Magic Mustache Ride

Their name is Bastard, although Orphan seems more apt a handle—for why would any sensible parent lay claim to this mustachioed sausage party? Thankfully, Bastard’s story is a short one. Conceived backstage at Toto concert in Brussels in the spring of 1975, Bastard was the product of a rather strange tryst involving the roadies of opening bands, Bulge and Fanny, a men’s room handicap stall, Robert Plant’s prosthetic, and a female centaur AWOL from a trashy sci-fi paperback. Nine months after the curtain fell, Bastard, propelled by a drummer named Toto (told you!), slithered and oozed onto the pages of Kerrang! (three full years before the magazine began publishing) and into the back-alley cabarets of Hamburg, where, in a moment of true serendipity, they successfully propositioned the very man who awarded them a record deal. The resultant album is the only one emblazoned with the Bastard name and the band’s four-headed dog logo (so many heads, so few balls). The record is notable but for one thing, and that thing has nothing to do with the music on it (no one will actually admit to dropping the needle on this plastic turd, myself included). See the sleazoid second from the left with the porn ’stache and the patches on his jeans? Yeah, that’s right; he tore those swatches from the AIDS quilt and stitched ’em to his crotch. Fuckin' bastard!

Grammar Snacks (Ecstatic Wax Edition)

The Semi-Misunderstood Semicolon

(Starring Captain and Tennille!?)

 I assume most of you know what a semicolon (;) is and where it’s located on the keyboard or touch screen. Most of you also know how it functions in modern-day communications: as the wink in a happy-faced emoticon, right? Yep, Mr. Semicolon is the Captain to Ms. Close Parenthesis’s Tennille. But here’s a little-known fact: the semicolon is actually a punctuation mark that has practical applications in our myriad writings. If that sounds like I’m insulting your intelligence, I’m sorry. It’s just that until he recently found work as one-half (appropriate since the prefix “semi-” means “half”) of the ol’ wink ’n’ smile, the semicolon had long been neglected—even misused.

It’s a story that somewhat mirrors the life of Captain Daryl Dragon. Once a master yachtsman and a helmsman of his own Carnival® poop ship, the Captain had his life forever altered when his prank-pulling first mate stirred some PCP into his morning coffee. With PCP onboard, the Captain determined that he could get to Jamaica faster by steaming his Carnival® cruiser clear through a small Caribbean island occupied by a Sandals® resort instead of going around it. He beached the ship, of course, and had to be forcibly removed from its bridge. (During the melee, the Captain was heard to say, “Don’t tase me, bro!” a full 25 years before it entered the national lexicon.)

Later, the Captain emerged from his angel dust-fueled rampage in the empty Sandals® lounge. Drinking Chablis straight from the box, the now-unemployed Captain, who was also well-known for plying more romantic waters with a few tickles of the ivories, stumbled over to the vacant piano to console himself with a melody.

Arriving early to knock back a few Tropical Breeze® daiquiris prior to her nightly torture fest of torch songs in the Sandals® lounge (where sandals aren’t allowed after 6 p.m.), singer Toni Tennille heard the Captain pounding out a rough but delightfully saccharine melody—the very one that would soon crystallize into the song “Love Will Keep Us Together.” And that is when Capt. Dragon and Toni Tennille consummated pop music’s greatest union as Captain and Tennille.

Unlike the Captain, however, the semicolon prefers not to be a lounge act with the close parenthesis; he simply wants to punctuate sentences—nothing more. But before we can grant him his wish, we must remind ourselves of the semicolon’s proper use. Let the following rules and their corresponding examples guide you.

Use a semicolon to join two independent clauses not joined by a coordinating conjunction. Further, from the Associated Press Stylebook: “…use the semicolon [within a sentence] to indicate a greater separation of thought and information than a comma can convey but less than the separation that a period implies.” For example:

On account of the idiotic yachting hat he always wore while banging on the piano, Daryl Dragon drew the nickname “Captain Keyboard” from the Beach Boys’ Mike Love; because of his penchant for drinking rum excessively and vomiting on women as he serenaded them with “I Get Around,” Mike Love got the nickname “Captain Morgan” from Daryl Dragon.

Besides joining two independent clauses, the semicolon also comes in handy within a sentence containing phrases with other internal punctuation, such as commas. For example:

The Captain shipwrecked his music career following an incident on the Santa Monica Pier involving Alka-Seltzer®, bread, and an unruly audience of seagulls. His career is survived by his wife, Toni Tennille of Long Beach, Calif.; son, Captain Jr. of Daytona Beach, Fla.; drinking buddy, Mike Love of Malibu, Calif.; 341 dorky yachtsman hats; AM radio; and millions of discarded LP records polluting America’s landfills, thrift stores, and rummage sales.

(Dear Mike Love and Daryl Dragon, the above story is a work of fiction. I'm broke anyway, so don't waste your time suing.)

Special thanks to Brieann Gonczy.

Germany's Last Polka

It’s not an everyday occurrence that a truly remarkable album is exhumed from the dusty heaps of discarded vinyl at the thrift store. It’s an even rarer occurrence that an LP of true historical import is rediscovered. Let alone two. Two that are related. Two that tell the long-forgotten tale of the Great Rock ’n’ Roll Wars of the 1950s and ’60s.

So it was one sunny Saturday morning at the local Goodwill as I rummaged the dusty stacks of wax (the platters that seemingly no longer matter) that my dirty fingers flipped to these two LPs: Walt Groller and His Orchestra’s Auf Wiedersehen and the Little German Band’s Auf Geht’s! On the surface, they appear to be your typical oompah party music albums that crossed the ocean from the Fatherland a generation ago, begging for one last polka on the turntable. Yet it takes an astute collector with master’s degree in ethnomusicology (thank you, University of Phoenix®!) such as me to recognize these recordings for what they actually are: crucial documents containing German folk songs, battle hymns, and field recordings inspired by and captured during the Great Rock ’n’ Roll Wars.

What were the Great Rock ’n’ Roll Wars? You might recall that in the 1950s a new strain of popular music sprouted up like pustules on a pubescent face. It was called rock ’n’ roll, a crude, most unwholesome marriage of hillbilly music and rhythm and blues, and it swept through the United States faster than diarrhea in a hot tub. The music was savage, loud and obnoxious and featured prominent use of the electric guitar and drums. It soon inspired mass hysteria among millions of horny degenerates (teenagers) and led to rebellion, chaos and societal collapse. Churches and schools were torched. Planned Parenthoods, liquor stores, massage parlors and marijuana dispensaries sprang up at every corner strip mall. Morals fled north to Alaska. And communists moved into the White House. It was a scary scene to be sure: a once peaceful, verdant, prosperous, Christ-loving nation had been raped and pillaged into a dystopian wasteland.

With flies buzzing America the Carcass, rock ’n’ roll turned its voracious appetite east toward Europe and went swimming.

Across the pond in the old country, Germany, still nursing the self-inflicted wounds and humiliation it sustained both during and after World War II, braced for the onslaught. It was 1957 when American rock ’n’ roll, led by Elvis Presley (a.k.a. Private Pelvis), stormed the western shores of Europe and began its high-decibel charge eastward toward Das Fatherland. Having been crushed and then occupied by the U.S. and its allies, Germany thought that by making a triumphant stand against this nascent musical enemy it might rekindle national pride among the citizenry and reclaim its place as a major player on the world stage. Or any stage for that matter. Even a stage at some local festival involving wiener dogs, warm lager, toten hosen and luft balloons. Indeed, Germany wasn’t about to let such filthy, impure music impregnate its kartoffelpuffer (that’s German for potato pancake, thank you very much).

So the country dispatched its warriors to the Black Forest, the strategy being that the thick vegetation would provide sufficient cover for national forces to surprise and pounce on the unsuspecting invaders. But because the country’s elite soldiers were either dead or still imprisoned (something about crimes against humanity committed during WWII), Germany’s leaders were forced to draft its accordion-wielding yodelers, all 249,000 of them, to do battle. It was a decision that wrought disastrous consequences, but at the time, the entire country rallied behind its leaders as they held out hope that their unconventional militia would triumph.

This brings us to the records this post serves to highlight. The first record shown above, Auf Wiedersehen by Walt Groller and His Orchestra, depicts an actual scene of an oompah band sending Germany’s heroes off to war on the wings of a high-tempo waltz and bright, soaring notes, a most fitting Auf Wiedersehen for sure. Meanwhile, the second album, Auf Geht’s! by the Little German Band, meanwhile, shows members of an elite accordion battalion hiking into the Black Forest (and toward their certain deaths).

What transpired on the battlefield was gruesome. Germany fought, and fought valiantly. For 20 minutes. Emerging from the cover of the Black Forest for pre-battle polka pep rally, the accordionists were ambushed by the sound of a million guitars roaring from a mountain of Marshall stacks. They were overwhelmed, blown back, unable to match the amplified barrage with their feeble squeezeboxes, whose cumbersome shape and heavy weight impeded and ultimately prohibited a hasty retreat back into forest. When the cliché dust settled, the smoke parted, and the last yodels and accordion farts echoed into the past, a quarter million men lay in a bloody, smoking heap, their lederhosen in tatters, accordions destroyed. I won’t go into detail about how rock ’n’ roll celebrated their victory, except to say that they made sandwiches of their adversaries, hence the name of Black Forest Ham. 

With Germany out of the way, rock conquered Europe, and the rest of the globe soon surrendered, as billions of people from all nations raised their horned hands in unison to salute to their new leader. I can only imagine what the world might have been had polka successfully stood up to the rock ’n’ roll aggressors. Suffice it to say it would have been a better place. Just because.

Should you happen across these records in your archaeological digs in the vinyl mines of Goodwill, know that you’re holding a piece of important history, about a war everyone else has either forgotten or never known about.

Of Flat Surf and Beached Boys

The 50-year-old Beach Boys consummated their golden jubilee this week with the release of a new studio album, That’s Why God Made the Radio (the Almighty does not make radios, by the way)—the first Beach Boys album to include both Brian Wilson (a.k.a. the hero) and Mike Love (a.k.a. the villain) in more than—shit, I don’t know—many years. Detractors will say this album, like the band’s concurrent reunion tour, is a blatant cash-grab, that it sounds less like a rejuvenated band with its creative powers restored than a reanimated corpse in tattered beach wear. Gosh, people can be so cynical. Indeed, the Beach Boys' endless summer may have ended long ago, but they prove in all their geriatric glory that they can hang 10 (and brains) in the winter of their years. Well, except for the ones who are still dead. Anyway, as I prepare to bask in the radiating glory of wobbly old men hobbling around on stage in Bermuda shorts and unbuttoned Hawaiian shirts for one last go-around, I can cite hundreds of reasons why That’s Why God Made the Radio (again, God didn’t invent the radio; God merely tolerated its creation) justifies its existence. Allow me to share some of those reasons with you today.

That’s Why God Made the Radio deserves its existence and your dwindling disposable income because:

There’s nothing sweeter than being serenaded by paunchy septuagenarians puttering around in baseball caps.

In his catatonic, drooling state, Brian is still a genius.

Unlike Smile, That’s Why God Made the Radio is sodden with relatable lyrics.

Pining for the same simple things—summer, sun, cars, waves and babes—50 years later is cute. Or pathetic.

Empty, cynical nostalgia for a phony Southern California dream is deeply moving.

Brian’s fragile psyche makes this collection very poignant. (The same has also been said about every Brian Wilson-related recording since 1967—even his infamous “Smart Girls” rap song.)

The California Raisins haven’t made an album in over 20 years.

The gift shop at the Zuma Beach Shack Motel Resort and RV Rental needs a new soundtrack.

The hopelessly behind-the-times Beach Boys are timeless.

The Beach Boys think the kids are still buying albums.

It’s important to remember that as the ocean is deep the Beach Boys are shallow.

A Guy with Kaleidescope Pipes

I bought this album for its cover. Look at it: It comes in colors, everywhere. It’s like a rainbow. In fact, it’s a bright psychedelic lovefest of colors, a cross between the Kinks’ Face to Face and the Chocolate Watch Band’s No Way Out. And check out Virgil Fox: He has pipes sprouting from his head. And that bow tie, might it have belonged to the Electric Prunes? While Into the Classics: Meditations and Sonic Spectaculars may have psychedelic connotations in the title, this is no psychedelic record. It wasn’t even released in the ’60s, during the psychedelic era, but the early ’70s. Virgil Fox plays the Aeolian-Skinner Organ—without accompaniment. And he’s not guiding you on a wild magic carpet ride into new sonic and sensory realms; he's taking you to church. Yep, Virgil was letting the flowers of his imagination sprout not in some incense-clouded harem, but in some incense-clouded cathedral. On this album, he sticks to the classics, working his dizzy fingers through Tchaikovsky, Grieg and Bohm. Psychedelic or not, his choice of material is inspired, his performance superlative. Just imagine yourself seated alone one lazy summer afternoon in the cool comfort of a gothic cathedral, the sun gleaming through stained-glass windows, letting dusty rays of beautiful colors shower down on you as you take in Virgil’s virtuosity. This record may venture down some well-trodden paths, but with a little imagination, you can set your sights for the center of the sun.

I wrote this piece a few years back. I pulled it out of mothballs (and gave it an editorial bath) after listening to Fox’s record on my hi-fi last week.

Wretched Records and Crappy Covers

This record goes to show that you can stuff a schlock-slinging goober into a leather jacket and put him on a motorcycle and he’ll still be a schlock-slinging goober. When kids tore the wrapping paper from this record on Christmas Day, where their parents saw good, clean, rockin’ fun, they saw a literal and figurative square.

This was released hot on the heels of Ruth Welcome's worldwide smash hit, Lo-Fi Lute.

Sadly, ol’ Dizzy Fingers never made another record. While promoting his LP in Africa, Cope was gunned down by ivory poachers who wanted his teeth.

“Hey, boys, before tonight’s gig, why don’t you say we all head down to the Sears Portrait Studio for our album close-up? We can shop for Toughskins afterward.” This so-called auspicious debut is so good that the LP’s original owner didn’t crack the seal—no doubt to keep it “mint.”

For every new album being stamped on wax these days there seems to be several more being reissued. Somehow I don’t think this record will ever get its 180-gram colored vinyl deluxe redux. Call it a hunch.

California Raisins: Still Ripe After All These Years

We’ve all been hearing about the existential and aesthetical crises besieging the music industry these days. It’s scary out there. Rampant illegal downloading, collapsing CD sales, shuttering retail stores, Lana Del Ray, that mystery substance seen running down Christina Aguilera’s leg at Etta James’s funeral, and now Whitney Houston’s death on the eve of the perhaps the most impotent, I mean important, music event of the year, the Grammys. Oh, the Grammys. Admit it, you watch it. Remember how you cheered when Natalie Cole beat out Nirvana for album of the year in 1992 by duetting with her dead dad? Unforgettable!

Today’s apocalyptic collapse reminds me of a time, not long ago, when the music industry last found itself teetering on the brink. It was the late 1980s. Michael Jackson was busy erecting Neverland. Madonna was making great films. Bono was brainstorming ways to exploit the AIDS crisis in Africa. Phil Collins was opening tanning salons across the U.K. Unsure their leading lights would ever return to the spotlight, label heads, industry insiders and that vampiric U.S. lobbying organization, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), met secretly in a White House bunker brainstorming a plan to save their jobs and restore their six-figure bonuses. Their solutions: Kip Winger and Milli Vanilli. Strokes of genius to be sure, but those short-term fixes would prove to be long-term headaches the beleaguered industry had not anticipated. Milli Vanilli were outed as fakes, and the popularity of Winger’s “She’s Only 17” had the unintended effect of causing an increase in statutory rape cases through middle America.

Meanwhile, Ahmet Ertegun, who had co-founded Atlantic Records and who, along with his brother, Nesuhi, had presided over some of the greatest recordings of all time from John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Ray Charles, Buffalo Springfield, Led Zeppelin and John Astley, was quietly nurturing a new act behind the scenes, a young yet wrinkled group of musicians bent on launching a back-to-basics revival of pop music. That act was the California Raisins.

Having successfully reintroduced America to the poop-stimulating wonders of rotten grapes via one of the most unforgettable advertising campaigns in history, the California Raisins, composed of Stretch, Beebop, A.C. and Red, sought to capitalize on their meteoric rise to fame. Now that they were in the spotlight—they weren’t about to wither; they’re raisins after all! They entertained sitcom offers, clothing deals, merchandising agreements, attaching their image to line of best-selling colon-cleansing products, including Super Colon Blow cereal. Alas, none of those things held much appeal. The California Raisins wanted to perform; they wanted to make music; they wanted to be onstage. The desire for rotted grapes, whether boxed in snack-sized portions or harvested in various states of decay from dumpsters, was surpassed only by the demand for a legitimate vinyl release of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” the song heard in all the TV and radio ads.

The interest was not surprising. “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” was a song that represented so much promise when Marvin Gaye first recorded it 20 years earlier. But his version fell well short of the upper reaches of the pop charts. The problem was that Gaye wasn’t a grape, or a raisin. He lacked the emotional intuition, conviction, not to mention street cred, needed to transform the song into transcendental masterpiece.

Atlantic Records boss Ertegun recognized this and seized the opportunity of packaging the California Raisins into a pop music snack that would not only flush the bowels of a constipated music industry, but also delight and nourish music fans for decades to come. He invited the Raisins to his Los Angeles home studio under the auspices of having them record some low-key demos. He simply instructed them to have fun, play around with their favorite tunes, explore the space, etc. Later, if all went well, he’d sign them and bankroll the production of a proper studio album.

The California Raisins didn’t need to test the waters; their chemistry was undeniable, their musicianship unbelievable, their deliciousness unbeatable. They were ready. Nevertheless, they indulged Ertegun, and went about recording a dozen or so songs, including a stripped-down take on “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” In the small basement studio, the Raisins worked fast, faster than the raisin’s effect on the human digestive system. Within an hour, they delivered an album’s worth of songs with a working titled of Led Zeppelin 1. Ertegun was stunned by what he heard. The Raisins’ recordings of “Green Onions,” “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” “Tutti Frutti,” “Cool Jerk” could no longer be claimed by the forgettable artists who originally “popularized” them. No, these songs, especially the searing reworking of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” now belonged to the California Raisins.

Released in 1988, the Raisins’ debut LP, now titled Meet the Raisins, bowed at No. 1 and stayed there for three years. Every song on the album, including the studio outtakes, rehearsals, false starts and abandoned demos, topped the singles’ charts. In fact, for three straight weeks in 1989, all 40 songs in America’s Top 40 belonged to the California Raisins. The Raisins won a record 78 Grammys in three years. And their debut album was so good that it won Best Album three-straight years.

Everywhere they went, the Raisins were mobbed by fans—the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the Beatles. But the Raisins soon grew spoiled, figuratively speaking of course. Legend has it that they required that all raisins be removed from the trail mix and raisin bran they ate backstage. While the Raisins weren’t about to eat their own, raisin consumption throughout the world was such that grapes were no longer used for wine, juice, jelly or even grapes. To keep up with demand all harvested grapes were dehydrated and rotted into raisins. Naturally, greenhouse gasses quadrupled, setting off some pretty catastrophic environmental catastrophes across the globe. Oceans, rivers and lakes all turned brown. Cloud formations now consisted mostly of methane. Humans now had to submit to monthly emissions checks. And the smell, oh the smell.

Finally, the backlash came in 1992. We won’t get into all the details, scandals and betrayals here—not today at least. Suffice it to say, the sweet sun-ripened treat turned foul, its shelf life expired. And that was that. The California Raisins were no more—and were never to be seen in public, together or separately, again.

Now, some 20 years later, with the music industry again spiraling down the toilet bowl, who better than the California Raisins to flush out the toxins and bring about a renaissance? Sadly, the Grammys blew a huge opportunity last Sunday. Following Whitney Houston’s death, the Grammy people should have asked the Raisins to perform in her place so that, just as pioneering Natalie Cole did with her deceased Nat King Cole, the California Raisins could have duetted with a jumbo-tron animation of Whitney Houston. They could have sung a medley of Houston favorites, including “I’m Every Raisin,” “I Wanna Dance with Some Raisin” and her signature signature “I Will Always Love Raisins.” It would have been a poignant tribute—as well as an effective passing of the torch. There wouldn’t have been a dry eye (or nose—ah, cocaine) in the audience. And it would have been the most watched, instead of the second-most watched, Grammys ever.

And so the question remains: when can we expect the second coming of the California Raisins? Only Stretch, Beebop, A.C. and Red know for sure.

Set the Twilight Reeling

Greg Dulli Finds Redemption in the Twilight Singers
By Joe Ehrbar

EDITOR’S NOTE: This interview first appeared in the final edition of The Rocket, in October of 2000. I’m republishing it here, because, well, it was one of my favorite interviews and few people actually read it—most of the 85,000 Rocket issues were launched straight to the dumpster. During my time as a rock music inquisitor, I often avoided interviews with artists and bands of whom I was a big fan—I didn’t want to come off like a sycophant; I also wanted to spare myself the eternal embarrassment and disillusionment I’d no doubt feel should an idol interview end badly. This particular interview went pretty well, as I recall. Conducted by phone, my conversation with Greg Dulli lasted about an hour; maybe one day, I’ll transcribe the entire tape—before it crumbles to dust.

I’ve long admired Greg Dulli’s work, first as an Afghan Whig, then as Twilight Singer, later as a Gutter Twin. I regret not going to see him and his bands perform in the last decade. Perhaps I’ll resolve to get out more in 2012. One thing’s for sure, I’m excited by the recent news of an Afghan Whigs reunion. The band will make their grand re-entrance as the headliners of the ATP festival in Asbury Park in the spring. A tour will follow. Given the Whigs' Seattle history—they were among the original Sub Pop bands and Dulli lived here for a time—perhaps they’ll give us an encore.

Q&A with Greg Dulli. The latest issue of Chunklet magazine has been stirring up a bit of controversy for its cover story on the "The 100 Biggest Assholes in Rock." Charting high on the list is the Afghan Whigs' Greg Dulli at No. 24 (he beat out the likes of Isaac Brock and Mark E. Smith). While Dulli is down seven places from last year's posting, he's still considered a big asshole by the editors of Chunklet because, they say, "He thinks he's God's gift to women." Having only interviewed Dulli just once and over the phone-for this particular piece-I can't say that Greg Dulli is an asshole. During our recent conversation about his latest musical endeavor, the Twilight Singers, the singer was quite pleasant and candid and acted interested. I also can't vouch for Dulli thinking he's "God's gift to women"; the subject just never came up. If Dulli is guilty of anything it's his ability to make women swoon (or maybe, just one woman-my wife). As an Afghan Whig he's made some incredibly sexy soul music-all be it dark and tormented, but sexy rock 'n' roll nonetheless. Now with the Twilight Singers-a project that's involved the likes of crooners Shawn Smith (pigeonhed, Brad) and Harold Chichester (Howlin' Maggie) and English dance music kingpins Fila Brazilla, Dulli is immersing his soul singer talents into the wrinkled silk sheets of the night-where many romances begin and end. Much like the records cranked out by Motown in the '60s, the Twilight Singers' debut, Twilight as Played by the Twilight Singers (Columbia), is a bittersweet album, but it's also a bearer of soul music the likes of which you're not hearing these days.

The Rocket: How are you doing, Greg?
Greg Dulli: I've been better actually. I fucked up my back last weekend taking a bath.

The Rocket : Were you alone?
Dulli: Yeah, I was, actually [laughs]. I slipped in the tub and grabbed a towel rack and wrenched my back and spent all day Saturday in the hospital. It's bad. I've got to have an MRI in about an hour.

The Rocket : You must be swallowing some pretty sweet painkillers?
Dulli: Yeah, they're pretty sweet. They gave me Dilaudid on Saturday. I was in a Drugstore Cowboy state-of-mind all day Saturday, know what I'm sayin'? But since I had to do press today, I haven't taken any pills today. Right about now, though, I should take one.

The Rocket: So you're living in L.A. these days. How come you left Seattle?
Dulli: Honestly? The rain finally got to me. I love Seattle; I was there for six years, but for my health and state-of-mind I needed a little more sunshine.

The Rocket: While you were here, you began work with the Twilight Singers. How did this record come together?
Dulli: It took awhile. I started working on it three years ago.

The Rocket: Didn't the Twilight Singers start as a collaboration with Shawn Smith and Harold Chichester? Or, was it your idea?
Dulli: Oh, no, it was my idea. One thing I will state on that subject: Never try to get three lead singers in the same room.

The Rocket: I've had a bootleg copy of an early version of the album for about a year and a half-
Dulli: Oh, you have the demos? Uh-oh.

The Rocket: What I was going to say is that the final product of Twilight as Played By the Twilight Singers is significantly different and better in places than the original demos. It doesn't sound like it buckled under the weight of three distinct egos.
Dulli: It didn't because over the course of things one ego was destined to take over anyway. And I don't say that in an egotistical way, but it was my vision. And, honestly, I was bringing all of my best songs that I had at the time to the table and the other guys were kinda second-stringing it. And when you second-string it, the first team's gonna eat up the second team. It's not that those guys didn't have great songs in them, I just don't think that they were willing to part with them.

The Rocket: How much of the album was re-tooled in England with Fila Brazilla?
Dulli: The majority of it. Two songs got taken off: one of mine and one of Shawn's. Three songs ["Railroad Lullaby," "Annie Mae" and "Last Temptation"] took their place. I did three new songs in England. And of the eight original that remained, I re-did five of them.

The Rocket: What inspired this record?
Dulli: It was reclamation project. And what I was out to reclaim was a certain amount of my musical innocence. I felt like I was starting to bow under the expectations of a record company [Elektra] to the point of where it got so ugly that I had to leave said record company. And as a parting gift, they let the [Twilight Singers] demos out so that people such as yourself could hear them. It got so negative to point where I was starting to forget why you play music in the first place. A lot of music for me started out in a self-gratifying way. I made up songs that I wasn't hearing but wanted to hear. I think [this project] was to get back to that. I think Harold Chichester, in particular, who's been through the same wars I've been through, he was the most inspirational. He said, "Why don't you write songs that you want to hear again." That seemed like an anachronistic thought, but it was so right on that I took him up on his offer.

The Rocket: To me, it sounds like the soul record that no one's making today.
Dulli: Yeah, I was finally able to articulate what soul singing means to me. And to me soul singing is if the singer can make you feel like he feels when he's singing that particular song. That's what I really got in touch with. There's no chart toppers on this record, but it's probably the most pure recording I've done since I was a teenager.

The Rocket: It's funny, the liner notes to the advance promo CD of the album says that it was "conceived in your bedroom."
Dulli: That's where my recording equipment was set up.

The Rocket: Nice double entendre.
Dulli: It definitely is a double entendre. A lot of people have told me-and I've started to feel this way as I started workin' it out-"Well, this is kind of a mood record." And the mood is definitely sexual. And I've heard from people that they have used it in their seductive pursuits.

The Rocket: And with varying degrees of success? Or was it unanimous?
Dulli: I think a lot of these guys who are using it are using it on people that stuff like this has worked on before. So they're preaching to the converted.

The Rocket: As long as the seductees aren't listening too closely. The lyrics betray the music's sultry, sexual tone. It's full of heartache and heartbreak.
Dulli: Lyrically, I've always sort of been like that, which is why I think I was so drawn to Motown music in particular. There's a lot of jaunty musical tracks in the Motown repertoire. But if you strip away the words and read them on their own, they're pretty heart-breaking. A lot of Supremes songs are on a real jaunty, kind of doot, doot, doot, but when you take the words out....That's why Uptown Avondale [an EP of soul covers the Afghan Whigs recorded in 1993 for Sub Pop] was a big experiment for be because I started to hone in on that. I'm like, "These words are sad. What if you took these words and put them in a sad setting? You get a really devastating heart-breaker of a tune. More than anything, I think [the Twilight Singers] is a continuation of the Uptown Avondale principle.

The Rocket: It's that betrayal or underlying sadness or bittersweetness that makes the music compelling and affecting. Reggae and rock steady utilized the same formula.
Dulli: Oh yeah. People will hide heartbreak behind anything that will conceal it. I think it was pretty ingenious what they were doing, especially in Detroit.

The Rocket: Twilight as Played By ends on kind of an ambiguous note, with you repeating the chorus "Everything's gonna be all right." It can easily interpreted as something positive, uplifting. What do you think?
Dulli: There's a point in the "Everything's gonna be all right" where I start to wonder if it is going to be all right. I sort of wonder if it's not a desperate man trying to convince himself of a lie. In the time that I wrote that song, I was desperately trying to convince myself of a reason to continue on because I was psychiatrically in trouble-though, thankfully, I do not find myself in that spot right now. Bob Marley popularized that phrase, at least musically. It was definitely done with the full knowledge that he had done it. To me, it's a universal statement and one I could hang my hooks into. Honestly, the record helped me purge a lot of things, helped me move on, if not musically then palpably.

The Rocket: How difficult was the process of writing and recording the material while wrestling personal demons?
Dulli: I don't know what a nervous breakdown is, but from what I've heard I think I had one and was having during the writing as I was able to revisit it with the three new songs ["Railroad Lullaby," "Annie Mae" and "Last Temptation"]. These songs give the record some levity without taking it out of its context. The three new songs helped it sound more cohesive. They were strategically placed in the repertoire of the album to give it that feel it has now.

The Rocket: Was it painful trying to complete this record this year, to tap back into the mindset you had a couple years ago?
Dulli: Yeah, but when you confront something, you don't fear it anymore. Had I kept running from it-which, I'm sure the record company would have been fine with if I left it on the shelf.... I'm a completion junkie, I have to have closure on something in order to move on. Going back and listening to some of the [album's songs] and the B-sides, too, I was like, "Whoa, who is that guy?" I felt bad for him. When you can go back and have pity on yourself-but it's not self-pity because it's another version of you-that's kind of interesting. It was the sound of a person who did not like himself at all. Thankfully, I've overcome that. So, on the new songs, I had to go back to that other guy a little bit and help him out, help him at least connect the dots.

Chilling, Racist Sounds of Halloween?

You’ve probably seen this album over the years. Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House is the cornerstone of the horror soundtrack/sound effects genre; from what I can tell it’s been in print the longest and is perhaps the only horror LP relic to live on—undead—in the digital age. If you’re as old as me, or older, you probably had a scratched-up, dog-eared copy of the LP that Dad would dust off every year and blast from an open window to unsuccessfully frighten trick-or-treaters from your front porch.

Released in 1964, Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House contains all the requisite audio chills, thrills and spills of a Halloween record. There are dragging chains, howling winds, baying hell hounds, groaning monsters, creaking doors, blood-curdling screams and more. On side one, a narrator sets up each scary scenario before letting the sound effects take over to illustrate the protagonist’s imminent demise. It’s all pretty hokey and predictable—and low-budget.

But how is Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House racist? Glad you asked. At the end of side one is a track titled “Chinese Water Torture.” The narrator opens the track with an explanation of the torture method’s origins and then shuts up to let the water droplets do their trick of undoing the protagonist’s mind. With ten seconds remaining, the narrator returns one last time and, under the spell of bad taste, speaks in stereotypical, monosyllabic fake Chinese, rather exaggeratedly, too. “Ming, my, ywai hoi….” She goes on like this for a few moments before catching herself and feigning surprise, “What am I saying? I’m not even Chinese.”

Indeed, Chilling, Thrilling Sounds… was a product of 1964, a time when perhaps few considered such xenophobia to be, well, xenophobic. In the ensuing 50 years, attitudes have changed. We’re hypersensitive about race and culture—as we should be. We even go out of our way to out-PC one another. There’s no chance in Disneyland that anyone would let something of this ilk into today’s marketplace. (South Park’s another story.) Remember Song of the South? Disney pretends not to. So one might think that Disney would keep "Chinese Water Torture" forever buried in its storied haunted vaults (along with the bones of Walt). Song of the South it ain’t, but it’s still racist.

Curious, I decided to see if Chilling, Thrilling Sounds… has made the leap to digital. It has. It’s currently out of print on CD (though not hard to find), but it’s readily available for download on iTunes. Spotting “Chinese Water Torture” in the album’s sequence, I paid a buck to download it and see if the original piece remains intact, fake Chinese and all. I skipped to the track’s final seconds and to my surprise, “Chinese Water Torture” hadn’t been edited. Everything’s still there just as it was in 1964, a stupid, undead relic of Cold War xenophobia. Chilling, indeed.

Freaks, Geeks and Other Human Oddities

Tom Waits has spun a tangled web of yarns unlike any other singer/songwriter, in a career that spans four decades and two-dozen albums. Along his twisted, idiosyncratic journey through dingy piano bars, into the subterranean cabarets of Hamburg's Reeperbahn, over the rusty chain-link fences of roots music junkyards, and into a howling din of some post-apocalyptic carnival, Waits has introduced us to a motley crew of unforgettable characters. On October 24, Tom Waits releases his first studio album in seven years with Bad As Me. To celebrate the occasion, I thought I’d dig through the dusty stacks of Tom’s old songs and gather the assorted, often colorfully named characters he’s given life to over the years. What follows is a list of people who haunt his songs. Not everyone is included, but most of them are here, together in one place for the first time—grouped by theme, occupation, physical exploit, title, etc. So without further adieu, "Ladies and gentleman, under the Big Top tonight, Human Oddities!" William the Pleaser, Dave the Butcher, Blind Bob the Raccoon, Reba the Loon, Slam the Crank, Jo Jo the Dog Face Boy, KoKo the Bird Girl, Sealo the Seal Boy, Gyp the Blood, Lea Graif the German midget who sat in J.P. Morgan’s lap, Zuzu Bolin, Molly Hoey, George Schmid, Montclaire de Havelin, Zenora Bariella, Coriander Pyle, Evelyn James, Everett Lee, Joel Tornabene, Whitfield Faraday, Edna Millions, Scullion Childs, Eddie Grace, Melanie Jane, Bobby Goodmanson, Charlie DeLisle, Dicky Faulkner, Milton Malone, Shane Mahoney, Joey Navinski, Ronnie Arnold, Paul Body, Bill Bones, Red Pants, Pale Face, Ice Man, Black Rider, Eyeball Kid, Rosie, Charlie, Frank, Nash, Alice, Monk, Hans, Cath, Kathleen, Jezebel, Marie, Martha, Muriel, Matilda, Lucinda, Wilhelm, Willard, Miss Kelsey, Mr. Henry, Mr. Siegal, Mister Sorrow, Mrs. Carroll, Mrs. Strom, Mr. Knickerbocker, Mr. Weiss, Mr. Brown, Philly Joe Remarkable, Peoria Johnson, Saginaw Calinda, Georgia Lee, Dudlow Joe, Jockey La Fayette, Mike of the Weeds, Little Joe from Kokomo, Satchel Pudding, Lord God Mose, Golden Willie, Panther Marten, Bird Lundy, Chun King, Father Cribari, Captain Charon, Reverend Judd, Doctor Bliss, Doctor George Fishbeck, Horse Face Ethel, Poodle Murphy, Piggy Knowles, Birdy Joe Hoaks, Scarface Ron, Graveyard John, Funeral Wells, Bowlegged Sal, One Eyed Myra, Big Eyed Al, Tabletop Joe, Humpty Jackson, Knocky Parker, Buzz Fledderjohn, Falling James, Yodeling Elaine, Bum Mahoney, Golden Willie, Dutch Pink, Punk Sander, Tip Little, Dot King, Vic Rail, Peg Leg, Bill Bones, Boney, Shorty, Mighty Tiny, Poor Edward, Jack Chance, Jessey Frank, Aunt Mame, Uncle Emmet, Aunt Evelyn, Uncle Vernon, Dan Steel, Johnny Eck, Johnny O’Toole, Louie Lista, Robert Sheehan, Martin Eden, Grady Tuck, Abdel Madi Shabneh, Spidey, Cora Belle Lee, Grace McDaniels, Gerd Bessler, Mortando, Big Mambo, Big John Jizzum, Big Bull Trometer, Big Joe, Big Black Mariah, Big Black Ford, Big Black Johnny, Little Son Jackson, Lil’ Caesar, Old Brown Betty, Old Widow Jones, Old Blind Darby, Blind Jack Dawes, Blackjack Ruby, Nimrod Cain.

Rocky Mountain Sigh

A year before folk icon John Denver died after his experimental aircraft made an unscheduled water landing off the California coast in October 1997, I had the pleasure of interviewing him by phone in advance of a Spokane concert appearance. The John Denver I remember from the interview was not the lovable nature boy who sang “Sunshine on My Shoulders” and “Rocky Mountain High” and made a couple records with the Muppets but a hostile, cantankerous jerk. He was such an ass, his replies to my questions so testy, that I wrote “John Denver has come down from his Rocky Mountain high” as the lede of my story.

That was 15 years ago, when I was trying to make it as a journalist and music critic at Spokane’s daily paper, the Spokesman-Review. Had I the choice I would have gladly punted and let someone else write about the singer/songwriter/environmentalist/stunt pilot/wannabe astronaut. I remember at the time being worried about my credibility with the local punk rock scene and how writing about a washed-up middle-of-the-road folk singer wasn’t going to help it. (Stupid, I know, especially since very few in my perceived target audience read the paper.) But the editor assigned it to me and I accepted. I made arrangements with Denver’s publicist for a phone interview, and John agreed to speak with me from his Colorado home the following Monday at 8 a.m., which was a little bit early—I preferred rolling in to work at 9.

The only problem was that I think John thought we were to chat at 8 a.m. his time, Colorado time, Rocky Mountain time. And so he started calling at 7 a.m., probably as I was trying to will my lethargic body into the shower. By the time I arrived at work at just before 8, I saw the red light on my phone flashing angrily at me—informing me that I had a message. Three messages, actually, all from John Denver. Not sunshine-on-my-shoulders John Denver either, but a you-just-clear-cut-the-old-growth-forest-surrounding-my-palatial-estate John Denver.

7:01 a.m.: “Joe, this is John Denver calling,” said the voice, clearly annoyed. “I’ll try back.”

7:15 a.m.: “Joe, this is John Denver calling,” went the second message, the voice now sounding only few degrees cooler than piping-hot angry.

The third message came a half-hour later. It sounded as friendly as the second.

As I hung up the phone, it started ringing, sending a hot flash of panic coursing through my veins. With some trepidation, I answered the call.

“Joe, this is John Denver calling.”

His tone had only a hint of irritation. But I could already intuit that this interview was going to be a disaster. Trying to force a little cordial small talk, I threw out the first cringe-worthy softball: “So what are you up to?”

“Heh-heh,” he chuckled incredulously, “talking to you.”

I don’t know what was going through John Denver’s mind at the time. Clearly it was more than a scheduling foul-up. As the interview progressed, it became more apparent that he was not nearly as angry with me as he was bitter toward the music business. John Denver had sold millions of records in his prime, charted numerous hits in the 1970s, made a lot of people, including himself, rich. But by 1996, the hits had long since dried up, and he was unsigned in the U.S. and couldn’t secure a deal beyond one-off gimmicks—children's records or new recordings of the old hits, records that seemed well beneath his talent. (Denver had other problems beyond music, most notably a bitter divorce and two DUI arrests.)

Here’s what Denver had to say about the state of affairs with record companies: “I did an album for Sony a little over a year ago—The Wildlife Concert—and it’s pretty funny to me,” he said, no hint of humor in his tone, “that that album was a double album and it sold a quarter of a million copies. That’s a gold album. You know, it’s a double CD. That’s a big project, pretty successful, but not where they want to sign a record deal with me. Isn’t that interesting?”

Sony did however want Denver to make another album, an album that, as Denver described it, sounded a bit, well, sad. “[Sony] do want me to do another album and what they’re talking about—the example they’ve given me is something Kenny Loggins did, which ended up being a million seller—is a children's album.”

The album to which Denver referred actually materialized. Released it 1997, it was called All Aboard!, a children's album about trains, and it earned Denver a posthumous Grammy—his only Grammy.

The interview wasn’t a total disaster, but it was clear Denver wasn’t all that interested in my line of questioning. Perhaps I was too inexperienced or shy to ask more thoughtful questions. As this interview was to function as a concert preview, I hadn’t prepared to ask him more probing questions. Or maybe Denver just didn’t want play along that morning. Witness the following exchange:

“What is your Spokane concert consisting of—are you–”

“John Denver songs,” he blurted, before I could even finish my question. He didn’t elaborate.

Flustered, I countered with: “Are you gonna do another record with the Muppets?”

Denver softened, but only a bit. “Actually we’ve talked about that a little bit,” he said. “That was one of the most enjoyable things I ever did was working with the Muppets, and the thought of doing another television special with them along with an album is a great idea.”

Lucky for me (and John), the interview was a few minutes from its conclusion. After reading the resulting concert preview, my editor declined to have me review the show. I didn’t argue with her.

Burning Man

If you’re a record collector, particularly one who haunts thrift stores, garage sales and swap meets seeking out the bizarre and obscure, you’re probably familiar with the pair of Incredibly Strange Music books by RE/Search Publications from the 1990s (out of print). These books feature long Q&As with numerous record collectors—including Jello Biafra, Lux Interior and Poison Ivy of the Cramps and Billy and Miriam Linna of Norton Records—who show off their records while sharing interesting stories and anecdotes about the artists who made them. Both volumes are invaluable repositories of music from the fringes, particularly between the 1950s and 1970s. And by fringes we’re talkin’ about private press records, ill-conceived novelties, assorted kitsch, Jesus-freak music, third-tier rockabilly, outsiders—anything meeting the incredibly strange description.

Among the thousands of records and/or musicians covered in the two ISM volumes, one artist in particular stoked my curiosity. His name’s Merrill Womach, a gospel singer and former undertaker from Spokane.

Besides possessing an extraordinary voice, Womach also owns an extraordinary face, the result of third-degree burns sustained in a plane crash in 1961. What might have snuffed out the lives of others served to energize Womach’s. Legend has it that Merrill sang all the way to the hospital after being pulled from the flaming wreckage. Naturally (or supernaturally), Merrill credited his survival to Divine Intervention. Following a long spell in the hospital where he endured painful skin grafts and facial reconstruction, Merrill emerged a new man, more determined than ever to share his God-given gift—not to mention his man-made face—with the world.

And so it would be that for the nearly 20 albums he recorded between 1967 and 1985, Merrill would never shy away from making his miraculous face the focal point of their covers. On one album, In Quartet (shown below), four Merrill Womachs appear, striking poses in their polyester lounge-lizard disco suits—one Merrill for each of the four octaves of his glorious tenor.

Judging by his Wikipedia page, Womach is alive today and resides in Spokane. He’s 84 and still making music—albeit canned Muzak for funeral homes. He was an undertaker after all. (Surely, there’s a joke in there somewhere.) What follows are some of the Merrill Womach records I’ve acquired over the years, including one I picked up just last week from St. Vincent DePaul in Lynnwood, Wash. As you’ll see, one of the records, My Song, depicts Merrill before the plane crash. (Actually, it shows 42 Merrills—a full chorus!) Merrill Womach records aren’t all that hard to come by; you can always find a dozen or so listed on eBay—at pretty reasonable prices, too. But if you hunt around, you’ll likely find some at the junk shop for a $1 or less.

Also, for your enjoyment, you can watch a video here, taken from a documentary about Merrill’s accident and recovery called He Restoreth My Soul. In this scene, Merrill sings one of his signature songs, “Happy Again,” to a roomful of hospital patients. Is it just me or would this song make a decent flipside of a Scott Walker single? Maybe not.

My Song (1960) -- Acquired from Value Village in Ballard. This is Merrill Womach one year before his face went up in flames.

I Believe in Miracles (1967) -- Purchased at St. Vincent DePaul in Lynnwood. This is Merrill Womach's triumphant comeback album. The illustration does not show Womach inside plane. You'll just have to take him at his word that he was singing the Lord's praises. Believe it or not this is the second pressing of this album -- I also own the first, which was issued by a different label.

A Time for Us (1969) -- I don't remember where I got this one. On this album, Merrill gives the gospel a rest to bring us the good news of show tunes and weepy love ballads.

Surely Goodness and Mercy (1970) -- I think this came from a Texas thrift store where it was acquired by my friend DH.

I Stood at Calvary (1973) -- Purchased from eBay. Little-known fact, but Merrill was there at Jesus's crucifixion. This 2000-year-old painting proves it. Merrill was also believed to have introduced polyester and pleather to the nascent Christian movement.

Happy Again (1974) -- Found at the Goodwill in Lynnwood. This is the soundtrack to the aforementioned He Restoreth My Soul and is probably the most famous Womach record cover.

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory... (1976) -- I don't remember where I found this one. I love the way Merrill's purple fly-away collar matches the scenery.

In Concert (1977) -- Picked this up at St. Vincent DePaul in Seattle. Merrill doesn't make his face the focal point of this cover, but it's there.

In Quartet (1977) -- Found at a Texas thrift store by my friend DH. Notice how Merrill mixes and matches two suits to make four. Genius.

I'm a Miracle Lord (1981) -- Found at a record store in Montreal, Quebec, of all places.

Thar She Blows

Thirty one years ago (yesterday), Mount St. Helens blew its top. One year later, with volcanic ash still blanketing large swaths of the Pacific Northwest, the not-so-legendary Seattle trad-jazz combo the Uptown Lowdown Jazz Band issued the hardy-har titled Hauling Ash. That the LP failed to blow up on the national (or even local) scene can be attributed to multiple factors, including the man-made disaster of its horrendous cover. Which as you can see simply blows.

Hooray for Record Store Day? Nah.

I skipped Record Store Day this year. (Yes, I know it was three weeks ago—forgive me for being slow.) I just wasn’t in the mood to celebrate. Sure, there were records I really wanted, like the Fucked Up punk compilation LP, David’s Town (limited to just 750 copies), or the Beach Boys 78 rpm double 10-inch, or the Radiohead 12-inch (which turned out to be a U.K.-only release). I just couldn’t will myself to get out of bed on a Saturday morning and queue up for the mad scramble to the limited-edition vinyl RSD display and the subsequent wrestling match/feeding frenzy for the store’s one copy of Nirvana’s Hormoaning—which would be flipped mere minutes later on Ebay for five times the original list price. I don’t need records that bad.

I did the Record Store Day thing last year. I hit a local shop (not one I normally frequent, but the one closest to home), thinking I’d easily get my hands on a couple RSD exclusives I wanted. I got there just before the store opened only to find a mob of about 40 people massing at the store's entrance. It looked like Walmart on Black Friday—albeit on a smaller scale, though the crowd was just as pathetically dressed. Anyway, most of what I had come for had already been snapped up by the time I squeezed inside. I still managed to acquire a handful of records I was interested in and picked up some decently priced non-RSD used records as well.

However, most of the hour I spent in the store was focused on observing the activity and behavior at the dedicated RSD-exclusive vinyl display. One fashionably disheveled dork indiscriminately grabbed one of every release and then walked off with a massive stack toward the counter, where he flipped through his bounty and cast aside the ones he didn’t want—which themselves would get snatched up by circling vultures who had followed him. It was ridiculous. Mostly what I witnessed was disappointment from late arrivals (i.e., the sad sacks who got to the shop 10 minutes after it had opened) and found the RSD carcass virtually picked clean of its exclusives—save for those Hole 10-inches, overpriced Wilco box sets and assorted other major label crap. Another observation: most RSD shoppers never left the RSD quarantine area to browse the store’s impressive (though mostly overpriced) vinyl inventory, as well as the small section devoted to the remainders (or dregs) of 2009’s Record Store Day.

I admit it: I have record problem. I have a fairly large collection of LPs, 7-inches, 10-inches, etc., and I’m always tempted by events such as Record Store Day. But the corresponding ugly consumerism, greed and Ebay flipping that accompany this special day are a real turn-off. Don’t get me wrong—I’m all for events that help preserve the dying business of the record store. I just don’t wish to be part of the collector scum scrum.

Tales from the Thrift Store

For 2010, I resolved to do my record shopping at the thrift store. It wasn’t so much a financial decision—though I saved a few bucks in doing so—but a fun experiment to see what I could unearth or be turned on to. In this age of instant gratification, music can be had with a simple click or tap, and elusive records are within easy grasp on eBay. But for me, and I’m sure most every other record collector, the hunt is just as thrilling as getting your grubby hands on that desired LP.

Ever since I started shopping at thrift stores in college, I would always thumb through the records. Occasionally, I’d find something worth spending 50 cents or a dollar on. But never had I considered the second-hand store to be my main source of music. And for good reason: If you’ve shopped for music at Goodwill, Salvation Army, Value Village, et al., you know that most of what they have is the pop culture waste of previous generations. The Al Hirts. The Andy Williames. The Art Garfunkels. That and much worse: Grandma’s crappy classical collection? Check. Ten copies of Firestone Christmas? Check. Ferrante and Teicher? Check. Mitch Miller? Check. All that crap, no matter which day or what store—the thrift store is where the bad records go to die. So I knew that getting some decent LPs was going to be a hell of a task.

You're likely familiar with the smell of thrift store. It’s not a good smell. Yet, every time the musty-dusty scent of the second-hand shop greeted me at the door, anticipation would pulse through my arteries, so excited I was by the prospect of finding some forgotten castoff or maybe a decent copy of a well-known favorite. Mostly, though, after rummaging through the usual detritus of moldy oldies, that feeling would soon yield to disappointment, and I’d inevitably leave empty-handed. But undaunted. If it’s treasure you’re hunting in the junk store, well, you have to be patient and persistent. Even then, you’ve got to be lucky, and on several occasions over the last year, I got lucky.

For these next several posts I am sharing some of the highlights of my 2010 vinyl thrifting. Have a look.

Today’s entry is Dark of Light (Buddah) by Norman Connors.

I won’t lie to you, I had no idea who Norman Connors was prior to seeing his face look back at me from the dusty stacks at a Value Village (location classified). Upon close examination of the LP’s cover, though, I saw that the record features a who’s who of jazz luminaries, including Herbie Hancock, saxophonist Gary Bartz, bassist Cecil McBee, trumpeter Eddie Henderson, et al. (a good sign) and was recorded in 1973 (an even better sign—I’ll get to that in a moment). Seeing that the actual vinyl was far better shape than its well-worn (or well-loved) only made me happier. Indeed, I had high expectations for this record, expectations which were easily surmounted once I dropped the needle on it.

Dark of Light comes from an era when jazzbos, be they avant-gardists, hard boppers or free jazzniks, explored the outer limits of electric funk, drifted off into mystical meditations, freaked out in the cosmos or improvised deep into the unknown. It was an interesting period for jazz—at least to my ears. A time before all that sonic exploration was synthesized and diluted into the catch-all commercial ghetto of fusion (bad fusion, Weather Report/Return to Forever-style fusion). Accordingly, what flooded from my speakers were sounds both exciting and expected (not a bad thing): cosmic, mystical jazz, a head trip of mood- and mind-altering mellow gorgeousness and ecstatic fire, tugging grooves that bubble up to the surface, and some truly inspired improvisations.

Dark of Light was Norman Connors’ first album as a leader, but he was hardly a newcomer. Connors, a drummer, most notably created percussive thunder behind two jazz legends, Archie Shepp and Pharaoh Sanders. As his solo career progressed, though, he changed his tune from jazz to more commercial-friendly R&B, creating super-smooth soundtracks for singers such as Michael Henderson and Phyllis Hyman, scoring several hits late into the ’70s. However, if I come across any of those records in my future thrifting, I’ll leave them well enough alone.

Welcome Back, Wanda

First it was Loretta Lynn. Now Jack White is bringing out singer Wanda Jackson for another bow. The rockabilly queen has a new album out, The Party Ain’t Over—which was produced by White and released this week on his Third Man label. And the record is actually quite good, a hillbilly hootenanny of country, rockabilly and gospel, energized by Jackson’s signature voice and matchless spirit. She’s still got it, all right. (Check out an interview with Jackson and listen to the album at NPR).

I interviewed Jackson nine years ago in advance of a Seattle appearance at the Tractor Tavern. It was indeed a career highlight for me. We talked by phone for about 45 minutes. She was awesome, and I was pretty pleased with the resulting story I wrote for the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (though I might have gotten her age wrong). So in celebration of her return to the fore, I give you my short feature on Wanda Jackson.

March 15, 2002

Club Beat: Jackson Still Blazing a Rockabilly Trail

By JOE EHRBAR
SPECIAL TO THE POST-INTELLIGENCER

In his book The Unsung Heroes of Rock 'n' Roll, author Nick Tosches declares rockabilly queen Wanda Jackson to be "simply and without contest, the greatest menstruating rock 'n' roll singer whom the world has ever known."

No truer words have been put so eloquently, if crassly. Jackson is a rock pioneer. She is living, screaming, guitar-strumming history who turned country on its head and broke new ground in the 1950s with a feisty growl and signature songs like "Fujiyama Mama," "Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad," "Mean Mean Man" and "Let's Have a Party." The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame may snub her, but the historical and cultural weight of her music cannot be denied.

At 62, Jackson is still at it, performing with a vigor and abandon that betray her age. Whether preaching to the faithful in concert halls in Sweden or reaching out to young converts in American clubs such as Seattle's Tractor Tavern, where she's set to appear on Wednesday along with the Donettes (9 p.m.; $12), Jackson is all too eager to share the raunchy gospel of rockabilly.

Jackson exudes just as much enthusiasm when telling her story. Speaking to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer by phone last week, Jackson recounted what it was like to be a teen star, to work with Elvis Presley, to pave the way for rock 'n' roll as a woman before later being paved over, to be rediscovered in Europe and finally recognized in her own country.

"It's been a heady trip for this old lady," summed up Jackson with a chuckle.

Jackson's trip began in Oklahoma City in the 1950s. Just in high school, she was discovered on a radio show by country star Hank Thompson, who got her signed to Decca Records. Jackson soon charted her first hit, in 1954, a duet with Thompson's bandleader, Billy Gray, titled "You Can't Have My Love." Upon graduation, the budding star, chaperoned by her father, piled into the family car and motored onto the concert trail, never to look back.

Jackson logged thousands of miles with her father in those early days, performing on one multiact caravan after another. While it was exciting, her life was anything but glamorous. "It was harder in those days when you' re just starting out," Jackson said. "We had to travel by car mostly. I didn't make enough money to fly.

"I used to have to put on my stage clothes in service station restrooms," she continued. "Some of them were so bad, I'd have to stand up on the toilet stool lids."

It was on one of those tours that Jackson met Presley, himself a newcomer, recording rockabilly songs for tiny Sun Records. The two became friends, and later dated. "Elvis was always an exciting person to be around. He had charisma. I always looked forward to working with him. We dated when we could on the road. He asked me to be his girl and wear his ring, and I did."

Jackson's relationship with Presley marked a turning point in her career. At Presley's urging, Wanda went rockabilly. "My dad and Elvis just lit in on me that I needed to be doing this music," she said. "Elvis kept saying it was gonna be the next big thing. I could tell that by working with him, with all the girls screaming."

"It took me a while to get the nerve to do it," said Jackson, "but I found some songs." She also found her voice, well described by Tosches as "a wild fluttering thing of sexy subtleties and sudden harshness, feral feline purrings and raving banshee shriekings." In 1956, Jackson and her wicked set of pipes helped usher in rock's golden age by cooking up a spicy number called "Hot Dog! That Made Him Mad." "Fujiyama Mama" and "Mean, Mean Man" followed in 1957 and 1958.

As groundbreaking as they were, these bombshells fell on deaf ears. "I couldn't get any airplay," Jackson said. "No one seemed to recognize what I was doing. America wasn't ready for a girl hollering, singing this raunchy, soulful and exciting music." Ironically, Japan was. "Fujiyama Mama" went No. 1 there in 1958, despite its politically incorrect lyrics: "I been to Nagasaki/Hiroshima too/The things I did to them, baby/I can do to you."

Jackson's big moment in the States came in 1960, when "Let's Have a Party" screamed up the charts with all the unbridled glee of a party blower on New Year's Eve. Its successors "Right or Wrong" and "Riot on Cell Block #9" kept up the front, though by this point, Jackson had all but abandoned rockabilly. "I gave it a run, and then had to kind of back down into country to get airplay and keep my name out there so that I could work."

Jackson rode out the 1960s as a commercially successful country singer. But when she felt a tug to do gospel music after converting to Christianity, her label, Capitol, wouldn't hear of it, so ending their relationship and Jackson's days on the charts.

Then in the 1985, spurred on by a rockabilly revival in Europe, Jackson made a comeback and started touring and recording again. America, late to the party as ever, rediscovered Jackson in the mid-1990s as the rise of insurgent country and reissues of her work (such as Capitol's 1996 anthology Vintage Collections) increased awareness of the singer. Jackson has since been in hot demand and she spends many of her days as she did when she was just starting out — on the road. This time, however, she's usually flying first class.

"I'm always coming and going," Jackson said. "That's my life and I love it. It's the only life I know. It has probably taken its toll. I tell people, 'When you look at me, just remember, maybe it's not the age but the mileage.'"

Case of the Half-Written Blues

I've got a bunch of new posts in the hopper for the new year. Sadly, this is not one of them. No, the new stuff just isn't quite there yet. So while I agonize over the nascent posts, I thought I'd tide you over with the covers of two uncommonly awful recent thrift store acquisitions. Dig in.

James Lockridge Sings Joy in My Heart (1974)

James' love interest on this record is ... Jesus. But of course.

The Wheeler Family City of Gold (197?)

Looks like a perfectly innocent album of Christian gospel hymns sung by a pleasantly homely and inept quartet of siblings, until ...


... you take a gander at the back cover. This is the Wheeler Family's "Dad" as he appears on the back cover. Kind of makes Murry Wilson or that puppeteer father of the sisters Shagg seem almost rational, reasonable, loving even.

In Death Gerry Rafferty Gets Last Laugh

Gerry Rafferty's pickled liver finally walked off the job this week, so denying any further comeback attempt or call for one last round by its owner. While this might be seen as tragic (how can death deny a very thirsty man a final drink ... or two dozen?), few of us are shedding tears about Gerry's slightly premature checkout. Some of us are even laughing -- because the accidental prankster hit the road toward the great gig in the sky and left us with the master tapes to "Baker Street," whose distinctive porno sax solo, with its stained sheets of sound, is sure to ooze into the sleazy motels of our minds for many years to come. Damn you, Gerry! What a kidder.