Lip-Sync A-Go-Go

According to Marc Weingarten's Station To Station : The Secret History of Rock & Roll on Television (Pocket Books, 2000), musicians first began the practice of lip-synching during television appearances in the 1950s, on the show Alan Freed’s Big Beat. However, even before that, singers on Freed’s live revues were getting into the act, literally acting out performances of whatever chart-buster had landed them a spot on the bill. Record company execs pushed the practice, so that fans need not be disappointed by any departures from already familiar studio versions of hits. Ain't it ironic, then, that this shortcut became even more laughable than whatever "mistakes" would occur from just playing the damn song live. Lip-synching might qualify as one of the earliest attempts by corporate label owners to steer popular music toward bland, marketable uniformity. Anyway, by the 1960s, the practice was rampant. Here are a few funny clips.

First, Bo Diddley lip-syncs to “Let the Kid Dance” on Hollywood A Go Go, sometime during the Duchess' tenure, '62-'65. The camera director should have stayed tight on her, then no one would even have seen Bo's flub. (Bear with this clip for the first 30 or so seconds while host Sam Riddle babbles an introduction.)



The Troggs do "With a Girl Like You." Don't actually know what show this is from. Anyone know?



Count Five. Psychotic Reaction. Ditto what I said about the Troggs.




The Box Tops mouth along to "The Letter" on Upbeat, 1967. Check out organ player John Evans. Look Ma! No hands! I first saw this clip when Robert Gordon showed it on his book tour for It Came From Memphis.



And finally, Keith Moon slips in a little bit of lip-sync sabotage before the infamous explosion on the Smothers Brothers Show.

Charlie Louvin: You can’t sell tobacco with gospel music

Today is Charlie Louvin’s 82nd birthday. (Actually, it was yesterday, by now. Gemini Spacecraft: bringing you the LATEST breaking news all the time!) Anyway, pictured above is Charlie on the left, with his fun-lovin’ brother Ira. Check out Ira’s boots! Man! Would I love to nab a pair as flashy as that some day.



Also pictured is the cover of what is probably the Louvin Brothers’ most famous record, Satan is Real, for my money their greatest collection of gospel performances. If, while listening to this one, you don't feel the spirit, for at least a few minutes anyway, then you're probably doomed. Personal favorites on this album include “The River of Jordan” and “There is a Higher Power.” AA types can put that last one in the jug and chug-a-lug it. I also love their song “Broadminded” (as in “That word, Broadminded, is spelled S-I-N"), but I have only a cassette copy, for which I lack both the means and know-how to digitize.

Spirituals might provide food for the soul, but, like the man say, you can't sell tobacco with gospel music. One of the rockinest Louvin Brothers singles has got to be “Cash on the Barrelhead,” good for a shot of the secular, not to mention sound economic advice. Works on the micro and macro-economic level. Like that tough old telephone operator says on the second verse: “That’ll be cash on the barrelhead, son/ Not part, not half, but the entire sum/ No money down/ No payment plan/ ‘Cause a little bird tells me/ You’re a travelin’ man.”

Warren Oates

Today would have been Warren Oates’ 81st Birthday, had he not gotten his card punched by a heart attack in 1982, at age 53.




Oates was born in Depoy, KY, in the western part of the state, just west of Nebo, but not quite as far as McNary, i.e., in the hillbilly middle o’ nowhere. By the early 50’s he’d landed in New York to starve and struggle. But he did land some theater and television work during those years. Eventually he bagged New York and headed for the coast, and a more successful career in television and film. He appeared in episodes of the TV mystery drama Studio One and various westerns like Have Gun Will Travel, The Rough Riders, Buckskin, and The Black Saddle. In 1960 he played Eddie Diamond in The Rise and Fall of Legs Diamond⎯correct me if I’m wrong, but this seems to be his first feature film role. Eventually Oates hitched up with directors Monte Hellman, Sam Wood, and Sam Peckinpah to appear the classics Two Lane Blacktop, Cockfighter, Ride the High Country, The Wild Bunch, Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia, and In the Heat of the Night, among others. Other greats starring Warren Oates include Race with the Devil (with Peter Fonda) and Dixie Dynamite, just to name a few. And now that Johnny Depp’s face plasters every NY subway station advertising his new movie Public Enemies (which, actually, I kinda want to check out), just remember that Warren Oates did it before in his great, performance in John Milius’ Dillinger, from 1973.

Stoney Burke: Big Man on the Buckin' Horse

Jack London & Warren Oates, from ABC TV series "Stoney Burke," which aired in the years 1962-1963. Other up-and-comers to pass through its various episodes included a young Bruce Dern, Robert Duvall, & Ed Asner.

As described by Susan Compo in her brand new Warren Oates bio "Warren Oates A Wild Life" (University Press of Kentucky, 2009), from an excerpt lifted from Greg Germani's great author interview on WFMU's Beware of the Blog: "Stoney Burke was a surprisingly textured and superior series of its time. Fans of dark motels with blinking neon, dirt streets populated by big cars with small fins (Mercury was a sponsor, touting its new Comet), bus depots, cocktails bars with starlight glitter ceilings, and tailored western wear by way of Beverly Hills found a spiritual home in Stoney."

Hank Ballard & The Midnighters: Who's Afraid of a Greatest Hits LP?

I, for one, ain't scared, not if said long player is actually called “Greatest Juke Box Hits,” as with this collection by Hank Ballard & the Midnighters, on the King label from 1957. An apt title, since several of these singles, like “Get It” and “Work With Me Annie,” originally released on the King imprint Federal during the years 1953-1956, were deemed too raunchy for radio. Still they charted, some of them holding top spots on Billboard’s R&B & Pops, thanks largely to their popularity on the old Rockola.

Gathered together in one place, these songs relate the full saga of that poor “scarlet-lettered” girl Annie, her peculiar line of work, and its fruit. Plus there’s the occasional side or two dedicated to supporting players like “Annie’s Aunt Fanny,” and the protag of “Henry’s Got Flat Feet.”

But, of Annie, subject of song, object of undoing, we must make solemn observance, and ask just what is it makes her so tragically irresistible? She has her “Sexy Ways.” She can wiggle, wiggle, wiggle...upside down, all around, any ol’ way just pow-ow-ow-ound! That’s to say nothing of her ice cream hips and a certain “Switchie Witchie Titchie.” It’s no wonder that for her the streets and juke boxes should ring “24 Hours A Day” with invitations to “Get It,” to take her loving boy’s “love” and not forsake it, sake it, sake it! But it’s not all fun and games when your mama and daddy are away. We all know what happens when the gettin’ gets good. “Annie Had a Baby,” and now she don’t work no more.

Having Fun With Mike Edison

Last night former Raunch Hand, Screw writer, and High Times editor Mike Edison held another book party for his memoir I Have Fun Everywhere I Go (Faber & Faber, 2008), at Frank’s Coctail Lounge, in Fort Greene, Brooklyn. I picked up a copy of the book, but have only skimmed it so far. The reading was real hoot, however, featuring such "savage tales" as “The Warlord,” “Pornography Part I,” “Jews for Jesus,” and one of my favorites, his song “Cocaine Habit Blues,” all performed with the backing of the Space Liberation Army (Jon Spencer & Co). Above is a clip of Mike Edison performing the song in LA at a previous appearance.


All in all a very entertaining night, which my girlfriend summed-up thusly: “He’s living every boy’s dream: writing about strippers and massage parlors, then ranting about it at Frank’s, while Jon Spencer plays guitar.” Yup, pretty much. I gotta add that, as someone who's pretty soured on book publishing, unable to read most current titles, bummed by most bookstores (bitterness/resignation largely caused by my own failures in that racket), it's great to see someone getting such stuff printed these days.

Another highlight last night was a stripped-down set of Lost Crusaders songs by Mike Chandler & guitarist Johnny Vignault.

Rock-A-Teens: Who's Afraid of a Reissue LP?

Especially when it’s a reissue of what some have called the last great R’n’R record of the 50’s, Woo-Hoo by the Rock-A-Teens, on the Roulette label, recorded in November 1959. My copy's an 80’s re-ish, in stereo, bagged from the inner reaches of the “Rockabilly” bin at Looney Tunes Records, in Boston. Why it still sat there collecting dust beats me.

Maybe everyone’s still too sick of the title track, after the 5678’s version played incessantly in that Vonage commercial and the Kill Bill soundtrack. But the Rock-A-Teens’ original version remains an enduring monument to teenage R’n’R slop. Some personal favorites from their full-lengther are “Woo-Hoo,” “Doggone It Baby,” their cover of Gene Vincent’s “Dance to the Bop,” “Twangy,” “Lotta Boppin,” and “Oh My Nerves.”

The full story of this Richmond, VA combo, formed by Boo Walke and Vic Mizelle in ’56, and their recording of "Woo-Hoo"⎯one of the great accidents in R’n’R history⎯along with a great interview with Mizelle, can be found in Kicks Magazine #7, still available from the Norton Records catalog. Sorta pointless to paraphrase it here.

What I'd like to note is the Rock-A-Teens connection, as another act on the Roulette roster, to notorious music biz gangster Morris “Moishe” Levy. Add the R-A-T’s to the list of those who got their song-writing credits hijacked by Levy, and never reaped a dime of "Woo-Hoo" publishing action, despite the song peaking at the #16 position on the Billboard charts in 1959. But Levy wasn’t the first to fleece the R-A-T’s. That dubious distinction goes to George McGraw, owner of the Mart label, who originally released the song. McGraw followed the Levy blueprint by forcing his name onto the songwriting credits, and then leased the song to Levy's Roulette, who continued the bilkage on a grander scale. Learn more about Levy and his equally heavy partner George "Pay-to-Play" Goldner in Josh Alan Friedman’s Tell the Truth Until they Bleed (Backbeat Books, 2008).

Much as I love Looney Tunes Records⎯I mean, where else can you still hear Monoman Jeff Connolly give hell to Drop-Kick Murphy clones who stray haplessly into the store?⎯ and In Your Ear, Boston's other great store, I woulda preferred to find my copy of Woo-Hoo in a Strawberries record store instead. Morris Levy once owned the Strawberries chain as part of his aim to put a lock on every level of the music biz, even retail. A few stores still remain in the Northeast. In a twist of R’n’R Babylon weirdness, Levy sold the chain a year before his own 1990 death, to the tune of $40 billion, to west coast conglomerate Live Entertainment. Broker for the deal? Jose Menendez, famous victim of patricide. Although at the time authorities considered a gangland connection to Menendez’s death, a jury ruled that he was murdered by his own two sons Erik and Lyle, the notorious Menendez Brothers!

"Time for You to Leave" ⎯ RIP David Carradine

Pity the Sky with Nothing but Stars

From the Dreaming-of-Lost-Worlds Department, my current reading list:



The big highlight of this romp through the peeps and scumatoriums of old Times Square, by former Screw writer Josh Alan Friedman, has got to be the tale of Plato's Retreat owner Larry Levinson's big bet that he could ejaculate 15 times in a single day (at age 45 no less). Tales of Times Square (Delacorte, 1986) is hilarious throughout, and shows that the big clean-up didn't begin with Herr Giuliani, but goes back to the 70's, to the start of the 42nd Street Redevelopment Corp, and the establishment of NYPD's Office of Midtown Enforcement.




Luc Sante's Low Life: Lures and Snares of Old New York (Farrar, Straus, & Giroux, 1991) is essentially a history of vice on the Bowery, covering its heyday from the mid-19th Century to World War I, and the passing of the Volstead Act, which ushered in the prohibition era, the Bowery's first big kiss of death. As a history, the book's subjective enough to make it lively, and offers plenty of further reading, if one is inclined to delve more deeply into the subject. And Low Life does what Spengler said history’s supposed to: it adds depth to present reality. Obviously the dives, blind tigers, knockout drops, and hot corn girls are all part of a long gone ancient history. Still, to read Low Life only accentuates how bizarrely out-of-place those new, ultra-modern glass high-rises are on Cooper Square⎯trendy minimalist restaurants on Rivington Street? In the Essex Market? Yo, not so long ago the Essex Market was good for a brush with any number of lures and snares (Dors 'n' Fours anyone?). Low Life sorta lets you hear the whispers of ghosts, if you go for that sort of thing. And who knows? If you play your cards right, maybe even today you could still get sucked into the wrong Chinatown doorway and get your organs harvested.