My friend Refugio and I had a great time up in Bellingham this past weekend, and I'm pleased to say I didn't buy a single record there! Actually, I told Refugio to keep me away from the city's record stores, since I'd already given the small town of Mount Vernon an economic stimulus package in the form of a record-buying binge on our way up to Bellingham—but not before we enjoyed a delicious breakfast at the Mount Vernon Cafe & Lounge, of course. One of the things I picked up was this awesome 1964 surf-music LP by The Hondells, featuring songs with vocals, as well as some without. The group didn't actually exist when the song "Little Honda" began gaining popularity, so producer Gary Usher quickly threw one together with Ritchie Burns, one of the "Little Honda" backing vocalists, in the lead. Burns recruited a few friends, who had nothing at all to do with the record, to pose as fellow members of The Hondells on the LP sleeve, and the album was released in time to cash in on southern California's Honda motorbike craze of the early 1960s. You can read about all of this here and here, see The Hondells perform their bouncy top ten hit "Little Honda" on "Shindig" with the link below, and find the LP notes and photos after that.
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