Dinosaur Gardens

The international struggles of our world may lead to… (ka-boom) NUCLEAR HOLOCAUST!

Nothing lends itself better to a fear-based advertising campaign than your family’s radioactive death. So when the Mort Kridel Advertising Agency was asked to create a radio ad campaign for Survive-All Fallout Shelters, they did their PR-darnedest to scare the Wonder Bread crap out of nuclear families everywhere. Tense horn stabs and canned explosions bracket sales pitches like:

Radioactive fallout, that deadly by-product of a nuclear attack, will kill literally millions of unprotected families in the event of an atomic attack. Is YOUR family protected? Do YOU have a fallout shelter?

Each Civil defense approved, basement-type, Do-It-Yourself fallout shelter includes: A complete fully-stocked first aid kit! Extra strength saran and rayon bunks! A radiation meter and individual dosimeters!

Civil defense approved, FHA approved, no money down, five years to pay!

Economical… but Priceless!

These are ripped from the original LP that would have gone to radio stations from the ad agency. There are 6 long versions and 3 shortened versions, each fairly different. Since it was promotional there was no record cover, but a scan of the record’s label is included.  No year is evident, but since the zip code is two digits, it’s presumably pre-1963, and I would guess late 1950’s.

1. Maximum Protection (General)
2. Comparison
3. Value
4. Equipment
5. DYS
6. Maximum Protection (Steel and Concrete)
7. DYS (short)
8. Maximum Protection (Steel and Concrete) (short)
9. Maximum Protection (General) (short)
10. Survive-All Shelters Radio Ads LP Label

Survive-All Shelters Radio Ads.zip

Trojan Records was founded in 1967 by Jamaican-English producer Lee Gopthal as something of a sister label to Chris Blackwell’s Island Records. It became one of the best-known and successful reggae labels, but it also bought out several independent Jamaican labels and ended up with a pretty good ska and rock-steady back catalog. In 1972, it went through these archives and put out a fantastic (if somewhat inaccurately-named) compilation, The Trojan Story.

Although the liner notes were somewhat sparse and the sound rough, you couldn’t want a better overview of 1960s Jamaican music. The first tracks, from 1961, are embryonic ska in which you can hear the R & B influence; it takes us through the height of ska to its migration to rock-steady, and then winding up with early reggae (it even includes what could be called the “original” rock-steady and reggae songs: Alton Ellis’s “Rock Steady” and The Maytals’ “Do the Reggay”, respectively).

The three-disk box was only in print for a short time, and was reissued briefly in 1980 (in 1976, Trojan released a different compilation and also called it The Trojan Story, ensuring eternal confusion). In 1988, it was released on a 2-CD set, which also quickly went out of print; copies today sell for $50–75.

I’ve had the LP set for some time, but I was trying to track down a copy of the CD for the last few years. I finally found a reasonably priced copy, and the sound was awful. It’s one of the worst mastering jobs I’ve ever heard. They didn’t go back to the original masters, but clearly just copied the LP, and didn’t even do a very good job of that. The copy I made off my LP sounded much better. So that’s what we have here. Be sure to at least check out “Housewives’ Choice” and “The Great Wuga Wuga”. Also Jimmy Cliff when he was just 14!

1. Laurel Aitken and the Carib Beats - Bartender [1961]
2. Derrick Morgan - Fat Man [1961]
3. Eric “Humpty Dumpty” Morris and the Drumbago All Stars - Humpty Dumpty [1961]
4. Jimmy Cliff - Miss Jamaica [1962]
5. Derrick and Patsy - Housewives’ Choice [1962]
6. Jackie Edwards - Tell Me Darling [1963]
7. Kentrick Patrick - Don’t Stay Out Too Late [1963]
8. The Stranger and The Duke Reid Band - Rough and Tough [1963]
9. Kentrick Patrick - Man to Man [1963]
10. Stranger Cole - Unos-Dos-Tres [1964]
11. The Skatalites - Confucius [1966]
12. The Mellow Larks - Time to Pray (Alleluia) [1961]
13. The Blues Busters - Soon You’ll Be Gone [1965]
14. Lord Tanamo - I’m in the Mood for Ska [1965]
15. The Riots - Yeah Yeah [1965]
16. Don Drummond - Man in the Street [1965]
17. Baba Brooks and His Band - One-Eyed Giant [1967]
18. Honeyboy Martin and the Voices with Tommy McCook and the Supersonics - Dreader Than Dread [1967]
19. Owen Gray - Darling Patricia [1962]
20. Joe White and Chuck with the Baba Brooks Band - Every Night [1966]
21. The Astronauts - Syncopate [1966]
22. The Clarendonians - Rules of Life [1966]
23. Slim Smith - The New Boss [1966]
24. Winston and George - Keep the Pressure On [1966]
25. Roy Shirley - Musical Train [1967]
26. The Techniques - Oh Babe [1966]
27. Sir Lord Comic - The Great Wuga Wuga [1967]
28. Dandy - Rudy, a Message to You [1967]
29. The Ethiopians - Train to Skaville [1967]
30. The Three Tops - It’s Raining [1966]
31. The Ethiopians - The Whip [1967]
32. Desmond Dekker and the Aces - Pretty Africa [1967]
33. Alton Ellis - Rock Steady [1966]
34. Baba Brooks and His Band - King Size [1966]
35. Evan & Jerry with The Carib Beats - Rock Steady Train [1967]
36. Sugar Simone - King Without a Throne [1967]
37. Phyllis Dillon with Tommy McCook and The Supersonics - Perfidia [1967]
38. Derrick Morgan - Do the Beng Beng [1968]
39. Lynn Taitt - Way of Life [1968]
    
40. The Tennors - I’ve Got to Get You Off My Mind [1968]
    
41. Lee “King” Perry - People Funny Boy [1968]
    
42. The Supersonics - Second Fiddle [1968]
    
43. The Maytals - Do the Reggay [1968]
    
44. The Slickers - Nana [1968]
    
45. The Pioneers - Mama Look [1969]
    
46. The Maytals - Pressure Drop [1970]
    
47. The Maytones - Black and White [1971]
    
48. The Charmers - Rasta Never Fails [1971]
    

Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2008 13:52:03 -0500
Subject: Dinosaur Gardens / Threepenny Opera
From: Jeremy Meyers <jeremy.meyers@sonybmg.com>
To: <sluggo@unknown.nu>

Hey-

Although we appreciate your enthusiasm for the Threepenny Opera recording posted at http://www.dinosaurgardens.com/archives/180, we must ask that you remove the full-length mp3 files immediately.

We have definitely taken note of the interest from both you and the people commenting on your site, and will be discussing it internally. I will keep you in the loop if any decisions are made regarding the re-release of this material.

Thanks for your quick cooperation on this.

-Jeremy

--
Jeremy Meyers
Manager, Digital Sales and Editorial
CMG Digital Group / SonyBMG Masterworks
550 Madison Avenue #1622, NYC 10022
e: jeremy.meyers@sonybmg.com
ms: http://www.myspace.com/sonybmgmasterworks

Merry Christmas, everybody. I’m in Detroit eating lamb, but I needed to take some time out to commemorate a very important date. Were Cab Calloway still alive, he would be 100 today. So here are some Christmas presents for you all: a series of Cab videos, spanning 1932–1990.

• Betty Boop: Minnie the Moocher (1932)
• “Reefer Man” from International House (1933)
• Betty Boop: Snow-White (1933)
• Betty Boop: The Old Man of the Mountain (1933)
• Cab Calloway’s Hi-De-Ho (1934)
• Cab Calloway’s Jitterbug Party (1935)
• “Blues in the Night” (1942)
• “The Skunk Song” (1942)
• “Virginia, Georgia and Caroline” (1942)
• “Geechy Joe” from Stormy Weather (1943)
• “Foo a Little Bally Hoo” (1945)
• “I Was Here When You Left Me” (1945)
• “We the Cats Shall Hep Ya” (1945)
• “Minnie the Moocher” (1950)
• “St. James Infirmary” (1950)
• “I Can’t Give You Anything but Love” (1951)
• “One for My Baby” (1951)
• “St. James Infirmary” and “Ol’ Man River” from The Ed Sullivan Show (1964)
• “Minnie the Moocher” from The Blues Brothers (1980)
• Janet Jackson: “Alright” (1990)

And now, a special bonus for making it this far: the 1944 edition of Calloway’s The Hepster’s Dictionary, in HTML format.

• The Hepster’s Dictionary

Finally, some YouTube links:

• Cab singing “September Song” in 1986
• Cab on Sesame Street: “Jump Jive” and “Hi De Ho Man”
• Dinosaur Gardens favorite Andre Williams talking about Cab’s influence

Carl Stalling was a silent-movie organist in Kansas in the 1910s and early 1920s who later went to work for his friend Walt Disney, composing soundtracks for his new cartoons. His involvement in one of the most important cartoons of all time, Skeleton Dance, was crucial; it was entirely set to Stalling’s music.

But he is best known, of course, for his work with Warner Brothers, with whom he started in 1936. Every WB cartoon for the next 22 years featured Stalling’s music, making him one the most-recognized composers in history (though certainly not the best-known). With Warner Brothers, Stalling could pull any composition from their massive music publishing subsidiary, and mash it up for his own needs. His rapidly-changing tempos and instrumentations along with his proto–sound collage would make him an unknowing avant-garde pioneer.

Stalling’s work wasn’t generally appreciated until 1990, when producer Hal Wilner put together the CD The Carl Stalling Project. After searching for a long time through Warner Brothers’ archives, Wilner managed to find the original music tapes of most of the cartoons, without the overdubbed voices. The CD he put together was a fantastic overview of Stalling’s career, with a combination of entire cartoon soundtracks in addition to collected cues from various decades.

The Carl Stalling Project has additional significance for me; it was the first CD I ever bought. I went to my favorite record store in 1990 to pick it up: “What do you mean, it’s only available on CD?”, I still remember asking the clerk. I couldn’t believe they would issue something on CD but not on LP. I bought it anyway, although I wouldn’t have a player for it for another year; any time I went to a friend’s house with a CD player, I would bring it along.

As it happens, it wasn’t only available on CD; it was also sold on cassette. And the cassette had a bonus track, oddly enough: the music from the 1956 cartoon Stupor Duck. Cassettes have a slightly longer running time than CDs but this is still the only time I know of this happening.

While the CD is still available, record companies haven’t sold pre-recorded cassettes in years. So this long out-of-print track is presented below. If you like it, be sure to buy a copy of the CD. And if you already have MP3s of the CD on your hard drive, go ahead and add this; you’ll have to renumber the tracks to make room. This is the new track #11, and it goes between “Medley: Dinner Music for a Pack of Hungry Cannibals” and “Carl Stalling with Milt Franklyn in Session”.

• Stupor Duck

Steve Ditko is, of course, best known for being the co-creator and original artist of Spider-Man. What most people don’t know, however (except serious comic-book nerds like Brakhage and me), is that in the early 1970s he went on a tear and produced a series of insane Objectivist independent comics/rants that are unlike any comics produced then or now.

The series of self-published comics featured an array of forgettable one-shot superheroes and one continuing series with his favorite character, Mr. A, loosely based on The Question, a superhero he had worked on for Charlton Comics a few years earlier. Mr. A was the Randian hero moved to a superhero setting; like Howard Roark in The Fountainhead, he was the uncompromising perfect man, set upon by the cowardly, mediocrity-loving elites, including a newspaper publisher (J. Jonah Jameson in Spider-Man was also right out of Rand; at one point in the early series he admitted he hated Spider-Man because he made him seem ordinary by comparison — the mediocre dragging down the perfect). Alan Moore would later base the character of Rorschach in his series Watchmen on The Question/Mr. A; Moore lacked the political empathy and understanding, however, to truly parody someone whose beliefs were so far from his own, and Rorschach became simply a fascist psychotic, albeit a memorable and oddly charismatic one.

My favorite of these, though, was Avenging World. Not a superhero comic, or indeed even really a narrative comic at all, it was more of a diagrammatic tract outlining all the movements he hated (Christianity, Communism, welfare, post-modernism, equivocation) and explaining what was wrong with the world. This style was perfect for Ditko; while his lecturing diatribes would often sound ridiculous in the mouth of Mr. A (who would frequently be seen saying something like “Why did you deny what truth you did know as true?… How did you expect your dishonesty to lead to an honest gain… a worthy end?” while pummeling a miscreant), they worked very well in the context of his more abstract, tract-like diagrams.

His art, too worked better in this format. When he needed to draw a club representing coercion, he drew a club; I submit to you that there isn’t an artist in the comic-book world that could draw a more evil club than Ditko. Not only is it twisted and knobbing in a menacing fashion, it literally is oozing evil. This is the most hideous, scary, abstract-concept–representing club you will ever see.

I picked a bunch of his comics up because I’m generally a fan of bizarre propaganda and ramblings, and from what I knew of this I was sure I find it terribly amusing. And I did, but…

Uh, heh, well.. (cough, cough)… I’m a bit embarrassed to admit this, but when I read Avenging World, I realized that I pretty much agreed with what he had to say (I probably would have made this discovery had I ever read any Ayn Rand, but I never had the attention span for that). I recognized the lunacy behind it, and yet… I dunno, I just couldnt find much to argue with. Quibble, yes. But since everyone knows Ditko is just this right-wing lunatic, what does that make me? (Don’t answer that.) Oh well. I hope we can still be friends.

In honor of Ditko’s 80th birthday last Friday, here’s the long-out-of-print Avenging World; take your pick of PDF or Comic Book Archive format.

• Avenging World (Comic Book Archive format)
• Avenging World (PDF)

Probably the posting request I’ve gotten the most is for Detroit ska band Gangster Fun’s second release, Time Flies When You’re Gangster Fun (I posted their first album last year). This seems to be the most popular of their albums among their too-small fanbase; I prefer their third album, Pure Sound, Pure Hogwash, Pure Amphetamines, but all their albums were great. Like their first album, this was produced by slightly famous producer Mike E. Clark.

It’s arguable (or at least has been argued by one person, to me) that this is the last true Gangster Fun album, and that the second two were really more solo albums by chief songwriter/guitarist David Minnick (by the way, “Minnimal Stress” below is a pun on Minnick’s name, not a misspelling). I suppose that would make Pure Sound… their Pet Sounds, and this their Sunflower. Well, whatever.

I’m a sucker for ska covers of popular songs, so my favorite tracks on here are “I Wanna Be Like You” from The Jungle Book and a version of the Temptations’ “Just My Imagination”. Of the original compositions, “I’d Buy a Gun” is the best, and quite catchy; I often hear my girlfriend singing “Life would be so groovy/If I owned an Uzi” around the apartment. Not totally sure how to take that.

1. I Wanna Be Like You
2. I’d Buy a Gun
3. Stop the Presses
4. Nutritious
5. Periwinkle Blues
6. Bank of Love
7. Minnimal Stress
8. Brown Paper Bag
9. Just My Imagination
10. Don’t Lay About
11. Fat Lady Skank!

This is the sixth and final installment of the series 8-Tracks of 69: Porno 8-tracks. The introduction from the first post bears repeating for latecomers:

The phrase just doesn’t make sense to people when I first say it: Porno 8-track tapes. No, not videos — 8-track tapes, like from the 70’s. Audio only. No, not recordings of porno movie soundtracks. It’s like porno for the blind, or X-rated radio theater: improbable scenarios, occasional sound effects, awkward play-by-play of all the action. Arousing? Stilted? Downright hilarious? You decide.

Naturally, I saved one of my faves for last: From the great voices, to the too-busy artwork, “Fornicating Female Freaks” is one of the high cards from these crazy 8’s. Even the sparse, minimalist touches of post-production and mild foley work show that someone, somewhere, had aspirations for this little gem, at least for a few cocaine-fueled mixdown moments. The cover art’s promise to allow you to “Actually listen to desire filled conversations, naked abandoned actions, hear absolutely everything” is not an empty promise; certainly not as empty as the cover baseless proclamation that you will find a “Free Gift Inside! — A Genuine French Tickler Novelty”. There’s a full synopsis printed in teeny-tiny little type on the cover, but it’s more fun to just reprint the red-ink, all-caps, italicized teaser phrases:

“With your own ears you hear Rana / built / brick out-house / sex pervert! / Listen to Joanne / nymphomaniac / even / wild / desires. / Freaking off orgy / around the clock sex / fornicating fun and games / balled by a woman. / Fast / Head-Nose-Tongue, / mechanical sex gadgets.”

For the truly impatient and A.D.D., I’ve included some choice soundbites. But surely, those soundbites will merely whet your appetite for the full 30 minute meal… and so I say to you, gorge! Stuff your gils with fluff girls and muff thrills! Then relive awkward 8-track porn moments with handy links to all previous posts! Revel in them all… All… of the 8-Tracks of 69!

• Fornicating Female Freaks.mp3 (30:43)
• Artwork:
  
  
  
• Juicy extracted soundbites:
  “We’re just two lonely bitches on the loose for the weekend.”
  “Start the countdown baby…”
  “Not my cunt ya dumb bitch, put your tongue up my asshole!”
  “I want to suck your cum, not your blood.”
  “Fuck the bastards / This dump is starting to fill up with those slimy cocksuckers…”
• Previously: Parts _1_, _2_, _3_, _4_, and _5_

In the home stretch… just Part 6 left in this series.

And here we take a turn for the dark, with Apartment #69. It’s the saga of two ordinary girls seeking to make a simple modelling living, only to find themselves drugged, then injected “accidentally” with a “superdose” of heroin. But why? Because the mafia needs sex slaves! Duh!

Once the plot kicks in, then the sex sounds ensue — plenty of moaning, groaning, and overly-described titillating actions. The only story in this series that relies on power plays to get you off, Apartment #69 succeeds in its plot extremity at the cost of memorable vocal talent. On the other hand, other porno 8-tracks with more extreme character voices tend to distract the listener from the real job at hand. Perhaps forgettable voices get in the way less.

• Apartment #69
• Artwork:
  
  
  
  
  

The character voices in this one, while not as ridiculous as Part 3, are quite the pair: a wholesome, perky woman with an overly stereotyped Irishman keep giving me visions of a wayward Florence Henderson blowing the Blarney Stone on a sex rampage (perhaps after her fling with the clown jewels).

The bad Irish accent comes off sounding drunker than I think he intends, not that anyone’s going for dialectic accuracy here. Combine that with the meager cover art and this is actually one of my least favorite of the porno 8-tracks series. But it still provides some good moments:

“Ah Daisy, I’m in love with you…”
“Aw crap, you’re just in love with my ass.”
“What the hell is the difference between you and your ass anyway!”

“I think your multiplication tables are as screwed up as your fingers are!”

• Sex Love Story (LPH5).mp3
• Artwork: cover, spine

(Also see the rest of this series)