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

you guys are so cute together. chuck writes, scott pics..

i really like what i've heard of Fox. super cute bubbleglam. posted a track to my site http://www.robotsinheat.com/trax/SssingleBed.mp3 I found one of their LPs recently, but it was totally scratched and kind of expensive.

Siw Malmkvist looks like Jerry Blank

http://www.indiewire.com/ots/StrangersWithCandy.jpg

Jeanette is kinda hott.

kinda very fucking hott.

the guy at my favorite record store told me that a lot of people thought Amanda Lear was a tranny, so inside the cover of her album Sweet Revenge, she's posing topless. from wiki:

Despite modelling nude for Playboy Magazine in 1977 and the photos very effectively proving that Lear was all woman, she was and still is widely rumoured to be either a transsexual or an intersexual because of her height (6ft/183 cm), her masculine facial features and most of all her exceptionally low baritone-like vocal timbre.

also, didn't realize until right now that she was the model on the cover of Roxy Music's "For Your Pleasure"

funny, i also recently posted a track by Madleen Kane to my site too. this is a really sexy, sleazy, slow disco/soul number.
http://www.robotsinheat.com/trax/CestSiBon.mp3

In another spooky, but not so much I guess, coincidence I downloaded that Amanda Lear album from this blog: http://jimicaramail.blogspot.com/ just the other week.

Have to say I was a tad underwhelmed by it, the Grace Jones comparison is a good one, but sounds a lot like Broken English period Marianne Faithfull. I remember Jimmy Somerville picking one of her songs as one of his desert island discs and it had a more definite sleazy hi-nrg/eurobeat vibe to it and I was hoping it would be something like that, but I suspect it was from later in her career. He has another Lear album on his blog which I'll probably check out, hopefully that'll be the one.

Lear spent 15 years with Salvador Dali, supposedly the originator of the tranny joke which stuck, that she later used for publicity, any kind being good as is well known.

From M.I.A. Kala thread, about what's probably my favorite track on the album:

I can already tell Jimmy is going to be awesome.

ha ha, you've gotta be kidding. sounds like a campy "Dschinghis Khan" cover. ouch.

-- Jeb, Monday, 28 May 2007 23:44 (3 months ago) Link

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

"Dschinghis Khan" > Half the shit that gets <rep>ped around here.

-- The Reverend, Tuesday, 29 May 2007 03:31 (3 months ago)

Manuela "Prost, Onkel Albert"/"Mir Gefalt Die Welt" (Telefunken, year unknown) First off, she is a long-haired brunette wearing a gingham blouse, and there is something very crooked about her smile. Second, this is the closest thing to a lieder (see "lieder" definition caveats above) that I've liked enough to keep -- Both sides have plenty of forward motion and swing, almost, in their polka/oompah beats, and the A-side goes even further by sounding halfway like a hardy ale-drinking sea chantey, which would explain the "prost" (= toast, right?) in its title. But what's even cooler in that tune is that the staticy maritime voices seeping in from the background going "ha ha ha" and "aye aye sir" remind me of, like, "I Am the Walrus" or something, which might explain why the guy being toasted is Uncle Albert, who showed up in a martime Wings song once, right?

I meant "maritime" (and "hearty", perhaps.) And maybe it should be noted that the background voices are male, and sound old enough to be Manuela's dad.

Manuela "Das Haus Von Huckleberry Hill"/"Morgen Kommt Der Tag" (Telefunken, year unknown) Manuela (who has a competent but not noticeably distinctive voice) looks prettier on the cover of this one, but she slows down in these songs and I don't like them anywhere near as much. B-side does have wobbly horn orchestrations though, so not a complete stinker.

And I have no idea, really, if I'm using the word "lieder" correctly. I'm taking it just to mean "slow showtune-like ballads sung in German with no influence from rock'n'roll or any music after rock'n'roll."

lieder just means 'songs'. i think what you mean is schlager.

Okay, I will call them schlagers (schlageren?) from now on.

Kelly Marie "Feels Like I'm In Love"/"I Can't Get Enough" (Pye, year unknown but clearly sometime in the early '80s) The A-side is one of the all-time cute New York not German fake Euro (or fake Montreal maybe? Sort of Lime-like) late-bubbledisco classics, of course. I already own it on a vinyl LP of that name and a greatest-hits CD, but why shouldn't I own it on 45, too? Might come in handy sometime! B-side is slower and slightly (very slightly) jazzy. Cool!

lied is a genre though. poems + classical music.

but, yeah, he means schlager.

x-post

Kelly Marie "Loving Just For Fun"/"Fill Me With Your Love" (PRT, year unknown) More bubbledisco! Both of these are already on the LP I have, and they both sound super duper catchy. It is sort of redundant to keep the 45, but I won't quibble yet -- 45s don't take up much shelf space. Kelly's makeup is kind of creepy on the front of the picture sleeve. On the back of the sleeve she is laying down in a big round bed, and is in bondage (tied at the wrists and ankles). Same photo session, apparently, as the two photos on the cover of the best-of CD I've got, but on that one you can tell the bedspread is bright red, and in the black-and-white 45 sleeve photo she is wearing what I first took to be goggles but I now realize is probably a blindfold. I'm going to take a wild guess here and theorize that her music was really big in gay bars, but I have no concrete evidence to prove it. (Possibly big in England, too?)

http://hitparade.ch/cdimg/kelly_marie-loving_just_for_fun_s.jpg

Wencke Myhre "Komm Allein"/"17 und 4" (Polydor, year unknown). I don't even know if I'd call this a schlager, but it is definitely pre-rock pop of some sort. But of the '60s (post-rock'n'roll pre-rock pop!) sort: Like, you know, "Georgy Girl" or "Windy" or something, but not nearly as catchy as those examples. And Wencke looks quite That Girl- spunky on the sleeve, with her spunky '60s haircut and spunky '60s (actually, older -- retro!) dial phone and spunky plaid pantsuit or whatever it's called (matching jacket and slacks and hat) on the other side. And the music's sort of spunky, too, with her la la la's and stuff, but maybe not spunky enough to keep it. (I bet "17 und 4" is about being 21, though. As she looks like she approximately is.)

Ottawan "D.I.S.C.O. (English Version)"/"D.I.S.C.O. (French version)" (Carrere, 1979): Very cool. Dense and primal Afro-Carribean-rooted Eurodisco, more a chant than a song, with a bunch of guys spelling out the title, and both-gender voices piping in from the background saying other stuff (one emotionless girl: "incredible." "sensational." "outstanding."
"irresistible." "such a cutie."). I like this a lot; the backing polyrhythms remind me of Cerrone in his Kongas days (though its Africanness is not nearly as blatant as the Cyan one up above.) Also, it's sort of hard to tell by listening to much of the song which version's the foreign one. (Song is credited to Vangarde and Kluger, which names sound more German than Ottawan to me. Did Ottawa have its own disco style, though? Maybe some Canadian person would know. Quebec sure had its own style.)

(Or wait, maybe they were French? Which would explain there being a French version, I guess.)

Paper Sun "Hey Willy"/"Gold Gold Gold" (Global, year unknown) Good '70s journeyman Top 40 style almost-hard rock, though without looking at a photo of the band (there's none on the sleeve), I can't tell if they were trying to be glam or boogie or neither. Sounds somewhere between. The A-side might have a smidgen of Sweet in it, though maybe I just imagined that 'cause of the title. B-side has more wah-wah. It's clear why the A-side got chosen for that slot.

this is my new favorite thread!

Olivia Pascal "Glad All Over"/"I'm A Tiger" (Polydor 1980) Slowed-down and porn-breathy semidisco Europop cheese cover of the Dave Clark Five classic, backed with an equally breathy but actually catchier song about how Olivia is a dangerous ferocious jungle cat who has known lots of men in her time and can't be caged in. Complete with tiger roar sound effects!

Rockettes "Baby Come Back"/"The Hip" (Lollipop, 1979) Okay, this is weird. I assume the three gals on the cover (two blonde white girls, one black girl) are the ones who sing the competent (but with this song, competent is good enough!) Europop cover of the great Eddy Grant/Equals ska-garage classic on the A-side. But whoever is singing "The Hip," which appears to be about both a dancestep and about "hip lingo", is definitely male. Maybe two males; no female voices at all. One guy sounds like a soul singer (and reminds you to bring your licking stick), and the other one, interjecting spoken lines like "soul brother!" and "I'm your main man!" and "just like that, that's where it is!" and "you got the message, funky funky!" is like a Venus Flytrap type '70s radio DJ or something. Way cool. And then toward the end one guy starts doing this "hum mumma mumma" scatting, like in "Rubber Biscuit" by the Blues Brothers or toons of that ilk.

Oops... Rockettes single is 1978, actually. And the producer is Jurgen Kordelutsch, who as everyone knows was the man responsible for the great album by Disco Circus, which was also on the Lollipop label.

Pop Tops "Happiness Ville"/"Suzanne Suzanne" (Bellaphon, year unknown) "Happiness vile, happiness ville, losing your mind, in happiness ville"..."and everybody knows everything thing and everything about NOTHING"...This is clearly the darkest record in the batch so far. The A-side is actually about the ghetto, "a place where the people are poor" (or "born" maybe?). Basically they look like mods and hippies, a couple of whom (especially the dude with the pageboy hair and crucifix) seem to have stepped in from the Rennaisance Faire, but they also have a black guy to do vocals and make the songs soulful and relevant to the current plight of urban America even if they are recording in Germany. He has a good voice, too -- he's probably a fan of psychedelic (shack)-era Temptations. The B-side is just as dark, melodically, though with vocals that lean more to post-Yardbirds goth madrigals (though with the soul guy still in the forefront). Nice.

(Also strange they called themselves "Pop Tops," seeing how they're less "pop" than anybody else here, and you get the idea they're proud of that.)

Rudlf Rock Und Die Schocker "Halbstark"/"Blue Jeans Image" (Philips, 1976) Totally rocking full-band '50s revivalism auf Deutsch, with the band looking fairly normal on the front of the picture sleeve (with Blue Jeans Inge, apparently, dancing in blue jeans) but totally decked out American Graffiti/Happy Days /Lenny and Squiggy/Sha Na Na style on the back (with blue jeans Inge in her poodleskirt, being courted by a guy in a fly blue rental tux). A-side is full-band doo-wop clearly taking "Little Darlin" by the Diamonds as its template; B side is wild sort-of-Jerry Lee-rooted rockabilly. Awesome. Also, another band with a token black guy -- must be a trend among those Germans.

(That should have been RUDOLF Rock, by the way.)

(And Blue Jeans INGE, not Image, if you didn't already figure that out. Not to be confused with Blues Image.)

The main Ottawan guy was one of Daft Punk's dad (so yeah French I guess!)

Sanra & Andres "Ich Will Dich Fur Mich Fur Immer (Let Me Love You Like Before)"/"Liebe Treu Wie Gold (Land Of Gold)" (Hansa, year unknown) Man and woman, both with long hair, both with boots, but his boots are merely black are hers are this amazing pair of green, gold, red, and silver knee-high ones. A-side aims for quiet intensity, as Frank Kogan would say -- as much folk as schlager -- but it's incredibly slow and didn't pull me in and twice I didn't get through it. B-side's better: starts out with central European gypsy wedding flamenco horn fanfare or something in that neighborhood; slows down; gypsies back up with swirling horns and castanets; slows down again; ends with shouted "hey!" from Sandra. If it had, say, a disco beat behind it, I might like it more -- it strikes me that these are the sort of dark Euro-traditional songs that may have inspired some of Boney M's darker moments. But on their own, I don't like them enough to keep them -- even the gypsy parts seem more or less pro forma to me.

SANDRA & Andres, that is. Sorry.

I think Kelly Marie was Scottish, but I haven't the faintest where she recorded her records.

In my mind she was Scottish and in my mind her records sound like really paper-thin weak Brit disco slathered with syndrums. I don't want to get on the internet and find out the truth because I will be crushed if I've mis-remembered any of the above.

(Donna Summer was an American who married a German fellow called Sommer, incidentally, and she got the name Summer as a result of an typo on her very first single, awww.)

http://home.online.no/~tokern/myhre/mwp52850.jpg

http://213.160.67.42/AAM/AAM748A.jpg

http://static.rateyourmusic.com/album_images/175805.jpg

But I only have the Ottawan 7-inch! (That's the 12-inch, apparently, the cover of which looks way different. Mine doesn't even show any people on it.)

And oops yeah, Kelly Marie is Scottish not New Yorkese, my bad. (Not sure where I got the idea for the latter.) She's not "weak," though -- or at least "Feels Like I'm In Love" isn't (and I wouldn't call her voice or syndrums "thin", either, not that thinness is automatically damning in a disco realm; as Europopdisco goes, she sounds pretty full-bodied to me. And her syndrums are unbelievably catchy.):

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kelly_Marie

Wow, crazy, I never knew this:

Her biggest hit by far was "Feels Like I'm in Love" (1980). That track was written by Ray Dorset, originally as a potential song for Elvis Presley who died before it could be given to him.

Xhuck, I'm sure you're right, I think I'm mostly talking about the sound of Britdisco coming through TV speakers in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Can it be that my memory of US disco sounding fatter and fuller is an inadvertent disco-r*ckist retro-fit on my part? I don't know whether to hope so or hope not.

Syndrums are pretty much always great under all circumstances.

Saragossa Band "Big Bamboo (Ay Ay Ay)"/"I Like It" (Ariola, year unknown) The only single so far that didn't come in a picture sleeve of any kind, and the A-side may well be (after Cyan's "Misaluba") the second-most-likely song so far for me to someday work into a DJ set. Listening to "Big Bamboo" the first time, I guessed that the band might actually be authentically African (no idea what part of Africa they sound like they might be from -- I'm pretty illiterate when it comes to African music beyond the obvious big touch-points), but the "big bamboo" (see: Cheech & Chong!) chorus (not to mention the "ay ay ay" one) gave their song a hook like African music rarely gives me (which isn't to say African music lacks hooks; just that I'm not very skilled at hearing at them.) The title for some reason also made me think of "Black Superman" by Johnny Wakelin and the Kinshasa Band (isn't that subtitled "Ali Bombaye" or something?); not sure if they were actually from Africa or not. More likely, they were Africans recording in Europe, though I could be wrong; I bet (especially after hearing the less exciting dime-a-dozen disco English language B-side) that's what these Saragossa guys were too. (Also reminds me of a Kedzie Records compilation LP I have called Tonight At The Discotheque from 1975, the cover of which claims it's an "original French import" , but all the songs on which -- by such as The Lafeyette Afro-Rock Band, Francois Nyombo, Krispie and Company, New City Jam Band, even Roy Gaines -- seem to be explicitly "African-sounding"; I assume that sort of stuff got played in discos a lot in disco's early years, after "Soul Makossa" had been a big worldwide hit.) Also reminds me of a 12-inch single I have from 1985 (It Records) called "Je Suis Bamboo" by a trio named Bamboo!!!, one of whom looks like Greg Norton, the handlebar-mustached guy in Husker Du. But I know it's not him.

Various (Lafayette Afro-Rock Band family): Tonight at the Discotheque; Kedzie (France); 1975 (in Mexico as Various: The Other Sound of Philadelphia; Peerless; 1975):

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.hipwax.com/music/patch/P_fig/afrobeat.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.hipwax.com/music/patch/afr_beat.html&h=200&w=200&sz=26&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=2mRA5MF_1RGN7M:&tbnh=104&tbnw=104&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2527tonight%2Bat%2Bthe%2Bdiscotheque%2527%2Bkedzie%2B1975%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

And oops, Saragossa not African apparently, shows what the hell I know (translation courtesy Alta Vista Babel Fish):

The SARAGOSSA VOLUME set itself this from the outset to the goal. These musicians let their fans with unrestrained play joy and ease the concerns of the everyday life forget. Their musical brand name is a South American Feeling that it processes into melodische Songs with Pop and skirt elements haben.Happy sound purely! Their most well-known hits: "Big Bamboo", "Zabadak", "Malaika" and "Rasta one".

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.showconnection.ch/bilder/rockundoldiesbands/saragossaband.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.showconnection.ch/print.php%3Fsi%3D%26site%3Dkuenstlerangebot%26typ%3Drockundoldiesbands&h=348&w=228&sz=26&hl=en&start=1&um=1&tbnid=DR_fPwUWpERwcM:&tbnh=120&tbnw=79&prev=/images%3Fq%3D%2527saragossa%2Bband%2527%26svnum%3D10%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG

And Johnny Wakelin turns out to be a white guy from the U.K.:

http://www.answers.com/topic/johnny-wakelin?cat=entertainment

Bamboo!!!, meanwhile, would appear to be Italian:

http://www.thecollector.it/mixmania/single.html

And now that I really think of it, Wakelin and the Kinshasa Band's Ali song doesn't even sound especially African, in any way I can figure, and never did. (But I always think it's going to.)

there is a band called Bamboo that has connections to german disco group Supermax through way of Kurt Hauenstein

http://www.discogs.com/release/245741

I think I have a Supermax 45 or two around the house somewhere, too. I should pull them back and out and re-listen sometime. (Unless I'm confusing them with, like, the Spider Murphy Gang or somebody. Definitely saw tons of records by both of those acts in the record stores all the time when I was in Germany in the early '80s. Had know idea who they were.)

On second listen, "Big Bamboo" was sounding a little thinner and less percussively exciting than the first time. (Second listen was also after I'd seen the Saragossa Band's photo on line, but I don't think that was why my opinion slipped a little.)
I'll still keep the 45, but DJ play is unlikely.

Kirsty Shaw "Yummy Yummy Yummy"/"Breakaway" (CBS, 1988.) Flimsy disco, from a British looking lady, though the fact the Frank Farian (of Boney M/ Milli Vanilli / Far Corporation whose album I've still never heard if they actually made one fame) gets the writing credit on the B-side suggests she's more likely German. Anyway, anybody who thinks Kelly Marie is thin-sounding should definitely stay away from this trifle. But I like it. B-side actually has the feel of a mid '80s Boney M album track, come to think of it, plus a sax part. A-side is of course a cover of one of bubblegum's all time oral sex and/or pregnancy classics, from the Ohio Express. Not a bad number for a bubbledisco dolly to cover, obviously, and the beats here are done yummy Hi-NRG/Italo style.

"Far Corporation whose album I've still never heard if they actually made one"

not that great once you get past the genius of Stairway...

this is backtracking way up to the top of the thread but have you heard Chilly's "For Your Love" cover? it's great. a 10-minute rock disco workout ... it's on the full length Johnnylovesjenny LP on German Polydor. been discussed a bit on the beardo disco thread and elsewhere ....

Nope! Though obviously I should. Only disco cover of "For Your Love" I can think of is the one on Claudja Barry's 1983 Personal Records No La De Da Part 2 EP (on which she also does "I Got You" by Split Enz. No idea if there was ever a Part 1 EP.) Boney M did do a wicked "Still I'm Sad," though.

Sheila And B. Devotion "Spacer"/"Don't Go" (Carrere, 1979.) Okay, everybody knows this one already, right? So reiterating that the A-side is one of the most beautiful records in human history, Italodisco space-rock produced by Chic or otherwise, would just be redundant. B-side, which I hadn't listened to since the last time I'd played her whole album (which was definitely a few years ago), sounded gratifyingly great as well. I still have trouble remembering where the "B" goes in the act's name, though (I always think she's named Sheila B.!)

Hank the Knife And the Jets "Stan the Gunman"/"Catharina Serenade" (Electrola, 1975) Ha ha, these guys look totally badass! Definitely the most punk looking 45 in the batch. Five guys, mostly with furry mustaches and/or thick sideburns and/or receding hairlines and all with matching leather jackets like a street gang, standing in a deserted alley waiting to kick your sorry ass, sucker. I was hoping they'd sound hard pub rock like Dr. Feelgood or the Count Bishops (especially since they're singing about a man with a gun), and they come pretty close -- rockabilly updated with really tough riffs, for an age where punk's just around the corner. Fans of Gene Vincent and Johnny Burnette, I bet. B-side's an ominous and film-ready spaghetti-western-style twang instrumental, though it starts out like a cross between the beginnings of "Dream On" and "Last Child" by Aerosmith. Who were punks in 1975, too: Last childs, just punks in the street. (Well, that was technically '76, but you get the idea).

On youtube they're more Slade (who had done a song called "My Friend Stan") than Dr. Feelgood though:

http://youtube.com/watch?v=Ihk4Jp5yO4g

Or maybe Slade with Feelgood guitars? (There's also this little horn hook half a minute or so in that was seemingly later stolen by Adam Ant in "Goody Two Shoes," unless it was Wham in "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" or some other MTV pop smash from that era.)

Secret Service "Ten O'Clock Postman"/"Hey Johnny" (Strand, 1980) Heavily accented English-as-second- language keyboard-hooked pop new wave, which description I know sounds promising so far, but this is pretty flaccid, even if they are dressed like Tommy Tutone or the Cretones or somebody like that. (Both of whom were generally pretty darn flaccid themselves, come to think of it. Besides that telephone song of course.) '70s soft-poppers trying to go new wave instead of '70s hard rockers trying to go new wave, the latter of which were almost always preferable. Plus what postman shows up at 10:00? I hope the keyboard guy found a better band.

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