There was a pretty good reaction to the recent fake This Is Rock 'n' Roll Radio playlist saluting David Smay's fictional group The Daisy Bang, a group he created for the book Bubblegum Music Is The Naked Truth. To make a fake playlist, I surrounded fictional tracks by this fictional Daisy Bang with more fictional, lost, or otherwise non-existent tracks by a host of other artists, both real and imaginary. Today's blog will tell you the inspiration for each of those tracks. The Daisy Bang tracks, of course, were all Smay all the way.
RIFF RANDALL & THE PAJAMA SOULS: "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?" (Sire, Rock 'n' Roll Finishing School)
[Since The Ramones' "Do You Remember Rock 'n' Roll Radio?" is our usual opening theme song, I still wanted a fictional version of that tune to open this imaginary show. I figured I'd credit it to Riff Randall, the lead character in The Ramones' movie, Rock 'n' Roll High School. Riff was portrayed in that film by actress P.J. Soles, so I played around with P.J. Soles...er, I mean I played around with P.J. Soles' name to concoct a name for Riff's backing band, The Pajama Souls.]
--
THE DAISY BANG: "Shake You Out" (Bell, Daisy Bang Days)
SCOOTER & THE BANSHEES: "Happy, Hilarious, Hep!" (DC, Swing With Scooter)
[Scooter was the titular star of Swing With Scooter, a teen humor comic book published by DC Comics in the mid-'60s. The first issue of Scooter's comic book told us that Scooter had forsaken fame 'n' fortune, and split from his British rock 'n' roll group The Banshees to live a simple, normal life in America. "Happy! Hilarious! HEP!" was the woefully outta-touch slogan that woefully outta-touch DC editors came up with to hawk the publisher's teen humor line.]
THE REDCOATS: "Tell Laura I Love Her" (Alan Brady Records, Escape To New Rochelle)
[The Redcoats--Ernie and Fred, played by real-life singing sensations Chad & Jeremy--were the British group that hid from crazed fans at the New Rochelle home of Rob and Laura Petrie while waiting for their appearance on The Alan Brady Show; it all happened on the memorable "The Redcoats Are Coming!" episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show. And c'mon--who wouldn't wanna declare love for Laura Petrie?!]
THE MYNAH BIRDS: "Mr. Soul" (Motown, single)
[The Mynah Birds were real...and they were spectacular! Wait--wrong reference. But The Mynah Birds, with future stars Neil Young and Rick James, were signed to Motown in the mid-60s, and probably would have been successful if Rick James hadn't been AWOL from the Army at the time. He wound up in the hoosegow, Young wound up joining Buffalo Springfield, and The Mynah Birds wound up a footnote in pop history. For our purposes, it was nonetheless fun to imagine The Mynah Birds recording Young's song "Mr. Soul," a tune the real world gave to the Springfield instead.]
BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD: "For Pete's Sake" (Atco, More Of The Buffalo Springfield)
[Like Neil Young, Stephen Stills also had a brush with near-stardom before joining Buffalo Springfield; he tried out for The Monkees. Accounts vary about what exactly happened with that, but it's generally agreed that as Stills exited the Monkees project, he recommended his friend Peter Tork for the gig. And it's certainly not a stretch to imagine Buffalo Springfield covering Peter's "For Pete's Sake," a song which became the closing theme for the second season of The Monkees' TV series.]
THE ISLEY BROTHERS: "No Time To Lose" (Wand, The Isley Brothers Sing The Tottenham Sound!)
[The Dave Clark Five's "No Time To Lose" was a blatant rip-off of "Twist And Shout," and a pure Isleys rendition of it woulda been a kick anna half! The Isley Brothers Sing The Tottenham Sound? Yeah!]
--
THE KINKS: "Hello I Love You" (Reprise, Upside Of The Moneygoround)
[In this litigious business of pop music, it's a little surprising that Ray Davies never sued The Doors over the similarities between The Doors' "Hello I Love You" and The Kinks' "All Day And All Of The Night." I think, at the very least, The Kinks deserve free use of the song anyway. "Moneygoround" is a reference to both financial judgements in copyright infringement cases and The Kinks' album Lola Versus Powerman And The Moneygoround, Part One.]
IGGY & THE SHANGRI-LAS: "Give Us Your Blessing" (Red Bird, Remember [Writhing In The Sand])
[I read somewhere that Iggy Pop used to drum for The Shangri-Las. I do not care at all whether or not this story is true. If nothing else, it sets up this duet between Iggy and Shangri-Las lead singer Mary Weiss, singin' a Shangri-Las song. And the album title implies exactly the sort of surfside sex that you'd imagine in a meeting of ol' Ig and those bad girls from Long Island.]
THE DAISY BANG: "Dale Arden Blues" (n/a, The Daisy Bang Story)
THE BAY CITY ROLLERS: "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend" (Arista, Rollers Leave Home)
[Dee Dee Ramone once claimed that The Bay City Rollers wanted to cover The Ramones' "I Wanna Be Your Boyfriend." The claim is widely presumed to be hooey. But it would have been a great choice.]
RELEASE: "Easy Rider" (Columbia, VA: Easy Rider, Volume 2)
[This is the first real song in our playlist! Real, but elusive; it was never issued, and I don't think it's even been bootlegged or made available...anywhere. Release was formed by Peter Tork when he left The Monkees. Peter wrote the song for the film Easy Rider--a movie made with Monkee money, by Monkees creators Bert Schneider and Bob Rafelson--and he was crushed that it wasn't used in the film.]
THE BEATLES: "Carnival Of Light [excerpt]" (unreleased)
[Another real recording, and likewise one that virtually no one has heard. Described as a long, experimental track, I think Paul McCartney has said this still exists.]
--
THE DAISY BANG: "Dub Master 2" (n/a, The Daisy Bang Story)
THE OLIVER TWISTS: "Ain't Bought It" (Eden, Summer Knights)
[When the world pondered the mystery of whether or not Paul McCartney had died and been replaced by a double, even the mighty Caped Crusader got into the act. Batman # 220 (June 1970) featured the story "Dead...Till Proven Alive!," as Batman investigated the rumor that the famous Saul Cartright of British rock 'n' roll group The Oliver Twists had perished. Bruce Wayne was "a major stockholder" in the group's label, Eden Records, and a radio DJ mentions the album title Summer Knights on the story's first page. That DJ plays an unidentified song from that album, and slows it down to change Glennan's lines "Y'ain't got it--if they ain't bought it!" to "Sure was a ball, Saul--too bad it's over!" Hmm. Not exactly "I buried Paul," nor "Stig has been dead for ages honestly," but close enough. With nothing else to go with, I called the song "Ain't Bought It," specifically for the double entendre of questioning whether our Saul "bought it."]
THE PUNK FLOYD: "Gob Only Knows" (Banana, Never Mind The Rutles)
[I'm overdue to watch The Rutles' All You Need Is Cash again, so forgive if memory erred on any relevant detail. The Punk Floyd was the punk band formed by bassist Dirk McQuickly after The Rutles' breakup.]
THE CHANTRELLINES: "T.B. Sheets" (Play-Tone, That Thing We Did)
[I'm prouder of this than I have any right to be. In That Thing You Do!, The Wonders' bass player--who was never given a name in the movie, and is referred to as "T.B. Player" in the denouement--is infatuated with the girl group The Chantrellines, and presumably loses his virginity to their lead singer. A Chantrellines cover of Van Morrison's "T.B. Sheets" is an absurd notion, but I couldn't resist combining T.B. Player and the sheets he shook with a Chantrelline. That thing we did, indeed!]
THE MONKEES: "Sugar, Sugar" (RCA Victor [Canada], single)
[There was a persistent story that Don Kirshner wanted The Monkees to record "Sugar, Sugar," and their rejection of the tune led to Michael Nesmith punching a hole in the wall of a hotel room, screaming, "That could have been your head!," and The Monkees soon parting ways with Kirshner's golden ears. The story is true! Well, except for the "Sugar, Sugar" part--that song hadn't even been written yet when this all went down in 1967. Kirshner's last act before being dismissed from work with The Monkees--in fact, the act that got him dismissed from work with The Monkees--was to issue an unauthorized Monkees single in Canada. For our fake playlist, we've substituted Folger's Crystals...sorry! We've substituted "Sugar, Sugar" for "She Hangs Out," the actual unauthorized Monkees single on Canadian RCA Victor.]
ROD STEWART: "Yummy, Yummy, Yummy (I Got Love In My Tummy)" (Atlantic, Urban Legend)
[Inspired by the once-popular urban legend of Rod Stewart collapsing in concert and being rushed to the hospital to have his stomach pumped. I will neither elaborate nor embellish further.]
--
THE SEX PISTOLS: "Sod In Heaven" (Virgin, You Lot Will Fall For Anything!)
[When The Sex Pistols briefly toured America in January of 1978, Punk magazine reported that the group was working on a new song called "Sod In Heaven." The Pistols broke up, and there's no documentation of the song's existence.]
WILSON PICKETT: "Winchester Cathedral" (Atlantic, New Vaudeville Soul)
[The wicked, wicked Pickett did astonishingly cool covers of "Sugar, Sugar" and "Born To Be Wild," so why not? Oh, right. Common sense. That gets in the way more often than you'd think.]
THE DAISY BANG: "Harmony Cathedral" (n/a, The Daisy Bang Story)
THE LEWIS & CLARK EXPEDITION: "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?" (Ace, VA: You Heard It Here First!, Volume 3)
[One of my many favorite Monkees tracks is "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?," a terrific song written by Michael Martin Murphey and Owen Castelman. Murphey and Castleman were in The Lewis & Clark Expedition, label-mates of The Monkees on Colgems, but there's been no evidence of that group ever recording a version of this song.]
THE FLASHCUBES: "Chainsaw Love" (Northside, Carl [You Da Man])
[A real song, performed live by The Flashcubes a time or two, though no copy of it has turned up. The song was the result of a contest sponsored by The Syracuse New Times, which challenged readers to write the lyrics to a new punk song for The Flashcubes. This was the winning entry; I don't know who wrote it, but The Flashcubes kept up their end of the deal by playing it at least once. I named this non-existent Flashcubes album after the real song they wrote and recorded about me.]
THE RAMONES: "Saturday Night" (Sire, Rocket To Rollers)
[The Ramones' "Blitzkrieg Bop" was directly inspired by The Bay City Rollers' "Saturday Night." Someday, someone will accomplish the great idea of coming up with an arrangement that combines the two into one great big Blitzkrieg Saturday Night.]
--
THE DAISY BANG: "Dappled Down Darling [Black Beauty demo]" (n/a, The Daisy Bang Story)
RAW SEWAGE: "Crowbar Massage" (Travesty, This Is Raw Sewage)
CROWBAR MASSAGE: "Raw Sewage" (Travesty, The Crowbar Message)
KEITH METHEDRINE: "I Like Flowers, Rainbows & Puppies" (Travesty, VA: Death Jam '80)
[Raw Sewage, Crowbar Massage, Keith Methedrine, and all three of these specific songs come from "Death Jam 80," a track on the comedy album Teen Comedy Party by Travesty, Ltd. The track is a faux ad for a massive metal show, and these three are among the acts scheduled to play (along with, from France, Les Homos). Juvenile and hilarious.]
PLASTIC BONO BAND: "Ode To Ipana" (Apple, John, Yoko, Sonny, Cher)
[Mark Shipper's witty and irresistible rock 'n' roll humor novel Paperback Writer offers a fake history of The Beatles, and we probably could have filled this playlist with tracks inspired by that wonderful, wonderful book. In the book, John and Yoko join forces with Sonny and Cher as The Plastic Bono Band, and John finds himself bonding with Sonny over their mutual love of Ipana toothpaste. My favorite rock 'n' roll novel.]
LEATHER TUSCADARO: "Potsie Blues" (Cunningham, Meet Me At Al's)
[SUZI QUATRO! Ah, the love of my teen years. Though, honestly, I never cared as much about her as Leather Tuscadero on Happy Days, since I was over that show by the time she appeared there. Never got over Suzi herself, of course.]
--
THE MADHOUSE GLADS: "Bang Shang-A-Lang" (Calendar, single)
[The Madhouse Glads were another comic book pop group published by the good folks at Archie Comics. The Glads had no success (nor even mention) outside the comics pages--and really not all that much success there--so let's give 'em an Archies song to do as a consolation prize.]
THE MONKEES: "Her Name Is Love" (Colgems, The Monkees Present Micky, David, Michael & Peter)
[A real song, but presumably never recorded in any finished form. The song was co-written by Davy Jones and Charlie Smalls; Smalls later wrote most of the music for The Wiz. "Her Name Is Love" made its one and only public appearance at the end of an episode of The Monkees' TV series ("Some Like It Lukewarm"), as Jones and Smalls sat at a piano discussing soul and singing a bit of this song. The album title is a reference to a double-LP set The Monkees were supposedly planning, with each of the four Monkees getting one album side to call his own. That idea was scotched when Peter Tork left the group in 1969.]
THE DAISY BANG: "Daisy Bang Day" (Bell, Daisy Bang Days)
THE BEATLES: "A Talent For Loving" (Capitol, A Talent For Loving OST)
[For a while, after the success of the films A Hard Day's Night and Help!, The Beatles were supposed to star in, of all things, a Western called A Talent For Loving. There is no way in any real world this would have ever, ever happened. But who needs the real world anyway? Here's the fictional title track.]
THE ROLLING STONES: "Only Lovers Left Alive" (Abkco, Only Lovers Left Alive OST)
[Likewise, The Rolling Stones were supposed to make their feature film debut in an adaptation of Dave Wallis' science-fiction novel Only Lovers Left Alive, about a world where all adults had perished and teens ruled.]
DONNY & MARIE: "Je T'Aime (Moi Non Plus)" (Curb, Sibling Revelry)
[I should be ashamed of myself. "Je t'Aime (Moi Non Plus" was a European hit for Serge Gainsborg and Jane Birkin, and was basically Birkin building to (and achieving) orgasm over a musical...um, bed. I stole the Sibling Revelry album title from a joke about The Carpenters in Creem magazine.]
--
THE DAISY BANG: "Race You To The Moon" (Bell, Daisy Bang Days)
ELVIS PRESLEY & THE MORELLS: "Red's" (RCA, Shake & Push & Shimmy & Twitch)
["Red's" is a righteously rockin' track on The Morells' first album, Shake & Push. The only thing conceivable that could have improved that track would have been for King Elvis the First to come out of his silly "seclusion" in 1982 and front the band for a rendition of this All-American ode to hamburger, cheeseburger, lettuce and tomato.]
THE MASKED MAURAUDERS: "Jumping Tom Thumb's Bathroom Window" (unreleased)
[Rolling Stone magazine's classic put-on about a fictional album by a fictional supergroup of Beatles, Stones, and Bashful Bobby Dylan.]
THE JIMI HENDRIX EXPERIENCE WITH JOHN LENNON: "Day Tripper" (unreleased)
[Mistaken identity granted alternate-world acceptance. Many have thought that The Jimi Hendrix Experience's BBC performance of "Day Tripper" features John Lennon as an uncredited guest. It does not include Lennon at all. Now it does!]
THE MOSQUITOES: "He's A Loser" (Sherwood, The Mosquitoes Live At Carnegie Hall)
[Ah, those bastards! Lousy, stuck-up, selfish rock group leaves seven stranded castaways still stranded on Gilligan's Island. In fairness, they were right to be afraid of Ginger, Maryann, and Lovey's group, The Honeybees.]
THE HEARDSMEN: "Alone In My Room With My Principles" (Play-Tone, Not Engaged)
[Based on a sarcastic quip by Wonders guitarist Lenny Haise in the film That Thing You Do!, Wonders singer/songwriter/schmuck-and-a-half James Mattingly II writes his own kiss-off to his former bandmates. Album title is itself a kiss-off to Jimmy's former flame Faye Dolan, who was special, and way too good for Jimmy anyway.]
--
THE DAISY BANG: "Pure Imagination" (Bell, Daisy Bang Days)
THE MANIAKS: "Silver's Song" (DC, Showcase)
[The Maniaks were a very short-lived DC Comics pop group; Flip, Jangle, Pack Rat, and Silver appeared in three issues of Showcase before shuffling off to that great four-color record bin in the sky (but not before somehow wrangling a guest appearance by Woody Allen in the group's final story in Showcase # 71).]
THE DAISY BANG: "Open The Pod Bay Door Hal" (n/a, The Daisy Bang Story)
THE BEACH BOYS: "Cease To Exist" (Capitol, Charlie's Mansion)
[The story of Charlie Manson and Beach Boys drummer Dennis Wilson is too big for a glib blog entry. Suffice it to say that Wilson was initially appreciative of the endless supply of willing young girls and mind-altering substances that Manson provided, but Wilson was soon justifiably freaked out by Manson and his Family in short order. The Beach Boys re-wrote (without sharing songwriting credit) Manson's song "Cease To Exist" as their own "Never Learn Not To Love," which would certainly seem like an outstandingly stupid move to make when dealing with, y'know...a remorseless, crazy-as-a-soup-sandwich murderer, frcryinoutloud!]
THE DAISY BANG [with CURT BOETTCHER]: "Cease To Exist" (n/a, The Daisy Bang Story)
THE ARCHIES: "I Need Something Stronger Than A Chock'lit Malt" (Kirshner, single)
[My own invention, though I had it as an Archie Andrews solo single in my look at What If The Archies Had Been A Real Band? ]
THE DAISY BANG: "Bang Saturn! Yeah!" (Bell, single)
THE BEATLES: "Please Please Me [slow version]" (Apple, Anthology Zero)
[Another real song, this one apparently lost to history. The Beatles originally wrote "Please Please Me" as a Roy Orbison-style ballad, and recorded it as such. Producer George Martin suggested trying it as a more uptempo number, prompting The Beatles to--ahem--INVENT POWER POP AS WE KNOW IT RIGHT THEN AND THERE!! Many, many attempts to find that original slower version in the archives have come up empty-handed, and the track is presumed to be gone for good.]
THE DAISY BANG: "My Treat [Black Beauty demo]" (n/a, The Daisy Bang Story)
P.J. HARVEY: "Deathray" (n/a, 4-Track Demos)
THE DAISY BANG: "Dub Master Done" (n/a, The Daisy Bang Story)
[And, as noted at the outset, all of the Daisy Bang and Daisy Bang-related tracks (including P.J. Harvey's cover of "Deathray") were created by David Smay. I think I might have come up with the perfunctory "Dub Master" titles, since (as I recall) those didn't have titles in the original story. Is truth stranger than fiction? Who cares? We say you can enjoy both!]
No comments:
Post a Comment