Bowie... ........................................ ...Waiting For The Man (BBC Radio 1972)

This Spiders from Mars version of Waiting for the Man might just surpass the original for me. 

I've had this outstanding tape labelled "Ziggy 1 / Ziggy 2" since I dubbed it from a cassette belonging to my late friend Markus around 1995 when we lived in a shared flat in San Francisco. I just finally bothered to look it up and found out it's of BBC Radio recordings, 1971-73.

The Bird World War... ................. .....50 Years of Surfin' Bird (1963-2013)

What's the Word?

The Bird is the word. But does it surf?

Prelude to war:

The Rivingtons' Papa Oom Mow Mow was a 1962 novelty tune that took up the funny-sounding Anglicized nickname of the Kenya Land and Freedom Army, the "Mau Mau". These anti-colonial fighters helped win Kenyan independence at around the same time Surfin' Bird was released a year later, their name having found its way into a New York mafia gang and US exotica culture in the late 50s. It was turned into novelty tunes by Screamin' Jay Hawkins and others. A possible Mau Mau/Ooga Booga Tarzan connection? I don't have much evidence to back this up, and maybe it's another cockamamy Tapewrecks theory. Factcheck me. But did this war of national liberation spark a global 50-year war we never heard of?

1963 USA at the height of the Civil Rights Movement and corresponding violent backlash: Red Prysock's What's the Word? Thunderbird! (1957) and maybe a little of the drink itself provided the inspiration for the Rivingtons follow up The Bird's the Word. The Trashmen start screwing around with both Rivingtons tracks at band practice, and Surfin' Bird is born. The song quickly hits #4 on the national charts, the Trashmen claim all credit, as was common practice in those days, and the original authors promptly sue, sparking a bilateral three-year milking war...

The Trashmen - Bird Bath
The Rivingtons - Shaky Bird (Part 1)
The Trashmen - Bird Dance Beat (1964)
The Rivingtons - Mama-Oom-Mow-Mow
The Trashmen - Bird '65 (1965)

...followed by World War B:

The Beach Boys - Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow (US 1965)
Wade Curtiss & the Rhythm Rockers - Puddy Cat (Mama-Meow-Mow) (US c1965)
The Freshmen - Papa Oom Mow Mow (Ireland)
The Hep Stars - Surfin' Bird (Sweden 1968 - PreABBA Benny!)
Les Celibataires - Papa Oom Mow Mow (France)
Ernos - Papa Oom Mow Mow (Finland 1970)
Gary Glitter - Papa Oom Mow Mow (UK 1975)

Back in the USA:

King Uszniewicz & his Uszniewicztones (US 197?)
The Ramones - Surfin' Bird (1977)

The Persuasions - Papa Oom Mow Mow (1977)
The Cramps - Surfin' Bird (1977)

Postwar skirmishes:

Pee Wee Herman - Surfin' Bird (1987)
The Dwarves - Motherfucker (1990)
Supersnazz - Papa Oom Mow Mow (1993)
Sodom - Surfin' Bird (2001)

And then there's this:

Peter Griffin - Surfin' Bird (2008)

Weirdest Record Ever Bought at the Mall.... ...White Noise... An Electric Storm...

Delia Derbyshire

If it wasn't for the Vietnam War, and the fact that I was at the Naval Air Station hospital in Albany, Georgia, USA being born in 1969, I'm sure I would have been thrilled by the release of An Electric Storm by White Noise in London, England, UK.

I'm not always too keen new wave or electronica, but there are a few roots of these genres in the pre-Moogy past that are pretty spectacular. This one is a real timepiece with the tape-looping innovation of Delia Derbyshire, the co-creator of the Dr. Who theme.

Phase-In:
Love Without Sound

My Game of Loving

Here Come the Fleas
Firebird
Your Hidden Dreams

Phase-Out:
The Visitation
Black Mass: An Electric Storm in Hell

When I was growing up in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, USA, there was an ice skating rink in the basement of the Park City Mall. I never skated there, but I have strong memories of watching skaters from above through a window in the floor.

By the time I was a teenage mallrat, the rink was replaced with a grubby flea market with little redeeming value except for a little stand called The Record Connection run by a nice guy named Andy. I probably bought a few dozen records from him, but the most unusual was this White Noise album, which I picked up purely because of the cover art.

Counted among the classics by electronica lovers, I just loved the weirdness, and the multi-tracked sex noises were the next best thing to what most adolescent boys were hanging out at the mall for anyway. I got lucky.
...

Read more about White Noise on {feuilleton} and Pitchfork.
Delia Derbyshire - Sculptress of Sound - BBC Radio documentary
The Record Connection is alive and well in a storefront in Ephrata!
And visit 1970's Park City Mall at Malls of America blog!

Hotlegs.... .....Neanderthal Man...

This is a funny scratchy single I picked up at a thrift store last year just for the title. Turns out the song was an accidental hit record in 1970 when I was just learning to walk upright and use tools.

Neanderthal Man

 
Story goes, they were just messing around with layering drums on a new 4-track machine and started on this ditty. They intended for the vocals to be super low, to accentuate the drums. And at the end of the recorder solo, they hit a piece of sheet metal with a hammer, which blew the cutter head while the record was being mastered.

Apparently, when you add Italians, you get this:

Vegetable Man ....... Syd Barrett

I'm starting a new post category: "I can't believe I never heard this before."  So just bear with me if you have.  I won't spend a lot of time on critical analysis.

I've loved Syd Barrett for a long time and somehow never heard his version of Vegetable Man until today. I guess it's never been officially released.  I first got the song on the Jesus and Mary Chain single years ago.  And I just now heard the Soft Boys' version.  So I finally dug up Syd's Vegetable Man and found some other wonderful tapewreckage from the sessions he was recording for Pink Floyd's second album.  He'd be coming pretty unhinged and getting booted from the band right around this time. 

Some lovely eaten and warped tape here for your listening pleasure:

Vegetable Man
What a Shame Mary Jane
Swan Lee

From the Vegetable Man Where Are You? bootleg.
Salvage your wreckage here.