COVER THE EARTH Vol. 6

I had not planned on compiling another selection of odd ethnic covers of Western hits, thinking that I had exhausted that particular well, but our pals over at the Growing Bored For A Living blog hit us with a treasure trove of exotic, unlikely reworkings of famous songs that you thought you were sick of, and it just demanded another volume. Which reminded me of some comments left in previous "Cover The Earth" posts offering suggestions, which I then tracked down. And I did have a few new discoveries me own self (I take full blame for the bagpipes). As with the previous volumes, some extreme liberties have been taken with the material, sometimes rendering them almost unrecognizable. Just the way we like it.

So thanks to Growing Bored (check the mammoth Bob Dylan cover project), and the nice Maniacs who suggested some suggestions. 

 "Cover The Earth Vol 6"

01 2Cellos - Welcome to the Jungle (Croatia/classical)
02 Red Hot Chili Pipers [that's PIPERS! Not "Peppers"] - We Will Rock You/Eye Of The Tiger/The Clumsy Lover (Scottish bagpipes)
03 Pastel Vespa - L'Anarchie dans l'U.K. (The Sex Pistols go French yeh-yeh, tho Ms. Vespa is Brazilian)
04 20th Century Steel Band - Loves Theme (Barry White goes Carib steel drum)
05 Don Sornrabeab - Mao (Drunk) (Play That Funky Music, Thai boy)
06 Alyssa ZezZA - Purple Rain (Italian singer, but a Brazilian bossa style here)
07 Ray Barretto - James Bond Theme (Latin jazz)
08 Red Hot Chili Pipers - Smoke on the Water/Thunderstruck/Upside down at Eden's Court
09 The Maytals - Give Peace A Chance (John goes Jamaican)
10 Finger 5 - I Want You Back (Jacksons go J-pop)
11 Isaya Mwinamo & His Merry Men - Bamba Ya Afrika ("La Bamba" in Kenya)
12 Joya Landis - Kansas City ('50s rock-n-roll inna ska stylee)
13 20th Century Steel Band - Theme From Shaft
14 Pastel Vespa - Blue Monday (a bit of Joy Division also cleverly cuts into this Brazilian bossa nova cover)
15 Los Tropicanos - Light My Fire (think these guys are also Brazilian, but I wouldn't call this bossa nova; 'Latin psych,' maybe?)
16 Ukulele Clan Band - Money for Nothing (Spanish folkies getting kinda bluegrass-y; hey, they kept the original un-PC lyrics)
17 Faye Wong - Dream Person (Chinese Canto-pop cover of The Cranberries' "Dreams")
18 Red Hot Chili Pipers - Hey Jude/The Mason's Apron

"THE BANYAN TREE": Groovy '60s Soundtrack to A Lost Film

Hello, and welcome to another episode of "Mysteries...of the Mysterious." I am your host Mr. E. Train. Today, we shall explore the baffling riddle of a film from the late 1960s entitled the "The Banyan Tree." A film so obscure that it is not mentioned on IMDB, or anywhere else on the internet. Indeed, the only proof of its' existence is three curious 45 rpm records, six songs total. 

Alex Burton of Dallas' KRLD radio

And what swell, swingin' sides they are indeed. Up-beat go-go beats, snappy horn charts, Beach Boys harmonies, sitars...the Now Sound for the "Now Generation." How could anyone not love a band called The Pickle Platter doing "Chant of the Dead Temples." (What the hell was this film about anyway?!). Or the absurd title song: "Hey hey hey, Mr Holy Man!...send me on a trip, around my mind!"  It's safe to say that The Apple Corps, the Puget Sound and The Pickle Platter were not real bands, but studio concoctions.

If YOU have any idea who are the forgotten talents behind this music, let us know. Because the daughter of Dallas, TX radio man Alex Burton inherited these historical oddities from her fur-coat clad father, was suitably impressed, and put them all up on the youtubes in the hopes that maybe someone out there knows something about the film and these records and can fill us in.

The only clue is in on the record label: "Marty Young Productions." Apparently they were a small Dallas TX film production house formed in 1967 that made religious films, educational shorts, etc. The film probably had something to do with India.

"The Banyan Tree" (6 songs)

Not everything is on the internet. There are still things we do not, perhaps were not meant to know. Is this yet another mystery...of the mysterious?

JAMES LAST "VOODOO PARTY"

By request, "America's Most Nonsensical Band," The Korn Kobblers", are back on-line. This time using Google Drive, the latest candidate in my search for a good file-sharing platform. For those of you keeping score at home: Rapidshare and Div-Share are no more, Mediafire removed all of my files, Zippyshare suddenly decided to stop being cooperative, and when I tried The Box, it got mixed reviews from you-all. So the most recent posts have been using Google Drive. Yay or nay?

The Grim Reaper has been a busy mutha lately, hasn't he? Ornette Coleman, Christopher Lee, and now apparently we've seen the last of James Last. The German E-Z maestro has been a familiar face in the bargain bins for years, but one of his albums is actually quite sought-after by record collectors, and no wonder - it's the weirdest thing he did, and the most out-there album by a supposedly easy-listening artist since the 101 Strings infamous "Astro-Sounds From Beyond The Year 2000" space-age extravaganza. 

"Voodoo Party" is a strange beast of no known musical genre, which is quite an admirable feat in itself. Covers of such non-EZ artists as Sly & The Family Stone and Marvin Gaye are mixed with originals, almost all smothered in tons of manic percussion. And then amidst all the bongo fury, there's "Mr. Giant Man," which has to be the greatest children's '70s glam rock stomper ever. It all leads up to "Voodoo Ladys Love," a kitch-adelic spectacular that has to be heard to be believed. 

Far too upbeat and loud to be exotica, too brass-band/schalger to be rock-n-roll, "Voodoo Party" may not have much to do with any African-derived Haitian religions, but it certainly is a party. Funky funk! Moogy Moogs! Santana covers! EZ vocal choirs! And a version of "Babalu" that Ricky Ricardo would not recognize. R.I.P. Herr Last.


JAMES LAST "VOODOO PARTY" (1971)

Music For People Who Really, Really Really Like to Limbo Dance

Does anybody still dance the limbo? You know, you bend over backwards to shimmy under an ever-lowering pole, to the catchy strains of calypso music.  Don't know if any actual Caribbean peoples did the limbo, but plenty of post-war suburbanites who'd sipped a bit too much rum sure did. And this has to be one of the strangest artifacts of the limbo craze - a instrumental version of the hit Chubby Checker song "Limbo Rock" stretched out for the length of an entire album. Hollywood session vet Billy Strange (that's his guitar on Nancy Sinatra's "Bang Bang," among a million other credits) and his crew keep things interesting throughout, with funky percussion breaks, and exotica-like atmospheric interludes featuring grown men a-whoopin' and a-hollerin'. There's plenty of soloing, ranging from cool jazzy to almost rock 'n' roll. 

Exotica music is fine and dandy for polite cocktail sipping, but when the drinks kick in, what are you gonna dance to, eh, eh?  I'll tell you what: "Limbo Rock pt 1" and "Limbo Rock, pt 2".  For those moments when you want to, quite literally, drink someone under the table.

Billy Strange and Telstars - Limbo Rock

Now if only a band called Billy Strange and the Limbo Rock did an album-length version of "Telstar"...

Bandcamp Is The New Cassette Culture 4

Continuing our survey of new music you can listen to, and in many cases, download for free on Bandcamp.com, we fly off to exotic lands. It is the depths of winter now, so I felt a tropical vacation was in order. 

And this first album is especially timely, as it features Evan Crankshaw from the great  "Flash Strap" blog, who just debuted his all-exotica radio show, "The Explorer's Room" last week. 

The Cumberland County Mean Gang "Crashing Waves"

Starts off a bit New Age-y, but track #3 "Slave Trade" is really great psychedelic exotica that sounds like it was played on your grandma's electric organ after someone spiked her Ensure with mescaline; it dovetails nicely right into the next track, which is almost 9 minutes of pure lysergic abandon. "Under The Jungle" does indeed sport jungle ambiance, tho the music is more Jean-Michel Jarre '70s-type electronica than Martin Denny. It's melody is re-used in the next track, a Giorgio Morodor-on-cheap-ass-Casios techno-dance stomper. The most excellent "Ritual of Flight" begins with theremin- ish electronics, followed by haunted-house organ...and exotic bird calls?  Just what kind of spook show is this, anyway? Was happy to hear grandma's psychedelic organ again on track 8. Price: Name Your Price. And enjoy your flight.

The Mad Drummer - from South Africa, but sounding more Zappa than Zulu. The inverse of Paul Simon and Vampire Weekend? A lot better than them, that's for sure. All 6 songs are good, but for someone who calls himself a mad drummer, the synthetic drums are the one (minor) fault I find with this. Price: $3.

Boolz "S.O.S.[Slovvd-n-Chopped]" - Also from South Africa comes this trippy dub electronica. I like the bugged-out VV3?K [SLOWD-N-CHXPPXD]  Price: Name Your Price

Some comps that will keep you busy and dancing for days: 

Peru Maravilloso: "Vintage Latin Tropical Cumbia"

Analog Africa - 21 albums!  Haven't listened to all of them, but I can def recommend "African Scream Contest" - just don't buy the line about it being "psychedelia." It's James Brown-ish funk and West African highlife, and what's wrong with that? Can we stop throwing the word 'psychedelic' around so much?  It's getting to be as meaningless a term as 'experimental.' And be sure to read this as you dig the crate diggin' sounds of Analog Africa: Dusty African Grooves.

VOODOO DANCE DOLL: 1950s/60s Rock'n'Roll Exotica

Bongos in the Congo!  Apes in the jungle! Tikis, cannibals, and witch doctors! Grown men making tropical bird calls! Sound familiar? But this ain't no jazzy Martin Denny-style exotica for grown-ups' cocktail parties. No, my teen-age hoodlum friends, this sampler of exotic rock (rock-xotica?) + relevant soundbites marks this blogs' return to weekend-starting sleazy-listening sounds from the Golden Age of Cool. As with the first collection that kicked off this on-again/off-again project, many of these tracks were recorded off my vinyl, songs that hopefully have not been featured on similar comps like the "Jungle Exotica" series. My records are in various states of preservation, so I did track down some digital replacements when available. But most of this is out-of-print wax whose occasional pops and cracks can be thought of as the crunching of jungle undergrowth beneath the furious feet of Watusi exotic dancers (in all senses of the phrase).

Ingredients: surf rock, doo-wop, rhythm 'n' blues, novelties, some actual ethnic peoples, movie clips, radio ads, excerpts from a record meant to accompany a slideshow or filmstrip about the Congo, Africa (unfortunately, it did not contain the visuals), and some loungey things, but with a backbeat. There are a few well-known hit-makers here like Eartha Kitt, the Dave Clark Five, and Santo & Johnny, but as these records are from the gloriously unself-conscious pre-rock critic era*, many of these artists have been lost to the mists of history. 

Voodoo Dance Doll - an M4M Collection.zip

01 congo slideshow- weekend dance
02 Mel Taylor & The Magics - Bongo Rock
03 The Vistas - Tiki Twist
04 Leni Okehu and his Surfboarders - Hawaiian People Eater
05 Eartha Kitt - Honolulu Rock And Roll
06 congo slideshow - superstition dance
07 Muvva Hubbard & the Stompers Congo Mombo
08 "Alligator Man"
09 The Dave Clark Five - Chaquita
10 The Pyramids - 
Koko Joe
11 "100 Percent Gorilla"
12 The Rocking Vickers - I Go Ape
13 Billy Mure - Tabu
14 congo slideshow - witch doctor
15 Werner Hass - Oh-ee-oh-ah-ah
16 Dick Dale & The Del-Tones - Jungle Fever
17 Jerry & Mel - Cannibal stew
18 "Zombie Island Massacre" - Zombie Attacks Honeymooners
19 congo slideshow - drumming
20 Mel Taylor & The Magics - Drums A Go-Go
21 Thurl Ravenscroft - Dr Geek From Tanganyika
22 Buddy Morrow And His Orchestra - One-Two-Three-Kick (The Original Conga) pt1.
23 Roger Craig - Song of India
24 The Fugitives - Human Jungle
25 Bela's "Jungle Hell"
26 Roy Estrada and The Rocketeers-Jungle Dreams Part 2 
27 Busby Lewis - Jerk
28 Susan King-Drum Rhythm
29 Yngve stoor - Hula Rock
30 Perez Prado - Cuban Rock
31 Leni Okehu and his Surfboarders - Hawaiian Rock
32 Freddy Cannon - Everybody Monkey
33 Johnny and Santo - Caravan
34 congo slideshow - watusi
35 Big Walter and the Thunderbirds _ Watusie Freeze part 1
36 "shrunken heads" ad
37 Buddy Morrow And His Orchestra - One-Two-Three-Kick (The Original Conga) pt2
38 Marti Barris - Ahbe Casabe
39 Sandy Nelson - Casbah 

Thanks to Count Otto for the Rockin' Vicars!

*Cartoonist/record collector Robert Crumb has described the early rock he really liked as "proletariat," and indeed, there may be some class-ism behind the critical dismissal of so much rock prior to the mid-'60s: once rock scrubbed off all of that honky-tonk/ghetto stank and adopted such middle-class, college-educated features as "poetic" lyrics and classical European influences, then it finally merited the status of High Art. But of course, the music wasn't really improved so much as it simply changed - from fun, funny, energetic, sexy, and atmospheric to...not as much. Rock didn't get better, it just moved to the suburbs.

COVER THE EARTH Vol. 5

When will it end?!  Still more bizarre international ethnic versions of Western pop hits. And by 'ethnic' I also mean American and European styles like bluegrass (# 6) and polka. Also: several Trinidad steel drum tracks (# 1, 9, and 18); the Moog hit "Popcorn" played as a South American chicha; Guns'n'Roses go cumbia; The Buggles go Bollywood; a jazz classic performed on sitars and tablas. And wasn't Bob Marley a lot more fun in the '60s, when he was covering the Archies?

COVER THE EARTH Vol. 5

1. Amral's Trinidad Cavaliers - The World is A Ghetto
2. Arsenio Rodriguez & the Afro Cuban Sound - Hang on Sloopy
3. Bappi Lahiri - Auva Auva ("Video Killed The Radio Star"/India)
4. Bob Marley - Sugar Sugar
5. Brave Combo - Double Vision cha cha
6. Bruce Hornsby-Ricky Skaggs - Superfreak
7. Cachicamo con Caspa y Leiko el perro de la IIIII dimension -Sweet Child o' Mine (Venezuela)
8. Chang Loo - Jambalaya (Hank Williams/China)
9. Esso Steelband - I Want You Back 
10. Jimmy Sturr - Splish Splash polka
11. Kiyohiko Senba and his Haniwa All Stars - Kono Mune no Tokimeki o  ("You Don't Have To Say You Love Me")
12. Lelu Thaert - Dance Soul (Booker T & The MGs "Hip Hug Her"/Cambodia)
13. Lennie Hibbert - Nature Boy ("It Was A Very Good Year"/Jamaica)
14. Los Tropicanos - My Sweet Lord (Brasil)
15. Petty Booka - Girls Just Want to Have Fun (Japan/Ja-waiin)
16. Chicha Libre - Popcorn Andino (Gershon Kingsley's "Popcorn"/Peru-USA)
17. Sachal Studios Orchestra - Take Five (Dave Brubeck/Pakistan)
18. Sapodilla Punch - Hold on I'm Coming
19. The Polka Floyd Show - Another Brick in the Wall

In case you missed 'em:
Vol. 1
Vol. 2
Vol. 3
Vol. 4

FILTHY FRIDAY: An Album By The Munsters That Isn't By The Munsters, But By The Go-Gos, But Not Those Go-Gos

Someone on the internet sez:

"THE MUNSTERS-  "The Munsters" TV show characters are only pictured on the cover, along with their cool George Barris designed 'Munster Koach' custom car, but do not appear on this scarce novelty cash-in, performed uncredited mostly by RCA records surf trio, The Go-Go's: Jim Infield; Roger Yorke, and Bill Wild, pre-Ruben and The Jets. Produced by Joe Hooven & Hal Winn, the guys behind Johnny Crawford's hits, & who later founded the Double-Shot label. Decca Mono."

Much of this week's assortment of mid-century lowbrow entertainment isn't sleazy at all. Actually this monster- themed amalgamation of surf, hot rod, novelty, bubblegum, and garage rock is pretty kiddie-friendly and wholesome. The utterly ridiculous "Frankenstein Had A Hot Rod Car" lives up to that boss song title, with lyrics that mention Beatle wigs, and surfing (Frankie "hangs 12"), all set to the tune of "Ol' McDonald had A Farm." 

But then we have the burlesque bump-n-grind of "Vampire Vamp," which doesn't seem appropriate for children, even with goofy Chipmunks voices added. "Eerie Beach" is an exotica instrumental, complete with birds calls, that isn't eerie or horrific at all. Both were probably leftover tracks the producers had lying around and threw in for filler. Hooray for filler! Theremin-ish electronics and sound effects pop up from time to time. And the last three tracks get down to raunchy garage rockin' (with xylophone) business. Hey, turns out this Friday might be a bit filthy after all.

"The Munsters - The Munsters"

A1	Munster Creep	2:35
A2	Frankenstein Had A Hot-Rod Car	2:26
A3	$1.98 King Size Voodoo Kit	2:03
A4	Vampire Vamp	1:50
A5	Herman's Place	2:15
A6	(Here Comes The) Munster Coach	1:55
B1	T.V. Monster Show	2:07
B2	Eerie Beach	2:13
B3	Make It Go Away	2:10
B4	You Created A Monster	2:07
B5	Ride The Midnight Special	1:46
B6	Down In The Basement

The Psychedelic Exotica of The Orient Express

Namaste! I was interviewed recently by the very nice DJ Jess at BreakThruRadio. And our pal Count Otto is back: "The Orient Express took the hippy trope of bunging sitars on your albums willy-nilly because George Harrison thought it was a good idea to its perfectly logical extreme and recruited actual Indians, amongst other nationalities, as fully integrated members of the group. Ironically this made their music too exotic for the US market, and they ended up as an obscure footnote to the psychedelic scene. But did any other sixties band sound quite like this? I think you'll agree that more of them should have."

I certainly agree. This oddity is a fascinating bit of rock-xotica. Were there any bona-fide Indians in the band? Discogs sez: "Guy Duris was actually born on the Left Bank and later met Farshid Golesorkhi, who had been decorated by the Shah of Iran for his drumming and was interested in applying Eastern rhythms to Western music, in Iran. They met Bruno Giet, a Belgian pilot and guitarist, in Paris while traveling around Europe. Soon the three members headed for America and settled in New York's East Village initially but ended up in California where their album was recorded."  So it appears that they were European and Iranian, but jumped on the raga-rock bandwagon. Audiences weren't so hung up on 'authenticity' back then. They probably thought: hey, they're still "foreigners," so what dif does it make? 

It really doesn't make any difference. Good music is good music, and this is some good stuff, as traditional hand percussion meets drum kits, and stringed things (lutes? mandolins?) rock like guitars. Remarkably free of kitsch, it's an organic mixture of all original songs, unlike those goofy (if amusing) sitar-sploitation albums. I esp. dig the proto-kraut drone of "Layla" (not the Derek and the Dominoes one) and the furious funkiness of "Azar" and "Train To Bombay." And "A Little Star" is solid bubblegum. Surely The Monkees could have used this, perhaps in an episode of their TV show where they meet with a guru or sumthin?

The Orient Express (1969)

Continued thanks to Count Otto Black for his unearthing of '60s garage/psych rarities.