Here’s another edition of the earliest Old Schools! No themes, just a hodgepodge of glistening but aging vinyl that stayed under the radar of mass popularity.
For Episode 4, we touch down in Kim Fowley’s humid and dismal Los Angeles by night. Luckily we have the Popsicles to cool us off. Then we dial it back to Chicago in the DiMaggio summer, where Lil Green has scored some pre-war weed. Finally, we end up on a mystic mountaintop with Eric Burdon’s New Animals, who have come seeking enlightened. If you meet the Buddha on the road, he’s bound to have a podcast!
CLOSER TO THE TRUTH Eric Burdon and the New Animals
Three songs from different eras and the unique mindsets have only one commonality. They have their own particular oddball quirkiness. They weren’t intended as novelty songs and yet…pretty darn novel.
Ray Bryant was a solid jazz cat who had a modest hit with the Madison Time in 1960. Then the song realized the dream of a second coming. For this one, it was in the unlikely hit Hairspray (1988). Then it got yet another boost when the movie became a musical then came back as another movie in 2007!
Here’s the video from the first movie, a rarity from a 1960 local dance show, and and instructional DVD feature because you can’t sit down!
SPAZZ The Elastik Band
The Elastik Band provided a politically incorrect low for the psychedelic era in 1967. Tasteless as it is, it does enjoy a groove of sorts, a one hit wonder destined for the boneyard.
Which takes us to a Texas rocking lone star who was hitting the Billy Idol look in the ancient Fifties. Ronnie Dawson was Ronnie Dee for his first record, “Action Packed” in 1958. For his second song in 1959 he was already fretting at least his teen mortality. But like Ray Bryant, Ronnie Dawson had a fabulous second act, touring rockabilly crazed Europe in the 1980s! He’d seen the needle in the stylus and the damage done!
“The past is a blast.”
Remember, you can hear the podcast at the top of the page. While you are there you can download this episode to cozy up next to your other podcasts. Also you can arrange to have Old School delivered directly to that app. So if you pull the email plug for a while you wit miss any episodes!
It’s the madison time hit it You're lookin' good -A big strong line When I say hit it,I want you to go two up and twoBack with a big strong turnAnd back to the madisonHit itta(Instrumental)You're lookin' goodNow when I say hit it,I want you to go two up and twoBack double crossCome out of it with the riflemanHit itta(Instrumental)CrazyNow when I say hit I want the strong"M" erase it and back to the madisonHit it(Instrumental)Walk on you're lookin' good(Instrumental)Now then when I say hit, it'll be "T" time(Instrumental)Hit it(Instrumental)Big strong lineNow when I say hit it I want the big strongCleveland box and back to the madison(Instrumental)Hit it(Instrumental)CrazyNow when I say hit it,I want the big strong basketballWith the Wilt Chamberlain hook(Instrumental)Hit it -- 2 pointsNow this time when I say hit it,I want the big strongJackie Gleason and back to the madison(Instrumental)Hit it - and away we goNow then when I say hit, birdland 'til I say stopHit it -- how 'bout a little stiff leg there?You're lookin' goodNow when I say hit it come out of the birdland back to the madison(Instrumental)Hit it - crazyWhen I say hit it, go 2 up and 2 back double cross and freezeHit it(Instrumental)And hold it right thereComments
For fifty years, I’ve been bewildered. Why wasn’t “Feel Older Now” by The Phlorescent Leech and Eddie (Flo and Eddie y’all) a huge hit of 1972, like Neil Young’s “Heart of Gold” or Roberta Flacks’s “The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face.”
It is joyous, it is mad, it is weird. Maybe that affected the record sales. Also there was the blossoming of the Watergate scandal. Who had time for two refugees from the power pop giants The Turtles, Mark Volman and Howard Kaylan? Clearly they had moved on from lollipops and roses hits like “Happy Together.”
Clearly, Mark and Howard had taken the LSD Frank Zappa had offered them, grown their beards out sloppy, and adopted the scuzzy hippie look of their new band, The Mothers of Invention.
Yes they smoked pot in the Lincoln bedroom. They may have imbibed a bit during the sessions for this blasting ballad that features the whimsy of growing old backed by bitterness, regret, and amplifiers stacked to the moon.
FEEL OLDER NOW Phlorescent Leech and Eddie
Just under 130 million in album sales. Horror actor Vincent Price on Michael Jackson’s Thriller: 70 million. Alice Cooper: 58 million. Turtles: 1/2 million.
I talk about seeing Jackie Wilson in person on a golden oldie tour in the podcast. What a presence. Wilson was an incredible performer who brought such passion and joy to his music. The video is him doing one of gymnasium nation’s greatest hits. In the show is his professional debut from 1956. Jackie wails. As Van Morrison said, “Jackie Wilson Said (I’m in Heaven When You Smile)”.
Wrapping OS#6 we have a great tune from the industrial pioneers led by Genesis P-Orridge and Casey Fanni Tutti. They began life as COUM Transmission, and performed as Death Factory before hitting on the name we remember them for.
All this energy destroys me Killing my security Sitting here you make me shiver Sitting here I lose all fear Making love in different places Jealousy brings you So near
It still helps me be happy It still helps make me free Yet it still helps me be happyA And it still helps made me free
I am split in different placesI am split from everythingYet it still helps make me happySitting with adrenalinAnd it still helps make me happySitting with adrenalin
Can I be alive once more?Sitting with adrenalinSitting with adrenalinSitting with adrenalinSitting with adrenalin
The educational underground pirate radio Old School podcast with Professor Mikey featuring rarities, stories, and surprises from the last half of the 20th century. A eclectic variety of discovery for newer music lovers, a reconnection for the rest of us, present in a theme format that thinks outside the album cover. Rock, country, blues, and anything else that might have captured the 20th century imagination, updated for a newer audience while remaining a comfort to older rockers.
Professor Mikey spent over 50,000 hours in various broadcast booths in 60-some markets, taking to the air at 16 a couple of months before The Beatles released Revolver. He rocked, informed, and amused his listeners in six different decades. Old School is his attempt to put it all together in a great set. He is confirmed AM-FM Positive.
The educational underground pirate radio Old School podcast with Professor Mikey featuring rarities, stories, and surprises from the last half of the 20th century. A eclectic variety of discovery for newer music lovers, a reconnection for the rest of us, present in a theme format that thinks outside the album cover. Rock, country, blues, and anything else that might have captured the 20th century imagination, updated for a newer audience while remaining a comfort to older rockers.
Professor Mikey spent over 50,000 hours in various broadcast booths in 60-some markets, taking to the air at 16 a couple of months before The Beatles released Revolver. He rocked, informed, and amused his listeners in six different decades. Old School is his attempt to put it all together in a great set. He is confirmed AM-FM Positive.
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