Bayer Heroin

 

.....and my mom only gave me the orange chewable aspirin!

PAUL IS DEAD!

Remember those "Paul Is Dead" Beatle rumours that spread around for decades. They all started with this INFAMOUS 1969 WABC broadcast.

WABC 770 AM New York had a MAMMOTH nighttime skywave signal that could be heard as far west as Denver, CO. And people everywhere tuned in. They even showed up in the Pittsburgh radio ratings!

Granted, Roby Yonge did not last long on WABC. There's a story about this Rick Sklar (his former program director at WABC) wrote in his book "Rocking America" (A GREAT READ - HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!) you should read.....

You can just imagine the HORROR on his face when he heard this!......

Yes! We Have A Cure For That!: Drug Advertisements You'll NEVER See Today.....

Don’t Think I’ve Forgotten: Cambodia’s Lost Rock-N-Roll

Back in the '60s and early '70s, in a tiny kingdom in Southeast Asia very few Americans had ever known of and rarely even heard the name of up to then, a rock 'n roll revolution was happening.

Cambodia was a pretty Westernized nation at the time and it's capitol, Phnom Penh was surprisingly modern and trendsetting compared to most of Asia during those years. Many rock and roll bands were formed during the Vietnam war, taking rock and roll music that was brought to Cambodia by American soldiers stationed there and blending it with traditional Cambodian music to create probably one of the most unique sub-genres of '60s rock ever heard, one that could have easily held it's own along with the American and British rock that influenced it, even in if it was sung mostly in Cambodian.

But the kingdom became destabilized with the Vietnam war raging at it's border. The Khmer Rouge and it's leader Pol Pot had taken over Cambodia in 1975 and began the most bloody genocide and torture the world had ever seen since Hitler's Germany. Over two million Cambodians, one third of it's ENTIRE population were slaughtered in what became infamously known as The Killing Fields.

Virtually all musicians, artists and intellectuals were sent to work in forced labor camps, many were worked, starved or in the case of many women, also beaten and raped to death. Many people merely in possession of these Cambodian artist's records or tapes were killed or sent to camps to suffer the same fates and the records/tapes were destroyed. Very few original studio master tapes survived. However, a handful of songs have survived on 2nd or 3rd generation cassette tapes and vinyl discs that were smuggled out of Cambodia or hidden, from which came a few compilations released in the '90s, one which I found in 1998 and my own interest in this lost music began.

There is a forthcoming movie that chronicles this lost era just before the Khmer Rouge takeover of Cambodia called Don't Think I've Forgotten: Cambodia's Lost Rock & Roll.

Here is the trailer for it:

 
Here's one of the biggest Cambodian rock hits.  "I'm 16" Ros Sereysothea

The movie has been in production for nearly seven years, but it is due in 2013. Check it out....It's an eye opener into rock n' roll's most tragic mystery....

Website: http://www.dtifcambodia.com

UPDATE: 1/11/14  - Don't Think I've Forgotten premiered in Phnom Penh. It's US release is still unknown. But here's a recent article about the film and some of the artists:

http://www.phnompenhpost.com/7days/long-awaited-film-tells-tale-cambodia%E2%80%99s-musical-%E2%80%98golden-age%E2%80%99 

UPDATE: 3/8/15 - The movie is currently being screened at selected film festivals across America. It's unclear if there will ever be a Netflix showing or Blu-Ray or DVD release of the film.

You Think YOU Have A Lousy Boss?

Meet George Pullman.



Well, you really wouldn't want to. He's been dead since 1897 and even if you were given the chance, good luck getting past the eight tons of solid concrete and lead over his grave.

You heard me.

There's a reason why they put all that concrete over his grave, and by the time you're done reading this you'll understand why this man was as toxic as anything they bury in at the Hanford Nuclear Waste Dump.

Let's get into the Wayback Machine (could get crowded, so wear deodourant) and time warp back to Chicago in the 1880s.....

Chicago was a booming town. It just got over a massive fire and things were on a roll. it was one of the few major cities in America at that time where you could be black or an immigrant and still find a way to make it.

George Pullman seemed like a visionary and on paper, you'd think he was.

Pullman ran a company that made luxury railroad cars. There were few automobiles in those days and they moved with the speed of the mail. Airplanes were still science fiction. So horse and buggy was the way for people to get around the city. If you wanted to go see your Aunt Sadie in Peoria, well....you'd be going through a lot of horses too. So passenger trains were invented for that purpose and like Greyhound buses these days, they were uncomfortable, cramped, smelly and (did I mention uncomfortable?)

Anyway, enter the Pullman railroad car. This thing was to change all that. It had seats big enough for the American butt of the time (or at least larger than the butt of an average praying mantis.) It was made of the finest materials. It was the first railroad passenger car with a design and function not resembling a maximum security prison. It was even considered stylish (a word a designer of a maximum security prison would hear and grunt at.) Railroad travel really didn't have to resemble a week in the hole anymore.

This was the Gilded Age, and it was luxury over sanity, flamboyant style over basic safety features. It was a brave new world and George Pullman was going to milk every drop of it.

He constructed a company town for his employees called (what else?) Pullman in Chicago. Pullman had everything you could ever want in 1880. It was totally off the grid from the rest of Chicago, it had it's own sewer and water towers, it's own electricity plant, phone system The very first shopping mall in history called "The Arcade". It had a theater, several shops, a public library and a post office. A public school, a grand hotel, several parks, it's own newspaper and a church. Several streets lined with nice little rowhouses for his employees. There was no litter in the strrets, lawns were well manicured. Everything was as neat and tidy as Martha Stewart on speed. There was NO crime, NOTHING could go wrong, right?

Something did go wrong. Like any travel brochure to paradise, you have to read between the lines. You see, when you work for, rent from, get all your stuff from, you kids educated by and live under the same rules by the same guy, there's gonna be a problem.

First, everything was basically on loan. You were not allowed to own your own little rowhouse. Second, FORGET starting any "alternative" to Pullman's status-quo businesses. Your kids were educated in the Pullman way, all books in the public library were carefully selected by Pullman himself, what you saw in that theater - yep, he picked that too. And the church? Well.....NOBODY used the church, as one church and a zillion denominations of Christianity (we haven't even begun to talk about the non-Christian religions) are just too much for one building.

And everybody's house was so spotlessly clean in these rowhouses that looked perfectly alike. That happens when you can be evicted with only 10 days notice for so much as a dirty dish in the sink. Pullman sent goons out to inspect every house to make sure everything conformed....or else.

Now, if you thought things really fell apart right there, just remember his employees were paid not in solid American cash, but in Pullman's own currency. Meaning once you got outside of Pullman and into Chicago itself - SURPRISE! You're worthless. And when in Pullman, watch out for company spies. They were all over the place. They could be your next door neighbour, the nice guy at the grocery store. And if everyone could settle on a religion, the priest would probably be forced to report back to company headquarters with your juiciest confessions. There was no independent press, no town meetings, no public discussion. Nothing.

Naturally, people began having a problem with all that. But you kept your big mouth shut tight....if you knew what was good for you......

In 1894, Pullman began losing business. Things were rough all over as the American economy was in a mini-depression. But Pullman thought he knew which side his bread was buttered on. So jobs and wages were cut. But rent, utilities and everything else in Pullman stayed at the same prices. And things REALLY went to hell. People went on strike - 90% of Pullman's workforce went on strike. And then it really got ugly. Pullman got in touch with a political buddy, one President Grover Cleveland to send in federal troops to squash all dissent. 

However, once the smoke cleared, it was revealed Pullman had too much control over everything and he was forced to relinquish his control over Pullman. Chicago quickly annexed it.

He died in 1897. And just to make sure nobody dug up his grave and beat the crap out of his corpse (like anyone would), he asked for all that cement and a lead lined coffin to be buried in, per his burial arrangements. Actually, it was a good thing. At least he'll never rise again with another STUPID idea.

That's why right wing company towns and gated communities work as badly as the most liberal hippie communes. Social engineering is a public matter, not a private one.

And that's how we should leave it.

Halloween Hits: "Timothy" The Buoys (1971)

Without a doubt, "Timothy" The Buoys is one of the CREEPIEST songs to EVER make the Top 40.

The Buoys were a pop group fronted by Rupert Holmes (you might know Rupert Holmes better for the super smash at the end of 1979, "Escape (The Pina Colada Song)" and it's follow-up single, the lesser charting lost pop classic "Him".) In 1971 however, Holmes was a struggling 20 year old songwriter desperate for a hit.

Scepter Records (then label home of Dionne Warwick and B.J. Thomas) offered him a deal. They would release a song from him. But they wouldn't promote it.  Holmes was a house songwriter for Scepter and this might have been way for Scepter to release a song from one of their house songwriters without any hint of payola.

Top 40 records need a LOT of promotion. Hundreds of new pop songs glut the airwaves every year and the ones that become the BIGGEST hits usually have a full blown record company promotional campaign behind them. No (or little) promotion means no hit and the kiss of death behind countless failed pop acts. 

Rupert Holmes knew this nightmare scenario. But he happened upon a brilliant idea: Make a song that WILL intentionally get banned off the radio. Following the old saying "There is no such thing as bad publicity", Holmes wrote the lyrics of this song:

Trapped in a mine that had caved in
And everyone knows the only ones left
Was Joe and me and Tim
When they broke through to pull us free
The only ones left to tell the tale
Was Joe and me

Timothy, Timothy, where on earth did you go?
Timothy, Timothy, God why don't I know?

Hungry as hell no food to eat
And Joe said that he would sell his soul
For just a piece of meat
Water enough to drink for two
And Joe said to me, "I'll take a swig
And then there's some for you."

Timothy, Timothy, Joe was looking at you
Timothy, Timothy, God what did we do?

I must have blacked out just around then
'Cause the very next thing that I could see
Was the light of the day again
My stomach was full as it could be
And nobody ever got around
To finding Timothy

Timothy, Timothy, where on earth did you go?
Timothy, Timothy, God why don't I know?

Timothy...

Well, you get the idea of what happened to poor old Timothy.....

The song was wrapped in a nice, bubblegum coated Osmonds-like musical arrangement and the song was sent out to radio. And radio began playing the song.

At the same time, Scepter Records was promoting their new star, Beverly Bremers who had a new single "Don't Say You Don't Remember" Yet somehow, this strange song the label never promoted was getting an awful lot of airplay.  And a lot of requests from young males at a time when such songs were requested mainly by young females.

The story from here takes a fork in the road. It's been said a Scepter A&R guy desperate to get the Beverly Bremers hit on the radio pulled a radio programmer aside, and mentioned what the "Timothy" song was actually about. Another goes the programmer tried to figure out what was the buzz behind this song and almost crapped himself when he heard the lyrics.

The song however was still selling briskly as a 45 RPM single, so not wanting to upset that applecart, Scepter quickly released a press statement claiming the Timothy in the song was actually a mule.

NOBODY bought that one. 

Regardless, the song was quickly removed off many Top 40 playlists (and replaced with the more genteel Beverly Bremers song.)

Nevertheless, this song became one of the biggest hits of 1971. And the radio hasn't played it since....