As in Jack Lord and James MacArthur, in case you didn't get the teevee reference.
I've been a fan of that song since forever (or when it got reissued in the States on WEA in 1988) but I had never seen the video before last weekend, and I was delighted to find out that it's freaking hilarious.
And I bet The Ventures would have thought so too.
5 comments:
...and don't forget Zulu as Kono.
This is excellent Surf-Punk, right up there with Nervous Eaters' 'Loretta.'
I've had this album since it was first released. Nobody I knew had any idea of who they were.
I have a cousin that lives in Tasmania. His dad was in the Dutch resistance during WWII and got sent to Dachau for harboring Jewish people. When Dachau finally got liberated, my uncle was near death. He recovered and got the hell out of Europe. On Tasmania he was a talented artisan and made a modest living out of it.
Because of the distance, my family had little contact with my uncle’s family when I was growing up. Then in 1977, just after I graduated from UCLA, I received a letter from my cousin named John. He may have been a cousin but he was a complete stranger to me. In the letter, which was sent to my parent's house and included a photo of him, he said he was coming to California in September and wanted to know if he could stay at my place. I wrote back, gave him my correct address and included a photo of myself. I let him know that he was welcome at me and Sandy's place in West L.A. I told him we had an extra room and a pool etc. I asked him to let me know when his plans were finalized and we'd meet him at LAX.
He stayed in California with us for two months. And, boy, did we show him the town. He was a hell of a nice guy and there were no personality clashes among us. We were attracted to each other. We may have been cousins but we were also complete strangers that lived a world away from each other. So, ..... guess who made the first move?
Anyway, the point of all this is that this guy loved music and came bearing gifts. The Angels debut, several AC/DC albums that hadn't been released in America at the time, and, Radio Birdman-Radios Appear along with their Burn My Eye EP. It was right for the times. Fuck, AC/DC was just starting to get attention in the US. In fact, I had just seen them at the Whisky with the Dogs the week before my cousin arrived. But I didn’t know fuck all about the Angels or Radio Birdman.
The clubs in Hollywood were starting to wake up to a thriving little scene. Weasels (not those Weasels), Dogs, Eyes, Bags, X, Nerves, Zippers, Quick, The Pop, Weirdos, Milk 'N' Cookies, Zeros, Dils, Controllers, Motels, The Last, Furys, Van Halen, Boyz, Mumps, Dickies, Deadbeats, F-Word, Plugz, Skulls, Germs .... you get the idea. In addition to all these upstarts, we took Cousin John the Baptist, as we affectionately called him, to see Tom Petty, The Jam, The News featuring Michael Fennelly, Larry Coryell & Alphonse Mouzon, McCoy Tyner, Earl Klugh, Devo, Dwight Twilley, Larry Carlton, Ray Campi, Jimmy Rabbitt & Renegade, Jackson Browne doing a one-off acoustic show at the Troubadour, Hiroshima and Flora Purim. I kept a journal at the time and had gotten the bug for taping shows. I even made a note that Cousin John the Baptist knew his musical shit. He made me aware that Procol Harum’s “Quite Rightly So,” lyrics were written by Keith for Sandy Hurvitz (Essra Mohawk). It was a revelation to me.
VR (more to come)
All the while, Sandy was evangelistically playing her import Arrows 45’s. They were her new obsession. She’d heard them on Rodney On the Roq and scored her own copies at Tower. They were pretty good with the B-Sides on some outshining the plug side. Cousin John the Baptist got a hell of an education, a baptism of sorts, and had a whale of a good time while learning the game. Unforgettable memories. John-John, another nickname I bestowed on him, made periodic return trips to Shaky Town over the next two decades. On another occasion I met him in London and we vacationed together for a couple of weeks.
So, right away, I liked Radio Birdman and anticipated anxiously for more stuff. But nothing came. They broke up. Then I came across an exotic import bootleg of theirs called Eureka! of which Andrea (Vicky Vinyl) only had a few copies. It was my new favorite album for a while. It featured covers of the Stooges (T.V. Eye, 1970), Bo Diddley (Let the Kids Dance), Trashmen (King of the Surf), the Doors (L.A. Woman), 13th Floor Elevators (You're Gonna Miss Me), the Rivieras (California Sun), and the MC5 (Kick Out the Jams). I'm a sucker for covers. Big time.
A couple of years later their shelved 2nd album finally came out. Even though it was mastered from a cassette, I liked it even better than the debut. Years later they found the masters and remixed, re-tweezed it and added stuff to it. By early 1982, I scored an import copy of New Race’s The First and Last. The band was three parts Radio Birdman along with Ron Asheton and Dennis Thompson. It smoked! Shoulda been a classic! Really!
During the Golden Decade of bootleg CD’s, 1988-1997, I scored a Birdman boot that was live from Sydney in 1976. The live in the studio show includes covers of TV Eye, Transmaniacon MC, Time Won’t Let Me, Route 66 and Surf City. It’s raw, energetic and stupendously fantastic.
I never saw Radio Birdman live because they never toured the United States before they broke up. They did reunite in 1996 but never made it stateside. They did, however, cut a live album from one of those dates which is also worthy of a listen.
They finally came to America in 2006 behind another reunion and new release, Zeno Beach. They played the Wiltern with a long time local Riverside band, the BellRays opening. It was a great show but I would have liked a few more covers. They only did one. It was the Stooges’ Search and Destroy.
To my surprise and delight they hit California again in 2007. I caught them at the El Rey (800 capacity) and the Casbah in San Diego (200 capacity). They covered the Who (Circles), the Kinks (Til the End of the Day), Stooges (Loose) and Blue Oyster Cult (Hot Rails to Hell). I haven’t heard of them ever coming to the States again. But they released a live record from 1977 Paddington Town Hall that kicks ass.
I haven’t played any of their stuff in quite some time. Thanks for bringing the band up, Steve. I really dig them for a lot of reasons. And anybody who cares should check out the New Race album. It’s on youtube if you wanna. Link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vynJE3gV1jU
VR
I am at a loss for words.
A's post left me with writers block. ;-) rob
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