Rosemary Clooney “Hey There” / “This Ole House”

This is a seven-inch single that looks like it’s been through a few moves, perhaps floods and fires (well, not fires), but still plays great and sounds rich and warm, like ol’ Rosemary Clooney is over for dinner. “Hey There” is a nice, gentle, romantic pop song—with Buddy Cole and his Orchestra. It’s got a brief intro: she sings, “Lately when I’m in my room all by myself, in the solitary gloom… I call to myself…” and then she’s singing to someone, which you would think was another person… if it wasn’t for that intro. She claims that love has never (yet) made a fool of her. She’s offering advice to someone (herself, of course), recommending that she “forget him”—though she finally asks, “Is it all going in one ear and out the other?” Then… the ingenious part. The whole thing (except the intro) repeats, but there’s echo on it, so it sounds like she’s singing it from far off down a tunnel. Then, over the top of that, she’s now speaking: “Are you talking to me?” No doubt Travis Bickle heard this record. Then she’s answering the far-off voice, line by line, conceding that things have changed. Then, the far-off voice comes closer and the talking voice switches to singing, and together they execute the last line: “Is it all going in one ear and out the other…” so it’s no longer a question… it’s now a statement.

That’s a pretty genius song, actually, written by Richard Adler and Jerry Ross for the Broadway musical, “The Pajama Game,” which I saw later as a Doris Day movie. It looks like this record came out in 1954, and it’ll still play great and be relevant in 2054 (that is, if there’s still an Earth to be its host). Rosemary Clooney made so many records. I’m not gonna count. She’s a household name—she was just always kind of there, like the icebox, AM radio, and Lazy Susan cabinet with Beam’s Choice and Booth’s High & Dry. Definitely pre-microwave. The other side, “This Ole House,” is a novelty song, a jaunty and annoying hillbilly number. It doesn’t really convince me—even though Rosemary Clooney is from Kentucky—in fact, an hour away by backroads (if you’re Junior Johnson) from where Skeeter Davis (who she’s a few years older than) was born. The song has nothing to do with the excellent old Bob Vila TV show. I’m guessing she had fun with it, and maybe that comes through—and I’m sure for someone out there, this song is nostalgic and happy, because maybe they heard it in their crib, over and over. But I can do without this side entirely.

Los Hermanos Castro “Los Espectaculares Hnos. Castro”

Everything I know about Los Hermanos Castro I just now read on the internet, and sometimes I think we’d be better off if we had to speculate until we could search out someone to get the info from in person. But here we are. Except for the name of the record company, there isn’t a bit of writing on this album cover that’s not in Spanish—and very little of that. I bought it, essentially, because of the odd cover, and also because I didn’t know anything about them. How mysterious the presentation—one of those album covers that looks like it may have been something else, then was covered with a full-size sticker of the new cover—which, in this case, is pretty bizarre. It’s mostly white, with what looks like purple ink randomly splattered on it. Somehow, the faces of the four band members have formed out of the splattered ink, and the album name is in white, across the biggest purple splotch. The back consists of some really messy collage work in a similar style, but here, black and white, overly busy, quite sloppy, and a little insane. It’s intriguing. There is also no English on the label—except for “RCA Victor”—and I suppose that’s how you’d say RCA Victor in Spanish. It’s that modern era, orange label with RCA in space-age letters. That got me sidetracked looking up the evolution of their label—they went from that really old-fashioned looking picture, fooling that poor dog with a gramophone—to the future—this orange label in 1968—maybe inspired by NASA? This record came out in 1969, and it’s a heavy vinyl—but not too long after this were those super flimsy records, but same looking label.

But that’s a digression. Well, the internet tells me this band kind of evolved from family member singing groups, in Mexico City, from the Fifties (and possibly still playing today, in some form). Then in the Sixties, this quartet became very popular, got lots of high-profile gigs in the US—New York, Vegas, etc.—and you can understand why—this record is pretty great—they are compelling, interesting singers, and they are doing stuff in all kinds of styles, but it all works together organically—it feels good to me. A lot of it is pop music, and really timeless—like I wouldn’t even be able to nail down a decade—it could be mid-last-century, or NOW. On the other hand, it sounds to me like jet planes, op art, and whiskey sours. I’m picturing the group dressing formally, even with bow ties, but audiences with big hair and striped pants. Most of the songs are written by members of the band, and they are very good. But there’s also some covers, including “By the Time I Get to Phoenix” on the second side—a fine version. The other reason I bought this record is because it has that song listed, and I’m curious to hear all covers of that crazy song, just because I’ve heard so many great renditions of it. There’s also a bit of a Mamas & Papas medley, including “California Dreamin’” and “Monday Monday,” which is kind of hilarious. It sounds good, really, but the “medley” aspect is cheesy—you can understand why people quit doing medleys outside of cornball Las Vegas—and now leave the medleys for cafeteria vegetables and swimming competitions. Again I digress. The bottom line is, this is an excellent record, one I’ll be putting on the next time I have a date over for Scrabble.

Crabby Appleton “Crabby Appleton”

I bought this record because I’d never heard of Crabby Appleton, and it’s a great album cover—five longhaired white guys who look very 1970 are in a narrow brick alley in front of a dilapidated mansion. The bricks are painted green, and they’re sitting on some steps—the foremost of which is art department graffitied the name of the band (and their debut album), as well as the awesome Elektra logo. My copy has a “Crabby Appleton” semi-circle logo stickered over the top of the mansion—which actually looks pretty natural there. Also, a promo copy/not for sale sticker. I’m impressed by the amount of debris in the alley—it looks less art department-like, and more like no one had a broom—there’s broken glass, sticks, paper bags, a Campbell’s Soup can, and the best, a crushed Cap’n Crunch, Crunch Berries box. It’s fairly obvious the principal guy in the band is the one in the center, looking like a high school age Jimmy Page—it’s Michael Fennelly, the singer, guitarist, and songwriter. But the one I especially like is the guy with the glasses—he has a quality that like to call “Speenish”—in that he’s a little goofy-looking, and very much of his time. At first, I could only assume the band was named after him! He kind of resembles that one guy in Jefferson Airplane—so I immediately assumed this was a Bay Area band, but they’re from LA. I had to look up each name before I found out who was who. The conga player/percussionist, who is apparently Cuban, has the great name, “Flaco Falcon.” It turns out the Speenish guy is named Phil Jones, and he has the best resume of anyone in the band—he played with an impressive list of big names, including Tom Petty.

I’m not crazy about this record, but I still might put it on from time to time. Since there’s a keyboard player, you know ahead of time you’re going to be inundated, at some point, with that Hammond organ sound—and yes, it creeps in like the salty sea taking over a sinking ship. I mean, it’s okay, but Hammond should be used like a dangerous spice, and it wasn’t always, in that era. The percussion is compelling, throughout. There are only a few instances where you get the sense that the guitar leads were overdubbed with deadly obviousness. It’s overall, a pretty upbeat, but mellow, record with the best intentions. Apparently, they recorded a second record called “Rotten to the Core!”—and that was it for Crabby Appleton—maybe they’d run out of apple puns. One more observation I had was that I’m not in love with any of the songs—they are okay, but I wonder what kind of stuff they covered. I wouldn’t usually say this, about most bands, but I get the feeling I would have liked this band more in a live setting, at least of they stretched out and  jammed for longer spells—just because they sound to me like someone who might be able to fall into a nice groove—the percussion really helps with that. But I’m just guessing. I’ll look for some live stuff on the big internet, but I’m not expecting I’ll find much.

The Naked Skinnies “All My Life” / “This is the Beautiful Night”

This is a single, but 33 1/3 RPM, with a little hole, and there’s a nice, black and white, paper cover, with some arty photos of abstracted light fixtures. My copy still has the price tag from my store, Garbage Inc., ($2.00)—where it was probably on consignment. I think I got 5 or 10 copies from Tim Anstaett (TKA) of The Offense zine—along with The Cowboys single, which I think he released. It says “Naked House Records”—I suppose the band’s label, and I read that Ron House put up some of the money for it—maybe TKA did, as well. There’s a Columbus, Ohio, High Street address, so I looked at a map—it’s all different now, but it brought back memories—I think it was where the Magnolia Thunderpussy record store was, where I spent some time in the years around 1980. This record is from 1981.

The first side, “All My Life,” initially has a Joy Division sound, though more basic and low-fi—but as the melody progresses and the singer, Mark Eitzel, starts wailing, it sounds like a Mark Eitzel song. If you never heard this, but were an Eitzel or American Music Club fan, you’d know who it was singing in no time. The second side, “This is the Beautiful Night,” sounds even more Joy Division-like, but very quiet, low-key, controlled, and haunting. I think forty years ago, I liked the more pop, emotional A side better, and now I prefer the more subtle B side. That’s progress.

Besides singer and guitarist, Mark Eitzel, the other members of the band are Greg Bonnell, drums, Nancy Kangas, organ, and John Hricko, bass (and engineering). There is a photo of them on back, sitting in a bar, Rolling Rock on the table. Just behind them is a woman—and it always cracked me up—there’s a pasted on, typed strip that says, “this is our friend, Mary.” I hope she got a copy of the record. They moved out to San Francisco not long after this release (perhaps Hricko didn’t move), eventually broke up, and Nancy and Greg started a band called The Dave, who I liked a lot. I wrote to Nancy Kangas for years, trading zines—she made one of the best zines of all time, called Nancy’s Magazine. I first saw Mark Eitzel play solo, with an acoustic guitar, in Columbus, maybe around 1980 when I was in school there. He may have been playing as Billy Lee Buckeye, and he also wrote really funny stuff for The Offense fanzine under that name. In the early Eighties, in San Francisco, he started American Music Club, who became one of my all-time favorite bands. I unfortunately lost the AMC vinyl records with the rest of the records I lost. I’ll get them back someday. He’s still one of my favorite songwriters.