R.I.P. KIM FOWLEY

Kim Fowley died today. He was 75.

Fowley was the long, tall pasty-skinned rock 'n' roll producer and performer whose weird vision delighted confused and terrified rock 'n' roll and L.A. pop for decades.

In recent years he was best known as the ruthless Svengali who created The Runaways. He's also responsible for the 1960 rock novelty "Alley Oop," recorded under the name of The Hollywood Argyles.

He also wrote songs for and/or produced records by Gene Vincent, The Byrds, The Beach Boys, The Mothers of Invention, Warren Zevon, The Germs and, brace yourself Bridget , , , Helen Reddy!

Here's his story from the L.A. Times' Pop & Hiss blog.

I've written before in this very blog about my one encounter with Fowley, In my 3-10-2010 post I wrote about meeting him ...

... at one of the first South by Southwest festivals I attended back in the mid 90s. He was in the Austin Convention Center wearing a fairly psychedelic coat of many colors and was in the company of a sexy young singer he claimed to be "The Next Janis Joplin." (I listened to her cassette tape when I got back home. She was not the next Janis Joplin.) I don't even remember how our conversation started, but he was pitching this singer to me so intently you'd have thought I was some major producer. A film crew approached us and Fowley focused his pitch on the camera. Fowley ranted, the Next Janis Joplin slinked around looking sexy. I decided, what the hell, I held up the tape with a stern expression, nodding my head, as if I were the muscle in the entourage. I don't know where that camera crew was from, but what I'd give to have that footage!

But let's give Kim the last word. Here are a few videos of some of his own tunes.

This one goes back to the psychedelic '60s


This one is from his 1968 album Outrageous.


And here's something more recent.



Here's a Fowley primer on Spotify


Expect to hear some Fowley music on Sunday's Terrell's Sound World, 10 p.m. Mountain Time on KSFR.

THROWBACK THURSDAY: I'm the Mayor of Crawdad Town

"You get a line, I'll get a pole ..."

"The Crawdad Song," "Sometimes called "Crawdad Hole," was the very first song I ever learned to play when I first started taking guitar lessons when I was 12 or 13 in Oklahoma City. I had this guitar teacher named Julian Akins, an old country singer. (I just found out he also was Vince Gill's guitar teacher. Guess Vince was a better student than me.)

It's kind of a dumb song, but easy to remember. There are a lot of variations, but here's one set of lyrics I like:

You get a line and I'll get a pole, Honey,
You get a line and I'll get a pole, Babe.
You get a line and I'll get a pole,
We'll go fishin' in the crawdad hole,
Honey, Baby mine.

Sittin' on the bank 'til my feet get cold, Honey,
Sittin' on the bank 'til my feet get cold, Babe,
Sittin' on the bank 'til my feet get cold,
Lookin' down that crawdad hole,
Honey, Baby mine.

Yonder comes a man with a sack on his back, Honey,
Yonder comes a man with a sack on his back, Babe,
Yonder comes a man with a sack on his back,
Packin' all the crawdads he can pack,
Honey, Baby mine.

The man fell down and he broke that sack, Honey,
The man fell down and he broke that sack, Babe,
The man fell down and he broke that sack,
See those crawdads backing back,
Honey, Baby mine.

I heard the duck say to the drake, Honey,
I heard the duck say to the drake, Babe,
I heard the duck say to the drake,
There ain't no crawdads in this lake,
Honey, Baby mine.

Other versions have verses with the question "What you gonna do when the well runs dry?" ( The morbid answer is "Sit on the banks and watch the crawdads die") and my favorite, "See that crawdad crawling 'round? He's the mayor of Crawdad Town."

I couldn't find much on the history of this tune. It apparently comes from the American South, where crawdads are plenty (and where people call them "crawdads" rather than "crawfish or crayfish."

According to Ballad of America, "This song evolved from Anglo-American play-party traditions and African-American blues. Workers building levees to prevent the flooding of the Mississippi River in the South were among the first to sing it."

The "play party" concept is interesting. These took place in regions where dancing was banned,  "Here the singing was a cappella, the dancers followed prescribed steps, and arm and elbow swings would be the only touching," writes Alan L. Spurgeon in his book Waltz the Hall: The American Play Party. 

I guess that beats sitting on the banks and watching the crawdads die.

Here's a more scholarly look at the African-American origins of "The Crawdad Song". CLICK HERE

One thing for certain, a lot of musicians I like in the realm of folk, country, blues and rockabilly, have recorded this song. Gus Cannon, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, George Jones, Jerry Lee Lewis, Doc Watson, Big Jack Johnson, Jessie Mae Hemphill, The Meat Purveyors, Tim Timebomb, Clothesline Revival (built around the vocals of Mrs. Vernon Allen) and more. A band called The Tune Wranglers did a great western-swing version. Unfortunately they apparently thought the lyrics would be funnier if they used a racist term for the poor guy who broke his crawdad sack. So to hell with them.

Here are a few other classic versions:

Here's Big Bill Broonzy



And a live version by Red Foley



Big Joe Turner's rewrite was the basis for the versions by Solomon Burke and Swamp Dogg



And in the '90s. The Gories brought Bo Diddley to the crawdad table




And here is a big bowl of crawdad gumbo for you Spotify users:




For more deep dives into songs, check out The Stephen W. Terrell Web Log Songbook

WACKY WEDNESDAY: Take the Skinheads Through the Tulips

Live in Columbus! Tiny Tim & Camper Van Beethoven

In what had to have been Camper Van Beethoven's strangest concert of their early career, on October 26, 1986, the band found themselves backing the one and only Tiny Tim at a bar in Columbus, Ohio.

Yes, that Tiny Tim. The man who brought us "Tiptoe Through the Tulips," the scraggly-haired falsetto-voiced freak who was all over the ukulele some 40 years before bands like Beirut made the uke hip.

Yes, there was Camper, backing Tiny on timeless classics like "Let Me Call You Sweetheart," "If You Knew Susie," and "Won't You Come Home Bill Bailey."

And don't forget God and country. Tiny and Camper roared through "He's Got the Whole World in His Hands" and "You're a Grand Old Flag."

Most all of the tunes are under two minutes long and many are less than 60 seconds. Too bad D. Boone already had died by this point. Tiny could have hired The Minutemen.

In an interview in 2013 with The Atlanta Music Guide, Camper's Jonathan Segel said the show was the funniest moment in the group's career.

We pulled up at Stache’s in Columbus, OH, and saw the bill was Camper Van Beethoven and Tiny Tim, and the promoter met us outside and said he had promised him we’d be his back up band. He was like a grandma, and he did not rehearse us at all, just said: you’ll know the songs, I’ll just tell you how fast to go and what key. And sure enough, before the song, he would wave a hand and say “in D, Maestro!”… that was it.


CVB's singer David Lowrey talked about the Columbus gig  just a few weeks after the show in a radio interview preserved at the Live Music Archive.

 "It was an experiment in new colognes, I think. ... state-sponsored cologne terrorism. ... What he did is he just came out and he told us, `Well, I'll tell you what keys the songs are in and I'll kind of indicate the tempo and you guys just figure it out. And we did."

(Lowrey says this about three minutes into the interview)

Camper Van Beethoven isn't the only rock band to back Tiny Tim. In the '90s he did a live album with The New Duncan Imperials as well as a studio album with Brave Combo.

Unfortunately, there was no professional recording done at the Camper Van Beethoven show in Columbus.

But somebody was recording it, and it's on the Live Music Achive. Audiophiles can exit right now, but everyone else enjoy it on the player below. Tiny comes on right after Camper's regular set:



And just for the heck of it, here's Tiny's amazing take on "Stairway to Heaven" with Brave Combo.

TERRELL'S SOUND WORLD PLAYLIST

Sunday, January 11, 2015 
KSFR, Santa Fe, N.M. 
10 p.m. to midnight Sundays Mountain Time 
Host: Steve Terrell
Webcasting!
101.1 FM
email me during the show! terrell(at)ksfr.org

Here's the playlist below
Check out some of my recently archived radio shows at Radio Free America
Like the Terrell's Sound World Facebook page

Subscribe to The Big Enchilada Podcast! CLICK HERE 
Enjoy the brand new episode HERE

Get Friendly with the Latest Big Enchilada Podcast Episode

Welcome to the first Big Enchilada episode of 2015. The Big Enchilada only wants to be your friend, So sit back and enjoy this friendly rock 'n' roll. We won't hurt you. Honest. 

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Here's the playlist:
(Background Music: The Westhell by The West Hell 5)
Electric Mind Machine by Electric Mind Machine
Voodoo Mirror by Iguana Death Cult
Treat Her Right by Bluebonnets
I'm a Trashman by Deke Dickerson & The Trashmen
Poor But Proud by Johnny Dowd 
Hej Młody Junaku (Hey Young Brave One) by Zuch Kazik

(Background Music: Beat Party 1 by Richie & The Squires)
The Thing That Wouldn't Leave by The Electric Mess
Chemtrailer Trash by Churchwood
A Yellow Mellow Hardtrop by Ray Johnson & The Bystanders
Make Some Time with You by John Schooley
Bird Brain by Scovilles
Trouble Hurricane by The Grannies
Two Lovely Black Eyes by Charles Coborn

(Background Music: Ya Ha Bi Bi by The Sheiks )
Golden Surf II by Pere Ubu
Camera (Queer Sound) by Thee Oh Sees
Jailbird by Narco States
Teenage Jamboree by The Dusters
Before I Let You Go by Frantic Flattops
It's Over by Ty Segal 

Play the silly thing below:

BIG ENCHILADA 80: Friendly Rock 'n' Roll by Steve Terrell on Mixcloud