Monthly Archives: May 2012

Pinbacks: The Empire State Building

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Made out of pure TIN!
You gotta like the smaller cropping of buildings on the bottom.  Plus it looks good in the photo.
I need to find a tiny golden King Kong to climb this thing.

This doesn’t qualify as a pinback, because it’s technically a “foldy” or a “foldover”,
but at the end of the day, who cares?

Cow Gif

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When you go to a steak joint, sometimes they’ll stick a plastic cow in your steak like this one below.  Secretly, it’s marked with a letter that stands for how you like your steak cooked.

Denise: The “Rare” Not-So-Great Version from 1973

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Randy and the Rainbows scored their only real hit in 1963 with “Denise”.  You know the song.  It goes, “Oh Denise, shoo-bee-doo, I’m in love with you Denise…”  Blondie covered it which maybe made it a little more popular, but it’s in constant rotation on oldies radio, basically since the day.  It’s great, slightly magical, kind of perfect.

In 1973, Randy and Co. decided to re-record with something of a more dancy sound – disco is approaching fast and this has that bad step beat to guide dum-dums on the dance-floor.  Because the original song is good, this version is kind of good, but it sounds like junk cuz it’s off an old acetate cuz I don’t think it ever saw the light of day.

FACT: 1963 was the year for oldies.  More of the good stuff was packed into 1963.  Cross influencing, copy-cats, lots of talent, payola – all came together to make ’63 the year.

NOT A FACT, BUT I THINK: This version of “Denise” predates the Four Seasons song “1963 (Oh What a Night)” by 2 years.  But the two groups were thinking the same way - The Seasons just made a new, better good song, while The Rainbows chumped it and made their old song worse.  “1963” was a smash hit that takes the oldies formula THEN totally makes it disco AND romanticizes that great year of 1963.  Which all the oldies guys were probably doing at that point – meeting up in diners and bowling alleys, getting chubby, and saying, “Man, remember 1963!?”  Spector was still working in a sort of cool way in ’75 but only because he’d totally lost his mind – probably in 1963.

The Rainbows in ’73.

Twitch and Writhe

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While you guys are sleeping, I’m turning old VHS clips into mp3’s. This is a “Twist and Shout” knock-off called “Twitch and Writhe,” by an Alvin and the Chipmunks rip-off called Elway and the Tree Weasels. Well — they’re a spoof from the late 80’s Mighty Mouse cartoon by Ren and Stimpy creator John Kricfalusi.  “Twist and Shout” was originally performed by the Isley Brothers, but was later covered by The Beatles.  The Beatles version has since gone through the roof as one of the greatest make-you-dance songs of all time.