. While driving along the Alabama highway near Birmingham toward Tennessee I couldn’t help notice the only bottling plant along the way was for Pepsi. Which is blasphemy as Coke was originally bottled in Mississippi where I’m from AND is the only soft drink allowed.
“What’ll ya have?”
“I’ll have a coke! A co-cola.”
“Will Pepsi do?”
“What?!!!”
“I’m sorry we’ll be dining elsewhere...”
After hearing, “Music To Watch Girls By”, the theme to “Barbarella” came on.
I’m humming along and trying my best to match the voice to his...”An angel is Love, La,aaaaaah, aaaaaaaaaaaaahve!” I get distracted imagining what a crowd pleaser it would be to sing the theme to Barbarella at my local Karaoke night. When I look at the phone and realize that it’s sung by Bob Crewe. I never put the two together that the Bob Crewe of Barbarella is the same Bob Crewe that sings “Music To Watch Girls By”. How many Bob Crewe’s are there out there???
I mean really.
So later I google Bob Crewe. Turns out he’s one of those prolific song writers. He wrote for Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons. He wrote, “Big Girls Don’t Cry” for Heavens sake. He’s one of the inspirations for the Broadway hit, “Jersey Boys.”
Most interestingly while in New Orleans he was inspired to write the hit disco tune originally recorded by the Eleventh Hour, “Lady Marmalade”. That few have actually heard before. I Youtubed it and found that it was recently uploaded on November 3, 2011.
You heard it here first kids.
One Thing Leads to Another:
One Thing Leads to Another:
Last night I visited 63Mago where the topic was Sunday music and the featured artist was Rosalyn Tureck who was instructed by Léon Theremin who invented the Theremin. It’s one of my favorite weird instruments. So I commented on the article and asked if Mago was familiar with the work of Clara Rockmore one of the foremost practitioners of the Theremin. Which of course set me on a youtubes search for strange electronic music and it's pioneers which ended up being one of those, One Thing Leads to a Another moments.
First we have the eerie Clara Rockmore doing what she does accompanied by her sister on the piano, take it away Clara…
Then I noticed to the right of the youtubes the suggested videos and saw a mash up of, Clara Rockmore V/S Anna Karina.
Then I wondered who is, Anna Karina?
Anyway, back to the Theremin, one of the first Science Fiction movies to incorporate the new sound was The Day the Earth Stood Still which is one of my favorite film scores.
Then I wondered about the soundtrack to the wonderful movie, Forbidden Planet Which was scored by the then unknown team of L ouis and Bebe Barron. Coincidentally they were friends of Louise Huebner, The Official Witch of Los Angeles and her husband the talented Mentor Huebner a wonderful storyboard artist for such great films as Ben Hur, Blade Runner, and of course, Forbidden Planet.
It turns out that while the theremin (which was not used in Forbidden Planet) had been used on the soundtrack of Alfred Hitchcock's 1945 film Spellbound, the Barron's electronic composition is credited with being the first completely electronic film score; their soundtrack preceded the invention of the Moog synthesizer by eight years (1964). The Moog synthesizer was invented by Robert Moog.
It turns out that Robert Moog happened to be friends with Clara Rockmore and by chance here is video of a dinner between the two great musicians,
Then I wondered about the avant-garde "Laurie's" composers like Laurie Spiegel who made compositions on something she invented and named the concerto generator,
And then of course the other Laurie, Laurie Anderson who has somehow managed to make sense of all of these strange instruments.
Then I fell asleep.
One Thing Leads to Another:
The other day I was pondering the question as I often do, What’s Josie Cotton up to?
Remember her?
Johnny Are You Queer ring a bell?
That song and her performance truly made the 1983 movie, Valley Girl starring Nicholas Cage and the esteemed Deborah Forman. It changed my life and ushered in the 1980’s.
So I googled ‘Josie Cotton’.
Results included the usual, Wikipedia page, a personal web page and image results of the album cover with the Liz Tayloresque hairdo then, Q & A with Josie Cotton.
Hmm...what’s that one?
Q & A with Magnet Magazine?
Never heard of it.
Magnet Magazine invited Josie to a Q & A and to debut her new album entitled Invasion Of The B- Girls by sharing free downloads and partake in her insights to the movies that inspired them.
The rest of the interviews and songs can be found there also including, Girl In Gold Boots and The Black Klansman , One that I have already shared with you in the post below, She Devils On Wheels, featuring the song Maneaters and the great Russ Myers films, Faster Pussy Cat, Kill Kill and, Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls.
Maneater video
Everyone just raves about The Valley Of The Dolls but the far superior classic Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls is the better film and co-written by none other than Roger Ebert. The story goes that as the script was being written the Manson murders took place and the final bloody scene of the movie was inspired by these murders. A sick nod to Sharon Tate who was in the original Valley Of The Dolls. Once again Charles Manson.
What’s even more strange is when I went to re-listen to my interweb downloaded copy of the soundtrack of Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls it included an extra song, Johnny Are You Queer by Josie Cotton.
Isn't that a coincidence?
One Thing Leads to Another:
Woke up this cold grey drizzly day to find a dead possum in my yard!
Are you familiar with the marsupial Didelphimorphia, the order of common opossum of the Western Hemisphere?
Vile, ferocious creatures that lurk about in the dark with beady eyes and sharp teeth, often carrying liters in their underbelly pouches or found dead along busy roadways.
I can’t abide them!
Neither can Shareeka the Boston Schnauzer. She’s a good girl she is. A dirty little terrier that hunts out rats and possums and vermin. She likes to snatch birds and squirrels right out of the air and snap their little necks. Last night Shareeka killed a possum.
*Warning Not For The Squeamish*
Click the picture of the possum to be taken to another location where I have photographic evidence of the carcass complete with bloody entrails and intestines.
Looking up information to pass along regarding the opossum I discovered that they have a bifurcated penis.
A what?
Bifurcation means the splitting of a main body into two parts.
A bifurcated penis is split in two like the DEVILS penis.
I simply had to see this with my own eyes. So I googled bifurcated penis and the first entry was, Splitcock.
The story of body modification and a man who split or bifurcated his own penis.
Then a host of interesting images popped up regarding split penises and then there is the rare dreaded double penis.
Your Welcome.
One thing leads to Another:
While dozing off the other night, TCM was screening the 1967 beach classic, Don’t Make Waves which is remarkable for several reasons. First it’s based on a book entitled Muscle Beach and the beach scenes in this movie feature lots of vintage muscle men like David Draper and skimpy bikini clad women.
Second it stars Tony Curtis just moments before his delicate boyish beauty faded into middle aged Italian wrinkled alcoholic .
Thirdly it introduces Sharon Tate in a spectacular slow motion acrobatic herkie jumping trampoline scene. Just beautiful and then two years later she was...well you know...she was dead.
The next day while street walking in a lavish shopping centre, I overheard a Christmas song by Doris Day. I began thinking back on Doris and how she was the oldest living virgin and how Phyllis Diller once made a comment on a Doris True Hollywood Story about how, “You know it was that Marty Melcher her husband and manager that swindled her career into bankruptcy.”
So I wikipedia’d old Doris to refresh my memory. I love the reliable wikipedia and how it’s one of those sites that everybody can just make up something and post it five minutes ago. Well, turns out Doris has recorded more than 650 songs and is currently the top-ranking female box-office star of all time, ranked 6th in the top ten of mostly male stars, the only other female is Shirley Temple.
Doris married trombonist Al Jorden who was outraged when he found out that she was pregnant, he had demanded Day get an abortion. Doris refused and in turn, Jorden physically abused Day throughout her entire pregnancy. Then on February 8, 1942 she gave birth to a son, Terry, filed for divorce, left the baby with her mother and went back to work. Later she married Martin Melcher and Terry Jorden took his name and became Terry Melcher.
Terry Melcher worked for Columbia records producing for artists such as the Byrds, Glenn Campbell, and The Mama’s and The Papa’s and worked with the Beach Boys.
This is where it gets interesting;
“In 1968, Beach Boy Dennis Wilson introduced Melcher to ex-con and aspiring musician Charles Manson. Manson and his "family" had been living in Wilson's house on Sunset Boulevard. Melcher was interested in recording Manson's music, as well as making a movie about the "family". During that time, Manson met Melcher at 10050 Cielo Drive, the home Melcher shared with his girlfriend, Candice Bergen. Manson eventually auditioned for Melcher, but Melcher declined to sign him. There was still talk of a documentary being made about Manson's music, but Melcher abandoned the project after witnessing his subject becoming embroiled in a terrifying fight with a drunken stuntman at Spahn Ranch. Both Wilson and Melcher severed their ties with Manson, a move that angered Manson.
After severing ties with Manson, Melcher and Bergen moved out of the Cielo Drive home. The house's owner, Rudi Altobelli, leased it to film director Roman Polanski and his wife, actress Sharon Tate. Manson visited the house looking for Melcher, but was turned away as Melcher had moved. On August 9, 1969, the house that was once occupied by Melcher was the site of the brutal murders of Sharon Tate (who was eight months pregnant at the time), coffee heiress Abigail Folger (known as Gibby to her friends), hairdresser Jay Sebring, writer Wojciech Frykowski, and Steven Parent, by members of Manson's "family". Some authors and law enforcement personnel have theorized that the reason that 10050 Cielo Drive was selected by Manson was to target Melcher as revenge for Melcher's earlier rejection of his music for a recording contract, and that Manson did not believe it when told that Melcher and Bergen had moved out.”
Could have been Candice Bergen instead of Sharon Tate.
So kicking off my Seasonal Holiday Christmas Play List here is the first song, that song from Doris that started me on yet another one thing leads to another and then ends up with Charles Manson as usual.
Happy Manson Holidays