Lalo Schifrin "Theme from Enter the Dragon" soundtrack 45 USA/Argentina 1973

It's a busy weekend and I only have time to post a single this week, although there are a lot of great LPs I have lined up for you folks in the coming weeks.  We'll be getting back to more '60s/'70s rock soon, including some rare compilations I think people will love.  It takes more time to edit an LP into mp3s and do the track listings, especially with compilations.

Here's something a little different, two Lalo Schifrin compositions from the soundtrack of the classic 1973 kung fu flick Enter the Dragon.  Schifrin is from Argentina, and has been involved in both classical music and pop movie and TV soundtracks in L.A. for deacdes.

I much prefer the A-side, which is an up-tempo funk/orchestral pop track punctuated by some awesome '70s kung fu screams.  You can enjoy this with or without irony.  The B-side, "The Big Battle", sounds like the composer was told "OK, we need a song for a long fight sequence... make it sound something like the main theme, but like it could be coming to a climax at any point... but don't do that, just keep it going..."  This was a thrift store find and I likely paid 25 cents for it.

Them kids was fast as lightnin'.

Fox "Only You Can" b/w "Out of My Body" UK/USA/Australia/Ireland 1974

Here's another one of those singles that I thought was a rarity, but is just relatively unknown in the United States.  This song hit #2 on the West German and #3 on the UK pop charts in '74, but at only #53 here in the US this is never going to get played on any commercial radio station.  My copy is a German pressing on the GTO label.

Fox was a multinational band put together by American songwriter/producer Kenny Young, and featured Australian Susan Traynor (using the stage name "Noosha Fox") on vocals, which in her case includes suggestive inhaling.

The hit has a loping beat, a softer side of dance-able glam-pop number that approaches, but never reaches, a reggae grove.  I bet they dug this at Rodney Bingehheimer's English Disco.  The B-side is more a psych-pop by way of glam ballad track and has quite the lysergic lyric, although if I had to pick a drug that was in the studio at the time I'd have to go quaaludes.  Despite - or is it because of? - this description I like both sides.  Now I'd like to hear the '75 LP.

Get out of your body.

Marie Laforêt "Vol. 3" LP France 1967

This album was purchased a few weeks back at the same record fair where I picked up this stunning Czech record.  I bought this from a Quebecois guy who came down to sell some records, and I'm glad he was there.  Because I have the first couple of Pop à Paris CD compilations, I recognized the name, and more important the first track on the album, an awesome cover (with an unrelated rewritten French lyric) of the Stones' "Paint It Black."  If you haven't heard this yet do yourself a favor and give it a listen.  It might well be better than the original.  She certainly has a better voice than Mr. Jagger.

That song plus the "Sounds of Silence" cover make the LP worth having by themselves.  As a bonus you get 10 more songs by Ms. Laforêt, mostly orchestral pop-folk of the sort the yé-yé ladies were cranking out by the boatload in the '60s.

You can read about her career in music and movies - both of which she tossed aside for the visual arts - here or if you parlez the French here.  She's also left France and is now a Swiss citizen.  Apparently this is one of 7 roughly annual consecutive albums up through 1970 titled by number, putting her in the same league as Chicago and The Soft Machine in the competition for World's Most Imaginitive Album Titles.  The nice Canadian fellow had a few of the others, and despite him giving me a bit of a price break for actually knowing what I was buying, and trying out my college French, I had only so much cash to spend that day, and this album will have to do for the time being.

Incidentally Marie- douceur, Marie-colère translates as "Sweet Mary/Pissed Off Mary" or something to that effect. Also of interest: she had a euro-hit in 1977 with Il a neigé sur Yesterday ("It Snowed [on] Yesterday"), an homage to The Beatles which is...um... yeah, I won't be posting that.

Face 1

Marie- douceur, Marie-colère
Je voudrais tant que tu comprennes
La voix du silence
Siffle, siffle ma fille
Ma chanson faite pour toi
La plage

Face 2

Toi qui dors
La moisson
Je t'attends
Après toi qui sait
La tendresse
L'arbre qui pleure

Oui!

Various Artists "Killed by Glam 2: 14 Euro Glam Rock Gems" LP international 1970s

This LP came out within the last couple of years on the MoonBoot label out of London. The first volume is all British bands and I'd love to hear that if anyone out there has it. This is all pretty killer '70s glam from continental Europe as the title suggests. Not much more I can add to that. If you like that genre, you'll love this. If you're a sucker for cheesy '70s electronic effects mixed into stomping rock tracks like I am, you'll love it even more.

Unfortunately my copy seems to have a couple of minor flaws in the pressing that cause brief skips in the first couple of tracks. (The obvious way to avoid this is for you to track down the CD or another vinyl copy like this and buy it.)

Overall this is a very nice job of presenting the music - very clean sound, and color reproductions of the 45 sleeves on the reverse with brief liner notes.

Side A

01. Rocket Men - "Rocket Man" (France 1974)
02. Sharaton - "Caught in the Act" (Netherlands 1974)
03. Mabel - "Hey, I love you!" (Denmark 1976)
04. Tiger B. Smith - "Morning Bird" (West Germany 1974)
05. Nicky Bulldog - "Chewingum Rock" (Italy? 1976)
06. House Of Lilly - "Turn Around" (Switzerland? 1973)
07. Walkers - "Fire" (Denmark 1973)

Side B

08. Funky Family - "Part of My Life" (West Germany 1973)
09. Black Fire - "Come On and Do It" (Netherlands 1975)
10. La Strana Societa - "Vento che soffi" (Italy 1973)
11. Lennart Messagie & Dagleth - "You Can Make It Better" (Belgium 1975)
12. Blue Vamp - "Jolly Dolly" (France 1974)
13. Tears - "Ooh Lah" (Sweden 1974)
14. The Killer - "Say Goodbye" (Netherlands 1975)

Rock on!

Various Artists "Radio Bond-Age" LP France 1980s

This cool compilation consists almost entirely of French bands of the 1980s.  Although I believe it was released in 1989, much of the material here dates from in some cases as many as 5 or more years earlier as it was meant to promote a number of releases on the Bondage label out of Paris.

It is one of the most impressive packaging jobs I've ever seen on a true indie release, with an elaborate glossy color gatefold cover and informative English language liner notes.  It seems the album was meant to introduce some French acts to an English-speaking audience.  This was one of the records I most had in mind to post when starting the blog.

There's a mix of punk and related genres, steering clear of the hardcore/thrash scene that also existed in Paris at the time.  You have fairly melodic art punk from (relatively) famous bands such as Bérurier Noir and Ludwig von 88, known for their artsy political stage shows, as well as several other inconnus that take things in a number of post-punk directions, ranging from the twisted folk of Les Nonnes Troppo (who dressed as nuns) and Les Endimanches...to the hip hop-inspired sampling of No Vision, a group that apparently grew out of a "graffiti crew."  Expect from the best tracks some combination of demented B-52s, a touch of Cramps and standard melodic '80s punk sounds along with horns, accordion, and a variety of other instruments.  I can pretty much guarantee that everyone will like some of this and very few will like all of it.

The one non-French band on the LP is The Lords of the New Church, a "supergroup" American/British post-punk band composed of former members of The Dead Boys, Sham 69, The Barracudas and a number of other projects, who had at least one release on the Bongade label and were the first non-French band on their roster.

I bought this in a used record store in Philadelphia in about 1989 or so and haven't seen a copy since.

Face A

"Ready Ready Go Punk Rockers" - The Brigades
"Jardin Potager" - Les Endimanches
"Guerriers Balubas" - Ludwig von 88
"Nuit Apache" - Bérurier Noir
"I Love You - Fuck Off" - Lucrate Milk
"Les Voisins du dessus" - Les Satellites
"Pizza Attack" - Washington Dead Cats

Face B

"Hotel du Labrador" - Messageros Killers Boys
"Le Roi de la route" - Les Nonnes Troppo
"Pop SIDA" - Les PPI (Pervers Polymorphes Inorganises)
"Je suis un evade" - Nuclear Device
"Death Penalty" - No Vision
"Real Bad Time" - The Lords of the New Church

Vive le rock!

Les Luths "Joey" b/w "Smokey Dog" Canada 1969

This single goes for some ridiculous prices online and is featured on at least one digital collection of French Canadian garage rock.  My copy came without a picture sleeve, is a little beaten up and I forget where I bought it, but in all likelihood in an American thrift store for less than $1.

"Joey" is listed as the A-side online but sounds a bit more like a B-side to me.  It's part of the way between a '50s doo wop track and the Stones' "Time Is On My Side."  The B-side is the up-tempo rocker, a mix of Chuck Berry, any '60s garage band and maybe, because of the aggressive, cutting lead guitar, a touch of The Stooges.  "Smokey Dog" is the second song featured on this blog with barking.

Les Luths is French for "The Lutes."  From what little internet research I just did they might be the better known Quebecois band Les Lutins with a bit of a name change toward the end of their career, but I could be completely wrong about that.  I'm sure someone out there in cyberspace will correct me.

Allons-y!

Spinach - "America-America" b/w "Rhythm of Love" - Italy / West Germany 1970

This is one of the few items I'll be posting that was purchased on eBay, in this case probably a decade ago.  I recall this not being cheap for a single - I'll bet close to $20 with postage.

Here we have one of the many projects of alpine/German-speaking Italy's producer Giorgio Moroder (his official site is down unfortunately), who began producing rock and pop in Europe in the mid-'60s, rode and popularized a number of trends including bubblegum pop, electronic pop and proto-glam, and found huge success as a disco producer (Diana Ross) in the late '70s.  He was a big proponent and composer of electronic music, which led to his composition of over 100 film and TV soundtracks.  Apparently he's living in Beverly Hills these days, penning tunes for Hollywood's crap factory.

Earlier on the soundtrack work was interesting electronic stuff (Midnight Express), but by the '80s this went pretty mainstream schlock (Top Gun), where things likely sit today.  Between 1966-1971 or so there are dozens of singles out there which are his work, mostly pretty cool crazed bubblegum/garage stuff typically with a mangled English lyric.  Often the projects are attributed to his first name or are called "Giorgio & The... [pick a band name]."  Check out this very detailed discography.

Spinach dates it appears from his Munich producing and composing days, which is a very good thing for us.  Side A is a bubblegum piece with a lyric about the stereotypical USA; it sold over 400,000 copies in Japan in the early '70s.  (There is a 1973 Japanese LP of this material which is likely not cheap.  Anyone heard it?)  The B side has more interesting percussion and some of the early synth sound that would come to dominate his work in the coming years.

Noteworthy is the naked woman covered in leaf spinach on the front cover, and a horrid enough view on the back cover of Moroder and his partner in this project, Michael Holm, dressed pretty much as the Festrunk Brothers, the wild'n'crazy guys of early Saturday Night Live fame.  It would be wrong of me not to include a photo of that as well.  You know they just want to get down and make funky with a couple of swinging American foxes.

Relive 1970 here.

Bulldog "Doggy Doggy" b/w "Where Did She Go" - UK 1975

Another single from the 4 for 10 euro stack purchased in Rome, and again I was hoping for something a little more glam and got something more on the pop end.

There is no info on the sleeve about any band, and I suspect that this was a studio project hoping to score a novelty hit.  Songs were compsed by "A. Taylor" on the Blue Jean label, and distributed by "Spark It." (Italia?).  It seems safe to assume this is British.

The A-side reminds me of the George Baker Selection hit "Paloma Blanca", only with barking.  Seriously.  There's barking.  The B-side is filler, an Elvis impersonator-type goof on '50s rock'n'roll/pop that sounds like a Bonzo Dog or Move joke track.

Woof! Woof!

Guy Bedos et Sophie Daumier "La drague" b/w "Private-Club" - France 1973

This is another of the singles I bought at a second-hand store in Paris for a very small sum, probably 1 euro.  It's in excellent condition.

My college French told me that the A-side translated as "The Pick-Up" so I figured this would be a keeper.  It's pretty close to what I expected, a generally similar track to the scandalous Serge Gainsbourg / Jane Birkin classic and international hit "Je t'aime... moi non plus."  Only this isn't as good and there aren't the moaning sounds.

In fact this is less a couple of songs per se than a spoken word/comedy novelty item with minimal background music, especially the B-side which sounds to have been recorded live at some dinner theater-type venue.  This will likely have limited appeal for non-francophone readers unless you want some background sounds for your swingin' retro cocktail party.  Honestly a lot of this dialog goes by so quickly that I'm missing a third of the content and most of the jokes.  I find the B-side especially hard to follow.  If someone who understands more would like to comment on the content, please do.

So, who are these people?  "Guy Bedos (born June 15, 1934, in French Algeria) is an actor and stand-up comedian, mostly known in France for his part in the film Nous irons tous au paradis.  He is also famous for his left-wing political affiliation and support to politicians such as François Mitterrand."

"Sophie Daumier (24 November 1934 – 1 January 2004) was a French film actress. She appeared in 28 films between '56-'79.  She was born as Elisabeth Hugon ... the daughter of composer Georges Hugon. She was married to Guy Bedos from 1965 to 1977; the marriage ended in divorce."

Divorced and then dead... this is turning out to be one downer of a post, huh?

Remember better times here.

Matia Bazar "Play Boy" b/w "Tu simplicita" - Italy 1978

Antonella Ruggiero began recording as "Matia" in 1974 and formed the band Matia Bazar (meaning simply "Matia Bazaar" in English) a couple of years later, in Genoa.  The band represented Italy in the 1979 Eurovision song contest, and had one #1 hit in Italy and Belgium (this is not it).  I don't think anyone in the US knows them.


Here is an extensive and quite cool official band site, here is their Wikipedia entry and here is a Russian-language fan site.  The official site also has a Russian option, so they must have a following there as well.


I had never heard of them until stumbling across this single in a second-hand store in Paris a couple of years ago, where I picked it up for 1 or 2 euro.  I bought a handful of other European discs with more obvious appeal (glam and surf) there that day, and a few will more will be posted here.  My copy is a French pressing although the lyric on both sides is in Italian.


The five-people-taking-a-bubble-bath cover led me to the purchase, and frankly at the price asked I didn't care much what the record sounded like.  As a bonus the music is quite good, the A-side despite the high-pitched female vocal reminds me of a later period George Martin-arranged Beatles song in a number of ways, down to a very George Harrison-style brief guitar solo.  The "kazoo" backing vocals especially make this sound like a song that would fit in with the early '70s "toytown" pop compilations that have been popular with psych fans in recent years, and I'm surprised that people were still turning out that kind of music several years later.


The B-side is a bit more sedate but also a nice pop tune that I would have guessed was recorded at least 5 years earlier.  Quality stuff.


Give it a listen!

Nass el Ghiwane / ناس الغيوان "New Dervich" 45 - Morocco 1972

What tropicalia is to Brazil, the 1970s pop drawn from the Gnawa tradition is to Morocco.  One of the two big bands dating from the 1970s that led the movement was Nass El Ghiwane (link to their blog, in French).

"American film director Martin Scorcese once referred to them as The Rolling Stones of Africa. Their music merges the traditional music of Morocco with modern subjects. ... Nass el Ghiwane was formed in the late 60's by four young men from the poor district of Hay el Mohammadi in industrial Casablanca. ... Nass el Ghiwane specialized in writing colloquial poetry about topics related to the social and political climate, and arranging its music in the Moroccan tradition. ... In a time where the only music available was middle-eastern pop music that sang about love, Nass el Ghiwane had prepared something new for Morocco: they mixed the Sufi chants and litanies of Zaouias ... with the elegant colloquial poetry of Melhoun adding to it the ancient rhythms of the Berbers and the healing dances of the mystical Gnawas. Morocco has just had its independence from the French and its population, still uncertain of what the future is hiding, was shocked and moved by the texts of Nass el Ghiwane: corruption, injustice and degradation of society. They were the first Moroccan band to mix such a diverse and rich heritage and to speak their minds even about the most forbidden subjects, public discussion of which may have led to imprisonment at that time."  (See their Wikipedia entry for more.)

This record is from 1972, two years before the death of Boujemaa Hagour, who is described often as the leader or main initial creative force in the group.  Every time I spoke with a Moroccan music shop owner about this group, the owner would point him out in CD photos as "the one who died."  I bought this disc last year in an amazing music store in Essaouira called Bob Music, which is accurately described in some detail over at the Crud Crud blog (get yourself to the July 2010 entries).

This and a couple of the other records I'll probably post in the future are likely the very same ones that were mentioned there as too beaten up to be worth buying.  I likely overpaid for this at about US $10, but the same shop owner let me have some quality CDs at very low prices and I wasn't about to complain.  I enjoy even having the sleeve of something this cool.

This is one of my all-time favorite covers on a single, with striking colors and graphics.  The sound quality on this even after cleaning it is fairly rough; hope you like pops and crackles.  I suggest buying yourself a compilation or two of the band's releases, as I have, if this strikes your fancy.

Listen here.

Julie Felix "Heaven Is Here" b/w "Soon" - UK/USA 1970

It's exciting how much music is out there.  No matter how much I think I know, there are always new artists and even whole genres to dig into of which I was previously unaware.

This is yet another one of the 7" discs I picked up in Rome at a used bookshop 4 per 10 euro.  Like the Chris Spedding single I opened the blog with, I picked this up in part because it was a Mickie Most/Rak label production.  This is the second post on the blog already of an Italian pressing of a single I assumed was a British artist, but is an American who had been working in Britain for a substantial period, becoming better known there than here.

I'm too young to have caught the '60s, but I have a pretty massive collection of '60s recordings, and you would think that I would be familiar with Julie Felix for one of any number of reasons.  The cover art plus the year gave me a pretty good idea of what this was going to sound like while I was still in the store, not knowing the name.

She played the Isle of Wight Festival in 1969, recorded several (mostly folk) albums in the UK beginning in 1964, was the resident singer for David Frost's BBC show, had her own TV show where she hosted performances of The Kinks, Jimmy Page (check out this video!) and Leonard Cohen.  This was the second Top 40 hit (#22) of hers in the UK for 1970.

Yet I'd never heard of her!  Ms. Felix is American but has lived in Britain for about 50 years.  She has an extensive website with info about her ongoing performances, ways to order CDs that cover a lot of her material spread over some years, and even join her fan club.

"Heaven Is Here" is an excellent pop-folk-rocker that Americans should hear.  The B-side is an OK typical B-side, providing a more introspective, slower song.  At times when Felix is really belting it out her voice reminds me of Joan Baez, but that's a starting point of reference and she has her own sound.

Give it a listen.

Bruce Foster "Platinum Heroes" b/w "(I Remember) The Revolution" - USA 1976

Don't those song titles scream glam?  This just has to be some T. Rex-style, jams-kicked-out rock, huh?

Unfortuately it isn't.  What you have on the A-side is a 5+ minute homage to The Beatles, running down their career from '64 into their '70s solo stuff.  The song borrows liberally from Beatles tunes throughout and is interesting mainly for that reason.  Somehow in 1976 people were already nostalgic for less than a decade earlier.  Some Beatles tunes actually charted a second time in various countries in the early '70s upon rerelease.

This A-side ends up sounding like a more restrained David Bowie or even Kim Fowley track, minus the melodrama or the palpable insanity respectively.  This is totally something Fowley would do, only his take would be somehow menacing.  The B-side is a ballad to the good ol' hippie activist days and the post-hippie "doin' my own thing" cultural miasma.  Not bad pop overall and an interesting artifact of people knowing even this early that a major wave had crested, and the blahs had set in.

The lyric to the A-side is on Foster's personal website, which gives a bio and plenty of other info and photos.  Foster is apparently descended from arch American songwriter Stephen Foster.  He was a session musician in the UK and in the US, and played keyboard for Status Quo, Gladys Knight and KISS.  Later he teamed up with a very young Richie Sambora and wrote material for/with him.  The album the single is drawn from is reviewed in a 1977 Billboard magazine you can read here.

I don't have my Billboard charts book handy but the claim is that the A-side did chart and received a lot of radio play, and still is played on radio, but I have no recollection of having heard this before.  Perhaps this was a bigger song in Europe than in the US.  It's also very possible that the single charted on the lower end of the Top 40, which for an artist who isn't a household name can absolutely bury you with the oldies and classic rock programmers.  My pressing is Italian and is another single from the stack bought in Rome, 4 per 10 euro.  I had assumed Foster was British.

The lyric states "I was there at Shea for their last show."  The Beatles' last live show was actually in San Francisco, unless you count the "rooftop concert."  Extra points for mentioning the "Paul is dead" craze and LSD use:

"We dug for clues back in 1970
They crossed the road but we just couldn't let them be
We saw the hangman, priest, and the prisoner
followed close by the gravedigger
Dropping tabs and playing back hidden incantations
Revelation's # 9
and counting black carnations"

Nice.  Grab it here.