Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts

Artist: Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts

LP: Nuts to You

Song: "Ding-a-Ling"
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Song: "A Soldier"
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I'm back home in Seattle after my Southern road trip and record-hunting excursion! Originally I'd planned to kick off my trip by hanging out in New Orleans for a few days, but I found it impossible to secure an available motel room there! I soon discovered that these guys were to blame: 

Well I didn't really want to hang out with the WrestleMania fellows and their fans anyway, so after flying into the New Orleans airport, I hightailed it out of town and headed northwest toward Baton Rouge. After a delicious breakfast at Louie's Cafe, I headed over to the first record store on my list, a little white house stuffed with vinyl known as Lagniappe Records (pronounced "LAN-yap"...not "lag-knee-YAP-pee," as I'd been saying...and then "WRECK-urds.") A small store with an excellent selection and decent prices, Lagniappe also features live shows and super friendly owners. The LPs are basically all mixed together in alphabetical order rather than being segregated by genre, thereby enabling browsers to find all sorts of exciting things they hadn't even realized they were looking for. I found lots of great stuff here, but this debut 1961 LP from the Chapel Hill, North Carolina frat party band Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts is right there at the top. It's nasty! You can read a little about Doug and his Nuts on Wikipedia here, and you can go here to visit the group's website. Album notes and photos from the back of the LP are included below.

[ Doug Clark and the Hot Nuts ]

[ Lagniappe Records — Baton Rouge, Louisiana ]

Ruth Wallis

 Artist: Ruth Wallis

LP: House Party

Song: "Johnny Had a Yo Yo"

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Song: "The Dinghy Song"

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While stopping by Golden Oldies over the weekend to collect my stash, I also picked up this saucy record from Brooklyn native Ruth Wallis, the lovely and talented cabaret singer known for her dirty, double-entendre-filled ditties. The two songs posted here, for example, are about the male genitalia—cleverly disguised as songs about Johnny's yo-yo (if his dad finds out she plays with it, there'll be hell to pay) and about the cutest little dinghy in the Navy (it isn't very narrow and it isn't very wide, but you should see that thing go in and out with the tide). Ruth's songs were banned from the radio in Boston, and once when she arrived in Australia for a tour, customs agents seized her filthy records! But instead of ruining her tour, the incident of course made Ruth more popular than ever. You can read about the life and career of Ruth Wallis here and here, and also check out the liner notes below, which suggest that Ruth Wallis' fans aren't sexual perverts, they're just sophisticated.

[ Ruth Wallis: January 5, 1920 — December 22, 2007 ]

Olympic Runners

Artist: Olympic Runners

LP: Hot to Trot

Song: "(C'mon) Just a Little Lick"

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Hello! I'm back from my 12-day Ohio road trip, during which I ate in lots of neat little diners, stayed in some cool old hotels/motels/state parks, visited some interesting museums, saw some beautiful cities, towns, and countryside, met lots of friendly Ohioans, and of course I bought lots of records. I visited 18 record stores throughout The Buckeye State, not counting the one in Youngstown that was closed, and I found souvenirs to take home with me at each and every one. My trip started in the beautiful and historic city of Cincinnati...

[ Cincinnati, OH — from Kentucky side of Ohio River ]

...also known as "The Queen City," and not just because it has a relatively large gay population. With its riverfront location making it a popular destination for steamboats in the early part of the 19th century, Cincinnati quickly grew to become the largest inland city in the USA, before railroads took over the country and Chicago really began to boom. On my first full day in Cincinnati I hunted down the house in which singer Doris Day was born in April of 1924, where she lived and played as a tot.

While I was in the neighborhood I stopped by Everybody's Records and CDs, where I found lots of great stuff, including this 1977 LP by British funk band Olympic Runners. You can read about them here. It was nearly 100° in Cincinnati during my visit, so I had to keep moving all the records I found back and forth between the cool, air-conditioned inside of my rental car while driving, and the relatively cool darkness of the trunk while the car was parked. Buying records on a summer road trip can become quite complicated!

[ Everybody's Records and CDs — Cincinnati, OH ]

[ Olympic Runners' "Hot to Trot" LP, back and front covers combined ]

ADC Band

Artist: ADC Band

LP: Long Stroke

Song: "Long Stroke"

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This debut LP from the Detroit funk group called ADC Band (well, I assume they're from Detroit, since that's where photos and recording for their first album were done) is one of the neat things I found at Grooves in San Francisco last year. The AllMusic website gives this record only two stars, but it seems more like a four-star record to me. I'm probably biased since I like nasty songs ("Long Stroke" was a #8 hit on the R&B singles charts back in 1978), and also because it features one of the sexiest fellows I've ever seen on the front of a record.

Marvin Sease [1946-2011]

Artist: Marvin Sease

LP: Breakfast

Song: "Condom on Your Tongue"

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I was sad to read the news yesterday that R&B singer Marvin Sease had died on Tuesday from a bad case of pneumonia. I first heard of Sease while working at Budget Tapes & Records in Yakima, Washington back in 1988 when his "Breakfast" LP was released. We received a promo copy and were playing the record in the store when we, and several unsuspecting customers, were startled to hear Marvin joyously singing about receiving oral sex after having a condom placed on his partner's tongue. One of my colleagues who had a habit of ruining everything he touched took the record home to play it for friends, and when he brought it back it looked kinda' like this. I'd been keeping an eye out for another copy over the years, and finally found one at Golden Oldies here in Seattle about two years ago. Though nasty songs have become tiresomely commonplace ("my neck, my back"—and so-forth), Marvin Sease never seems to be trying nearly so hard as other dirty singers—and plus, he has a message. With "Condom on Your Tongue," Marvin not only cheerfully promotes safe sex and AIDS awareness, but also advocates for making sure sex is an equally pleasurable experience for everyone involved ("you do me...I'll do you"). Sadly, I never had the pleasure, but I'm willing to bet Marvin Sease was a lot of fun in the sack, and he was probably an engaging dinner date too. You can read about Marvin Sease on Wikipedia here, then find his obituary and listen to his sex-positive hit song "Candy Licker" on the blackbottom website here.

 

 

Marvin Sease

[February 16, 1946 — February 8, 2011]

We will miss you, Marvin.