Burl Veneer’s Music Blog

Once a spy...

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Mon, 08 Oct 2007 19:25:25 -0700

Always a spy--I just can't get away from the spy music! Here's another Lalo Schifrin track, from his execrably-titled 1967 album There's a Whole Lalo Schifrin Goin' On:

01 - Secret Code

Lalo Schifrin

I assume that the keyboard solo is a monophonic synthesizer, and since it was recorded in 1967 that would probably make it a Moog. (The birthplace of the Moog synthesizer is right here in Ithaca, where Robert Moog was a graduate student in solid state physics. Or just up the road in Trumansburg, where he had his factory.) One more "Odies" song down!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Al Hirt plays cop show themes

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Wed, 19 Sep 2007 18:53:21 -0700

We now break from fake cop show themes by contemporary artists to bring you some real cop show music by a past master. Trumpeter Al Hirt was a titan of the New Orleans music scene (literally, he was nicknamed "The Round Mound of Sound"). When The Green Hornet made the leap from radio to TV in 1966, Hirt was chosen to play the theme song, a swingin' & rockin' new arrangement by Billy May of the old theme song, Rimsky-Korsakov's "Flight of the Bumblebee." And while he was at it, he recorded a whole album's worth of cop show music, The Horn Meets The Hornet. Here's the "Green Hornet Theme:"

01 Green Hornet Theme

Al Hirt

It was heard more recently in Quentin Tarantino's Kill Bill, Vol. 1. I played the trumpet once upon a time, but I could never get the hang of double- and triple-tonguing. This song requires a veritable tongue fandango to play, and Al Hirt makes it seem effortless. The third track on the album, "Night Rumble," is not a proper cop show theme, but it would easily fit into a cop show: in a scene where the cops go to a nightclub to gather information, this would be the music that is playing while women flail around on the dance floor. Or it could be the music playing at the gang hideout:

03 Night Rumble

Al Hirt

I always wanted to get that electric piano sound, but I could never make my Fender Rhodes sound like that. I found out just last year that it's a Wurlitzer I want. I use that intro piano lick to check out keyboards and VST instruments.
Among the other treats on The Horn Meets the Hornet is Al's take on the Batman theme:

06 Batman Theme

Al Hirt

Weaving into another thread, when making my "Odies" tape I was hard pressed to come up with something to follow the groovy horn bacchanalia of The Shocking Blue's "The Butterfly and I." "Hornet" worked out perfectly, picking up where "Butterfly" left off and running.

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Spirit: Epiphany

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Sat, 08 Sep 2007 07:43:54 -0700

I was playing my "Odies" tape in the car with Mrs. Veneer one day a few years ago, and Spirit's "I Got a Line On You" came on. I kept up a running commentary during the song, pointing out all the bits I liked (the entry of the bass leading into the first chorus, the piano glissando after the second chorus, the perfect guitar solo in the bridge, the drop-out after the bridge and the entrance of the banging piano, the party atmosphere and runaway electric guitar in the final verses, etc.), when she remarked, "You don't like songs, you like arrangements." Bingo! That single statement proved to be the key to understanding my own music fandom. It explains why I like so much music of negligible consequence (for example, Andy Kim's "Rock Me Gently"-- fabulous Clavinet and backing vocals!). Lyrically "I Got a Line On You" is a cipher, it can be condensed down to "I sure do like you." But it sounds like everyone has a blast playing it, and I have a blast listening to it.

01. I got a line on you

Spirit

Singer Jay Ferguson would go on to have an interesting career, culminating (if you can call it that) in the 1978 make-out schmaltz classic, "Thunder Island."

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

The Shocking Blue: Ritual Music

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Mon, 03 Sep 2007 07:24:46 -0700

There are a great number of songs which I have decided to describe as "invocation and manifestation:" the first part of the song is all right, but it's really just preparing the way for what comes after. The introductory portion serves as a ritual, the lyrics as an incantation, the musicians as vessels for the Music Gods who will be unleashed and flow through them if the ritual is conducted correctly. (Mrs. Veneer tells me this is "building a cone of power.") Think of "Free Bird;" the plodding verses and choruses are not the point of the song, they are the invocations, the journey that must be completed before High Priest Ronnie Van Zant can sing "Lord help me, I can't chay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yay-yange" -- unleashing the God of Drums -- and then finally "Oh won't you flyyyyy hiiiiiigh, oh freeeeee birrrrrrrd, yeah," unleashing the full power of the Triple Guitar Gods* who lead the guitarists into a seemingly endless bacchanalia of soloing, duoing, and trioing, and the audience into a frenzy of cheering and air-guitaring (not to mention drinking and smoking), until everyone is spent and the whole enterprise grinds to a halt.

Skynyrd is not the subject of this post, though; The Shocking Blue (of "Venus" fame) is. Their finest recorded moment is "The Butterfly and I," an invocation-and-manifestation song from their 1969 album At Home. In this case the sitar-backed verses and choruses with nonsensical hippie lyrics and a "White Rabbit" beat summon up the gods of drums and horns:

The Butterfly And I

Shocking Blue

Another "Odies" track restored! Sadly, singer Mariska Veres died in 2006 at age 59.

* Quoted section just under halfway through:

Read and post comments | Send to a friend

Judy In Disguise

nobody@vox.com(Burl Veneer) — Sun, 02 Sep 2007 12:15:51 -0700

Speaking of karaoke--I did it once. One night in 1992, I met up with some fellow members of the Crunchland BBS at a restaurant in Laurel, Maryland, for karaoke night. I decided I would try it if and only if they had John Fred's "Judy In Disguise (with Glasses)," so that I could finally read the lyrics I didn't understand if nothing else (being the days before lyrics databases on the Web). They had it, I sang it (the untranscribable lyrics being "and your new rah-rahs," whatever rah-rahs are), they gave me a tape of my performance, I played it for my friends, they were amused at the wooden quality of my singing. At some point in the intervening 15 years the tape was lost, which is a shame because that's the kind of personal artifact I would like to post here. Maybe I will recreate it someday, but in the meantime here is the original version:

John Fred - Judy in Disguise

John Fred and his Playboy Band

The wild popularity of this poke at the Beatles displaced the Beatles from the #1 chart position in January 1968, but it completely overshadowed the fact that John Fred Gourrier and his band had been playing serious "swamp rock" in their home state of Louisiana for ten years. They continued in the serious vein, but could never shake the novelty label that "Judy" saddled them with, and broke up around 1971. John Fred later became a record producer, radio DJ and basketball coach, and he released three more albums (two solo and one as a member of the Louisiana Boys) before his death in 2005.

In 1992, as the new owner of a used record store I had access to tons of music that I didn't before, so I did what any music geek would do and made a mix tape. The local oldies station, "Oldies 106.9," had one DJ who always pronounced "oldies" as "odies," so naturally that's what I called my oldies mix tape. The "Odies" tape got played over and over through the years; my children grew up listening to it in the car. I'm not sure where the tape is now, so I'll attempt to recreate it here with entries tagged "odies." "Judy in Disguise (with Glasses)" was the first song on the tape, and it even became a part of my son's bedtime ritual: I would sing the lyrics while he accompanied me on a little chord-organ (a gift from my brother). That was a lot of fun.

New Wavers may remember the silly synthpop version of "Judy in Disguise" by Silicon Teens, a.k.a. Daniel Miller (who also recorded as The Normal), founder of the Mute Records label:

14 Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)

Silicon Teens

I don't know who will remember the Brazilian cover by Rogerio Duprat (1932-2006), riding the wave of the "Tropicalia" fad in 1968, but it's pretty sweet:

Rogerio Duprat - Judy in Disguise

Rogério Duprat

New York punk band Cracked Actor recorded "Judy in Disguise" in 1982, releasing it as the B-side of their "Nazi School" single, which I vaguely remember from the college radio station. As an experiment in expediency I'll try embedding the Seeqpod player here:

The completist in me wants to post every version ever recorded, but the pragmatist in me has decided to make do with a link to all the versions on eMusic, where you can listen to 29-second samples of them. Don't miss the Norwegian Big Band's take!

Read and post comments | Send to a friend