WACKY WEDNESDAY: You Is a Rat Fink

Whether he came into your life by way of custom hot-rod designer and cartoonist Ed "Big Daddy" Roth, song parodist Allan Sherman, TV personality Steve Allen, or a weird mid '60s B -- no, make that Z -- movie,  Rat Fink is an essential American icon we should keep close to our hearts.

I definitely fall into the Roth faction of the Rat Fink cult. From the moment I first purchased my Revell Rat Fink model kit -- and a tube of airplane glue -- I've been a Big Daddy devotee.

What led Ed to create the mighty rodent we know and love?

Tales of the Rat Fink, the 2006 documentary about Roth, with John Goodman providing the voice of Big Daddy,  quotes Roth:

Disneyland had just opened down the street from me and everywhere you looked, kids were running around in those stupid mouse ears. I really hated that mouse. While waiting for a cheeseburger at my local greasy spoon, I was thinking about how much I hated Mickey Mouse. Then I started sketching my version of a cartoon mouse on a napkin. Hairy, stinky, bulging bloodshot eyes, saliva oozing, covered with flies, obnoxious. He was the anti-Mickey Mouse. I named him “Rat Fink, which was a phrase you heard on the Steve Allen Show. Whenever I looked at Rat Fink, I felt like I was looking at my inner self. The world my parents, teachers and responsible-type people belonged to wasn’t my world. Why did I have to be like them? I didn’t. And somehow Rat Fink helped me realize that.

But the first known song about Rat Fink came from Allan Sherman on his album My Son, the Nut. That came out in 1963, the same year Roth's anti-Mickey and other bizarre Roth characters began appearing as Revell models.

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After his funny hot rods, his cool cartoon monsters and that line of plastic models took off, Roth fronted a band (mainly studio pros) called Mr. Gasser & The Weirdos. And of course some of their songs were about Rat Fink. This is one of them.



In this forgotten low budget motion picture from 1966, Rat Pfink a Boo Boo, leading man Ron Haydock sang this fine fink classic. (The song is far better than the actual movie.)



Scooting ahead to 2006, The Sadies, a Canadian alt-country group did the soundtrack for that animated Big Daddy doc Tales of the Rat Fink.



I'm not exactly sure what this is, but I'm guessing Judy & The Loadies were more influenced by Ron Haydock than Ed Roth.



Finally, Allan Sherman's original song was covered in the late '80s by The Misfits

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, February 9, 2020
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist :

OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
All My Loving by The Beatles
All My Loving by The Almighty Defenders
Big Show by Royal Crescent Mob
Glazin' by The Jacuzzi Boys
Siltane by Moonlight Benjamin
I'm a Full Grown Man by Barrence Whitfield & The Savages
Man-Size by PJ Harvey
Hobo Low by Seasick Steve
Pee Pee by The Kelly Family

OSCARS set 

Celluloid Heroes by The Kinks
New Age by The Velvet Underground
Beloved Movie Star by Stan Ridgway
It'll Chew You Up and Spit You Out by Concrete Blonde
Act Naturally by Buck Owens
There's No Business Like Show Business by Ethel Merman

Sugar in My Hog by Fred Schneider
Finger by Ty Segall
Komlos Teng Bey (Three Gentlemen) by Sinn Sisamouth & Meas Samon
Honey Chile by Martha Reeves & The Vandellas
Glow in the Dark by Lovestruck
I See the Light by The Five Americans
Burn She Devil Burn by The Cramps
The Corner of Fuck and You (Remix) by The Grannies
Smokestack Lightning by Howlin' Wolf
Hokomo Juju Man by Little Howlin' Wolf

One-Eyed Jack by Bobby Charles
Too Old to Dream by Nick Shoulders
Hooker Jon by Black Lips
Hard Times by Eilen Jewell
Fire by Black Pumas
Sukiyaki by Kyu Sakamoto
Death of the Last Stripper by Terry Allen
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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Go to The Big Enchilada Podcast which has hours and hours of music like this.

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THROWBACK THURSDAY: Remembering Dan Hicks

I'm honored that this shot I took of Dan Hicks at the
Santa Fe Brewing Company in 2009 graces Dan's Wikipedia page

Four years ago today, February 6, 2016, we lost a great one: Daniel Ivan Hicks, undisputed captain of the good ship Hot Licks.

Born in Little Rock, Arkansas, Hicks was the drummer with one of the first generation San Francisco psychedelic bands, The Charlatans. During those days he formed an acoustic group featuring fiddle, standup bass and two female singers. This band was known as Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks. They released three albums, combining elements of jug band, country, hot jazz, western swing and more.

Hicks broke up the band in 1973 at the height of their popularity. And he essentially sat out the rest of the 70s and most of the 80s and 90s, releasing just a couple of albums during that time. But at the tirn of the century, he revived the Hot Licks and released several more records, including an excellent live record featuring most, if not all, of his bandmates from decades past.

Here are some of my favorite Hicks tunes:

Let's start with this early classic "The Buzzard Was Their Friend."



The Devil made Flip Wilson invite Dan Hicks & The Hot Licks to appear on his NBC variety show in 1972. They played "By Hook or By Crook" and "Shorty Falls in Love." Here are both of those songs.



Also on Flip Wilson's show Hicks & Licks performed "Milk Shakin' Mama"



This version of "Pay Day" is from 1989 in what seems to be a melding of Hick's classic Hot Licks lineup and his Acoustic Warriors, which was his band in the late 80s and 90s.



This song filled my head four years ago when when Dan really took that last train to Hicksville

Dan uses his psychic powers to play guitar in Santa Fe, 2009

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, February 2, 2020
KSFR, Santa Fe, NM
Webcasting!
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time
Host: Steve Terrell 101.1 FM
Email me during the show! terrel(at)ksfr.org

Here's my playlist :

OPENING THEME: Let It Out (Let it All Hang Out) by The Hombres
Cherry Red by The Groundhogs
Angola Rodeo by Black Lips
Nitty Gritty by Southern Culture on the Skids
Casting My Spell by Johnny Kidd & The Pirates
Days and Days by Concrete Blonde
Slipping Away by Mudhoney
Murdered Out by Kim Gordon
Ground Hog Blues by John Lee Hooker

I've Known Rivers by Gary Bartz
Pretty Good for a Girl by Pussycat & The Dirty Johnsons
Pink Petticoats by The Big Bopper
Roky Said by Dead Ghosts
It's a Cold Night for Alligators by Roky Erickson & The Aliens
Don't Be Afraid to Pogo by The Gears
Hang On by BBQ
Book of Love by Sha Na Na
(The Girl With the) Raven Hair by Jody Reynolds

"Unheard Heroes" of the '70s set
The Trader by The Beach Boys
The One That Got Away by Tom Waits
Ask the Angels by Patti Smith
Carolina Hard-Core Ecstasy by Frank Zappa & Captain Beefheart
Blackheart Man by Bunny Wailer
Unrequited to the Nth Degree by Loudon Wainwright III
Cajun Stripper by Doug Kershaw
New York Girls by Steeleye Span
Dover to Dunkirk by Jack Hardy
Hearts on Fire by Gram Parsons with Emmylou Harris

American Childhood I Civil Defense by Terry Allen
Stranger in Town by Dave Alvin
CLOSING THEME: Over the Rainbow by Jerry Lee Lewis

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Want to keep the party going after I sign off at midnight?
Go to The Big Enchilada Podcast which has hours and hours of music like this.

CLICK HERE

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The Fabulous Soundtrack of the First Newspaper Story I Ever Published

Forty years ago last Friday, Jan. 31, 1980,  The Santa Fe Reporter was crazy enough to publish an unsolicited story from a local barroom singer who arrogantly assumed that everyone in town would be interested in what he had to say about the music of the previous decade.

Yes, that previously unpublished writer was me. That was the start of my four-decade career in journalism, from which I retired last November.

That story the Reporter published (on page 27) was under the headline "Some Unheard Heroes" was "inspired" by Time magazine's end of the decade feature listing its favorite albums of the '70s. I've long forgotten what records made that list, but I remember being very underwhelmed. I decided to make my own list "of 10 great but unacclaimed albums" of the Me Decade.

Below are songs from all those records, starting with one from Holland, which I still believe was the last good album by The Beach Boys. Though the best song there definitely was "Sail On Sailor," here's a more obscure one, a weird ode to a New Age princess, "Funky Pretty."



Though it was panned by most "serious" critics, Radio Ethiopia still is my favorite Patty Smith abum.



This is "Crime of Passion" by Loudon Wainwright III in his prime.



In retrospect, I probably like Steeleye Span's Below the Salt better than Commoner's Crown. But I still think it's cool they did this song with Peter Sellers (!) on the uke.



Blackheart Man by Bunny Wailer still is the best reggae album I've ever heard.



Small Change was the first Tom Waits album I ever owned and still is one of my favorites



If I could go back in time just to see one concert, it probably would be Frank Zappa, the Mothers of Invention and Captain Beefheart at the Armadillo World Headquarters in 1975, as documented in the album Bongo Fury.



Though it never got any significant airplay on country radio, Gram Parson's posthumously released Grievous Angel  was a high water mark in country music.



OK, I'm cheating here. YouTube has only one song from Doug Kershaw's 1975 live album Alive & Pickin' and that's just a fairly forgettable instrumental called "Dixie Creole." The album's also missing on Spotify. So here's another live version of one of my favorite Alive & Pickin' songs, "The Stripper."



Finally, this one, from the late New York folkie Jack Hardy's excellent 1978 album, The Nameless One definitely is the most obscure one on this list. I'd read a review of it in Rolling Stone, which included Hardy's address. I wrote him and asked how to get a copy and he just sent me one.




I'll be doing a set with songs from all these tonight on Terrell's Sound World, 10 p.m. to midnight on KSFR, 101.FM in Northern New Mexico or www.ksfr.org