The NY Times has printed a retraction to their obit for songwriter Paul Vance of “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikini” infamy. It seems the fellow who died was not the pop tunesmith, but a fellow in Florida who has long misled his loved ones that he was responsible for the hit, but was cheated out of his royalties. Doubtless this made for amusing light conversation for many years, but the fake Paul Vance probably didn’t anticipate his family announcing his death to the press. Meanwhile, the real Paul Vance is cranky that a couple of his ponies were pulled from a race out of respect for his non-passing, and worried he might stop getting royalties if people think he’s dead.
Milk it, real Paul Vance: this is a rare opportunity to see what folks really think of you.
Peter Geiberger, once one of our most promising young troublemakers, artists and social misfits, a creature of great natural intelligence, charm and wit, a musician, visual artist, writer and prankster, died on Wednesday.
I regret that was not able, when I had more influence over him than most, to convince him that dabbling in heroin was stupid. Of course the drug became huge in his life, stole many of his friendships, his time and imagination, and eventually killed him. He dies owing me $50 and a lobster dinner, and the life he ought to have lived instead of the one he did.
I will remember the brilliant 17-year-old with the pre-Raphaelite features who dazzled the tired old Cacophony Society when he began attending events nearly a decade ago, his fearless ability to grab a guitar or some hideous prop and make himself the center of attention, how sympathetic a listener he was when needed despite his snarky ways, how happy he was when drawing, and his essential sweetness.
I will also remember the memorial service I helped organize after Peter’s death was faked on Hallowe’en 2000, as part of the conclusion of the grand Cacophony Society prank. It is all quite surreal, but at least Peter had that rare opportunity to attend (or at least hear about) his own funeral, and receive many posthumous accolaydes from people who loved him.
Goodbye, dear Peter, always in so much pain, now free of that at least.
~
Postscript: I have put Peter’s two delightful features for Scram online: his advice for How to be a Badass (which explains his entire personality) and his history of the black velvet painting tourist market. Around this time (1999) he published his own little zine, Scrum, as well.
Bold, hand-clappy Francophone electropop trio fronted by Isabelle LeDoussal, whose snotty, sing-song tones lend a human face to the band’s mechanized synth-punk jingles. Think Bis meets Plastic Betrand, with a little splash of robotic sixties pop chanteuserie.
T- is for tempo, which the multi-instrumentalist kept
T- is for tape, which when rolling can capture gems
R- is for "Really Wanted You," which is pretty near perfect
H- is for Hawthorne, his hometown
O- is for "Only Lovers Decide," little heard but loverly
D- is for daisy, daisy fresh to be precise
E- is for easy, because he makes it look that way
S- is for sixties and seventies, when he recorded mainly
Put em all together and they spell EMITT RHODES, a good friend of the Scram gang, and subject of one of our more jaw-droppingly frank interviews. In honor of Emitt, we’ve created a gallery of rare photos from his personal archives up on flickr, which you may peruse at leisure. Many of these only appeared in Scram #18, and others have never been publically seen at all–including a few from a roll of unprinted slide film circa 1968. Thanks, Emitt, for all the great pix! And if you like deliriously catchy melodic pop, you owe it to your ears to pick up his disks, in thrift stores or import CDs.
Mark Phillips, aka Sono Oto, made it easy on lazy rock crits when he packed his EP of six songs about apples with so many related qualities. I could just riff on the crisp melodies, juicy hooks and all-American charms of this set, but tunes this strong deserve more thoughtful feedback. From the bittersweet pop shimmers of "Granny Smith" (where the titular fruit is sweet but irradiated, with swift decay a worrying possibility) to the childlike nostalgia of "Malus Domestica," which recalls Epic Soundtracks’ solo piano turns, to the sprightly, paranoiac "Northern Spy," Sono Oto’s applesongs reflect a smart and seductive pop craftsmanship that’d be a hit in the veggie aisle or anywhere.
The early success of the Beatles spawned a slew of nice boy popsters on the foggy side of the pond, and “David and Jonathan” (actually Rogers Cook and Greenaway, writing their own songs but performing pseudonymously from 1965-68) were so especially nice that George Martin himself produced their sides and let them have a crack at “Michelle,” a top 20 hit in the US. In time, the duo would reclaim their names and become important producer-songwriters (“You’ve Got Your Troubles,” “I’d Like To Teach The World To Sing”), but first they dropped themselves into the gumball machine, with this turn offering idealistic folkster crooning over harpsichord (“Lovers of the World Unite”), the next nonsense big band bubblepop silliness (“Gilly Gilly Ossenfeffer Katzennellenbogen By The Sea”), and then anxious Beatle-penned melodrama (“She’s Leaving Home”). Dig lush production, Chad, Jeremy, Peter, Gordon and the Freddie? Then this, luv, is for you.
Last Wednesday, I cornered rock crit and bon vivant Don Waller in the lobby of the Wiltern Theater between the BellRays and Radio Birdman sets to get his thoughts on this historic event. Before I started the tape recorder, he told me I was wasting my time, since he had nothing much to say. I know Don well enough to know how absurd that statement was. Here’s the "Back Door Man" zine founder on the state of rock when Radio Birdman first came ’round, the underappreciated glories of the Australian scene, and his expectations for the evening…
Lost in the Grooves: Do you remember Radio Birdman from 1976, when the record came out in the US?
Don Waller: Yes.
LITG: And what was the scuttlebutt on the street?
DW: Well, the record came out, and it was like anything else on Sire—there was so little that was new at the time, that of course everybody was interested in it. I remember hearing it and not thinking all that much of it. "Oh yeah, it’s okay." It was just kinda dwarfed by, y’know, the Clash and the Pistols, the Talking Heads, the Pretenders, all the other stuff that came out. In retrospect, the record has aged well. The fact that they didn’t play here didn’t help ’em. They broke up before anybody really got a chance to know who they fucking were! So I’m looking forward to seeing them tonight. And I like the fact that they put out a new record along with the tour, because we’ve seen enough people get back together with no new product. And this is just as good as the other record, actually, it’s not that much different. And they have an idiosyncratic sound. The keyboard thing is a weird touch; I’m a big fan of double lead guitar bands or triple lead guitar bands. I like guitars! And the fact that they got 4/6 or 2/3 of the original band back to do this is fine. I’ve heard the New Race record that these guys did with Asheton and Thompson—it’s pretty decent. Again, it’s an artifact that’s aged well. All that shit on Dave Laing’s "Do the Pop" compilation is really good. Not all that much of it got heard here. Some of it’s on that "Nuggets 3" record, that "Children of Nuggets" record that came out a couple years ago.
LITG: So you hadn’t heard any of that stuff before it got comped?
DW: No, I didn’t hear the Celibate Rifles or the Lime Spiders or the Eastern Dark’s "Johnny and Dee Dee"—an amazing song! "Slave Girl" is pretty great. All that stuff. But we never heard the Master’s Apprentices or the Black Diamonds or that sixties Australian/New Zealand shit, and that’s all really good too. It’s on the "Nuggets 2" box, and that stuff’s as good as anything that was cut anywhere. In Australia, it’s really hard to get to the other side of the world to here or to England. I mean, to be as good as the Easybeats or as good as AC/DC, or even the fucking Bee Gees if you wanna go that direction. I mean Jimmy Barnes is a real good singer, should have been bigger.
LITG: Who’s that?
DW: Jimmy Barnes, was in Cold Chisel and all that. He’s got kind of a Paul Rogers kind of voice, almost like a Frankie Miller kind of thing, but in that quality. He’s a draw in Australia. It’s just tough for them. But the good stuff is really good. And the thing about this is that it proves if you do something good and you really mean it, y’know, it’s like Zen parable of throwing a pebble into a pond, you don’t know where the ripples are gonna go. The good stuff gets discovered, t he good stuff gets word of mouth, the good stuff gets passed on down. Especially when things are bad, then people start rummaging through the bargain bins or the cut outs and the thrift stores and all that stuff—because that’s all bohos can afford anyway! Basically, in a fuckin’ Paris Hilton world…
LITG: End that statement, Don.
DW: Well, ellipses. It’s really nice to see Radio Birdman playing their first date in L.A.!
LITG: That was Don Waller, who told me he had nothing to say. Thank you, Don Waller. (laughter) What are your expectations for the show?
DW: I’m looking forward to it. I think they’ll be good. Based on the new record, I think they’ll be very powerful, very Detroit. That’s the thing, Deniz Tek, there’s something in the fucking water in Detroit. They still produce good bands, the Dirtbombs, the White Stripes, the Detroit Cobras, all that shit, they still keep turning out good bands. God bless ’em!
above, Radio Birdman live at the Wiltern, pic: Kim Cooper
If you’re expecting a Farfisa frenzy from this solo turn by the one-time Morlock, you’ll be left scratching your skull. Lucas, a classical cellist as well as a piano man, turns in a dark and brooding set of Waitsy noir meditations on matters dark, romantic and more or less doomed. The result is an understated and sometimes agonizingly slow set that’s short on hooks, but long on atmosphere, and very much one man’s vision.
Radio Birdman interviewed 8/30/06 – Backstage at the Wiltern Theater in Los Angeles
Present: Kim Cooper (LITG), Chris Masuak (CM), Deniz Tek (DT), Rob Younger (RY)
Last Wednesday afternoon I wound my way south through the secret north/south axis of the city’s center, on my way to a happening that might have sprung fully formed out of one of my more frisky juvenile fantasies: my all-time favorite rock and roll combo since 1983, the mighty Radio Birdman, were making their debut US appearance tonight in the grand art deco Wiltern Theater in my home town of Los Angeles.
Two decades’ journalistic celebration of Birdmen and its offshoots have earned me the friendship of the band’s leaders, so it was with knowledge that a backstage pass awaited that I parked around the corner from the venue, just up the block from L. Ron Hubbard’s first Scientology offices. What a kick to see the letters RADIO BIRDMAN on that lovely green marquee.
I first buzzed and gained access to the front door, only to be directed round the back, where sound check was just finishing. As the door closed behind me, a couple of lithe young ladies made a dash for it, just catching the wood before it slammed. I mentioned this to guitarist Deniz Tek a few minutes later, when he expressed concern that the group might not be able to fill such a huge hall, noting that when teenage girls are sneaking in, you don’t have much to worry about. "Teenage girls…?" he mused, "We never had teenage girl fans—except you, of course!" These are different, and better times, it seems. So a few hours before the band defeated a criminally unskilled sound man with a career-spanning performance packed with poetry and raw power, I sat down with three of the original Birdmen for a brief chat about the state of the band in 2006, and their expectations for the tour to come.
Lost in the Grooves: Is "Zeno Beach" the record you would have done after "Living Eyes," or is this a building on what you’ve all done individually and together?
Deniz Tek: No, we couldn’t have made it after "Living Eyes." It’s the result of all those years of individual experience and collective Radio Birdman experience.
Rob Younger: Yeah, it is, I think.
LITG: So you think it’s just a merging of all of your influences and everything that’s come before?
DT: It’s actually the next New Christs record.
LITG: I thought so! It sounds a lot like the New Christs.
DT: A lot of people have said that to me.
RY: That’s bollocks, that’s just bollocks.
LITG: It’s overdue.
DT: But I think so.
LITG: Who do you think is coming to see Radio Birdman in America?
DT: Well, Kim Cooper for one.
RY: There were a lot of names on that guest list I recognized. (laughter)
above: Carmen Hillebrew with Jack Lord and Rob Younger, after the show
DT: I suppose it would be a mixture of musicians, record collectors, people who sort of go into music, rock and roll history a little bit more deeply than average. Otherwise how would they know about it? Or maybe a few people who have come on board with the Sub Pop compilation, because I think there was some word of mouth about the band before that—bands would talk about who they liked, and a lot of bands like our band, whereas not very many people in the general population would know about it, but bands know about it. And they’d talk about it—people couldn’t find the records in America, it would be difficult, until the Sub Pop thing.
Chris Masuak: There are some guys from San Diego coming up who were involved with fanzines. Kenzo—I can’t remember his fanzine, but he used to have a fanzine about the Tribesmen, New Christs.
DT: It’s definitely kind of a small following—hoping to become bigger.
above: Art & Steve Godoy with occasional bandmate Deniz Tek, after the show
RY: Yeah, my friend James said people really only know our first album here, don’t even know the second one, let alone had a chance to worry about the third one.
LITG: That’s true. I had to go to England to get the second one.
RY: But there’s stuff from "Living Eyes" on "The Essential" [Sub Pop comp], that’s what he was saying, cos it was released here, that first one, "Radios Appear."
LITG: How did it come about, you coming to America?
DT: There were a couple of stabs at it over the last five years or so, but none of it panned out because we couldn’t afford to come. And I guess finally with the new album, it gave us enough momentum to get enough good gigs to make it possible.
LITG: You released it independently in Australia, right?
DT: Yeah.
LITG: So how’s Yep Roc been for you? They treating you well?
DT: Yeah, they seem to be. They’ve done a good job so far with setting up interviews and promotion and stuff like that, and they’ve been really pleasant and easy to work with. I think—I was talking to Rob about this—they’re small enough that it’s that middle layer of record companies. We wouldn’t get anywhere at all with a big label, we’d just be put on the back shelf or under the rug and no one would ever hear of us again and nothing would happen, whereas with that middle layer, it’s big enough to get distributed around, but not so big that we get lost, cos you’re not, y’know, a big earner.
RY: They remember your first name.
LITG: Is there someone at the label who is a long time fan?
RY: Not that I know of.
CM: I think that there label’s devoted to stuff that they consider to be almost eclectic or artistic.
DT: Artistic and underappreciated, maybe.
CM: Yeah, that seems to be their reason.
LITG: So it’s sort of a boutique—everything in it’s worth looking at, cos it’s been curated.
CM: I’d rather be curated than be in a boutique, though! (laughter) You don’t want to get too precious.
DT: If you’re curated, that means you’ve been put in a museum.
LITG: Under glass, or in a gallery, maybe.
CM: I don’t want that, either.
LITG: It’s not waxworks, it’s rock and roll. Favorite song on the record?
DT: "Locked Up." That’s my favorite one today, cos I just heard it.
RY: I like "Remorseless," probably cos we haven’t been playing it for a while.
DT: Yeah, we should put that back in the set. It’s not in tonight’s, but we’ll do it tomorrow night.
LITG: Any surprise cover versions for the tour?
DT: Oh, there might be a cover version, but it won’t be a surprise to anyone. (laughter)
LITG: Does it start with a T and end with an E? [e.g. "T.V. Eye"]
DT: Nope.
LITG: Is it a really long word? ["Transmaniacon MC"]
RY: Same band. [it turned out to be "Search and Destroy," and it was a knockout]
LITG: Ohhh, okay. I think those are all the questions I want to pester you with. Thank you gentlemen!
Watch this space for more Radio Birdman coverage, including rock critic Don Waller’s no holds barred take on the band’s place in the pop pantheon circa 1976 and today.
