Got my K-Tel On

Lileks, on his way to fisking the worst song of all time (Going Up The Country by Canned Heat) in a Bleat last week, gives a link I've been dreaming about for years; K-Tel Records.

Bear in mind, my parents tried. We didn't have Public Radio in Jamestown, North Dakota in those days, so my parents listened to CBW in Winnipeg - a station that, in retrospect, was Thomas Magnum to MPR's dowdy spinster. And my first instrument was the cello. The three local radio stations broadcast, in order of size: Country (KSJB), Beautiful Music (KSJM), and the owner's opinion of the state legislature (KEYJ, the station that eventually hired me in 1979).

But then, one day in 1976, over in Mike Aylmer's basement, on the tiny, 1960's vintage portable record player - K-Tel's Block Buster.

And it was there that I discovered the seductive joys of...well, not really rock and roll. But certainly pop music, circa 1976.

The album included:

• Fly Robin Fly — Silver Convention: "Radish" Widmer - I'm one of about ten people on earth that remembers his real name, Kevin - sang this song incessantly. I think it had its effect.
  
• That’s the Way I Like It — KC and the Sunshine Band: Thai Tran - a Vietnamese kid whose family was miserably stranded in North Dakota after escaping with his family from 'nam and living in a camp in Thailand, and then at an army base in Arkansas, learned English to this song: "Nat da wee, oh hoh oh hoh, Ah wike ee, oh hoh oh hoh...". Last I heard, he was a sociologist of some kind. You do the math.
  
• Why Can’t We Be Friends — War
  
• Pick Up The Pieces — Average White Band
  
• Part Time Love — Gladys Knight and the Pips: The above three songs show what a pathetic state R'nB was in by 1976. People look back on Disco like it was the aberration. Piffle. Disco rescued R'nB from an early demise.
  
• Only Women — Alice Cooper: "I liked I'm Eighteen better"
  
• Please Come To Boston — Dave Loggins: I resolved on hearing this song never, ever to be this sort of sap for a...a...a chick.
  
• Air That I Breathe — Hollies: I remember this song sounding very nice. It hasn't aged well.
  
• Frankenstein — Edgar Winter Groups: This was the song every garage band tried to do, to show that they had the funk. It was North Dakota.
  
• I Want a Do Something Freaky to You — Leon Haywood: "He's talking about sex, isn't he?" "Shut up, my mom'll hear you!"

  Side Two

• Sky High — Jigsaw:
  
• Chevy Van — Sammy Johns: "OK, NOW he's 's talking about sex!" "Er, I dunno". "JEEEEZ, shut up! My mom's upstairs!"
  
• The Last Game of the Season — David Geddes: That's right - THAT David Geddes, of "Run Joey Run" fame. The mid-seventies had a little mini-fad - bathetic Death Pop. "Rocky" by Austin Roberts (young couple falls in love, Girl dies after having baby, Guy sees the mom in little girl), "Billy Don't Be A Hero" by Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods (Guy goes off to war, Girl begs him not to be a hero, Guy becomes a dead hero anyway), and Geddes' "Run Joey Run" (Guy meets Girl, knocks Girl up, Girl's father tracks Guy down with a shotgun, Girl dives in front of the buckshot to save Guy), and "Shannon" by Henry Gross (Guy's Sister dies, family collapses - actually the only one of these songs that's aged at all well). People wondered - who will come out with the crucial followup? Geddes "won " with LGOTS (Guy's blind dad sits in the bleachers watching every game of the season - up until the championship game, during which Guy plays the game of his life. But the blind father has died just in time to miss the game!).
  
• Swearin’ To God — Frankie Vali (sic): Frankie Valli is a very misunderstood character. While his castrati wail with the old Four Seasons songs was as irritating a presence as pop music has ever produced, he also sang on some of the best American pop music of the early sixties; the Four Seasons were among the very few artists doing genuine rock and roll in the years between Elvis' induction and the Beatles. Songs like "Big Man In Town" and "Walk Like A Man" were great foreshadows of Springsteen and the Asbury Jukes. But ten years later, time had stripped away the Four Seasons, and airtight two-minute musical parables of the Jersey goombah life, and uniqueness. And all that remained was the wail. And it was sad.
  
• Doctor’s Orders — Carol Douglas
  
• Help Me Rhonda — Johnny Rivers
  
• Caribbean Festival — Kool and Gang
  
• Peace Pipe — B.T. Express - "He's singing about POT, man".
  
• Slippin’ Into Darkness — War
  
• I’m On Fire — 5000 Volts

Question for those of you were born after, say, 1972; are you starting to understand why so many of us looked at Bruce Springsteen and the Sex Pistols as conquering liberators?

Posted by Mitch at November 3, 2003 06:03 AM