Les Cahiers du Dick Miller

I don't now if you guys saw it, but I posted about the astounding yet obscure 50s music flick Rock, Baby, Rock It over at Box Office yesterday, and I was going to follow it up with another little known rock flick until cooler heads prevailed.

So I'm going to do it here instead. You'll thank me, honestly.

Anyway, I refer of course to the 1957 Roger Corman quickie Carnival Rock. Starring the great heavy Bruno VeSota and Corman (and later Joe Dante) regular Dick Miller (I often think of Miller as the Robert DeNiro to Corman's Martin Scorsese, but then I usually take my meds). Plus The Platters and a couple of cool rockabilly guys.

Anyway, here's the trailer.



As you can see, Carnival Rock was made with Corman's usual attention to quality, but that aside, there's one reason the film behooves beholding -- the shithot teenage lead guitarist you'll notice backing (future country stars) Bob Luman and David Houston. Yup, that's the great James Burton, who played all the cool stuff on the original Susie Q. and Hello Mary Lou, and has worked with just about everybody of note since, including Elvises Presley AND Costello.

No DVD available at the moment, alas, but there's a decent tape version from Rhino; you can (and I would say should) order it here.