Extra Play - Nuggets

Three, two, sun. EasyJet's big orange sale is now on, with up to £400 off package holidays and up to 20% off flights. Book now at easyjet.com. Get out there. Selected dates and flights sale on 5th of May. Holidays minimum spend and after protected, season sees apply. Good morning Vietnam! Is it like that? No, it's the... Man, I can't do it because of the COVID, because I have the long-term... Teach me, teach me. Good morning Vietnam. There we go. Good morning Vietnam. And you see, I'm... You're so much like doing the weather in Vietnam. Yes, it's hot. It's real hot in here. Hi. Hi. Welcome to No Dogs in Space, everybody. We're going to be talking about Good Morning Vietnam here in a bit, but you're going to have to wait for it. I'm Marcus Parks. I'm Caroline Hidalgo, and that's a Robin Williams movie, in case you weren't sure, just to make sure, because I've never seen it. You've never seen it? Ah, that's what we're going to watch this weekend. I don't know if it holds up. When I was a kid, I fucking loved that Vietnam movie. Obviously. I mean, isn't it more of a radio DJ movie? It's a radio DJ. Yeah, I was, you know, I'd started in radio... In the radio FM business when I was 18. And yeah, Good Morning Vietnam. When I was a kid, it was one of my favorite movies. I fucking adored it. Oh, that's great. Yeah. I love Pump Up the Volume. Yeah, Pump Up the Volume was also great, but I only saw that recently. Good Morning Vietnam. That was the one that was very, very near and dear to my heart. Listeners, tell us your favorite radio DJ movie. The Warriors, maybe. Perhaps The Warriors. Perhaps Ponte Pool. There's plenty of them out there. Private parts. Play Misty for me. See, there's a lot. That's probably more. Don't be bothered to be more. Anyway, we're going to, we're going to, we're actually going to get into it because it all kind of ties in together. It really does. There's a thing called the sound track. The sound track, the compilation. Yes. I'm very excited for this. So let's get into this. Remember, this is an extra play as a part from our main series. We like to just dive into a certain part of something that we just feel like talking about. Sometimes we get recommendations or suggestions. This suggestion was something I think I thought of it. And also Patrick, our friend and research assistant, Patrick Fisher also thought of this. So we're going to really dive in into nuggets. Nuggets. Original artifacts from the psychedelic era. Now you all have heard us bang on about the nuggets compilation a time or two over the years. You're on No Dogs in Space. And that's a good reason. While punk still would have happened if you took nuggets out of the equation, the genre as it is would no doubt look a lot different if you did that. Instead of introducing the stripped down garage rock of the sixties to young musicians in the seventies, nuggets, it gave these bands a deeper understanding of what was then the recent history of rock music. It's, it was kind of like getting a compilation of tracks from 2015 in 2022. See, while the Ramones already knew Let's Dance by Chris Montez and fucking everybody knew Louis Louis. I hope everyone knows Louis Louis. God damn it. If you don't go listen to Louis Louis, I'll allow it. Yeah, absolutely. But just you too. Pause the Louis Louis, come back. Yes. And then you're going to enjoy it. And then like three weeks later, come back and listen to this once you've really, really listened to every version of Louis Louis. Yeah. And there are dozens. Nuggets reaffirmed the idea that big songs can come in nasty little packages. In other words, the idea that short and loud works that was reinforced. And as we said in our Patty Smith series, the man who helped bring nuggets to the ears of music lovers everywhere was Lenny Kay, patron saint of the record fair and guitarist for the Patty Smith group. That's right. Lenny Kay is a patron saint of the record fair because that's where we see him. There are many Lenny Kay sightings. I saw him at three consecutive WFMU record fairs in Brooklyn. And how many times did you approach him? None. I know. That's the problem. We should have said hi. Apparently people do approach him all the time because he did mention that in an interview that I saw the other day. And he seemed to be perfectly fine with it. But that's the thing. I don't want him to be perfectly fine with it. He seems like he's, I mean, he didn't seem, oh, you know, I don't know if I'm blowing his butt. I don't know if he wants to make it friend every time he turns the corner. But here you go, especially with record collecting nerds. Exactly. No, he doesn't want to start that conversation again for the 15 millionth time. Okay. So yes, Lenny Kay, as we know, from the Patty Smith series, guitarist and music collaborator and arranger for the Patty Smith group. And of course, before then, he actually was asked to compile a list of songs for this thing that we're going to talk about, Nuggets, a psychedelic garage rock pop compilation album that came out in 1972 on Electra Records. And it's a double LP. And with liner notes that Lenny Kay wrote himself. And it's one of the first mentions of punk rock where they mentioned punk rock for the first time. Yeah, it codifies it. Yes, we're going to get into that. But it's basically an archeological dig into the bizarre splendor of the mid-60s, a time when nobody seemed too sure what was happening, but never let that get in the way of enjoying it to the fullest. Yeah, yeah. That's in the liner notes. That's very cool. Yeah. Now, one question you may have about Nuggets is because I had this exact same question. Why was Lenny Kay releasing an album that collected rock singles from 1964 until 1968 in the year 1972? Very recent history. Yes. These are recent just songs that came out just a few years back, like you were saying. Well, the answer, as was pointed out in the Rolling Stone review of the Nuggets compilation, it's actually pretty simple. Basically, a lot of shit happened in the 60s. No. And when it came to music, most fans were focused on what was coming out of England in San Francisco rather than, say, Austin, Texas or Minneapolis, Minnesota. And every city in America was putting out amazing music in the 1960s, but not all of it reached the mainstream. Not all of it reached the entirety of America. And a lot of these songs on Nuggets, they were at the very least, they were local hits, back when a local hit was a thing that was still possible, but many of them never broke through to the national stage and they were therefore at danger of being lost to the sheer size of America. Now, Nuggets is actually important, not just for bringing these songs to wider attention, but also because it introduced the idea of the rescue compilation to music nerds everywhere, where before compilation albums were mostly put out by record companies to make an extra buck on a single, Nuggets inspired thousands of other record obsessives to curate and release their own compilations of songs that would have been forgotten had these record nerds not saved them. And these compilations, dozens of which are so released every month, they can be highly curated. There are compilations that collect psychedelic pop from Thailand. Disco hits only popular in Pakistan from 1979 until 1983, country songs that are only about trucking. We have that. We have, no, I have all of these compilations that have names so far. Yes, I know, we've checked, marked all of these. You got compilations that's garage and punk singles from Pittsburgh, New Orleans, Detroit, dozens of other cities and regions. You've got Red Hot Rockabilly. You've got so many different people out there collecting all these 45 singles that otherwise would have been lost to the sands of time had they not put them on a compilation. And all that started with Nuggets, or at least Nuggets was the compilation that popularized the notion. So to get an idea of why Nuggets took off and is still talked about 50 years later, let's listen to some samples of songs featured on the compilation, starting with Farmer John. My favorite song, my favorite song on the Nuggets compilation, sorry, so do it again, do it again. Oh my God, play Farmer John. Starting with Farmer John by the Premier. Yeah! Farmer John. Yeah, yeah, I've been low with your daughter. There's someone in your house. There's someone in your house. There's someone in your house. There's someone in your house. There's someone in your house. There's someone in your house. There's someone in your house. There's someone in your house. There's someone in your house. There's someone in your house. There's someone in your house. There's someone in your house. There's someone in your house. And so on and so forth for the next two minutes. That was great. The premieres, they're from San Gabriel, California. Chicano rock group, love them, love them. I mean, they did mostly covers. Farmer John is a cover by Don and Dewey, R&B Duo. The thing I love about the premieres is that if you're not a strong singer, just have two people in your band sing and then have a party around it while you're trying to record or at least a well, well, yeah, exactly. Because they did just invite a bunch of people to come over and make a lot of noise to make it seem like it was like live, like, like, you know, they were performing or something. But really, it was just like just getting a lot of people to just like yipping holler and all that business just to kind of bring some more energy to it. And also to hide the fact that maybe if you can't sing very well, it doesn't matter because it's all about the energy. And that's why I love that song. And I know we listen a lot to the headcoats, Billy Childish's version of David Crockett, which is the same exact melody. Just so catchy, so much fun. I love it. Listen to that. Yeah. It's that feature is Holly Goh Lightly, who was also in these darlings. No, I can't remember where her name or band was, but Holly Goh Lightly is fucking amazing as well. No docs and space at gmail.com. Please Holly, tell us, please, please. And the premieres, they were, you know, we talked about like a lot of shit going on in the 60s. The premieres are actually broken up by the 60s because as they were touring and trying to make it as musicians, two of them got drafted and had to go fight in Vietnam. One of them was a machine gunner on the ground. Like these guys were at one and the other one was an artillery guy. So yeah, their band was literally destroyed by Vietnam. It was a, I mean, luckily those guys came back and but it was during a very, it was a crazy time. I don't know how else to say these dark times with the Chicano riots and everything. And a lot of Mexican Americans looking around being like, how come they're sending us all the time to Vietnam? This is not about that. This is not about this. That show is not about this. I'm sorry. I'm getting into it too much. But I'm new to LA. We're both new to California. So I'm like learning a lot of the history of it. And it's really great. So if anyone has any great Chicano rock history, send it my way. Please do. And speaking of Vietnam, our next song, The Castaways with Liar Liar. Cool. Why speaking? Because it's on the Good Morning Vietnam soundtrack. I'm gonna be different. Know it's a lie. Come to me honey. See how I cry. Why must you hurt me? Do what you do. Listen to me girl. Can't you see I love you? Make a little effort. Try to be true. I'll be happy. Not so low. I love that song. I love that song since I was a kid. And that's because I had the Good Morning Vietnam soundtrack on cassette tape. And when I look back at the track listing, like I can see that this soundtrack actually shaped my music taste quite a bit. I mean, this one had Game of Love by Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders had Five O'Clock World by the Vogue's. Fucking California Sun. It was the first place I heard California Sun. I got you. I feel good. James Brown. All that stuff introduced to me by the soundtrack, The Compilation. You know, it's fucking great. It's how this shit works out. Castaways, of course, from Minneapolis, Minnesota. They recorded that song at Soma Records or was it? They were signed to Soma Records. I think it was released on Soma Records, which we talked about in the replacement series because Soma Records being from the Twin Cities with the guy Amos, right? Because it's Soma backwards. And he was one of the major, I guess they started out pretty small and then they became one of the major distribution companies in the whole country. So they were able to like have these big songs just go all over the country like Surfenberg. Yeah, Surfenberg. Under Soma Records. Yeah. And of course, if you want to know the history of Surfenberg, we did an entire episode on it. Why do you think I know this shit? I wouldn't otherwise. I promise you that. So let's go from Minneapolis, Minnesota. Let's go down to Austin, Texas for the 13th floor elevator. You're going to miss me here on No Doggo's Bakes. Yeah. You didn't realize. You didn't realize. You didn't realize. Oh, you're going to miss me, baby. Oh, you're going to miss me, baby. Oh, you're going to miss me, child. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's the thing. I don't get to give y'all a history of the 13th floor elevators because we're going to be doing an entire fucking series on the 13th floor elevators. We're going to do 13th floor elevators. We're going to do Rocky Erickson. We're going to do the Austin, Texas psychedelic scene. It's going to be fucking amazing. Yeah. You heard that song. We're going to get in that guy's head. And I am looking forward to that. That is spring 2023, my friends. God damn right. We're getting another series that we're going to do before that, but 13th floor elevators. That's coming 2023, guaranteed. And then of course, we got my favorite song on the entire compilation. I love this. I love this. I, I, I, please, sorry. Go ahead. Play the song. I love this. We've got nighttime by the strange loves. Yeah. Yeah. Since that is my favorite song and my favorite band on nuggets. Well, I don't know. I don't know if I ever banned, but man, I fucking love the album. That song's on. We're going to go into the fascinating story of the strange loves themselves because it's such an interesting microcosm of the music business in the 1960s. Easy jets, big orange sale is now on. Wander the streets with more wonder with up to 200 pounds of city rates and up to 20% off flights. Visit easyjets.com. Get out there. Selected dates and flights sale and fifth of May. Holiday's minimum spend and after protected. T's and C's apply. Crisp, vibrant and bursting with citrus. Villamarrilla's New Zealand, Sylvignon Blanc is the perfect wine made to be enjoyed on every occasion. Whether you're soaking up the sun in your garden, hosting a backyard barbecue or unwinding after a long day. The zesty lime and lush tropical fruits are always delicious. Tri-Villamarrilla, Sylvignon Blanc, a vibrant New Zealand wine that's perfect for every occasion available at all good wine retailers. Now the strange loves were actually a writing and production team made up of three dudes named Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Goddler. These guys, and I'm going to say Goddler as much as best as I can throughout the rest of this. Yeah, yeah, it's Goddler. Unless Richard himself wants to come at us. I don't think anyone's going to yell at us. Well, these guys got together in the late fifties and early sixties. This was the Brill Building days when 1650 Broadway in Manhattan was the center of the songwriting world. It's very much like Brill Building is like where songwriters would come around and try to like, they give their songs to very famous singers. It was a very different time back then. That's kind of how I think Carol King, Carol King, Goddler start. Sorry, Carol King is a whole different person. Carol King, Goddler start in that and just being a songwriter and then eventually, you know, they will. Yeah, exactly. Tapestry happens in history. Well, basically Bob, Jerry and Richard were in the same ballpark as Lou Reed, who during the same time period was writing oddball songs under assumed names. Songs like Do the Ostrich, which we talked about a lot in our Velvet Underground series. He also had more commercial compositions like this one called Cycle Annie, which was released under the band name The Beach Nuts. I love that. You'd better watch out for little Cycle Annie. Watch out for little Cycle Annie. Watch out for little Cycle Annie. Watch out for little Cycle Annie. Watch out for little Cycle Annie. She don't wear glasses, she don't wear skirts, just type of jeans, boots and racing shirts. She tears up those beaches alongside Pasadena. Little Cycle Annie, they just don't come any near y'all better. Watch out for little Cycle Annie. Watch out for little Cycle Annie. Watch out for little Cycle Annie. Watch out for little Cycle Annie. Watch out for little Cycle Annie. Got a competition all in California, high bars. Glasses, strailers, she can take on any cars. Her age is old boarded, got a four speed kit. Little Cycle Annie. She's a real touch. Y'all better watch out for little Cycle Annie. Watch out for little Cycle Annie. Watch out for little Cycle Annie. That's 1964. You know what? It's a good song. It's a fairly, like it's a fairly catchy song, but it definitely sounds like Lou Reed knows that he has better things to do. Or he's just trying to put his, it's almost like he's playing with his niece and she's like, play me a song on go Lou. And he's like, okay, I'll do a cycle Annie again. And you can tell he's just like, all right, just again, I'll do it again. But I like it. I like it too. I mean, there's a reason why it kind of sounds like that because Lou Reed's job when he recorded that song was writing and recording sound alike singles for a ripoff label in Long Island City Queens called Pickwick Records. Songwriter musicians for hire like Lou Reed would sit in a room and write 10 California style surf songs or 10 Detroit style R&B songs than they would immediately record them in speed fueled marathon sessions. So Pickwick could release these songs as quickly and cheaply as possible. Yeah, this is kind of like a Walmart bin stuff. You know, the stuff that your parents get at the supermarket and because they think that you would like it because it's got like a guitar on it kind of thing. Yes, my parents did get that kind of stuff. I think they did say these were specifically like supermarket albums. Yes. In other words, the guys at Pickwick were working in a sort of song factory. It's like something closer to a sweatshop or a bunch of cheap manufactured shit would add up to a small profit. The guys who eventually made up the strange loves, however, they were a little more bespoke. While their approach was similar to Lou Reed at Pickwick, Bob, Jerry and Richard were trying to craft bona fide hits, although it took a while for that craft to reach hit levels as we'll soon find out. Now, as far as their approach, they would ride trends both musical and cultural. And sometimes those trends would be fairly ghoulish. For example, when Buddy Holly Richie Valance and the big bopper died and that plane crash, which one? That plane crash, you know, the day the music died, Bob and Jerry immediately got to work on a song capitalizing on the tragedy. And this wasn't actually that rare back in the day, but usually they were tributes, you know, like when Cowboy Copas, Hank Shaw Hawkins, that Hawkins and Patsy Klein died in their plane crash. There were a bunch of tribute songs written. They was sent to charity. There was a very beautiful tribute song written for Buddy Holly and all these guys way back when this one though, this is a cash grab. Right. Yeah. I don't think this is a tribute. No, this is, but I mean the word here, the key word here is capitalizing on the tragedy. These guys wrote a song dedicated to the eponymous Donna song about in the Richie Valance tune. They wrote it as quickly as they could. Then they called a session. The single was recorded on Saturday. It was pressed on Sunday and it was released on Monday under the name the kittens here and all its terrible rushed off key glory is a letter to Donna. All right. You know, if you're not a strong lead and that's okay. I'm not either. Maybe it's best to invite a friend along. They didn't, but there were two other guys doing the, but, oh, but the doubling up the, the main vocal. Yeah. Like the premier. Yeah. That's right. Take a note from the premiers. Like I said, and he's assuming a lot about Richie Valance. He's speaking a little bit too. He's being a little churlish. Yes. Oh yeah. So yeah. Donna being Richie Valance's girlfriend at the time or, or girl he was seeing. I'm not sure. I don't know if you want to believe the movie. It's very Hollywood, but it's great. La Bamba. Yeah. And I can't do it. I would usually do it fully. I still got the COVID though, but so I can go. Richie doing it already. And, but yeah, so this is, this was happening right after the Monday after the crash. And the week after the weekend. Oh, okay. Well, that's fine. I guess. But Hey, this is them. Just they're just throwing everything at the wall. They're just trying anything. They are, and they're God awful at this point. I mean, that's song's terrible. It's a ripoff. They can't sing, but it is still their job. And after they added another guy to their songwriting team, a future industry legend named Richard Goddler, they continued working on their craft by again, capitalizing on the latest trends. By 1963, the group were calling themselves FGG, Feldman, Goldstein, Goddler, and they'd begun specializing in girl group songs. And after years of banging their heads against a wall with piddling offerings, they finally struck gold with one of the classics of the girl group genre. My boy friends back. No, no, don't sing a display. I'm sorry. My boy wins back and you're gonna be in trouble. Hey, la, hey, la, my boyfriend's back. He is coming better cut out of the double. Hey, la, hey, la, my boyfriend's back. You've been spreading lies that I wasn't true. Hey, la, hey, la, my boyfriend's back. Look out now, cause he's coming after you. Hey, la, hey, la, my boyfriend's back. Hey, he knows that you've been trying. And he knows that you've been lying. He's been gone for such a long time. You ever see the movie, My Boy Friend's Back? No. I can't believe this. This is like a classic of the early nineties, rom-com genre. It's a girl's boyfriend dies and he comes back to life. Like as a zombie. As a zombie. And it's a zombie movie, romantic comedy, early nineties. It's probably fucking terrible, but I remember it was fun when I was a kid. Cool. The song. The song is fantastic. I love this song cause it was one of those like CDs that my parents had when I was like a little kid of like the sixties or whatever their childhood was. And this was one of the songs. The 60 for God. Yeah, exactly. You know those commercials and everything. I love this song. This song is so good. It's amazing. And then I, because, you know, we, you know, you wanted to talk about the strange loves and everything. I did get into learning about the story about it, about my boyfriend's back. And it is really, it makes sense from a writer's point of view, right? Like Bob Feldman, you know, the F or the FGG of this songwriting company. And he was just hanging out at a candy store in Brooklyn near where he went to school. And then he was just like, just sitting there. And then all of a sudden, like this woman next to him started screaming at this one guy saying exactly those things. My boyfriend's back and you're going to be in fucking trouble. And you've been saying these things about me that aren't true. And when my boyfriend gets ahold of you, he's going to be the shit out of you asshole. And above that, this is, I'm, this is an actual quote that Bob Feldman said. And then so he wrote it all down while she was yelling at this guy and then went to the other guys and like, let's write a song. On the point of view of this really frustrated woman. And, you know, it makes perfect sense. It does. You know, it's just like, and Lou Reed did the same thing whenever he was hanging out with the, the Warhol factory people. It's just like, take a pen and a paper and just write it down or on your phone or something when you hear something interesting. Yeah. I mean, I do think it's appropriate that my boy friends back and Femt Fetal live in the same space. They're my favorite songs. How is that? How is that a thing? Now Feldman, Goldstein and Gutterer focused on writing songs in the girl group style for the next year or so. But when the Beatles hit American shores in February of 1964, the songwriting team of FGG decided to pivot once more to capitalize on the British invasion style. And so as they were all sitting around a table one night getting super high. That's another thing. FGG smoked a lot of pot every day, all day for years. That's creativity fuel. FGG decided to create a foreign beat group with its own made up history in which Feldman, Goldstein and Gutterer would write, sing and play all of the songs. And since they all love the movie Doctor Strange Love, which had come out just like a few months earlier, they called their band The Strange Loves. Now, if FGG was going to create a story for a foreign beat group, they'd have to choose a country that spoke English because they still had to go out and do the interviews. But since everyone was pretty familiar with British accents by this point, because the Beatles and the Stones, FGG decided that their group would be from the fake town of Armstrong, Australia. As far as why they chose Australia in particular, Gutterer later said, quote, nobody in the United States in 1965 really knew any Australians. So they could do whatever the fuck they wanted. They just know there's a bunch of white people who speak English on this big, gigantic continent on the other side of the world. Otherwise, that makes sense. So I mean, without the internet and everything, like, would you know another Australian? Do you presently talk to other Australians? Unfortunately, we don't have that. Although we will have that chance next year. Yeah, we will have that chance next year. I know Wade. There you go. That's it. Hey, Wade, how you doing? We're going Australian next year. Yeah, next August. Thanks everyone for being understanding about the postponement on that tour. But yeah, and I think I actually do think that Crocodile Dundee was like America's introduction to Australia. You might be right. We didn't know anything about it until then. But to expand the narrative, Bob Feldman, Jerry Goldstein and Richard Gutterer became Miles Niles and Giles Strange. Giles. Giles? Yeah, I think. Is it Giles? I guess I think so. Giles. Yes, like Brasio. They were three sheep farming brothers who'd gotten rich by inventing a new form of sheep crossbreeding, which of course had given them more time to focus on their music. Why is no one asking the questions about what is sheep crossbreeding? What kind of technique did you invent when you mean sheep crossbreeding? But no, everyone just forgets about that. It's like, OK, now tell us about this band. Yeah, what is this? Does the American agricultural industry know about this new crossbreeding program? Or is the government trying to shut you up? Well, for publicity photographs, the newly christened strange loves posed in zebra stripe vests because they also knew very little about Australia. They also posed and played with big African drums because again, their conception of Australia was a little muddy. Those drums were also, by the way, stolen. Nice. This is what pot does to people sometimes. Just take the fucking drums and fucking take the drums. Why am I wearing a zebra vest? Maybe I should detox. But the first single released by the strange loves, Love Love, it's unremarkable. It features a spoken word section in the middle where one of them tries to sound Australian, but he just sounds like he's from Liverpool. The single did chart at number 122, which wasn't bad, but it certainly wasn't the international sensation that my boyfriend's back had been, which my boyfriend's back had hit number one in America, Ireland, and hit number two in England. No, we're still talking about it today. I mean, I don't know if you know about the Hess truck commercials, but it's still a big thing. Yeah, they had made a whole movie I heard. Oh yeah, the movie you just told me about that came out in the 90s. Yes. But since Love Love did well enough, the strange loves approached Atlantic records in hopes of landing a deal. But when they took a meeting at the Atlantic offices with the head of talent development, they were actually screamed at for being quote white dudes, bastardizing rhythm and blues. Fair cop, as the British might say. Wow. Wow, Atlantic records. That's great. Fair. Fair point. Now, the strange loves figured Atlantic was a bust, but on their way out, they ran into one of the other owners of Atlantic and he told them that they might fit with a new label. Atlantic was starting called bang records at the helm of bang was a songwriter and producer named Bert Burns. A Bert Burns is one of the great unsung songwriters of the 60s. I actually just watched a documentary about this guy. It's called bang the Bert Burns story. It's fucking incredible music documentary. It really gives you a sense of what these guys lives were like back in the 60s amongst dozens of hits. He wrote twist and shout. That was of course first recorded by the Isla Brothers and made famous by the Beatles. He wrote tell him by the Exciters, which is an incredible soul song from that period. It's got a nice beat to it. And most notably, he wrote this song right here just before he tragically and appropriately died of heart failure in 1967. I'm not sure if you can see this, but I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. I'm not sure. That was the original recording of peace of my heart. That was by Irma Franklin. Of course, that song was made famous by Janice Joplin just a couple of years later. I love it when you get all AAM radio. Of course made famous by Janice Joplin. Of course made famous with Janice Joplin just a couple of years later. As a part of the band, Big Brother and the Holding Company, of course, our crumb did some incredible artwork for that album coming up next here on WZ95. Okay. All right. Why not? And so the strange love signed with Bang Records and started working on a single with Burt Burns. In the rock and roll tradition of taking something dirty and turning it into something innocent, Burt and the boys have become interested in a new X-rated book by Terry Southern called Candy. And so Burt came up with a title based around the name Candy and provided a few lines of rhymes. The strange loves then finished writing the lyrics, gave it a bow-didly beat and recorded it with those stolen African drums. In fact, their entire album was reported with those stolen African drums. The result was, as you may have already guessed, I want candy. I know a girl who's so pen sweet She's so fine to pay me fee God never break that I desire She's just a summer sun on fire I want candy I want candy I want candy We're just saying we don't like the bow-wow-wow version. Or the Pringles version. So ridiculous. How can you fit in Pringles instead of candy? What is that? Sorry, I woke up weird today. You did woke up full of grudges. Yeah, sometimes I wake up weird. This doesn't happen all the time. But it happened today. Three, two, sun. EasyJet's big orange sale is now on, with up to £400 off package holidays and up to 20% off flights. Book now at EasyJet.com. Get out there. Selected dates and flights sale on 5th of May. Holidays minimum spend and after protected, teas and seas apply. Ever wondered if the magic was real? Well this is where it was made. The wonder of the Hogwarts Express. The chill of the forbidden forest. The secrets hidden in Gringotts Bank. You don't watch the films here. You feel them. Every spell. Every creature. Every detail. Immerse yourself in the filmmaking magic at Warner Brothers Studio Tour London. The making of Harry Potter. Tickets must be booked in advance. WBstudiotour.co.uk Well as far as the rest of the songs on the album went, I want Candy Album by the Strange Loves. I actually really like the album. It's a solid listen. They get a few covers on there. They do a version of Hang on Sloopy. That has its own story, Hang on Sloopy. I wanted to, Kareelina made me cut five paragraphs of Hang on Sloopy. Because it was half the script. I mean, what's the point of that? I know. So we're going to do a whole other extra play on Hang on Sloopy. Because that song has a fascinating story. We're glad that there's not an episode in this episode. You're welcome. We're going to get into Bert Burns and how much he loved Cuban music. And how that actually did have a huge effect on the sound of the 60s. The sound of Pop in the 60s is just one dude who loved going to Cuba all the time. But that's going to be a totally different extra play because that has its own fascinating history. But as far as the song that appeared on Nuggets went, the song that the Strange Loves played on Nuggets, Nighttime. That was an FGG composition. Even though it sounds like a cover, they may have swiped the Nighttime, Brighttime rhyme from Ray Charles. They might have. They may be guilty of that. Yes. But the composition and the rest of the lyrics, that's 100% FGG. But the thing about the Strange Loves is that these guys were all basically the office workers of songwriting. And once they started playing road gigs to support I Want Candy, they soon discovered that touring fucking sucks if you're not built for it. Some people love it. Some people live their entire lives on the road. But if you're just a bunch of guys whose job is to write songs, road life is fucking horrible. So you woke up weird too, Ed. I did. I did. So the fake band that was the Strange Loves hired another fake band. Okay, it's not a fake band. By the way, the Strange Loves is a real band because they have real instruments and they play and they do the whole thing real, right? It's just that they have a fake backstory. A manufactured story. But it is also a manufactured band where they're going to, they're saying, we're going to write songs. Is gore a fake band? What planet do they come from? Planet Dick Suck. You see? I can find it in the map. It's real. Is it Planet Dick Sucker? Is it like Planet Toxic Waste Ass? There's a lot of unofficial names. There's a lot of unofficial names. Planet Gordy. I don't know. I'm sure there's plenty of gore fans that are screaming at us right now that know the entire lore of gore. We should do an extra play on gore. I'd love to do an extra play on gore. You got to see gore. You said they were fucking amazing. Well, it was after Oder has passed away. Where were we? The Strange Loves. We're here on the Strange Loves. And that's the thing is that, yeah, we can agree to disagree on whether or not they're a real band. They're a real band. They're real aliens. But they still hired a fake band to play as the Strange Loves. That is also still a band. Were they playing the instruments? A false band, I'd say. They're playing the instruments. Under an assumed name, I guess. Under the name of the Strange Loves. As far as people are going out. That's because that's the thing. If you go out to see the Rolling Stones, if a bunch of other guys show up and they're not the Rolling Stones, but they still sound exactly like the Rolling Stones, did you see the Rolling Stones? We call them the fake Rolling Stones. And not a fake band. I saw a band. Well, the point is, is it not a goddamn person would notice the difference unless they brought the I Want Candy LP to the show and compared the picture on the sleeve to the guys on the stage. But after the Strange Loves sort of sputtered out, Feldman, Goldstein and Goddler, they went their separate ways. Although all of them did stay in the music industry as professionals. Most notably, Richard Goddler, he co-founded Sire Records with Seymour Stein. Sire, of course, is the label that signed the Ramones, the Talking Heads, Madonna, so many others. Goddler also produced hundreds of tracks throughout his career, including the track that's parodied for our theme song. He produced Love Comes and Spirks by Richard Hell and the Voidoids. From My Boyfriends Back to Richard Hell and the Voidoids. It's great. Yeah. And Blondie. He did Exit Fender by Blondie. Yeah, absolutely. And I think I saw an interview with Richard Goddler who did say the reason why they eventually split up was because Richard joined forces with Seymour Stein to make a production company. And then later, like a year later, the record company, it's because these bands were coming in, like the Rolling Stones and the Beatles and stuff. They were writing their own songs. They didn't need songwriters or buildings full of songwriters. So they're like, okay, there's not much of a market for us anymore. There's a lot more personal expression, which we'll talk about. But so yeah, they just found other ways to do it. Like we'll produce these artists. We'll produce Debbie Harry and Richard Hell and all them. And speaking of other producers, Lenny Kay. Also, well, also a musician in a real band and producer as well. Definitely a real band. The Patty Smith group is definitely a real band. Yes. And he, as we know, he compiled the songs for the compilation, the Nuggets compilation we're talking about. And if you're wondering why he was asked out of anybody around, I'm going to get a little bit into his bio really quick. Cause we didn't really talk about it in the Patty Smith series. We didn't really get into his background. It's interesting. It's a fun little microcosm of the evolution of rock and roll in their fifties and sixties. It's very, very fun. It's strange. So Lenny Kay, of course, New York City baby. Yeah. Where we, where we came from, but I mean, he was born in New York City. He was raised in Queens in Brooklyn and then eventually his family settled in Northern New Jersey, kind of in the suburbs kind of thing. And he's, oh, like Lenny Kay has always been, of course, a lifelong music nerd. He started collecting records at 12 years old, but he started playing music even earlier when he was like about five or six. His dad brought him an accordion that he got from Italy and set him up with some lessons and which lasted until Lenny was about nine because he's like, where do you go from that? Four years of accordion lessons. If you're not into accordion music and your free time or polka or anything like that, I'm not sure exactly. It's just not going to keep going. You know, you gotta be a big Frankie Yankovic fan. Yes. Yes, exactly. And but Lenny was not, I guess, but he was a big music fan. He was into do up. He like, that was like his favorite thing, of course, like him and Patty Smith later dancing to do up. That all makes sense. He loved by high school, he was already like playing acoustic guitar and learning like how to play folk music because he wanted to be like this lonesome folk singer. And in the back, you know, his parents backyard, like, I'm going to work on my music kind of like dorky little, he's adorable. But then when the Beatles came to America in 1964 and the whole British invasion thing happened, Lenny, who was about like 17, 18 at the time, he decided to put down the lonely acoustic guitar and pick up an electric one. Because he said like, like many other kids watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan was like, he saw what his future would be. Yeah. And he's like, that's going to be it. It's going to start a rock and roll band. Well, I think the Beatles like that. There's that old adage of like, you know, women want him, men want to be him. I think it's with the Beatles, like you don't have to gender it. You could say with the Beatles, almost everyone in America, they either wanted the Beatles or they wanted to be the Beatles. Right. I know it's a 10 year old joke. Anyway, so yes, Lenny wanted to start a rock and roll band. He's 18 years old. He did like a few months after watching the Beatles on Ed Sullivan, he joined a band in college who called they called themselves the Vandals bringing down the house with your kind of music. And I mean, you know, it's so good. Yeah. And you know, and there's new poet coming. Yeah. Yeah. This band, like, you know, they're playing like at parties, at mixers, at frat houses, only covers are not writing their own original songs or anything like that. They're just doing Friday, Saturday nights for just dances, for drunk people and people want to have a good time. Remember the trash men used to do this. Lou Reed did it too with his college band, L.A. and L. Dorados. And this is all like Louis Louis, you know, R&B covers, what did I say? Or you make me want to shout kick my head. Yeah, I know. I love it. It was not a hit when it first came out strangely enough. That's what we learned recently. Yeah. Yes. So it was those kind of songs. And so Lenny, he had that band and another one called the zoo later on. And then as we remember, we said in the Patty Smith series, he had like about a week where he was a singer in a band where he was linked Cromwell. He was like, you know, he, his uncle got him a like a weird gig of singing a song and then they released it and it just, you know, it kind of came and went within the same week. But it gave him a sense of something of like, oh, maybe I can like actually take this into more of a career. I'll spin this more and learn how to be a performer, singer, musician. Right. And so by the late sixties, though, he had moved Lenny had moved to Manhattan. He got a job at a record store as a record store clerk because those, that's where it begins sometimes guys. That's where it begins at this place on Bleecker Street called the Village Oldies, which was a precursor to Bleecker Bob's. That was owned by Broadway, Alan Bleecker Bob. You know, just really history, like very famous record, record store downtown. That was the place where I went in and asked for the first time if they had any Lou Reed. And then they said it might be next to the underground, the Velvet Underground records. And I said, what is that? It's where you learn. That's where you learn. The record store is where you begin. That's where you're supposed to learn without a doubt. And so he was working there and then he's also, Lenny's also a freelance writer. He was like writing reviews on the Velvet Underground and the Stooges. It was actually his review of the Velvet Underground that was printed in Fusion Magazine that had Danny Fields calling Lenny up and saying, who are you? Like we must be friends. That was always Danny Fields. Yes, yes. He was so good at just seeking out really cool people. So Lenny K, his writing was featured on Rolling Stone, Cream, Roxine and Esquire Magazine. And that's where he got the attention of Jack Holtzman, president and founder of Electra Records. Yes, and Electra Records of course, but would put out the doors, the Stooges, the MC5, all these amazing groups. Exactly. And Jack, so Jack saw something in Lenny of course, and he probably heard about like, this is the guy who has amazing taste. This is a taste maker kind of guy. So he hired Lenny to do A&R, A&R, you know, artists and repertoire. Basically somebody who goes around finding great bands aside, right? Artist and representation? No, I Googled it. It said repertoire. Repertoire, really? Yeah, yeah. I learned some. Yeah, so did I. So anyway. I'm sorry, just artist and repertoire sounds wrong for some reason. I don't know who you should talk to. I Googled it. I don't think that's right. Really? So Lenny, so Lenny's watching bands live, he's listening to tape sent in and stuff. And you know, remember Danny Fields did this for Electra a little while before he got fired. Yeah, the company freak. Yes, actually he did it about a year before Lenny got hired. So Lenny might have gotten Danny's job. So anyways, after, you know, that's a check out the suges series. If you want to hear a little bit more on that, it's really fun. So Lenny, when he was working in our, he tried to sign blue oyster cult that didn't work. And then he got a tape by, and this is a weird one. I don't know why I'm bringing this up, but he got a tape by these two guys named Hall and Oats. And then he said, never happened and threw it in the trash. And I think they went with like a wrist or so. Anyway, so like after six months of working for Electra, I think Lenny was either fired or just stopped coming in because he wasn't signing anyone they liked and it was just not working out. But then one day in late 1970, when Lenny K was about 24, Jack Holtzman called them up and said, Hey, could you put together a list of great rock songs from a few years ago that you think might have been overlooked or overshadowed because I want to make a great compilation album. Yeah. And I think the reason why, and this is just me speculating here is because it wasn't just Lenny not bringing anything to Jack Holtzman. Jack Holtzman would also bring bands to Lenny and say, Hey, do you want to work with these guys? And be like, like, I don't like it. So I think Jack Holtzman actually got a very good idea of what Lenny K's music taste was and where his specialties lie. So when he had this idea, I think he knew it was like, Oh, Lenny would be perfect for this because that was always Jack Holtzman's biggest strength was taste and knowing who to tell what to do. Yeah. Holtzman was fucking brilliant at that. I've been skimming his book because I didn't have time to read it and he's just way too smart for me. Yes. He knew what he was and he knows how to spin it very well too. And you walk away like, Wow, what a man. Yeah. I mean, one of those guys that's like knows how to spin failures is successes. Yes. Exactly. Okay. So Lenny, he took that to test because whatever Jack Holtzman tells him to do, he's like, I'll do it. And remember Jack is a standup guy. Even when they dropped the Stooges, he still gave Iggy Pop a Nikon camera. Yeah, really? Yeah. Yeah. No, he's still always like a friend to all. No matter what. Anyway, so Lenny is like, Yeah, Jack, my new pal guy. Yes. So Lenny spent all this time putting together about 50 or 60 songs that he thought would be good for the compilation songs that have come out between 1964 and 1968, which were the same years that Lenny was playing with his college bands when he was 1920 playing covers or popular foot stomping rock songs. You know, the songs that kids that age wanted to listen to, to dance to and also very important to learn how to play to a little something that will soon be called garage rock. Yeah. So there it is. It's like some songs that just start out really simple, like one core or three chords at most. And they're so simple and they're just so energetic. It's perfect. It makes total sense. And many of those songs made it on nuggets. I mean, of course, there's there's psychedelic songs, there's pop covers, the genres were not too important. It was more about the energy of the songs of that era and Lenny lived that era. So he was really tuned into that. He was the perfect, perfect person for this. He even drove across country 1967 to San Francisco because he heard like, there's a bunch of hoopla going on over there. What's going on over there? So, I mean, he says in his book, Lightning Striking and how important all of that was, how important it was to like listen to the radio and to hear other people talk about other music and stuff. So he was able to curate whatever was choosing. So some of these songs were pretty obscure, but many of them were kind of mid level hits that you might have heard on the radio at that time. Or maybe it was regional because you said before Lenny wanted to make it like regional. He wanted to be like, you know, great songs from Texas or great songs from the Midwest and stuff. But Jack Holtzman was like, no, we're just doing this once. Just pick your favorite songs. He wanted to do eight compilations. That was his original pitch was eight compilations from all over America. He's like, you're getting a double album and that's it. Great. Cool. Okay. We'll do that. So he picked some songs and these songs are exciting and they're fun to play at a party. They're better than Jock Chaps. I'll tell you that much, much better. He had all these resources, as I said, driving across country, going to record stores, collecting records, being in a band, knowing what rocks. And playing with some of these bands. Exactly. That's exactly it. So he even says Lenny K says to even to this day, 50 years after Nuggets have come out, people buy him drinks everywhere he goes because of Nuggets. Not anything else. Now, like, thanks for producing this. Thanks for Patty's best group. It's Nuggets and the change of like people's like the blue people's minds when they when they finally got to it. Of course, it's some some people took many, many years because Nuggets came out in October, 1972, officially titled Nuggets original artifacts from the first psychedelic era 1965 to 1968. But it's sold very poorly, like less than 7000 copies in total, I heard. But it's all better when Seymour Stein reissued it in 1976 under his Sire Records label. And of course, we know that Greg Shaw came out with the Pebbles compilation based in 1978, kind of based on inspired by the Nuggets because Lenny K and Greg Shaw were buddies and everything. So then that was born the compilation album that the carefully curated compilation album. Yes, that is so important. So this ended up meaning so much more. It just it also, by the way, Jack Kultman did mention that this is the only Nuggets is the only companion album, not by a single artist that Rolling Stone recognized in the 250 best rock albums of all time. No shit. Yes, he underlined it. It's a 191. It wasn't a 191. That's not bad at all. Yeah, I mean, this is, as you said, like it's the beginning of the compilation, but it's like more, it's specifically the beginning of the compilation that's made with love and respect and care. You know, it's the rescue compilation. Like we can't let this stuff die. It's not because the compilations that, you know, me and you grew up with, you know, they were, you know, they were soundtracks. You know, it's like, you know, the pro. The pro version of the compilation, which I actually did. Yeah, like the Pulp Fiction. Yeah. Trainspotting introduced me to Lou Reed and Iggy Pop when I was a little kid. Yeah. The Crow soundtrack introduced me to Joy Division, like kind of sideways because there was the nine inch nails cover, a cover of Dead Souls. Yeah. Yeah. And then when I saw like the Joy Division tape, when I bought the isolation tape, I saw Dead Souls on there. I was like, Oh, I know that song. And then I fucking fell in love with it. I mean, those soundtracks in the nineties were the gateway for so bad finding out so many different bands. Yeah. You know what? We'll post, because I already wrote really quickly a top 10 favorite soundtracks of all time. There's a boom. It's there. We'll post it on the no dogs pod on our Instagram because seriously, the soundtrack is like our generation of anyone 30 and 40 or whatever. And even then they're 20s. It just, for some reason, we were obsessed with that. Yeah. And don't even get me started on the fucking punk compilations. The punk aroma. You're right. I forgot about those. Yeah. Punk, a Rama one through four, you know, the fat records compilations, all that. Like the label compilations, which were of course a gateway into a lot of cool shit back in the nineties as well. Yes. It's the ultimate playlist. It's mixed tape. Yeah. It's, it's, it's great. I love this. And I love it. How it started with Lenny Kay. It's wonderful. But concerning nuggets, bands during this era, the bands that were on nuggets, they were really only as good as their next single. And when a band bombed, it wasn't easy for them to recover. As such, rock bands were much more commercial minded in the era of nuggets with few exceptions, like 13th floor elevators who got some success without compromise. The elevators openly proselytized about taking psychedelic drugs in Texas in the mid sixties and they still managed to get a performance on American bandstand. Of course, some got arrested and then Rock Erickson went to jail. There's a whole story. I blame America. We're going to get into the incredible story of the 13th floor elevators. We're doing it. But the point is for most of these bands, personal expression was found more in the performances than in the lyrics. But concerning that, early punk artists were adept at recognizing performative expression. People like the Ramones, people like Patty Smith. And when they made their own art, they combined the performative feelings of the songs on nuggets with whatever it was that they wanted to write about. Television did this. Yeah. They didn't have to worry about, is anyone going to freak out about a song about sniffing glue? They didn't have to worry about like, is anyone going to freak out about a song about organ energy and Wilhelm Reich? For Patty Smith, she wrote songs about horses and Johnny and aliens with the Ramones. They wrote songs about what they didn't want to do or what they did want to do. Oh yeah. I want to be your boyfriend. I don't want to walk around with you. I want to go down to the basement. I don't want to be buried in a bed cemetery. It's all about what they want. Seriously. Look at the lyrics. Yeah. Look at the lyrics. You know, they could write a song about, you know, a male sex work. You know, they could write a song about, you know, having a CIA coups in Cuba and all that's just the first album. But for most of the people who heard nuggets, when it was re-released at the dawn of the punk era in 1976, the compilation was basically a recipe book for pure rock and roll, the good stuff. And while punk would have still happened without the compilation, it's possible that it wouldn't have happened without the songs that were featured on said compilation. And I for one would like to thank Lenny Kay for saving such a crucial piece of rock and roll history. Yes. Yes. That's great. And also speaking of us giving kudos to everyone if we could play the song. Yes. I would like to take this time to honor a genius. A genius. Yes. Yes. True genius. Seriously. The best song to put on to, if you have any mood, any mood whatsoever, Twin Peaks theme, beautiful. Angelo Badalamenti. Angelo Badalamenti. Of course, he wrote the save. We're talking about soundtracks. He just passed away this month. It's the ultimate soundtrack. Yeah. And I would even say, this isn't a compilation, of course. This is just a soundtrack. This is Angelo Badalamenti composing and scoring and playing all of these songs that were so beautiful and made Twin Peaks the show that it was made it as magical and weird and unsettling as it was all throughout the years. Angelo Badalamenti. Thank you so much for everything that you did for music in general and just for TV, for media, for everything. And if you're interested in learning more about this, there is a fantastic 33 and a third about the soundtrack to Twin Peaks that talks a lot about Angelo Badalamenti and his history. And at the same time, let's also honor Julie Cruz, who passed just this last June. Julie Cruz collaborated with David Lynch and Angelo Badalamenti, most famously on the theme for Twin Peaks, when she released a version with vocals as the incredible song Falling. Of course, she also sang it in the pilot episode of Twin Peaks. But as per David Lynch's Daily Weather Report that was released on YouTube just last Friday, I never get the number. But hey, now that we live in LA, we can actually go and check out the Daily Weather Report and David Lynch every morning can tell us how to dress. But this song right here, he said on his last weather report, he didn't put one out yesterday. So maybe he's at the funeral for Angelo. His favorite collaboration that the three of them did together was the World Spends Badalamenti composed it. Lynch wrote the lyrics and Julie Cruz sang it. She performed this song in episode 14 of Twin Peaks. It's the scene where James and Donna are there talking about Harold Smith at the Roadhouse. It's when Cooper is also there watching Julie Cruz sing this song. She disappears from the stage. The giant comes on and says, you're just happening again. So here it is, the World Spends, written by David Lynch, composed by Angelo Badalamenti and sung by Julie Cruz. Thank you so much everyone for listening. We'll be back soon. Yeah, we'll be back next year. We'll be back next year. We're already starting work on the next series. You're going to be so excited. You're going to love it. Here it is. Here's Julie Cruz. Enjoy it, buddy. Happy holidays. Goodbye. A darkened mood of far away. The sun comes up and down each day. Light and shadow change the world. Healy's comments come and go. The things I control made of stone. Falling through this night alone. No, don't go away. Come back this way. Come back and stay forever and ever. Please stay. The dust is dancing in the speed. A darkened bird of far away. The sun comes up and down each day. The river flows out to the sea. No, don't go away. Come back this way. Come back and stay forever and ever. Come back this way. Come back this way. Come back this way. Come back this way. Come back this way. Come back this way. Come back this way. 3, 2, Sun. EasyJet's big orange sale is now on. With up to £400 off package holidays and up to 20% off flights. Book now at easyjet.com. Get out there. 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