The Great Kat - Worship Me Or Die! (Roadrunner, 1987)

Your blind date is here. Image: Discogs

I once saw a mail-order offer for this album in Metal Edge magazine back in 1988. The cover of this made me do the same double take you probably just did. So if you haven't already gotten the trigger warning; This is not an Anne Murray-type album.

"......UNDERSTAND??!!" Image: Discogs

But why it was mail order was an interesting fact of music distribution in the 1980s. Some major retail chains back then (including Walmart) simply did not stock then-independent labels such as The Great Kat's then-label, Roadrunner Records. And perhaps partly due to the then ongoing PMRC controversy and Roadrunner's then 1980s line-up of mostly scare-your-overly-religious-parents satanic shock metal bands, such as Obituary, Mercyful Fate and it's frontman, King Diamond that were hugely popular in the headbanger underground of the 1980s.  

"And always remember to brush and floss daily, limit sweets, and get a dental check-up twice a year. Mr HappyHorns....AWAAAAAAYYYYY!!!...." Image: Discogs

And in the 1980s, many independent record stores in America outside of larger urban centers were being wiped out by mall chains, such as Sam Goody, Musicland and Wherehouse, which typically only had just enough floor space for the mainstream major label hit albums (though you could special order some releases through some chains, you usually had to pay more.) 

So indie labels (even a few majors) often sold direct through fan magazines such as Metal Edge. 

Your eyes almost melted from the bright, airbrushed full color glossiness of every page of Metal Edge.

And The Great Kat's Worship Me Or Die! was one ad for a record that somehow stuck in my head. Without even hearing it. 

But even in my then heavy metal-centric stomping grounds of Lynnwood, Washington (circa 1988) and even in nearby Seattle, this album was somehow impossible to find locally. In any format.  

So while promising myself I'd order a copy Worship Me Or Die! (I mean, like, that cover), other albums distracted me. I was a very foolish mortal. And soon, I would really be in for it.

Image: Discogs

I almost completely forgot this album until I came across a miracle copy of this LP at a Goodwill a decade later. I grabbed it. Took it home, wiped the dust off the grooves. Put on my headphones. And began my atonement. 

And I was instantly disappointed. In myself. For not ordering this record when I should have. Because this album would have been the de facto soundtrack of a lot of headbanger parties, had I heard this back then. Because beneath the layers of metal cheese (and she didn't miss a single cliche) is some of the fastest speed metal guitar fretwork I've ever heard then. Or since.

An institutional grade Cuisinart could not shred speed metal lead guitar like The Great Kat. Forget the lyrics. I kept putting the needle back at the beginning of her guitar solos; What the hell did I just hear?

Even with all the thrash/speed metal I've heard up to this point, I still can't comprehend how this still exists absolutely ignored by the mainstream (ahem, rock radio.) But fortunately, you can hear this lost classic in it's entirely on Spotify and YouTube.

The Great Kat (aka Kathrine Thomas) is a Julliard-trained classical musician, which other than actual demonic influence might explain her amazing fretboard dexterity. She played classical music before crossing over to metal. She plays both violin and guitar. 

Her later releases, while not quite as over the top as Worship Me Or Die! combined classical music with speed metal. Her skill getting even more shockingly fast with each new album.

The Great Kat Beethoven on Speed (1990)

      

And The Great Kat is still showing the boys how it's done. This is her latest, "Shredssissimo" (2021).

 

The Nylon Riots of 1945-46

In the aftermath of World War II, full time civilian manufacturing resumed. But not at pre-war levels at first. There was a lot of retooling to be done to get the factories, who had switched to making mostly military goods for the war back up to speed. (It’s a leap from live bunker busters back to cute baby blankets.) So in the following days and weeks after VJ Day, manufacturers were quick to tell consumers to be patient as they ramped up civilian production.

The shortages didn’t last long for most and everything was at full speed by mid-1946. However, there was one product that would not wait; Nylon hosiery.

Women standing in line for nylon stockings outside Miller's Department Store in Oak Ridge, TN in January 1946. Image: Wikipedia

Dupont Chemical invented nylon in 1939 as an alternative to silk, Japan had embargoed all silk exports to the United States. So nylon became a not only a replacement, but an affordable one. 

When World War II broke out, nylon was used for making parachutes and other military items. Civilian production was nearly ceased.

Silk and nylon stockings which could no longer be worn were being collected in stores throughout the country for conversation into powder bags which propel the projectile in big naval and coast defense guns. Image: U.S. National Archives

So women had to take especially good care of their nylon hose. Wearing them only on special occasions. But runs, sags and holes still laid waste to them all. It had actually gotten to the point where makeup-like products were introduced for women to color their bare legs just to replicate the look of nylon hose. 

Woe to the ladies who wore this stuff with white dresses and skirts in public......

There were also actual black markets for nylon stockings.

So when Dupont announced they were resuming full production of nylon stockings in 1945, women across America cheered. But there was a problem.

They announced it too soon. They promised a full production of pairs in the first shipment. The nation had millions of women who wanted to feel nylon on their legs again. Now.

But Dupont could only deliver a small fraction of that due to the actual speed of ramping up production (it couldn't be done overnight.) And that’s when all hell broke loose.

Store managers begged female customers to be patient. Department store windows were smashed in Washington D.C. In Pittsburgh, 40,000 women fought over 13,000 pairs of nylon stockings.

Dupont owned the patent and only when faced with anti-trust suits in 1951, long after the riots were over did Dupont license the manufacture of nylon to competitors.

The Disposable Paper Dresses of The 1960s

 

There's an essence of a woman who buys her dresses with her buckets of KFC (nudge-wink).

Perhaps one of the most questionable products of the 1960s was the disposable paper dress.

And it still looks like instant disaster; Just add rain. Hoses and sprinklers. Sweat. Pets. Perverts. Wind. A wayward snag, tree branch or sticker bush. Hot cigarette/joint ashes. Sparks. And of course, plain old fire. To mention a few. 

...and that's before Becky looks at it and turns up her nose... Image: Wikipedia

But the 1960s were of course, a very libertine time in fashion. But even so, somebody had to prove that a disposable evening dress could be both fashionably hip and safe. (Or at least in some mediocre way.) Enter the Scott Paper Company in 1966 with their promo ads in teen magazines.

Right there, you're probably thinking "Uh-oh", as tissue paper is not known for it's durability, no matter what the TV ads say. And assuming the worst, you're probably wondering where the hell Ralph Nader was on this, to say nothing of every parent of a teenage girl.

But these dresses weren't that flimsy. In fact, these dresses could be worn more than once. But still, there were risks involved. Washing them (which you could do on some paper dresses only once) will remove the fire retardant coating. Other paper dresses would disintegrate being washed. 

But after a while, sweat stains, odors, wear, small tears and strap failure begin to take their toll.  

Hallmark Cards really got into the act and made several styles of paper dresses.

But they were primarily a commercial avenue. Whether it's the Yellow Pages, Johnston's pies or The Chicago Sun-Times.

Image:Vintage Everyday 

Image:Vintage Everyday 

Even geeky girls got their own paper dresses....Image:Vintage Everyday 

The most popular paper dress was of Bob Dylan.

Asheville, NC was a hub of paper dress making,

The paper dress fad reached it's peak around 1966-68. 

1969

But by the turn of the 1970s, the focus was on recycling. And disposable paper dresses became unfashionable.

  

  

Do It Debbie's Way (Sterling Entertainment Group/Video Associates, 1983 VHS Tape)

Do It Debbie's Way may sound like the sequel to something you'd find in the darker corner of your video rental store (usually the one behind the beaded curtains.)

The late Debbie Reynolds was one of America's 1950 and 60s sweethearts and a legendary actress and singer. And of course, mom to the late Carrie Fisher. And like many stars in the '80s, she also got into the exercise craze.

But this video wasn't for everybody. You must have a tolerance for '40s style Big Band music. And lots of corny humor attempts. This offering was tailored for a specific audience. Namely the older folks who wanted to lose weight, but didn't want any of that Jane Fonda commie crap (in spite of the fact Jane Fonda was the bourgeois favorite of the '80s.)

Unfortunately, there's no funked up version of "Tammy" (Reynold's 1957 mega hit) to jazzercise to. But you do get to see poor Shelley Winters (in the most awesome sweatshirt ever for this occasion) trying to keep up with Debbie.....

Tortura: The Sounds of Pain and Pleasure (Bondage Records, 1965)

You can listen or download here.

Greetings again my naughty readers. Today, we're going to look at one of the most bizarre non-music records of the 1960s.

Not much is known about this album. Yet it remains one of the most collectible non-music LPs for it's rarity and, um, oddness.

Tortura was produced by Los Angeles based Flag Publications, noteworthy for it's um, kinky products. Which of course includes “adult and juvenile discipline, transvestism, home movie and Polaroid hobbyists, exotica, sunbathing groups, male models, leather and rubber apparel, restraint, male and female domination and bondage." So there.

The other thing about the Tortura album was that it was mentioned in a 1969 obscenity trial, United States v. Baranov which ruled against the album along with several pornographic mail-order publications. Could it have been Flag Publications themselves that were on trial?

Listening to Tortura, it's not much more than whipping sounds and lots of "Ooooh"s, "Ahhhh"s "Ohhhh"s. But hardly anything worth making a federal case over. These utterances are more like the commentary you would make at a 6 year old's crayon drawing than anything illicitly sensual. 

Yes, this even spawned a sequel LP

Philosophy of The World by The Shaggs (Third World Recordings, 1969)

If you've never heard of this album, you might not be ready for it.


You may have grown up in the 1960s and thought you heard everything the 1960s had to offer. But if you haven't heard this album, you still haven't heard it all.

The Shaggs were Dorothy "Dot" Wiggin, Helen Wiggin and Betty Wiggin (and later, Rachel Wiggin), four sisters from Fremont, New Hampshire. They were formed as a group not under their own initiative, but by their dad, Austin Wiggin Jr.. His mother predicted Austin would marry a strawberry blonde woman and they would have daughters who would become a world famous music group.

The first two predictions came true. Austin married a strawberry blonde woman, Annie. And they had daughters. So Austin Wiggin Jr. set about making the third come true. He bought his daughters a drum kit and two guitars. And that was it. No formal lessons in playing or singing. They were on their own musically.

As a result, The Shaggs evolved, um, differently....

The Shaggs played live around the Fremont area. But the audiences weren't exactly thrilled by what they heard and often threw things at the band. It didn't matter. Austin Wiggin was going to make his girls stars. So he took the next step; Recording an album.

Austin Wiggin pulled out most of his savings to finance the album. They went to Boston and recorded Philosophy of The World on the independent Third World Recordings label. They pressed 1,000 copies of Philosophy of The World.

And 900 of them promptly disappeared. As with the head of Third World Recordings. Most of the remaining 100 copies went to radio stations, some of which escaped into the wild (as radio promo copies of albums often did.) Only one single was released, "My Pal Foot-Foot"(Foot-Foot was the name of Dot Wiggin's cat.)

To this day, no one knows what happened to those 900 missing album copies (or Foot-Foot.)

Or (as some wonder) if they were even printed.

 

Philosophy of The World has been called one of the worst records of all time. But Frank Zappa and Kurt Cobain called Philosophy of The World one of their favorite albums of all time. But who would even unleash such an album? Beat timing? Song structure? Performing on key? Big production? Artistic lyrics? FAH! Overrated.

But the reality was the Wiggin girls only went with what they honestly knew, which wasn't much. But they made the best of it to appease their father (although one could imagine the conflicts that must have went on between the girls and their dad at times were as bad as their music.) And the fact they weren't pretentious or egotistical lyrically (the song topics were about pets, sports cars, Halloween and random musings) made them just as inspiring. They became the godmothers of DIY punk and outsider music.

It's been said The Velvet Underground and Nico had 30,000 initial copies pressed and everyone who bought a copy started a band. The Shaggs pressed 1,000 copies of Philosophy of The World, lost 900 of them and still had the same effect. But Philosophy of The World, by all odds should never have survived.

The few copies that escaped quickly became collector's items initially not for their value, but for their weirdness. And their rarity has made the original LPs extremely valuable.

The Shaggs stayed together as an act until 1975. They did make an unreleased second album and on this one, there was studio help at last Their act had become famous once again when Boston rock station WBCN began playing tracks from Philosophy of The World as a joke, the album began getting renewed interest. Comedy radio host Dr. Demento also played tracks from Philosophy of The World on his syndicated radio show, which further interested/shocked listeners. When the jazz group NRBQ discovered them, they talked the Shaggs into re-releasing Philosophy of The World in 1980.

It was released on CD in 1999 on RCA Records. 

Unscoped Radio Aircheck: KMSC 102.1 Clear Lake City, TX August 17, 1968

This is most likely not Ellen, the DJ you hear on the aircheck below (I picked the photo because the studio equipment was period-correct for live operated FM radio stations of 1968...And she looked cool.)

There's a certain indescribable beauty to an unscoped radio aircheck.

Hold up, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself; What's an unscoped radio aircheck?

An unscoped radio aircheck is a complete, unedited recording of an over the air radio or TV broadcast. For example, have you ever popped a blank cassette in your tape deck, hit record and just let the tape roll until it ends, capturing DJ talk, commercials, music, jingles, everything? Congratulations! You just made an unscoped aircheck! Without even knowing what you were doing was even professionally called!

They're like aural snapshots back in time. To a time and/or place we may or may not remember. For however long the tape lasts, you get to virtually relive that time again. But in a non-intrusive way, where you can go about doing other things while enjoying the soundtrack. 



KMSC 102.1 was a "popular, semi-classical, and semi-jazz music and news" (i.e. Easy Listening) radio station in the Houston area. With studios in the pre-fab city of Clear Lake City, TX  (which was annexed into Houston proper in the '70s) It's still home to the Manned Spacecraft Center (which was renamed into the Johnson Space Center in 1973.)

Recorded at around 4:18am on Saturday morning, August 17, 1968. On this tape, you'll hear Ellen play space-age jazz, the kind of stuff you'd probably expect in a master-planned bedroom community full of astronauts and engineers. The DJ, Ellen, is young, groovy, her Texas accent pure and uncompromised. The music is directly from vinyl, as evidenced by the surface noise and occasional skip or stuck groove.

KMSC continued until 1975. 102.1 FM in Houston has been the legendary KMJQ "Majic 102" since 1977.

Tisch Bumbass

"Yes, you read right! This is the world-famous "Tisch-Bumbass". a real cool one man jazz band that requires absolutely no talent to play ---- just nerve....Beautifully hand-carved in Germany and made of the finest materials, your 'Tisch-Bum-bass' will survive the wildest parties." - Escapade Magazine, August 1962.

The wildest parties. (You know? The ones with pretzels?)

This was Escapade Magazine, August 1962. I was born in 1968. So my takeaway from reading this was teasers like her in 1962 were hopelessly drawn to guys who can play the pie pan. tambourine, bicycle horn, cedar block, and cowbell simultaneously. It must've been a magical time. Like hair metal. Until the Beatles showed up....

A tisch (or "table") bumbass (also known as a Stumpf Fiddle or Devil's Stick) is a smaller version of a Medieval European headache-on-a-stick. It's essentially How Many Noisemakers Can You Put On One Thing? You might have seen it at carnivals and circuses (or wherever clog dancing is allowed.)

L'eggs, L'aura & L'erin

Somewhere suspiciously next the ubiquitous L'eggs pantyhose display stand in any supermarket of the early '80 was the L'erin cosmetics stand.

Most people already figured this was a natural place to put the makeup. But for L'eggs, it was uniquely important; They owned L'erin.

L'eggs is a product of underwear conglomerate Hanes. They were introduced in 1969 with their famous plastic egg containers, which had zillions of uses (some women would keep jewelry in them, some people made arts and crafts out of them. In fact, some people bought them just for the big plastic egg containers, which sadly, they have long since phased out.)

Seeing an complimentary advantage to their very successful pantyhose line, in 1980, L'eggs created the L'aura cosmetics line.

Wait....What?

L'aura was the original name for L'erin. But everybody got it mixed up with that big French cosmetic conglomerate, L'Oreal. It was quickly renamed L'erin.


But L'erin cosmetics as a product? Well, the verdict wasn't good.

First, most women were used to the idea of makeup being a distinctly personal art. They wanted something glamourous and luxurious. And all other cosmetic companies were working overtime to accommodate this image.

But L'erin just wasn't that. At all. L'erin's commercial tag line for it's first few years was "Put Your Face On And Forget It". Which sounds like something their dads would say when he needed to use the bathroom.

L'erin was trying to be simpler and more practical, aiming for the young, active woman who wanted less drama and fuss in their makeup kits. But being sold primarily in supermarkets and discount stores (this wasn't exactly Estee Lauder), the cosmetically savvy ladies just weren't impressed. They viewed L'erin as cheap and chintzy.

And it was. The makeup quality itself was also notorious, as millions of raccoon-eyed girls staring back from their '80s high school yearbooks can testify. The mascara was clumpy right out of the bottle, the eyeliner and eye shadow ran under hot lights or in the hot sun. By this time, boys were getting into makeup (the Duran Duran thing and the first wave of glam metal had hit) and I remember girls experimenting on us with their once-used L'erin cosmetics....And then laughing their butts off when we walked outside on a hot day.

The eternal price of trying to be cool (Sigh!)

L'erin lasted until 1984. It was sold in 1983 by Consolidated Foods (now Sara Lee) to another makeup company and after a few attempts to resuscitate the brand, L'erin was discontinued. 

Wing Over America

Her name is Wing. Wing Han Tsang, to be exact. She's from Hong Kong by way of New Zealand and she's gonna rock your world.....



You might have heard of Wing from an episode of South Park (they dedicated a whole episode to her)


She has recorded 20 CDs of cover versions of songs ranging from Elvis to AC/DC (in fact, she recorded TWO albums of AC/DC covers!)

Here's her rendition of AC/DC's "Hells Bells"


She actually has a huge worldwide fan base, proving that talent and singing on key and coherently are simply overrated.

But sadly in June of 2015, Wing announced her retirement from music.

http://wingmusic.co.nz/

"Where's The Beef?"

It all started with a fairly run of the mill TV commercial for national fast food chain Wendy's....


....that turned three words into the national catch phrase of 1984. And launched a tiny octogenarian lady named Clara Peller into viral superstardom.

This wasn't Clara Peller's only commercial. She starred in a few others prior to the Wendy's ads.


The Wendy's commercial debuted on January 10, 1984 and instantly caught on nationwide. Leading to several sequels to the original Wendy's commercial and a simply massive merchandising blitz.

She also had a small radio hit, which sampled her "Where's The Beef" phrase. Copies of the single were sold at Wendy's.

"Where's The Beef" Coyote McCloud feat. Clara Peller (1984)

The "Where's The Beef" commercials and product tie-ins made millions for Wendy's and brought them out of a deep sales slump. According to Wendy's, Clara Peller made $500,000 from the commercials, a number Clara Peller herself had disputed.

It even became a political comeback when former vice President and Democratic challenger to President Reagan, Walter Mondale used this line against his Democratic primary challenger Gary Hart.


However, the "Where's The Beef" mania didn't last long. (Oversaturation, as you can clearly see here, has a way of doing that.) But Clara Peller thought her Wendy's contract allowed her to do commercials for other products that didn't directly compete with Wendy's, such as Prego spaghetti sauce. Not so. Lawyers for Wendy's insisted "Where's the beef" meant ONLY Wendy's hamburgers and she was released from her contract.

She went on to use variants of the line in movies, TV and other commercials. But with no mention of the word "beef".

Here's a clip from the movie "Moving Violations", where she stars opposite Nedra Volz ("Different Strokes")



Clara Peller died on August 11, 1987, a week after her 85th birthday.