V03-T13 My Mother Is A Space Cadet

.....While riffing on a theme of 'little things' I remembered that I had a viable selection by a bona fide child.

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 13

• 02:37 "MY MOTHER IS A SPACE CADET" (words: Dweezil Zappa, Moon Zappa, Steve Vai; lyrics: Dweezil Zappa, Steve Vai)
• performed by Dweezil [Zappa]
• original source: A-side 7" Barking Pumpkin WS4 03366(US) 1982
• and my source: the same

.....Let me just quote from my original notes and chime in again later:

"This came with a picture sleeve that made it a must for me. It shows a pubescent Dweezil before his eyebrows met. He and his 12-year-old friends are all trying to look like brooding bad-asses and it comes across as a parody of album covers like MEET THE BEATLES and especially ENGLAND'S NEWEST HIT-MAKERS (the first US Rolling Stones LP). I guess if they wanted to distinguish themselves from those other hairless wonders over in Tiger Beat, then scowling at the camera is the way to do it. Of course, having the sound to back it up is that much easier when dad's hired help is Steve Vai.

"I am actually curious as to why Vai really did this. It's easy to assume that Frank told him to, but the Zappas don't strike me as those kind of people and his kids certainly wouldn't have developed the ambitions to launch as many projects as they have if they were in the habit of being spoiled and having things arranged for them (outside of having them released on the family label, I mean). He may have done it because he teaches guitar and Dweezil was a student; he may have done it out of a sense of mischief; he may have been bored. He may also have done it because projects that are spontaneous and not tailored for commercial consumption are rarely brought to completion in the California entertainment industry. That would be reason enough."

.....Well, since writing that I haven't managed to confirm any of my speculations about Vai's motives behind this, although I have since learned that despite his writing credit the guitar parts (except for the intro and a massive slide towards the end) may have indeed been handled by the then 12-year-old Dweezil. The intro and slide were likely by Eddie Van Halen, who, along with an engineer make up the pseudonymous Vards credited with producing. Although Vai's website doesn't mention the single, Dweezil's goes into some length about the guitar used, for all you gear-heads out there:

http://www.dweezilzappaworld.com/articles/17-seuss-flying-v

.....and site member Ambassador-at-large contributed the following:

http://www.dweezilzappaworld.com/search?q=greg+kurstin

.....What's been most odd about looking around for scraps of information on this single is the large number of sites, commercial and otherwise, which discuss it, even reproduce the sleeve photo art, but mention even less about it than I have above. I expect that from the mp3 piracy websites, but nearly empty pages on Wikipedia and even the single's very own Facebook page(?!) feel discouraging. They don't even mention that Greg Kurstin, who co-wrote the B-side, "CRUNCHY WATER", is half of The Bird And The Bee (I'm guessing he's the bee).

V03-T12b Animaniacs

.....Meet "our microscopic allies".

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 12b

• 01:08 "ANIMANIACS" (music:Richard Stone, lyrics:Tom Ruegger)
• performed by Animaniacs
• original source: CD STEVEN SPIELBERG PRESENTS ANIMANIACS Kid Rhino R2 71570 (US) 1993
• and my source: the same

.....Any children's show that includes the line "there's bologna in our pants" in the opening theme song is a sure-fire hit. With me, anyway.

V03-T12a (excerpt Dead London)

.....Spoken word interstitials can be like peanuts sometimes...

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 12a

• 00:17 (excerpt DEAD LONDON) (H.G. Wells, adapted by Jeff Wayne)
• performed by Richard Burton
• original source: 2LP THE WAR OF THE WORLDS Columbia PC2 35290 (US) 6/78
• and my source: 2CD THE WAR OF THE WORLDS Columbia C2K 35290 (US?) 1986?

.....According to the novel, the line I wanted to use was, "...slain, after all man's devices had failed, by the humblest things that God, in his wisdom, has put upon this earth.", or the nearest equivalent from the George Pal movie adaption. At the time I was putting this compilation together I was using a versatile analog receiver that could juggle input from multiple sources in multiple formats and I wanted to take advantage of the fact that that included using the audio portion of VHS recordings (this was pre-DVR), especially as I was developing a thread of film-related music. I was nearing the end of that side of the cassette and wanted to switch gears slightly one more time and needed a bridge/interstitial. I had recently recorded the George Pal adaption of "War Of The Worlds"(1953) but couldn't find the VHS tape, but remembered having the Jeff Wayne project on CD. Better known as a producer, Wayne took three years to construct a musical adaption of the 1898 novel using artists he had worked with, including Justin Hayward (of the Moody Blues), Phil Lynott (of Thin Lizzy) and others. The full story came to light in 2005 with the release of the 6CD/1DVD collector's edition, Columbia/Legacy CECD96000 (aka C7H 94427 1 2 or UPC#8 27969 44276 0). Had it existed at the time, I could have used the expanded box as a source for the paraphrased recording of the above passage. The three discs of outtakes includes all of the spoken material without music. As it happened, I wasn't able to isolate the phrase I wanted from the musical bedding and other dialogue. Seconds later, at the very end of a track called "DEAD LONDON", I found the excerpt I eventually used bookended with the second's pause I needed to fade in and out without jarring the listener. The exact phrase I used was, "Directly the invaders arrived and drank and fed, our microscopic allies attacked them. From that moment, they were doomed." It actually seemed like a more fitting link from a "Rocky Horror" spin-off (since Frank and company were alien invaders) to our next track.

V03-T11 Little Cat

.....I used to be frustrated by the fact that I couldn't find more information about the child star who recorded this number, although the last time I aggressively researched him was probably 1994 when I compiled this tape. Now, with the advent of some of the most powerful databases on the internet, I've learned that IMDB, Allmusic and Wikipedia are also completely clueless as to this boy's identity. The best I can guess is that he may have grown up to be the lead singer of the Dutch pop group Jonz. Or maybe not. I'm still frustrated, of course, but feeling far less inadequate about it.

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 11

• 02:18 "LITTLE CAT (YOU'VE NEVER HAD IT SO GOOD)"(Nick Lowe)(additional arrangements by David Bedford)
• performed by Jonas
• original source: VA2LP ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS: THE [OMPS] Virgin VD2514 (UK) 4/86
• and my source: VACD ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS: THE [OMPS] Virgin CDV2386(UK) 1987?

.....Taken from Colin MacInnes' novel, "Absolute Beginners" was a period film documenting Britain's belated recognition of teenagers as a demographic and subculture. It may seem strange today, but a century ago the concept of the teenager was just being introduced. Prior to that it was presumed that children turned into adults with no intermediary stages. It's been mentioned elsewhere, and is repeated early in the film, that Americans invented the teenager. That's certainly true in the case of mass media fictional characters, where youths saddled with adult responsibilities (Little Orphan Annie, Tintin, et al) gave way to hormone-crazed and judgement-impaired balls of energy like Andy Hardy and Archie Andrews. The population bubble that followed the end of World War II would later turn teens from a curious sociological phenomenon into a serious purchasing power in any industrialized economy.

.....Composer Nick Lowe is no stranger to teen idol pop. About a decade earlier than this recording he was invited to join the newly launched Stiff label but was in a contract that prevented him from doing so. To avoid the penalties which would stem from breaking the contract, he tried to prompt the label that he was signed to into firing him. To this end he submitted songs like "BAY CITY ROLLERS, WE LOVE YOU", knowing that their star was on the wane in England. What he did not know was that they were just becoming huge in Japan, where the song became a hit. Of course, he eventually became a notable performer and producer at Stiff, albeit with a renewed respect for the power of pop. He's also apparently a student of the period. The movie takes place in 1958, and the song's subtitle is taken from a 1957 speech by conservative Prime Minister Harold Macmillan, often paraphrased as it is above, quoted here: "...most of our people have never had it so good." The speech sought to bolster his fellow conservatives with positive signs of post-war recovery, which was also a significant topic of the film.

.....Rereading my original liner notes, they seem mostly still relevant:

"Another soundtrack selection, this one a little more off the beaten path. Also, you may find the soundtrack to the movie Absolute Beginners in bargain bins (and it really would be a bargain) but this track would not be on it. The US album has the songs that are featured as production numbers in the movie. The UK version contains the US version plus a second, shorter LP with Gil Evans' instrumental score and the full unedited studio versions of songs heard only in snippets or in the background of the movie. This song, for instance, is heard playing on radios. The joke is that the main character (and the audience) know that the singer was a snotty, unkempt schoolboy just months before this song became a hit and in fact watched the boy's manager 'discover' him (at an audition) and dress him in flashy clothes as an acceptable counter to "that American Negro music". Even though the movie takes place in England (1958?) it perfectly describes the state of pop music in the US, circa 1959-1962: the real rockers were dying in plane crashes (Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, et al), serving in the army (Everly Brothers, Elvis Presley), in jail (Chuck Berry for tax evasion), blackballed due to scandal (Jerry Lee Lewis for marrying his teenage cousin) etc, etc. A teenaged music marketplace was created in the mid-fifties out of babies born after World War II. Rock music caught the record industry by surprise, since 'race music' and other folk forms were deemed commercially unviable and pigeonholed in a manner that would have kept them so except for the size of the demographic base demanding it. The response was (and has been ever since) to mass produce lightweight, uninspired substitutes for soul and imagination (and in this case, sex). Thus, Paul Anka, Neil Sedaka, Connie Francis, Pat Boone and others reassured parents everywhere that a clean-cut young man was in the White House setting a fine example and that rock and roll was just a bad dream. The 'little cat' was that music, the music that came between Alan Freed and the Beatles and which was the rule rather than the exception in England.

"What sold me on this song was the chorus (listen closely):

'Boom, baby; Boom, baby; Boom, baby, boom;

'Baby, boom; Baby, boom; Baby, boom...' "

.....Well, here in 2010 I don't have much to add to that except that the 25th anniversary of the movie is looming and I'm hoping that we see a decent 2-DVD with the extras not seen on the shamefully skimpy and improperly transfered 2003 DVD. (Seriously, if the selling point of a movie is music and visual spectacle, why bother releasing a home video version at all if you're not going to pay any attention to the quality of the sound or color?) In addition to a mountain of detailed period production designs that must exist (the Criterion edition of Brazil would be the standard to live up to) both DVD and Blu-ray formats could accommodate the digital format premieres of some of the music from double album and spun-off singles that didn't make it to even the extended UK CD. There were two Gil Evans instrumental takes on "ABSOLUTE BEGINNERS" and "NAPOLI" which I'm sure jazz completists would appreciate. More importantly there was Laurel Aitken's "LANDLORDS AND TENANTS" and Ekow Abban's "SANTA LUCIA" from scenes key to the plot. That doesn't even count material that didn't make it to vinyl, such as a wedding song played on steel drums. The anniversary is in April and I'm not getting my hopes up, since the 50th anniversary of the book seemed to slip by quietly unnoticed last year.

.....More trouble for London tomorrow.

V03-T10b Little Black Dress

.....Had I adhered to my original schedule for this blog, I would have been entering this post and the last long before the cast of "Glee" did their 'Rocky Horror' episode. Predictably, the contingent of the professionally indignant yammered to one another about the sexual subject matter. Just as predictably, they were completely silent about a prior episode in which the sole wheel-chair bound student sings a slowed-down version of "Dancing With Myself", the Generation X/Billy Idol song about masturbation. It doesn't take much to read between the lines of that song, but if you're stupid enough to believe that teenagers wouldn't have sexual feelings if they didn't hear songs about them, then you're stupid enough to assume that teenagers with a physical handicap don't have sexual feelings at all.

.....But we're here to talk about eine kleine herren with a different preoccu-...PA-tion.

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 10b

• 02:27 "LITTLE BLACK DRESS" (Richard O'Brien, Richard Hartley)
• performed by: The Cast of "Shock Treatment"
• original source: LP SHOCK TREATMENT ODE/Warner Bros. LLA 3615 (US) 1981
• and my source: the same

.....The film adaption of the musical play "Rocky Horror" was a flop as a first run feature, but became a roaring success as a midnight movie starting the following spring and continuing for decades until home video killed the theaters in which it played. Once Hollywood (or more specifically, 20th Century Fox) discovered that there was a previously untapped market for repeated viewings of movies on the fringe (such as "Pink Flamingos" and "El Topo" before their own RHPS) they decided to create a cult film for that market and simply bypass what would be the normal first-run national release and go straight to the midnight circuit. The flawed logic behind that decision assumed that because they perceived these films to be losing money in their initial releases but lucrative in the second lives, that more profits were to be made by eliminating the first stage. The problem with that kind of thinking is that it ignores the fact that the second stage is only more profitable because the bulk (but not all)of the movies' production costs were covered in the first stage. Despite the difference in content and presumably audiences between cult films and blockbusters, the economics of distribution thirty years ago was the same for both. 'Profits' is just the name for what you make after the costs are covered. If that happens all at once, it's a blockbuster. If it happens over the long term, it's a cult film.

.....Seeking a sequel to "Rocky Horror", the studio approached Richard O'Brien and Richard Hartley, who set out to do just that. Logistical problems in reassembling the original cast and other delays prompted so many compromises that O'Brien began to realize that he would never get the sequel he wanted. Instead he opted for an original story and hoped to pitch it as the sequel that perhaps the studio wanted. Hence, "Shock Treatment"(1981), with some characters from RHPS played by different actors and some actors from RHPS playing different characters. In this particular number O'Brien and Patricia Quinn once again play incestuous siblings (Cosmo and Nation instead of Riff Raff and Magenta) but Janet Weiss Majors (she has since married Brad) is played by Jessica Harper, a veteran of "Phantom Of The Paradise". Also on hand is Australian Barry Humphries as Viennese game-show host Bert Schnick. He is better known as to Americans as Dame Edna Everage.

.....I have long suspected that "LITTLE BLACK DRESS" was a "Rocky Horror" outtake. It could fit neatly between the scene in which Frank uses the Medusa ray to turn his prisoners into statues and the Floor Show sequence where he appears in drag. It's the only part of the movie noticeably lacking transition, which the song could provide. According to the commentary of the 2006 DVD the song "BREAKING OUT" was indeed intended for some incarnation of "Rocky Horror", but "LITTLE BLACK DRESS" isn't mentioned there or in the two mini-documentaries included as bonus material.

.....More from the movies in the next post.

V03-T10a Belt You About The Mouth

.....Wow, is it Monday already?

.....When I left off in July I mentioned that the prevalent theme of rebellion so common in the first half of Volume 3 would be shifting to a theme of little things in the latter half. What better way to introduce little things than with an interstitial?

Volume 3: A KINDER, GENTLER ZERO TOLERANCE, track 10a

• 00:31 "CUT #4 BELT IN MOUTH" [no writer credited]
• performed by Richard O'Brien [as Riff-Raff]
• original source: promo-only one-sided 7" on 20th Century Fox Music #DS211(US) ?9/75
• and my source: CD SONGS FROM THE VAULTS Rhino R2 71011B(US)1990

.....The first time I heard this was when I found this rarities disc in the boxed set 4CD THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW 15TH ANNIVERSARY COLLECTION Rhino/ODE R2 71011(US) 1990. This, and a second compilation featuring foreign language and other performances from various international cast albums, were boxed with the previously available soundtrack and Roxy (L.A.) cast albums. The track above originally came from a promotional single sent to radio stations in advance of the September 24, 1975 theatrical release of the "Rocky Horror" film adaption, hence the approximate release date I estimated. A common enough format at the time, the single was a one-sided 7" vinyl record with eight cuts. On the boxed set it's given the self-explanatory title "ROCKY HORROR RADIO COMMERCIAL (BELT YOU ABOUT THE MOUTH)", but I went with the title as it appears on the record. Of the eight promotional clips only this and one other made it onto the CD. If you like, you can check out the details at the following link:

http://www.rockymusic.org/album/radio-spots.php

.....Tomorrow I'll detail the track into which this interstitial leads.