Archive for the ‘Straight Records’ Category

The Mothers Of Invention / The GTO’s / Wild Man Fischer

Sunday, May 12th, 2013

WPLJ / The Mothers Of Invention

Listen: WPLJ / The Mothers Of Invention
WPLJ

In the late 60′s and early 70′s, it wasn’t only The Beatles and The Rolling Stones who started their own labels, Frank Zappa did as well. In fact when he left Verve and joined Warner/Reprise, they gave him two imprints: Straight and Bizarre.

I think The Mothers were one of the few west coast, Los Angeles to San Francisco, groups that interested me at the time. I was admittedly loyal to the British bands back then. They looked better. It may have been the beards that put me off the US acts. Admittedly, Blue Cheer and Big Brother & The Holding Company always looked great, and so too did Love and especially The Seeds, all coincidentally beard free. But despite the beards and various repulsive elements, I loved The Mothers Of Invention. They looked menacing, and dirty and just plain seedy. The cover of MOTHERMANIA is a particularly fantastic shot. Musically, give me WE’RE ONLY IN IT FOR THE MONEY, and many of the early singles and songs as well like ‘Wowie Zowie’, only being a let down in that it never got issued as a 7″.

Frank Zappa always applauded his self love of doo wop, as is exampled on this track from BURNT WEENY SANDWICH, ‘WPLJ’. The style, dreadfully out of step at the time, made for a terrific single. There must have been a radio station with those call letters somewhere….if only they’d played it, which I’d bet they didn’t.

Frank Zappa was obviously an insomniac. I mean who has more double albums? And then to constantly tour and put together two labels. Amazing. Alice Cooper debuted on Straight, Tim Buckley moved there from Elektra. Even Keith joined the roster post ’98.6′.

Circular Circulation / G.T.O.S

Listen: Circular Circulation / G.T.O.’s
Circular

Two of his earliest signings are on singles featured here: The GTO’s and Wild Man Fischer. I always got a kick out of both these tracks, hearing them initially on one of the many $2.00 Warner/Reprise samplers that were everywhere in those days. Both acts had great album sleeves too.

We may want to blame The GTO’s for giving license to a whole slew of twee female singers hiding behind indie rock as an excuse for minimal vocal ability, but ‘Circular Circulation’ is an absolute out of jail free card.

Merry Go Round / Wild Man Fischer

Listen: Merry Go Round / Wild Man Fischer
Merry

Wild Man Fischer has a story and a half going on. Google him – I don’t have enough time to write it all…….but ‘Merry Go Round’ is tops. Sounds like David Byrne picked up some vocal tricks from him.

Alice Cooper

Sunday, September 13th, 2009

alicecaughtusa, Alice Cooper, Straight, Frank Zappa, Warner Brothers

Listen: Caught In A Dream / Alice Cooper AliceCooperCaught.mp3

I became pretty friendly with a couple of Syracuse University students, Fred Perry and Harry Fagenbaum, via their Sunday evening late night show on WAER, the student run radio station. It was as much a case of me finding them as them finding me.

I couldn’t sleep, it was late on a very cold Sunday night and despite school beckoning the next morning, I started fiddling with the wireless part of the TV/stereo/radio combination counsel, as much a piece of time period furniture as it was a media center. This was 1968, and I was so desperate to hear the new single by The Move, ‘Fire Brigade’, that I actually believed I’d find it on some far away radio station, beaming it’s way to me back when late night signals bounced to unlikely places. Lo and behold, I found my first ever college radio station, and was stunned. These two guys were playing some fantastic music: Ten Years After, John Mayall’s Bluesbreaker and The Kinks. I could not believe my luck.

Twenty minutes into the bliss, onto the air comes ‘Fire Brigade’ by The Move. Holy fucking shit. It was like I was possessed or something. Having tossed and turned, feeling frustrated to be growing up in a town and country where the radio stunk, I get out of bed and find what I was looking for. I know you’re thinking this is being exaggerated to make for better copy, but I swear, it’s true. Yes, be careful what you wish – it can be a little unsettling when it comes true.

So I made a low volume, long distance call to these DJ’s. Not only had I found a weekly oasis for my musical desires, they’d finally found a listener who wanted to hear the stuff. We agreed to meet up and talk English groups.

A year or so later, Harry became the Warner Brothers college rep, and would occasionally let me troll through his trunk full of promos, not anywhere near as often as I wanted, or as often as I’d have let him had the situation been reversed. Still, I was appreciative for the high.

One of those Saturday trunk scores included white label promos by Deep Purple ‘Strange Kind Of Woman’, John & Beverly Martyn ‘Road To Ruin’ and Alice Cooper ‘Caught In A Dream’, back when the name of the band, not the guy, was Alice Cooper. The Zappa partnership still seamed strong, with the WB label prominently including Frank’s Straight logo. Lots of good singles from Alice Cooper were still to come, but I think this one remains their best.