Mostly German Old Used 45s That Metal Mike Saunders Mailed To Me

Roby & Brina "OK Disco Italia"/"Canta Anche Voi OK Disco Italia (Instrumental)" (Baby Germany, 1986) OK, this is more like it. This duo looks cuter, for one thing. He's pretty nerdy looking in his glasses and all, but with an ironic Confederate flag truckers' hat (?) a couple decades early almost, and she's got a short bob haircut and an oversized T-shirt that says "BOY" on it in really big letters like in one of those old Wham! videos. And they have Italian flag colors behind them, and the music is Italo disco. But not what would be called Italo disco now, probably. It's a medley of hits, in Italian -- starts with a short snippet of "Gloria" which Laura Branigan had covered, followed by a snippet of "Ti Amo" which Laura Branigan had also covered, but they don't boom the song out like Laura would have, and then there are other songs I never heard before, one of which goes "Ma-ma-ma-ma-ma Maria" or something, and in between there's a chorus about it all being "OK! Disco Italia!", just like the title says. And the B-side is the same thing, except with no words beyond the chorus, though it does keep the tune parts to "Gloria", et. al.

Roxette "Soul Deep"/"Pearls Of Passion" (EMI Sweden, 1987) I interviewed these two for Request magazine back in the early '90s (Per was completely friendly; Marie more an ice queen), but I swear I never realized until a few minutes ago that they actually had a Swedish (and Canadian, and other places) album before Look Sharp! (Actually a couple album, apparently -- one a remix album, according to Wiki.) Anyway, it was called Pearls Of Passion, and these were both on it (in some form -- the "Soul Deep" here says "remix"), and though I'd have to go back to the U.S. debut to make sure, off hand I'd say both cuts seem possibly rawer and definitely punchier than what they first showed up here with. Especially "Soul Deep," which I might take over the Box Tops song of the same name -- just a really cool glam-rock/blue-eyed-soul hybrid, with a tough, hard, non-icey vocal from Marie, and "hey hey hey"s in the background taken blatantly from some soul classic I can't place right now. B-side's more a power ballad, and has Per singing lead about December feeling like July, but there's a sort of '80s Springsteen feel to it, somehow, and when Marie comes in, some Scandal or Benatar. Neato.

Amusing tidbit about "Soul Deep" from Wiki: "The song was originally written in Swedish and was called 'Dansar ner för ditt stup i rekordfart' but that title was considered too silly." No kidding!

(TS: Roxette Look Sharp! vs. Joe Jackson Look Sharp.)

So, just noticed (not sure how I missed this before) that that Roby & Brina 45 breaks down the elements of its medley on the back: "OK Disco Italia/Gloria/ Ti Amo/La Bombola/L'Italiano/Felecita/OK Disco Italia/Mamma Maria/Sara Perche Ti Amo/OK Disco Italia." The eat keeps pumping ("Stars on 45"/"Hooked On Classics" style sort of) and Brina keeps things happy and chirpy throughout, but gets especially joyous on the OK!" parts, as she should. My favorite part otherwise is probably "Mamma Maria"; need to track down the original someday.

Realized that the song Roxette's "Soul Deep" (and especially its hey-hey-hey's) really reminds me of (and this is a huge compliment by the way) is the Osmonds' great own glam/Motown juncture "Yo Yo."
Love it. Favorite line in "Soul Deep" (hey I'm Catholic): "Save a prayer for a sinner and a saint, my baby's coming back." Favorite line in "Pearls of Passion": "Now's the time for weary minds, the moon is northern bound." And Per gets off good concise hearty pop-rocky guitar solos in both songs.

The eat keeps pumping

Not eat. The beat. The beat. The beat.

btw, the '80s Springsteen in that Roxette B-side was probably more '80s John Cafferty. Which is fine.

Scool "Roll Baby Roll"/"Downtown Lights" (Telefunken West Germany, 1980). Four cute (or at least cute-ish) white girls wearing roller skates on the sleeve, but only one has a skating helmet on. (One has a pith helmet like she's going on a safari, one has a visor, the one showing the most skin is also hatless.) So, no surprise, roller disco music, about how even the police chief and the businessman roll and skaters wear exotic skintight duds and bathing suits. Real bouncy 1980 disco-pop bounce to it, plus some proto-Aqua deep German guy voice that comes in once in a while to say "rolllllll" with his r's and l's rolling. B-side is actually funkier -- harder bassline, extended sleek disco sax solo -- yet sung with more lightness. Less of a song, too, but good.

Sugar & Candy "Come To The Party"/"Chapel Of Love" (Hansa International West Germany, 1977) Two more cute white girls, somewhere in their 20s I guess, but this time wearing pajama-like baseball uniforms (one sky blue, one red) with stars all over, like they're on a barnstorming women's novelty team. Also a mitt, and a ball. Their vocals are smaller and less assured than Scool's, but they have wackier, more specific words: "Watch the guy with burning hair/He's dancing with a bear/A rocker dressed in black/Has a coffin (?) on his back." (Not really sure if it's "coffin" -- sounds like "com finn," but I assume English isn't their native language.) That image reminds me of those disco LP covers with all kinds of partying freaks and weirdos, like Silver Convention's Madhouse. And Sugar & Candy's deep German proto-Aqua/Toy Boy guy is weirder and freakier than Scool's guy: "velcome to the party!!", very "Barbie Girl". Okay sax and guitar parts, too, and the girls unsuccessully try to rhyme "heat" with "get it." "Chapel In Love" is a cover, with wedding music and disco orchestrations mixed in, and the girls don't seem real into it, but it'll pass.

proto-Toy Box guy, I meant (not Toy Boy).

Shepstone And Dibbens "Shady Lady"/"China Heat" (Polydor West Germany, 1973) Talk about weirdos -- I don't know if these two guys on the cover (one with a receding hairline and sleazy mustache and a fur coat slung over his shoulder and ill-fitting blue-jean overalls over a red T-shirt, and a shorter guy with longer hair and knit sweater under his blue jean jacket and a camera slung over his shoulder) are trying to look like they're in Midnight Cowboy or what, but they really do look like they just got out of prison for some sex-related offense, especially the tall guy. Figured this would be some skiffly kind of schlager mush, and for the first few seconds that's how "Shady Lady" hit me (they're the shady ones! not the lady!), but then I noticed how snotty and slimy the sexist spurned-male vocal over the folk boogie was -- reminds me of "I'm Not Your Steppin' Stone" or "Hey Little Girl," or (maybe this is more along the lines of what they were aiming for) some Dylan-wannabe garage punks like Mouse and the Traps. I'm betting they were going for Dylan (as in say "Positively Fourth Street"), not the garage bands, but the effect is the same, and it gets me, even if the part where they say they're going to call the FBI and KGB (and CID? what's that?) to hunt down the girl is sort of dorky. B-side is more twee, with pretty semi-racist fake Asian music mixed in.

B-side actually "China Heart" (not "Heat")

Tonight "Money That's Not Your Problem"/""No Sympathy" (Warner Bros. West Germany, 1978) Fake punks! Not in the accidental Shepstone & Dibbens sense, but in the "pretending to be punk rocker" sense, like the Vibrators or early Boomtown Rats, both of whom "Money That's Not Your Problem" reminds me of -- only 2:04, totally energetic and catchy and ridiculous: something like "Money makes the world go black! Money money money makes ya fat! Now tell me what you think of that!" In snotty British accents. I'm not sure why they don't think money is their own problem (maybe they're rich), but it's timely 30 years later nonetheless. B-side is a bit slower, not as catchy, but not bad; vaguely pub-rockabilly -- reminds me of "Work Shy" by the Fabulous Poodles sort of, and might be about the same thing (i.e., hating working). Wikipedia informs that "Tonight were a five piece new wave band, from Southend-on-Sea, Essex. Although only active from June 1977 to January 1979, they played a small but significant part, in the ever-changing music scene in the late 1970s...Tonight along with The Rich Kids, were the first acts to be described as power pop, a new UK music genre term in 1978, initially mentioned by Charles Catchpole, in the Evening Standard, 'Rock Notes' section, on 17 January 1978. The term was borrowed from Pete Townshend's description of The Who's music in 1967, and in 1978 put forward as a musical genre, by the press/promotion office at WEA in London, to describe their new upcoming acts at that time. As punk morphed into new wave (December 1977 - January 1978) Tonight scored the first hit for the power pop movement in February 1978, with "Drummer Man" reaching No.14 in the UK Singles Chart. Their next single 'Money (That's Your Problem)' charted well outside of the Top 40; but two more singles were released plus an album was recorded." (I'm skeptical about the term "powerpop" being invented in the UK; wasn't it already being used in the States for bands like the Raspberries and Badfinger? Always figured somebody like Greg Shaw had come up with it, but I could be way off.)

Vanilla Ice "Road To My Riches"/"Hooked" (SBK West Germany, 1991). Last one. Not sure if this was a single in the States or not; supposedly off his Extremely Live CD. Can't believe I didn't hear "Road To My Riches" before (or at least never noticed it) -- AC/DC "Back In Black" riff all through, like the Beastie Boys' "Rock Hard," with a Bowie "Let's Dance" hook or two mixed in like Grandmaster Flash's "White Lines." He throws a wet towel and the girlies go wild, and he talks about his "thigh pole" I think I heard him say once. Kind of love his white urban wannabe street-tough voice introducing the song at the beginning -- it's a voice that goes back at least as far as the Belmonts (or even further, in movies), and really not that far from what House of Pain or even Ice's nemeses 3rd Bass were doing a couple years later. (I think he also uses the word "nemesis" somewhere.) On the 45 sleeve, he's sort of lurking in the shadows, flashing a fake gang sign and showing off his rings. Also, says he's not like Milton Bradley (didn't catch why) but is "like Charley, I like the good and plenty." Song is suppposedly live, but doesn't sound live at all except during Ice's intro, and when some hypeman comes in a ways into the song to hype up the non-crowd. B-side, which actually sounds slightly more familiar, has a wobbly "Brass Monkey" sort of horn thing going on, and Ice scolding his buddy who is is hung up on some girl who treats him "like a dirty diaper/Use ya once and then tries to wipe you...out!" Recommends his friend visit a shrink -- helpful advice, what friends are for!

(Fwiw, Tonight do think money is your problem. I got the title wrong the first time. They hence seem to imply that their own problems, assuming they have any, are something other than monetary.)

hey chuck. do you still have that jeanette 7" around? i really want it, but don't want to pay for european shipping costs.

Probably not... Don't see it on my 45s shelf, and if it's one I didn't seem to like on this thread, I most likely donated it to either a thrift store or a waste receptacle before moving away from NY. If it turns up, though, I'll say so here.

ack!

seriously. listen to this shit. so great. and she's still so hot!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SLxrrE6wC5I

xhuxk throws away more music than more people keep before 9 AM...

friend compared her to lio, who i already had a crush on.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WuS1lKnkUWo

her band Pic-Nic recorded some sweet, delicate folk-rock singles and EP's in the late '60s, and some of their songs were re-released under her name once she went solo. love these:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoA1LIQ6dfc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AdZhFIdza4s