The Crazy World of Arthur Brown

Artist: The Crazy World of Arthur Brown

LP: 7" single

Song: "Nightmare" 
[ listen ]

Happy Record Store Day! I normally don't visit record stores on Record Store Day, since it's usually too crowded and annoying, but I went today in the afternoon, half hoping I could still find a copy of "Love Buzz" by Shocking Blue. I was too late for that, but at Georgetown Records I found this copy of "Nightmare" by The Crazy World of Arthur Brown and a few other neat things. I stopped by Sonic Boom in Ballard on my way home, and it was packed to the gills. Do people not realize that record stores are open on the other days of the year? Anyway, I was there long enough to pick up a reissue of a 2008 Richard Swift EP, but had to cut my browsing short after inadvertently stumbling into the body odor radiation sphere of a couple of bearded hipsters. I know body odor's cool and everything, but this was literally stifling. Speaking of body odor, Arthur Brown once stripped naked and set his hair on fire while performing onstage in Italy, after which he was promptly arrested and deported.

[ The Crazy World of Arthur Brown ]

Roy Wood's Wizzard

Artist: Roy Wood's Wizzard

LP: Wizzard's Brew

Song: "You Can Dance Your Rock n' Roll" 
[ listen ]

Song: "Wear a Fast Gun" 
[ listen ]

Speaking of funny face makeup, here's something I found at one of the best record stores in the South—Vertical House Records in Huntsville, Alabama. As I mentioned earlier, I had a limited amount of time to spend at this store, so I was only able to flip through bins A—G. I would have missed this 1973 Wizzard LP both alphabetically and entirely if someone else hadn't already recently listened to it and rejected it (!), leaving it atop a pile of records to be re-filed. Andy, owner of Vertical House, brought it over to me before re-filing to see if I'd be interested.

As you can read in the the cocky-yet-not-very-well-written LP liner notes included below, Roy Wood was a member of both The Move and The Electric Light Orchestra before going stark-raving-bat-shit brilliant and embarking upon Wizzard in 1972, a project that involved members of both of Wood's former groups. Wizzard is pretty exciting stuff that holds up remarkably well today, though they've made one of my mid-'80s psychedelic art-rock favorites, Doctor & The Medics, seem like more of a cheap reproduction than I'd formerly believed. You can read all about Roy Wood here, his Wizzard here, and there's a link below where you'll find Wizzard performing one of the most joyous Christmas tunes ever put on wax.

 Roy Wood's Wizzard on YouTube:

[ "I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day" ]

[ Roy Wood: Wizzard ]

Cepillin

Artist: Cepillin

LP: En Un Bosque De La China

Song: "Bailando Feliz" 
[ listen ]

Song: "Pan Con Mantequilla" 
[ listen ]

It's hard to imagine who could possibly have been intended as the target audience for this record. You've got a sexy hippie rock-star type wearing silk pajamas and half-assed clown makeup doing covers of classics by the Bee Gees and The Newbeats. Fun for the whole family, right? It turns out Cepillin (or, the artist formerly known as Ricardo González) was a dentist who started wearing funny face makeup so kids wouldn't be scared while he went to work on their teeth. But I can't think of anything more nightmare-inducing than a shaggy, falsetto-voiced hippie clown towering over me with a grin while giving me a root canal. 

Cepillin on YouTube:
[ "La Feria de Cepillin" ]

[ The dentist will see you now. ]

KISS

 Artist: KISS

LP: Love Gun

Song: "Then She Kissed Me"

[ listen ]

Back in the late '70s when my Grandma Bea saw that my older brother Matt had purchased a record by the band KISS, she gravely informed our entire family that the group's name stood for Knights In Satan's Service and that she couldn't believe we would allow that sort of evil into our home. I believed her, of course. But the other day I found KISS's 1977 "Love Gun" LP in my collection, and I began having doubts about the things Grandma Bea said. I mean, would Knights In the Service of Satan really do a cover of a hit song by the early '60s girl group The Crystals? It somehow just doesn't seem consistent with their mission. In any case, I first became aware of this terrific tune when Elizabeth Shue (who I strongly suspect may also be a Knight In Satan's Service) lip-synched to it in the opening credits of the popular 1987 film ADVENTURES IN BABYSITTING.

Village People

Artist: Village People

LP: Renaissance

Song: "Big Mac"

[ listen ]

As the popularity of disco began to wane in the early 1980s, gay pioneers the Village People—who had brought the outlandish dance music of the homosexual into the grade schools, church dances and back yard patios of mainstream Americans all across the land—well, they needed a new gimmick. The group traded in their iconic costumes (biker, construction worker, Indian chief, police officer, military guy and cowboy) for an exciting new look that was equal parts this, this, this, this and this. On this particular track, the Village People claim they have traveled all over the world and have eaten all sorts of food, but they can hardly wait to get back to San Francisco in order to bask in the amber glow of McDonald's golden arches, where they will eagerly sink their teeth into one of the fast food chain's signature sandwiches.

Hello People

Artist: Hello People

LP: The Handsome Devils
Song: "Take the Love In Your Body"
[ listen ]

My advice for today: Take the love in your body, let it out. I don't have time to write anything more about this Hello People LP that was produced and engineered by Todd Rundgren in 1974 (and found by me in Grand Forks, North Dakota in July of 2009), so I'm just going act out the rest of my comments in mime.

Since this is the first Hello People record in years,
the first temptation is to be historical about the band.
But a band that has outlasted most other American
bands since '67 has so much history that obviously
something else makes them still worth recording in
'74. That something can hopefully now be heard
as successfully as it has been seen in the past.
—Todd Rundgren