Satire...can't live with it can't live without out it.
Two tracks, Abercrombie and Fitch and T.V Cowboy(Ballard of Wyatt Urp) with a kind of 'broadway feel' that remind me a little of 96 Love Songs by the Magnetic Fileds.
Taken from the album'Songs that Never Made The Hymnal' Bob Peck takes a modern (50's) look at the world in a smart-ass New York kind of way, lots of good lines in there with a particular favoutire of mine being, 'I'll marry a zombie...for you Abercrombie'
Beware though! The T.V Cowboy song contains the 'Bull-Shipper' joke...wonder who came up this originally?
Well known bender, Uri Geller here with the sublime 'I Cannot Answer you'. Well, I kind of guessed he couldn't answer me but from the beginning this is top stuff...the choral voices,dramatic synths and then Geller telling us that 'he cannot answer' except to say something about the tiny molecule from a tear that is so big it will make you crazy (make-you-a-cra-a-z-eeee)...but we must know that we'll never fully understand the genius of Geller..if only we could receive the 'second drop'...'just one little drop'...whats it all about, we can but speculate...superb stuff!!!
Sometimes you just don't whether a track is real or a spoof and I suppose it doesn't really matter so long as it works, as with this-Touchy by Luie Luie. I've often had a 'Touchy' myself, back in the day of course...and one can but dream of future 'Touchy's' but perhaps it's best to stick to the memory...of course Luie doesn't need to worry as he does his 'all by himself!'
Ah the Fins...you just can't Stop em'...as here with Sixten Jansson and his excellent 'Don't Stop The Music' from 1980. There's an earnestness in the voice that really makes you want to believe that the music will never stop and he is obviously going down a storm with the audience (or is that dubbed on?) Great track, great performance....please, please, please don't stop...
Here is the aforementioned Wesley Willis with 'Bridman Kicked My Ass' and 'The Chicken Cow'. If punk rock stripped down the pretensions of Prog by taking things down to three chord rock then surely Wesley took us to an even more primeval place by basically using the same/similar backing track over and over in his work.
I was a little taken aback when I first heard the onslaught that is a Wesley Willis album, the repetition and lyrics usually detailing something/someone doing something to his ass..but after I stopped laughing I found myself being drawn back to the tracks and checking out his drawings(Which fetch around $900 a pop!). Check out the wiki link for more details and remember...
'Rock over London, Rock over Chicago...Heinz is America's favourite ketchup'
I'm not too sure what to call my next string of post's. Ranging from the 1950's to the present day, they're all made up from material found mostly outside what is classed as 'the mainstream' and the charts,(whatever they were!)
Weirdo music sounds a little crass, so I guess the nearest name for it would be 'outsider music', akin to outsider art I guess, and often sharing the same rawness in application and invention born from necessity.
Of course some of these artist's have found fame , with the likes of Daniel Johnson,Wesley Willis and the like finding cult status in the alt/counter culture worlds and being fated whilst other's are bound to remain obscure...at least for awhile yet.(until used in film or an ad soundtrack or something)
It's hard to explain the appeal of this often off-key, 'wacky?' music as it varies so much in style and content, though I do find myself listening to it a lot at the expense of more 'normal' music and it so it can't purely be novelty...(he said)
To kick off we'll start with two tracks from the mighty Dean Milan, 'I Can't Explain' and 'Do It Like a Dog'.
He's a casio-soul man with a unique method of delivery that is sure to repulse and attract listeners in unequal measure. Don't know much about the guy other than it's pure pop genius.
p.s-I'm not even sure if the above image is of Dean Milan, though I'd like to think he looks something like this...
Saving the best (well, my favourite) Bat-Track till last, here is the man himself, Adam West, with his innuendo led track 'Miranda'. Starting with one of the greatest opening lines ever,'Will tonight be the night that Bruce reveals himself to...the magnificient Miranda'
The track rolls on in similar tongue in cheek (whose cheek,we can but guess) tone to the tv show, with Batman trying to rid of the pesky Robin, for just one night...so 'come into my cape' and 'take a peek, a teeny weeny peek' at Mr Adam West.
Produced by Tom Wilson for a toy company in Newark and sold as 'The Sensationtional Guitars of Dan and Dale', this was in fact the cream of Sun Ra's Archestra teamed up with most of Al Koopers Blues Project!
The tracks tend to lock into simple rock 'n' roll riffs and let rip, as on the superb uncredited vocal on 'Robin's Theme,great stuff!
Riddle me this, Mild mannered crooner by day, crackpot Riddler by night, the two sides of Frank Gorshin. Actually, Never Let Her Go is quite nice...could almost have been a Walker Brothers track, missed his vocation there perhaps... the Riddler track is a great piece of 60's fluff,replete with fuzz intro,'chick' reply vocals and inane 'riddles'.Top.
So here is the (all too brief) Batgirl theme from the unaired pilot. I don't suppose the show could have given us much more than the original, apart from treating us to the undoubted charms of Yvonne Graig...hmmm, maybe they should have made it!
I've teamed this up with one of my favourite 'Bat-quotes' from the Nelson Riddle album from the show...
Absolute genius here as Frank Zappa takes the 'Boy Wonder' into pop heaven, with a lush arragement that only serves to emphasise his nasty sneering little voice...great lyrics and sound effects also...
Check the details and extract from his Bio 'Boy Wonder-My Life in Tights' here.
Now Sun Ra could well have appeared in the original Batman tv series, taking the show onto another (ahem) level..these two tracks are not from the famous Sun Ra and The Blues Project album(coming up shortly!) but can be found on singles. The first track features vocal by Chicago bluesman, Lacy Gibson while the second version features Sun ra himself...i think...
Ok, to finish off these tv/movie based theme post's I'm ending with a few Batman related tracks. Now they're all going to be 1960's ones (not going near Danny Elfman or Prince) starting with, of course the original TV Theme and the Main Acknowledgement Title by Nelson Riddle from the superb movie.
Satire...can't live with it can't live without out it. 
Posts
