Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders

Artist: Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders

LP: The Game of Love

Song: "Game of Love"
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Song: "Too Many Tears"
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I guess there were probably dozens of handsome young male quartets forming in Britain in the mid-1960s, each hoping to catch some tailwind from the fab four's outer-space rocket ship. Here's one of them. Wayne Fontana and his Mindbenders did catch a little wind—"Game of Love" was a #1 hit in the USA—but I think it's safe to say Wayne Fontana is not a household name today. He did once set a police car on fire with a policeman still inside it. That was eleven years ago. In 1965 he up and left The Mindbenders in the middle of one of their concerts. The group continued on with Eric Stewart at the mic and they scored another top ten hit. 

"The Game of Love" is one of only two records I picked up at Lakeshore Record Exchange in Rochester—the other was an old Johnny Cash LP. The Record Exchange is situated not on the shore of a lake, but in a trendy little nook of the city, with sidewalk cafes and such. The store seems more focused on 'new and cool' and not as much on 'interesting.' When I asked the salesmen to play samples for me from this Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders record, they had to interrupt the loud contemporary noise-rock they were listening to in the store. I definitely felt like I was cramping everyone's style. But they were still nice about it.

Someone named Julie evidently once owned this copy of "The Game of Love." She vandalized the back of it with notes proclaiming her affection for a John and a Frank—though Frank seems to have been her #1 priority.

[ Lakeshore Record Exchange — Rochester, NY ]

Alma Cogan

Artist: Alma Cogan

LP: Alma Cogan

Song: "Tennessee Waltz"
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Song: "Ba-Ba Song"
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Song: "The Birds and the Bees"
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Alma Cogan used to post terrific mix tapes on the Art of the Mix website pretty frequently, but I had no idea this is what he looked like...and I certainly didn't know he'd been such a musical sensation in the British motherland in the 1950s! According to Wikipedia contributors, Alma enjoyed singing in lots of different languages, and on this particular collection he enjoys singing mostly in German.

[ Alma Cogan: May 19, 1932 — October 26, 1966 ]

B-Movie

Artist: B-Movie

LP: 12" single

Song: "A Letter From Afar" 
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Holy heatwave—it's sweltering in Seattle today! I'm as hot as an '80s new wave British band stranded in the middle of the Sahara Desert with a broke-down Chrysler.

[ B-Movie: Hot ]

Barry Ryan

Artist: Barry Ryan

LP: 7" single

Song: "Eloise" 
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This 1968 Barry Ryan single is just the sort of "symphonic rock" uplift I need on this grey and rainy Saturday morning in Seattle. Barry used to perform with his identical twin brother, Paul, but Paul couldn't handle the pressures of stardom, so he took to the backstage shadows with pen and notebook in hand, scribbling out smash singles like "Eloise" to keep his brother at the top of the European pop charts. It's weird; you'd think that, as twins, Paul and Barry would be equally adept at handling the three-ring circus called fame. In any case, the hits kept coming for another few years, finally tapering off in 1972. Now Barry's a photographer, but he still pops up every now and again to perform. You can read more about him here.

Bananarama

Artist: Bananarama

LP: 12" single

Song: "Do Not Disturb"

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I know I probably shouldn't let it disturb me, but the El Camión taco truck up the street has really been stressing me out lately. I went there the other night and waited in line behind a man who seemed slightly annoyed that I was standing so close to him as he got to the counter to place his order (mostly I just didn't want to get run over by a car). But then I heard him tell the cashier that he was homeless and he asked if they had any food they were getting rid of that he could have. As the cashier asked the cook, I decided that, if they told him they didn't, maybe I would offer to buy him something to eat. The cashier told him they had nothing to give and, as the man walked away, I thought to myself: "I think I should; no, maybe I shouldn't; I really should; but maybe I shouldn't; I should. Should I?" By the time I realized that of fucking course I should, the man had already walked around the corner. At that point I would have had to stage an elaborate, attention-grabbing musical production to retrieve him and bring him back to the window to order some food. So instead, I stepped quietly forward, ordered my food and paid for it. After all, I'm not homeless and I have a job. I can order a huge burrito that's way bigger than any burrito reasonably needs to be, but I will still eat it all because I have the money to pay for it, and so well why not. I realized pretty quickly that I'd just missed a golden opportunity to put my money where my mouth is and I was ashamed. What kind of man am I anyway?

Then last night I went back to El Camión because I needed another burrito—un burrito de carne asada. Unfortunately, just as I arrived there, the truck was beset upon by one of those flash mobs made of young urban professionals who all have the same personality, one that doesn't really have a lot of features to speak of. They probably like sports. Some of the youngsters were in line ahead of me, but two of them were directly behind me in line. I overheard one of the guys behind me reveal to the other that he was totally burned out at work; he's just been showing up there each day and going through the motions. He's been completely unproductive. Then they began to discuss what they were going to order for dinner, which involved yelling at each of the other young professional flash mobsters to ask what they had ordered for dinner, or what they were planning to order for dinner. It was the most banal conversation I'd heard in months. When one of the two guys behind me in line told the other that he had decided to order a carne asada burrito, I knew instantly and without a doubt that, when my own carne asada burrito order was called out at the pick-up window, that guy there was gonna' take it. Moments later, when the gal at the window called out, "carne asada burrito!" and I stepped forward, the burned out young professional moved in ahead of me and nabbed my food. He gave me a sideways look, after which I resigned myself to waiting for his burrito to appear at the window for me. Of course I realize that he didn't take my burrito on purpose—he did it without thinking, like he does everything else in life. I realized pretty quickly that I'd just missed a golden opportunity to put my mouth where my money is and I was ashamed. When I got home and was eating that guy's burrito, I had to pick three big cilantro stems out of it. I thought to myself, "I bet my burrito only had two." 

Now I've earned a free burrito with my El Camión punch card, but I'm scared to go back since I keep having to take such a cold, hard look at myself there.

On a completely unrelated note, I bet I've got more Bananarama 12" singles than anyone else in Seattle north of the ship canal.

[ Bananarama ]

Wolfe

Artist: Wolfe

LP: Wolfe

Song: "Time Is Money" 
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Song: "Funny, Funny" 
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Last weekend I met up with some friends at Vera's Restaurant for brunch here in Ballard. That's just around the corner from Sonic Boom Records, so I decided to pack a bunch of LPs into the car and take them in for trade after our meal to see what I could get for them...but not before we went strolling through Ballard's lovely Sunday Street Market! 

 
Well they gave me a lot for my records, and I spent hours (not one, not two, not three, not four) digging through the bins and ended up leaving with some real neat stuff. Just when I thought I'd finished looking, I came across two crates in the corner filled with Japanese pop albums from the '60s, '70s and '80s that someone had brought in—priced at just $2.49 apiece! I'll hopefully be posting some of those here soon. 

This 1972 Wolfe LP was another one of the things I found at Sonic Boom. There isn't much info on the web about the group, but there's a terrific review on the Bite It Deep blog here. Another review, a shorter one, can be found here, where additional musical experts have weighed in with their own opinions of the record. Someone called 'cosmowombo' gives the LP just two stars out of five and reports, "I don't like it"; 'daspmusik' also rates the record two stars and calls it "Below Mediocre"; 'Kanto_Sho' gives the album a single star and says, "Terrible - bro in the band wouldn't help." I don't know what that means, but I do know that those folks must have really shitty taste in music.

The Walker Brothers

Artist: The Walker Brothers

LP: 7" single

Song: "In My Room" 
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Maybe I haven't been paying attention, but I just found out that none of The Walker Brothers are named Walker—and in fact they aren't even related! They only look related because they all have the same hair. You can read more about the group on Wikipedia here. Anyway, this 1966 Japan-only release by John Maus, Gary Leeds and Scott Engel is one of a handful of neat rare 45s I picked up at Georgetown Records earlier this week while visiting the Square Knot Diner with my good friend Carrie.

[ Neither Walkers, Nor Brothers — The Walker Brothers ]

The Surprise Sisters

Artist: The Surprise Sisters

LP: The Surprise Sisters

Song: "Watch Out"

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I was surprised to learn here that these four lovely ladies really ARE sisters...from a place called England/Australia, wherever that is. And while watching the "La Booga Rooga" video, I was surprised by how much the sisters all looked like Pat Benatar with different wigs on—except Ellen, who looks more like Vicki Lawrence.

The Surprise Sisters on YouTube:

[ "La Booga Rooga" ]

Leslie McKeown

Artist: Leslie McKeown

LP: 7" single

Song: "Shall I Do It (One More Number One)"

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About a block away from Used Kids Records in Columbus I found Johnny Go's House O' Music, a messy little store that feels more like a pawn shop than a record store (lots of beat-up LP covers and bent 7" picture sleeves, for one thing). But, just like in a pawn shop, I figured if I dug around long enough I'd probably find something interesting. One of the few things I found at Johnny Go's is this 1979 German-made single from Leslie McKeown, former lead vocalist for The Bay City Rollers. I just now learned that Les also contributed backing vocals to one the most influential albums of my youth—"Filigree & Shadow" by This Mortal Coil. You can read about the life and career of Leslie McKeown on Wikipedia here, and if you want to read about McKeown's shocking 2009 televised confession that he'd been living a secret gay life for the past 30 years, you can do so here. All I can say is that anyone who's ever laid eyes on the "Shall I Do It" picture sleeve and was still somehow shocked by McKeown's revelation, well...duh. They've really only got themselves to blame.

 [ Leslie McKeown, secretly gay. ]

 [ Leslie McKeown (right) in Hawaii in 1978, with no secrets at all. ]

 [ Johnny Go's House O' Music — Columbus, OH]

The Tourists

Artist: The Tourists

LP: 7" single

Song: "Don't Say I Told You So"

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Song: "Strange Sky"

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Before they became an international sensation as Eurythmics in 1983, Annie Lennox and David A. Stewart were members of The Tourists. "Don't Say I Told You So" reached #40 on the U.K. singles charts in 1980, but it's the haunting "Strange Sky" that I like best. This b-side wasn't included on any of The Tourists LPs, but it was added to their 1999 Greatest Hits CD, which you can pick up for peanuts on Amazon dot com. Click here to read all about The Tourists.

Keith Marshall

Artist: Keith Marshall

LP: 7" single

Song: "Only Crying"

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Though the ocean, pictured here, plays a large role in this sad little love song by Keith Marshall, the singer wouldn't allow himself to be photographed on its sandy, windswept shores. In fact, he insisted that photos for the sleeve of his 1981 "Only Crying" single be taken only within the controlled environment of the studio, where his carefully arranged hairstyle wouldn't be compromised by the elements. You can read about Keith Marshall (formerly of Hello) here, and find the "Only Crying" lyrics here.

 [ Keith Marshall, with guitar and hair. ]

Chris Hodge

Artist: Chris Hodge

LP: 7" single

Song: "We're On Our Way"

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Young British upstart Chris Hodge was reportedly signed to Apple Records after calling to tell them, "I've got some good rockin' songs about UFOs." Ringo Starr likes UFOs, so he helped Chris get a record deal, and "We're On Our Way" went to #44 on the US singles charts in 1972. You can confirm this here, see more pics by searching for Chris Hodge here and listen to more of his songs here.

 

 

[ Chris Hodge on grass. ]