Baby Brother

Artist: Baby Brother

LP: 7" single

Song: "You Make My Warm Spot Hot"
[ listen ]

It's practically September in Seattle, but golly my warm spot was hot all day! Parking spot, I mean. At work. That's what we're talking about here, right? My parking spot? All the shady ones were taken! There's scant information on Baby Brother here. How could this song have failed to chart? What is wrong with you people!? I found my copy at Redhill Records in Helsinki in the springtime.

Dick Biondi and The Teenagers

Artist: Dick Biondi and The Teenagers

LP: Dick Biondi's Favorites...

Song: "The Teenager"
[ listen ]

Song: "The Teenage Mind"
[ listen ]

The older I get, the more baffled I am by the incomprehensible behaviors and attitudes of the teenagers of today. Thank god I've got this Dick Biondi record to explain them all to me.

[ Dick Biondi and The Teenagers ]

Pat Benatar

Artist: Pat Benatar

LP: 7" single

Song: "Heartbreaker"
[ listen ]

You're the right kind of sinner to release my inner fantasy.

I think I may have more Pat Benatar 45s than anyone else in town—especially since I've ended up with multiple copies because I've upgraded to picture sleeves in better condition for about five of them over the years. For example, I've got two copies of "Heartbreaker," which was released in 1979 and reached #23 on the Billboard Hot 100. I've just played the better of the two copies through, loudly, on my home stereo system, and it really can't be beat. It's one of the best American pop songs from the 1970s-to-'80s transition. 

Born Patricia Andrzejewski in 1953, Pat became "Benatar," thank god, when she married her high school sweetheart, Dennis Benatar, in 1972. Pat was inspired to pursue a music career after seeing Liza Minnelli in concert in Richmond, Virginia in 1971. I'd like to take this opportunity to officially thank Liza and Dennis for their contributions to Pat Benatar's career, which you can read all about right here.

[ Pat Benatar ]

Lasse Wellander

Artist: Lasse Wellander

LP: Electrocuted

Song: "Hotel 167"
[ listen ]

Here's something I found at Råkk og Rålls in Oslo on my trip to Norway back in May. I was taken in by several beguiling factors: 

1. Lasse played guitar for ABBA for lots of their studio recordings, and for a bunch of their live shows too! So naturally, I figured he probably sounded exactly like ABBA, but without any words. Unless maybe he sang!
2. On the back of "Electrocuted," his 1975 solo debut LP, Lasse uses a series of symbols to indicate which musicians are playing on each of the tracks—symbols that immediately brought to mind the system of enigmatic codes and symbols Bob Mizer always used to indicate the personality traits and sexual proclivities of his hunky male AMG models for their photo spreads (no pun intended) in monthly issues of Physique Pictorial. 
3. Lasse is super handsome and I like the way his pants cling to his hips. I wanted to take him home with me.
4. Lasse, come home!

But alas, this record sounds nothing like ABBA. And frankly, Lasse pretty much lost his looks soon after this LP was released (those poor Scandinavians hardly stand a chance!). And now that I've got photo documentation of his 1975-era bedroom eyes, hip-huggers and hairy chest, "Electrocuted" has been unplugged and put into my 'trade-in' pile of LPs. You can read about Lasse Wellander in Swedish here and go here for information in English.

[ Lasse Wellander ]

Faze-O

Artist: Faze-O

LP: Good Thang

Song: "Funky Lady"
[ listen ]

It's my birthday! I'm gonna' put on my milk-chocolate silk shorts and go get me some ice cream!

[ Faze-O in full bloom ]

Dolly Dots

Artist: Dolly Dots

LP: Dolly Dots

Song: "(They Are) Rollerskating"
[ listen ]

Song: "Moviestar"
[ listen ]

This 1979 Dolly Dots record is one of the things I found at Rocade Musikk in Bergen, Norway earlier this year. The Dolly Dots have come up with one of the best album covers I've ever seen! They're all on roller-skates, apparently skating through outer-space, and they've named themselves "Dolly Dots," for heavens sake. I was certain I'd struck roller-disco gold. (Rocade doesn't have a listening station, so I was judging books entirely by their covers.) 

At the height of their popularity in The Netherlands and Belgium and Turkey and Japan, Dolly Dots had their own television show, there were Barbie dolls fashioned after each of the Dots, and you could reportedly even paste Dolly Dots wallpaper upon your bedroom walls (of course no one's actually dared to post photographic evidence of this online). But the music. What about the music? Well...to be honest, it's like what you'd expect if you were to put on a soundtrack for a sloppy, half-baked off-Broadway GREASE impersonation set at a 1958 post-sock-hop slumber party, replete with lots of jazz hands, pillow fights, and jumping on the mattress. But on roller-skates! This record is fucking awful.

[ Dolly Dots ]

Ann Hathaway

Artist: Ann Hathaway

LP: The Intimate Ann

Song: "New Love, New Wine"
[ listen ]

Well this is kinda' sad. The caption from page 100 of the book "New York City Jazz" says Ann Hathaway would be remembered as a great singer of the late 1940s. But nowadays she's hardly remembered at all!

Obviously whoever wrote that has never heard of THE PRINCESS DIARIES. I dare you to try Googling Ann Hathaway the great jazz singer of the late '40s. She doesn't even have a Wikipedia page! And even Google is pretty sure you couldn't possibly be looking for anyone other than the newer, larger-lipped, non-intimate Ann who has an 'e' at the end of her name—the one from LES MISERABLES. 

I wasn't able to find an obituary for my Ann Hathaway, which either means she's faded completely into obscurity and her body is lying someplace uncollected and alone, or maybe she's still alive! Ann, are you still with us? Please leave a comment here to let me know you're still alive and, at age 102 or whatever, you somehow managed to use the internet to Google yourself and find this blog post instead of just millions of these. 

By employing some advanced Ann Hathaway filtering tactics, I managed to come up with some neat photos of the singer cavorting in Washington Square and performing at Cafe Society in New York in 1947. The extensive LP liner notes about Ms. Hathaway and bandleader Andre Brummer from this (I think) 1956 release are included below.  

[ Ann Hathaway ]