Saturday, August 19, 2023

Hall, Oats, and Rapid-Fire Rockabilly - Hippie Love Turbo Radio Show - Code Word "Cowpea"

On this episode of Hippie Love Turbo, on KUCR 88.3 FM, I kept the talking to small rapid-fire tidbits rather than my normal rambling. Because of that, this post will just stick to the bullet points. But before we get into all that, I'd like to remind y'all that you can check out the latest episodes on the KUCR Archive page. All you have to do is click that little drop down menu and click on "Hippie Love Turbo." Intuitive, ain't it? Unfortunately, the episodes won't be there for long so listen while you can!

 Anywho, here's this episode's breakdown:

  • After hearing Lee Cole's "Cool Baby" I mentioned that I found the song on the compilation Cool And The Crazy which was released in Germany in 1993. I questioned why rockabilly, or psychobilly for that matter, is popular in Germany. Check out this older Vice article that touches on the subject. What do you think?
  • Later on, you heard The Devils play "The Devil Dance." The Devils eventually changed their name to The Bentleys and released one more single, "Now It's Gone." You can read a little more about the band here.
  • Speaking of The Devils, the group was originally from Stroudsburg, PA, which happens to be the city where guitarist G. E. Smith grew up. Smith worked a ton with Hall & Oats and was featured on 5 of the band's top hits. However, if you're like me, you probably recognize him as the long-haired bandleader on Saturday Night Live, a position Smith left in 1995. There's a pretty extensive interview with Smith on The Television Academy's website where he goes over his career including his time with SNL. 
  • Funny enough, I found another connection to Hall & Oats through The Loot. You heard their song "She's A Winner" which featured the guitar work of Caleb Quaye who, much like G.E. Smith, worked with Hall & Oats. It seems like Quaye and Smith might have worked together through Hall & Oats in 1979 but that's probably it. Besides Hall & Oats, Quaye is probably best known for his work with Elton John and their song "Thank You For All Your Loving"  which was written in the late '60s but remained unreleased until it appeared in the 2019 film Rocketman.
  • As the show continued, I played The 'N Betweens' "Little Nightingale" and you heard me talk a bit about the band's history, most of which I found on a website named Brum Beat. The website covers various bands from the West Midlands and is worth poking around because it features fairly comprehensive biographies on some obscure groups, as well as, a few more popular artists.

And that's about it for this episode's rundown! Thanks for reading the blog and be sure to listen over the air on KUCR 88.3FM on Saturdays at 9pm PST or listen to an archived version of the show here. You can also listen through KUCR.org, Radio Garden, or Tune-In

You can check out this week's playlist below:

  

Sunday, August 13, 2023

Getting Off Sonia's Cloud! - Hippie Love Turbo Radio Show - Code Word "Ackee"

This episode of Hippie Love Turbo, on KUCR 88.3 FM, was filled with a wide range of garage and psych tunes, toe tappers, and head-shakers. If you happened to miss this episode you can listen to it on the KUCR Archive where it'll be up for a couple weeks before it gets replaced by newer shows. Listen while you can and, of course, you can always catch the playlist down below!

This promo features a model of a vintage cart machine that's still in use at KUCR!

The first song you heard on this episode was a cover of The Rolling Stones' song "Get Off Of My Cloud" by Spanish ye-yé singer Sonia. There's not much info about Sonia beyond her work in the 60s but there's a nice summary of her career on the blog Cuadernos de Rock en Español (Rock Notes In Spanish). Over the years, Sonia performed Spanish covers of a few English songs including: "Do Wah Diddy", which was made popular at the time by Manfred Mann, as well as, Cliff Richard's "Lucky Lips", and Billy J. Kramer with The Dakotas' "Bad To Me", which can both be heard on her Ouki-Kouki EP. If you like "Bad To Me" you may be interested to know that it was written by Lennon–McCartney and that there are various demo version bootlegs floating around.

As for "Get Off My Cloud", I had mentioned on the show that Mick Jagger and Keith Richards wrote the song as a response to the constant attention they received during their newfound fame. The band wasn't completely satisfied with the final result and chose not to perform the song for many years but ultimately it was one of their biggest hits in the US. You can read more about the song's history on American Songwriter.

Later in the show you heard The Fire's song "Father's Name Is Dad" and I mentioned a research article about early child development and how babies often remember words that have repeating sounds. This repetition may influence the ways language is developed and explain why certain words, such as mama, are often the first words children say. You can read more about the studies here and here.

And finally, towards the middle of the show, I played The Warlords "Real Fine Lady" and I talked a little about their hometown Bloomington-Normal, IL. In particular, I talked about David Davis' Mansion and how he was a friend of and campaign manager for Abraham Lincoln, in addition to a senator and Supreme Court justice.

As for The Warlords, their career was fairly short and their sole release supposedly had a low run of 100 pressings. It seems that the collector's market reflects the single's rarity as I've seen copies listed for sale in the thousands. For a more complete summary of the band, head over to the blog Downstate Sounds which also appears to be a radio show!

And that's about it for this episode's rundown! Thanks for reading the blog and be sure to listen over the air on KUCR 88.3FM on Saturdays at 9pm PST or listen to an archived version of the show here. You can also listen through KUCR.org, Radio Garden, or Tune-In

You can check out this week's playlist below:

  

La Doña at Mucho Gusto Fest 2024!

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