Checking Out Some Washington Bands on The Hippie Love Turbo Radio Show - Code Word "Celery"

Hey there buddy, did you happen to catch this week's episode of Hippie Love Turbo, on KUCR 88.3 FM? Well, here's a bit of a summary of some of the things I talked about.

Sometimes these patterns form when you are putting a show together and you don't even realize it and this week, I ended up played a few bands from Washington. First you heard The Dimensions song Knock You Flat and I said that the band was from South Seattle. While researching the band I came upon a website that briefly mentioned that the band often played at a roller rink named the Lake Hills Roller Rink. As it turns out, the Lake Hills Roller Rink was somewhat of a cultural hub in the Bellevue's Crossroads area and maintained an active music scene well into the 80s where the musical focus shifted from garage rock, to psychedelic, and eventually heavy metal. The scene was started by KJR-AM (sadly a sports talk station now) DJ Pat O'Day who spoke a bit about the roller rink in 2018.

The next Washington band you heard was The Bandits, who came from Mercer Island, Washington, which is a short distance southwest from Bellevue. Mercer Island is known for being a more affluent region of the Seattle metropolitan area and, as is the case with most "well off" neighborhoods, it's a bit harder to find anything interesting culturally beyond real estate, shopping centers, or country clubs. However, for fans of public art, the island has a bunch of outdoor sculptures such as: the punny named Handsome Bollards at Luther Burbank Park which are aluminum hands that act as bollards, an oversized bronze rabbit which has a child leaned against it while reading a book named Between Two Worlds, and Kenton’s Dragon, a giant steel and concrete playground equipment dragon that replaced a similarly shaped sculpture that was also designed by Kenton Pies in 1965. 

Wrapping up the Washington bands, you also heard I'm Walkin' Babe by the Bellingham band The Unusuals. Bellingham has had a diverse music scene throughout the years but, without a doubt, the most famous band to come from Bellingham is Death Cab for Cutie which you may recognize from a cover of their song I Will Follow You into the Dark that you heard at your local coffee shop's open mic. If Death Cab isn't quite your musical style of choice and you dig bands like Pavement, Sebadoh, or Built To Spill you should check out a short-lived band from Bellingham named Crayon and more specifically their only full-length album Brick Factory. However, if you'd like to stick with a garage rock sound then I suggest listening to Mono Men's 1994 album Sin & Tonic. It's definitely more a product of the 90s than the bands you usually hear on the show but I feel like those types of bands also have their time and place. You can hear Mono Men briefly talk about hazardous bubbles which floated through Bellingham in the definitive documentary about grunge music, HYPE! (1996).

Thanks for reading the blog and be sure to listen to the show on KUCR 88.3FM on Sundays at midnight or through KUCR.org! If you'd like you can also listen to KUCR through Radio Garden or Tune-In.

Enjoy this episode's playlist below:

 

Adam's Recital - There's No Place For Lonely People
The Mysteries - Please Agree
Apollos - That's The Breaks
Research 1-6-12 - I Don't Walk There No More
Trespassers - Come With Me
The Spirits - So Sad
The Composers - I Had A Dream Last Night

Takeshi Kitano's Violent Cop! Hippie Love Turbo Radio Show - Code Word "Plantain"

On this episode of Hippie Love Turbo, on KUCR 88.3 FM you heard Ty Wagner's garage rock classic I'm A No-Count and I spoke about how he was off the radar until he discovered used copies of his singles were selling for a decent price online and that there was a demand for his return. Ty only released a couple singles during the '60s, I'm A No-Count/Walking Down Lonely Street (1965) and Slander/I Think I Found Love (1966), which had some regional airplay but fell into obscurity until they were rediscovered on compilations such as Back From The Grave Volume 7 (1988) and Keb Darge And Cut Chemist Present: The Dark Side (2017). Around 2013/2014 Ty returned to the music scene as he began preforming live again, recorded some new material, and released another single featuring Misery Train/Soul Exercise which he had recorded in 1967. Interestingly, Ty Wagner is also known as Downtown Dennis and has a real estate company in Everett, WA. If you'd like to know more about Mr.Wagner there's a fairly comprehensive article written about him here. 

For this episode's film recommendation I present to you Takeshi Kitano's 1989 action/crime drama Violent Cop. Prior to directing Violent Cop Takeshi Kitano was most well known for his comedic roles on Japanese television and his role as Sgt. Gengo Hara in the 1983 war film Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence starring David Bowie. Reader's may also recognize him as Vic Romano from the Spike TV show Most Extreme Elimination Challenge which was a edited and modified version of Kitano's Japanese game show Takeshi's Castle. In fact, Kitano has had a long and interesting career where he's dipped his toes into various forms of media including: comics, television, painting, and perhaps most strangely, video games with one of the most unusual games ever made, Takeshi no Chōsenjō. Although he's not a household name in the U.S. he remains incredibly popular in Japan.

Violent Cop follows the tough-minded detective Azuma and his rookie partner Kikuchi as they become intertwined in a case involving their colleagues and a local drug ring. However, the plot is fairly loose and meanders as Azuma displays his brand of tough justice a-la Dirty Harry. The flowing nature of the plot helps develop Azuma's character as a sort of wandering force of nature. Azuma is detached from reality as if he's merely watching his own actions unfold before him, unable to control his own destiny.  

The world of Violent Cop is without remorse and just about every character lacks moral agency which leads to a few surprising (and often violent) interactions. Although the violence in the film doesn't feel overly gory (maybe I'm the wrong person to make that distinction) there are a couple instances where it seems as if Kitano had truly assualted his costars. The whole thing is a wild ride that has just the right amount of tension which leads to an explosively simple, yet unexpected ending. If you are a fan of gritty low-budget crime films I'd say this is one to add to your list.

As a somewhat unrelated aside, I noticed a mask that was used as a prop in the film's introduction matches a mask that I had used in an unrealized installation of sorts that I was working on when I thought I'd someday become an artist. Spooky, isn't it?

You can listen to this week's playlist below:

 

The Kingsmen - (You Got) The Gamma Goochee
Tom Thumb - You're Gonna Miss Me
The Youngsters - Abertura
Downliners Sect - Glendora