"45 45's until I'm 45" (#08/45)

Good morning, friends,

for a change today I have a little something that most of you might not have heard before. But believe me, it is a belter of a tune, so I very strongly recommend to have a listen: it will open your minds, friends, believe me!

As a young man, David Walker, a Washington D.C. native, was a heavyweight contender who sparred with Archie Moore. In the late 1950s, he joined an L.A. gospel group called the Sensational Wonders, which soon morphed into the Mighty Clouds of Joy. Though the group's leader, Joe Ligon, was noted for his rough, barking vocal style, Walker's voice was something else entirely.

In the early '60s, Walker met up with another D.C. product, Link Wray: Link Wray and his Raymen, which included the guitarist's brothers Doug and Vernon, brought Walker into Vern's home studio, where they recorded several tracks together. Given the insinuations of the songs they cut -- 'Hide and Go Seek,' 'Red Riding Hood and the Wolf,' 'The Girl Can't Dance' -- the churchgoing Walker was reluctant to put his name on the records. The Wray brothers decided to give him an alter ego, considering the kooky alias Four H Stamp before settling for the slightly more plausible Bunker Hill.

So, originally put out on Mala Records in 1963 (and God I wish I had a copy of this single!!), but fortunately re-released as a B-Side on a Norton Records 7" in 1996, here's to you, friends, the mighty Bunker Hill together with Link Wray And His Raymen, your number eight in my little rundown. Enjoy:

Bunker Hill with Link Wray and the Raymen - 'The Girl Can't Dance' (mp3)

Norton Records - 046 (released in 1996, originally recorded in 1963)

A lot of the material Bunker Hill recorded with the Raymen is great, but nothing, nothing matches this recording. Anyone who tells you that rock was unexciting before punk came along obviously never heard this cut, it blows most punk right out of the water by sheer sonic force: "This guy makes Little Richard sound like Pat Boone," comments one fan on YouTube, and that can't be argued.

Perhaps today's choice might possibly be only something for those of you with an appetite for the bizarre. I'm sure such creatures exist though, so, to the few of you, as I said before: enjoy!

Dirk

"45 45's until I'm 45" (#07/45)

Hello my beauties,

today - again - a 7" everyone of you should know (and love?), at least when being of a certain age. I mean, this record is not the subject of my daydreams, you see, it's not that I sit in the office all day long thinking "boy, as soon as I get home, I have to rush upstairs and put it on the turntable
immediately without fail because this record is a much sought after prime example for music of quality and distinction!" ... not really ... then again every once in a while I listen to it and think to myself how marvellous it was and still is, in fact. Did it stand the test of time? Hmmm, dunno, most probably not for the bulk of you, but it did for me.

Here's your number seven, friends:

The Notsensibles - 'I'm In Love With Margaret Thatcher' (mp3)

Snotty Snail Records - NELCOL-1 (1980)

Obviously Thatcherism didn't have the same impact on me (as a German) as it had for you over there in sunny England, but I remember it well. Somehow back then you just couldn't avoid to be confronted with Thatcher (and/or Thatcher together with Reagan) in the newspapers, on the telly and in school on a daily basis. Falkland comes to mind and the miners, so does unemployment and health care, but I know I'm on thin ice here, so I better shut up and finish with what The Notsensibles themselves thought about the record: "all we want to do is make silly records and play silly gigs".

Well, I'm all for that.

Enjoy,

Dirk

"45 45's until I'm 45" (#06/45)

Morning my friends,

for a change today I have for you something you might not know, this relates to the fact that it is by one of the most grievously underrated artists of our time, the mighty "Metal Mike" Sauders.

He is credited with coining the music genre label "heavy metal" in a record review in the Rolling Stone magazine in 1970. He drummed and sang in various bands, most commonly known perhaps are the Angry Samoans.

Don't let that heavy metal - thingy put you off now, please, because the tune really is well worth downloading/listening to! The same is true for everything Saunders released as Metal Mike ... which is quite a bulk of stuff. I can highly recommend the debut Mini-LP 'Metal Mike Plays The Hits Of The 90's' for a starter, then again there isn't a bad one amongst the nine 7" singles he put out within the early 90's as well.

This is but one of them, a fine version of a Merle Haggard tune ... and your number six, friends:

Metal Mike - 'I'm A Lonesome Fugitive' (mp3)

Triple X Records - 51054-7 (1990)

 

 

You'll get this one - plus five other outstanding tunes of similar brilliance - on the aforementioned Mini - LP from '91 (Triple X – 51064-2). Get hold of it now before it's too late ....

 

Enjoy,

 

Dirk

"45 45's until I'm 45" (#05/45)

Hello dearest friends,

first of all thanks a lot for all the nice comments so far, highly appreciated and, as I pointed out before, they are what keeps this series (and the blog as well) going by and large. Cheers!

1979 was an outstanding year musicwise, I always thought. I mean, I can't be arsed to calculate it through right now, but I'm willing to have a small bet that when we come to an end with this rundown more singles from 1979 will have cropped up than from any other year in comparison.

Why this is? I dunno ... I think a lot of the records issued in 1979 captured a perfect mixture of the rawness of '77/'78 punk and the fragility of '80/'81 New Wave .... which, thinking about it, doesn't make any sense at all as they were obviously released before 1980, but I'm pretty sure you understand the point I'm trying to make here.

This is but one fine example for the above, your number five, friends:

Elvis Costello and The Attractions - 'Oliver's Army' (mp3)

Radar Records - RAD 17344 (1979)

 

 

Taken from the album 'Armed Forces', although I prefer the follow-up to this, 'Get Happy!'. You too?

 

Enjoy,

 

Dirk

"45 45's until I'm 45" (#04/45)

Good morning friends,

here's to you one of T.H.E. perfect pop songs of our time, catchy, nicely to sing along to, a tune I never get tired of listening to ... not that I listen to the radio much at all, but every once in a while when I fumble thru my files on the computer I see it, press play and enjoy its simplicity again. And I hope you'll do too now ... so here's your number four, dear reader:

Babybird - 'Goodnight' (mp3)

Echo - ECS 24 (1996)

I also have Babybird's 'Ugly Beautiful' - CD somewhere, but I must admit I wasn't really convinced of it after the purchase. Sure, 'You're Gorgeous' is a neat tune as well, but apart from that ... uh, I dunno ... perhaps I should listen to it again in its entirety soon and give it a second chance.

Well, enjoy and ... depending on where on earth you are .... goodnight!

Dirk

"45 45's until I'm 45" (#03/45)

Hello my beauties,

and yes, dear readers, the hits keep happening here on Sexyloser, 'cos, as my boss of the bar where I used to DJ in back in another century said to me: "Oh Dirk, can't you at least sometimes play something with some recognition value, please?!", here is a record you should indeed know if you are about to retire in not more than 20 years 'in your best years', as they say ... which I suppose is true for all of the five middle-aged men who occasionally read this blog.

This is for you, your number three:

 

 

Fad Gadget - 'Back To Nature' (mp3)

Mute - MUTE 002 (1979)

Ground breaking stuff indeed, I'm sure you agree, and, for a change, one of the very few records I was not introduced to by John Peel's BFBS programmes, in fact this one I discovered on the dancefloor (albeit not in 1979 (but a few years later ... I was too young, you know ...) and not on the dancefloor itself (more accurately most probably whilst crossing it on my way to the bar)).

Robster - in a previous comment - suggested I should give some details about when I first listened to the specific records. The thing is, you see, I'm getting 45, not 25, means my memory has started to decline quite a long time ago. Nevertheless I remember though that this tune was frequently played in a very strange (and, regrettably, short-lived) club I used to visit in the mid eighties, The Fleshtemple (sic) in Wijnandsrade in Holland, a very small village just behind the Dutch/German border. In order to be able to enter the venue itself you had to cross the local pub in which the pensioners sat and played their game of cards. I suppose it was rather odd for them to sit there and watch all those freaks coming in all evening long: Punks, Goths, Skins, Mods ... everyone was there and people even drove in from as far away as the Ruhr Area (which was quite a distance. Suppose it still is, to be precise).

But despite of the variety of the visitors, there never was a single outbreak of anger as far as I remember and I suppose this is what made the Fleshtemple so special. This and the fact that basically there was no decoration at all apart from stark naked display dummies all over (which explains the name, so there you are). Plus they offered 0.2 water glasses brimfull of pure white Martini for a little bit more than 1 Gulden ... which today would be something along the lines of 45p for British readers or $ 0.70 for the Americans ... prices too impossible to imagine nowadays!

And, of course, the music there was just awesome: they always had the newest stuff from Britain combined with an outstanding amount of great rare records from a few years before. I think after it shut down I never ever discovered a club again which offered music of comparable quality.

Enjoy,

Dirk

"45 45's until I'm 45" (#02/45)

Hello friends,

part two in the '45 45's until I'm 45' - series and at least we got that far with it before coming to an abrupt halt. Which is a good sign, I would think. If you wonder what this may all be about, please scroll down to the last post and get yourself some explanation.

A cover today, folks (always helpful to keep people interested, I found out, at least a bit) for your enjoyment, and also one which is better than the original, which doesn't happen all that often. And on nice black and white marbled vinyl as well ... which I'm sure will impress you mightily ... that's if you are impressed rather easily, of course!

Here's your number two:

The Lemonheads - 'Luka' (mp3)

Taang! Records - TAANG! 31 (1989)

 

 

A neat tune indeed, I'm sure you'll agree. I would also have included their fantastic version of 'Mrs Robinson', but I only have that on a 10" ... then again this also would play at 45 RPM. But I have to draw the line somewhere, so it's 7" singles only ...

Enjoy,

Dirk

"45 45's until I'm 45" (#01/45)

Hello dearest friends and followers,

 I really sincerely do hope that this is the start of something which will not turn out to be dead again after a few weeks, but as per today I’m rather confident to keep up with the project until its finalisation.

 Some of you may recall this post’s title, which of course is shamelessly stolen from the mighty Vinyl Villain (although I asked for his approval to do this beforehand and he very kindly obliged. More importantly he even persuaded me to get the thing going and who am I to argue with the great man?).

 And for those of you who can’t remember Jim’s original series, here’s the idea behind it:

 I’ll become 45 years of age mid of June this year and until then I’ll provide you with 45 different 7” Singles (which all spin on 45 RPM obviously). The records in result will by no means be chosen from a comprehensive list of everything that was fine within the last 2000 years …. basically I - rather quickly - rifled through my boxes with 7”s and picked out 45 of those which I still like a lot these days. Also I didn’t even bother to try to rate those in one form or another, so I’ll make the sequential arrangement up as I go along … in other words don’t be astonished that #39 might be worse than #4, for example. There are very few though which I regard as being outstandingly good and I’ll try to keep them until the end of the series. Hope this works out ….

 Also I try not to bore you with long and uninteresting stories about which girl I fell in love with although she thought I was just a twat when I bought a specific record, a little bit of info perhaps about the band and there you are ….

 Needless to say that comments are very highly appreciated, the more the merrier of course. The truth of the matter is that those will keep the series going at the end of the day …

 Okay, so, without further ado, here’s to you …. my number one:

 

 

The MightyWah! – ‘Come Back’ (mp3)

(Beggars Banquet – BEG 111, 1984)

 

1984 was an outstanding year for music in my humble opinion. So much great stuff was released and I must have spent a fortune on records back then. This is just one of my purchases, but I still like it a lot. This record never bores me, then again this is true for many things Pete Wylie did over the years.

Enjoy,

Dirk