And now perhaps you're wondering -- why did I post that?
Well, as you may have noticed, the above is a sort-of mono version, re-jiggered (at great personal expense) by my friend Steve Schwartz from the commercially available stereo album cut. With as much of the information on the right stereo channel removed as is technologically feasible.
Which is to say that most of the vocals are gone. So you that can hear, pretty much anyway, just the band. Whoever they were.
And as I've been telling people for decades now, to my ears, without the goofy singing, what's left is as tough a rock instrumental track as anybody has ever made. I'm talking Rolling Stones or Velvet Underground tough here.
I should add that I originally posted about this back in 2009, but obviously the DivShare link has vanished, so I thought it might be nice to annoy people over this issue again.
In any case -- you're welcome. And turn it up!!!
12 comments:
I guess this is your version of rickrolling...
What an execrable vocal.
At lunch yesterday, we were discussing tunes of the same era, including bubblegum pop. 123 Red Light by the 1910 Fruit Gum Company came up. I listened to it and have to say the "Ohio Express" track was much superior to 123 Red Light, which was pretty awful.
It's almost up there with "Beg,Borrow or Steal"
There is not enough modulation in today's contemporary pop song.
That's really the only comment I have about this song was that it reminded me of that fact.
And that I always thought Gimme Gimme Good Lovin' was just a slowed down version of this song.
My brush with Joey Levine was when I was editing PBS' cartoon "Dragon Tales" for Sony...he wrote most of the (admittedly) catchy songs for the show. They weren't bad...!
Joey Levine is greatly underappreciated. He became the singer of 'Ohio Express' by default because Kazenetz & Katz didn't shell out for a proper session and released the demo! Jeffrey Hyman named himself Joey Ramone after this cat. 'Dragon Tales' producers were smart to hire him because children's music has value just like children's lit-- the buttons bubblegum music pushes hit the same vibe as the Velvets.
Were they really from Ohio?
There's also aq little bit of T-Rex BANG A GONG going on in there too. And no matter HOW much you delete the vocals, there's still the lyrics. It was embarrassing to listen to the song in 1968; the lyrics were THAT icky, Joey Levine notwithstanding. And as to what Alzo wrote, what were the Ramones but hyper-revved-up bubblegum in leather jackets and a sneer?
And speaking of that same notion today, or last year (2015) in this instance, I ask you to take a listen to a couple of tracks from TALES OF CONTEMPT, by New Jersey's Acid, who've got bubble gum, The Ramones, the sneer (and oh, it's a GREAT sneer) and witty "dumb" lyrics, filled with ... well ... contempt.
Try ROCK & ROLL GENOCIDE at
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TqNfjqeEGy8&list=PLUSRfoOcUe4YVBjTymcq9snyVwHsiVxtn&index=4,
and SEA HAG at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaaZLQioW1Q&list=PLUSRfoOcUe4YVBjTymcq9snyVwHsiVxtn&index=3.
Power pop doesn't get much better.
So simple anyone can do it. Young girls understood the primal depth of it all when they shook those minis and showed off their colored panties. Popsicles, lollipops and ice cream cones were licks of the past. They had something sweeter to put in their tummy.
VR - good enough to eat thing
Vickie-
I don't know if your latest comment borders on brilliance or pornography, or both.
Captain Al
It seemed to build to a pretty good groove. I thought. At first I was a bit skeptical but hey, I don't have a problem admitting I like poppy crap if I like it. They used studio musicians on these things didn't they? Anyway, I was in the target audience for most of this stuff and I remember this song as one we played the 45 over and over on my friend's record player. I liked Sugar Sugar too. But I was 12.
DGuam
Too bad the mono version fell into desuetude; it was way better than the stereo track.
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