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Pop Rock Nation

Tag: 45 Revolutions Per Minute

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #32: If You Like Penis Colossal

    Cheech & Chong's "Earache My Eye"

    CHEECH & CHONG  “Earache My Eye” (featuring Alice Bowie) b/w  “Turn That Thing Down” (A&M/Ode Records #66102, August 1974)

    Oh, how my mom hated this one.  All I remember is my older brother was driving me somewhere, and this 5-minutes-&-change comedy sketch popped up on the radio.  We both howled with laughter until our sides ached, and I insisted we stop off at King’s department store (the most cavernous, dimly-lit treasure chest on Earth) and buy the record.  Being the ultimate enabler, my brother agreed.  My copy even still has the “Dept. 1-463” sticker on the back.

    Since then, this track has become both a comedy and rock classic, the S&M-joke-riddled father/son sketch at the back referenced by hundreds of writers, and the untitled Gaye Delorme-penned glam satire at the front nicked by everyone from 2 Live Crew to Soundgarden.  And let’s face it, nothing’s funnier than Cheech Marin, America’s super-stoned answer to Cantinflas, wearing a tutu and pasties.

    See Cheech & Chong\’s \”Earache My Eye\” Live from 1978

    This disc’s non-LP flip, “Turn That Thing Down” is merely a cacophonous continuation of side A’s ending, effectively extending the whole sketch to 10 minutes total, for the true masochist in you.  A lease-breaker if there ever was one.

    Whaddaya tryin' to do? Tickle me?

    Personally, I would’ve preferred to hear one of Cheech & Chong’s Wedding Album‘s other great sketches, like “Black Lassie” or that “3 Little Pigs” bit, but I’m not one to begrudge C&C their dadaism.  After all, “Earache My Eye” spent 8 weeks in the Top 40, peaking at #9.  Not bad for a hilarious clusterfuck of satirical slacker stoner raunch.

    Cheech & Chong to this day continue to…oh, I don’t need to go into it.

    NEXT WEEK: I try to separate my body from my mind.

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #30: Jackboots & Kilt

    Napoleon XIV's 1966 novelty hit, "They're Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haa!"

    NAPOLEON XIV  “They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haa!”  b/w “Photogenic, Schizophrenic You” (Eric Records #195, early-’80’s reissue.  Originally released on Warner Bros. #5831, Summer 1966)

    When it comes to artistic integrity, few social groups get maligned as much as the mentally challenged.  Even in this enlightened era of advanced education, when extensive research is being done to comprehend such phenomena as autism, terms like “outsider” still separate the layers of our ability to understand the deeper workings of the human brain.  Probably out of fear.  Fear of discovering that, one way or another, we are all outsiders.

    Early rock performers like Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis clearly understood the minds of the mentally challenged.  They knew that there was a little bit of crazy in all of us, that it wasn’t necessarily a bad thing, and that all we had to do was just open up and let it out.  Few later rockers understood this better than The Cramps’ late leader, Lux Interior, whose pure joy in performing for mental patients is chronicled in the stunning Live At Napa State Mental Hospital DVD.  “Finally!” you can imagine the patients thinking as they jump around to the band’s pounding, distorted rockabilly, “Music for ME!  Music that speaks to ME!”

    "...to the funny farm..."

    Back in the Summer of ’66, one record ratcheted up the insanity to previously unprecedented levels when 28-year-old New Yorker Jerry Samuels (under the nom-de-straitjacket, Napoleon XIV) recorded a totally batshit spoken-word ode to a misbehaving, runaway pup.  Released on Warner Bros., it sped to the top of the charts thanks to tons of airplay and just plain utter “gotta-hear-it-to-believe-it” ridiculousness.  Behold the psycho-chaotic masterpiece of marching-band drums, helium vocals and ambulance sirens that is, “They’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haa!”

    Play \”They\’re Coming To Take Me Away, Ha-Haa!\” by Napoleon XIV

    Not psychotic enough for ya?  Check out the B-side of the original Warners 45, “!aah-aH ,yawA eM ekaT oT gnimoC er’yehT” (which is — you guessed it! — the A-side backwards).

    yalP \”!aah-aH ,yawA eM ekaT oT gnimoC er\’yehT\” yb VIX noelopaN

    Great fun on jukeboxes.  Anyway, my early-’80’s Eric Records (the pre-Rhino Rhino) pressing of ” They’re Coming…” is backed with a later Samuels composition, “Photogenic Schizophrenic You.”  Slightly more melodic and ballad-like than the A-side, “Photo-Schizo” once again employs the device of the narrator blaming the cause of his mental illness on that of another, this time a gorgeous, but of course completely multiplexed, blonde (a stone from which modern gag writers still manage to wring blood).

    Play \”Photogenic, Schizophrenic You\” by Napoleon XIV

    “They’re Coming…” shot to #3 on the Billboard singles chart before insensitivity protests from advocacy groups wiped out the airplay entirely.  Nonplussed, Samuels went on to record two whole albums of nuthouse-inspired novelty tracks for Warners.  These days, like a modern Broadway Danny Rose, he runs the successful Philly-based Jerry Samuels Talent Agency, booking  juggling clowns and one-man-bands into homes for the physically and mentally challenged.  Viva Napoleon!

    NEXT WEEK: I’m not a sailor, I’m the captain.

  • FORTY-FIVE REVOLUTIONS PER MINUTE #29: Pump Up The Valium

    THEM's classic single, "Gloria"

    THEM  “Gloria” b/w “Baby, Please Don’t Go” (Parrot Records #9727,  1964-65)

    I’m pressed for time, so this installment will have to be brief, but this record doesn’t need a whole lot of words anyway.  We are gathered here today, my friends, to celebrate one of the hands-down greatest, purest rock ‘n’ roll singles of all time:  “Gloria” (also known as “G-L-O-R-I-A!”) by early-’60’s Irish rockers Them.  Written by the band’s singer, a then-unknown young upstart named Van Morrison, this track was actually the B-side of this release, but my Parrot pressing (whether it’s original or not I’m unsure) doesn’t make that distinction.  No matter, let’s just rock.

    Play GLORIA by THEM

    The single hit the Top 100 in ’64 and again in ’65, but it was Chicago garage-rock group The Shadows Of Knight who would bring it into the Top 10 in April of ’66.  Since then it’s become the quintessential rock classic, covered by everyone in the universe.  Learn to play the E, D & A chords on the guitar, and you can cover it too.

    Play BABY, PLEASE DON\’T GO by THEM

    The B-side, which is really the A-side, is Them’s blistering take on Joe Williams’ blues classic, “Baby, Please Don’t Go.”  Also revered as a rock staple and also covered zillions of times, always using Them’s arrangement.  B’cause, as the old saying goes, if it ain’t broke — don’t fix it.

    Them released a handful of great singles and albums, and had a couple brilliant Top 40 hits stateside with “Here Comes The Night” and “Mystic Eyes.”  After Morrison left to pursue a solo career in ’66, the band attempted to soldier on without him, to no avail.  And, as everyone knows, Van Morrison’s solo career never amounted to much.

    NEXT WEEK: Ho ho!  Ha-haa!  He-hee!