Turn Me On, Dead Man

A group from Fort Wayne, Indiana, called the Olivers released a 45 in September, 1966, called "I Saw What You Did" backed with "Beaker Street."  "Beaker Street" is a great fuzzed-out song. Vintage garage rock.

"Beaker Street" was included on the Sundazed garage compilation Garage Beat '66, Vol. 1: Like What, Me Worry?!, but because it is listed as "Beeker Street" I didn't make the connection between the song and the underground radio show that ran for years on KAAY in Little Rock, Arkansas called Beaker Street, covered previously on this blog. To confuse things even more, it is listed as the A-side of the single with the title "Bleeker Street" in Vernon Joynson's book Fuzz Acid and Flowers Revisited: Comprehensive Guide to American Garage Psychedelic and Hippie Rock (1964-1975), the definitive resource for information on 1960s garage and psychedelic bands. But in this picture of the label, which shows the B-side of the single, the title is clearly "Beaker Street."

The Olivers later released this single on RCA, where the title was apparently changed to "Beeker Street," and received a mention in the November 18, 1967, issue of Billboard. The Olivers, however, did not release any more records after this one great single. The question I have is whether the Olivers wrote this song in response to Beaker Street on KAAY.  The Olivers' lyrics refer only to Beaker Street as a place of lonely refuge, but according to the Melissa Data Street Name Lookup, no actual street in the United States is named Beaker Street. There is a street called "Beeker Street" in Kirksville, Missouri, and Port Saint Lucie, Florida, but no Beaker Street. The "foggy history of Beaker Street" on the Beaker Street website relates that the show went on the air late in 1966, and the liner notes from Garage Beat '66 Vol. 1 show a record of the Olivers' single dated September 9, 1966, so the timing could be about right. My point here is that there is a good chance that this song was written in response to the then-new underground radio show from Little Rock, Arkansas, broadcasting to much of the Midwest with its powerful transmitter. I wrote to Beaker Street to ask if they were familiar with this track but have yet to hear back.  If you happen to have any information about this, I'd appreciate hearing from you.

"Beaker Street" by the Olivers by Aldrich-Richie

If you leave me, baby
Tell you where I'll be
Down at the end of Beaker Street
Lonely as I can be

Spend in my life in sorrow
Deep in dark despair
Waiting for you, baby
Praying that you will care

Down Beaker Street
Down Beaker Street
It's bad down there

Well, waiting down here
And my heart's in pain
Lord, I never want to see this street again

MOOD SWING  by The Nails




Deborah was a Catholic girl
She held out till the bitter end
Carla was a different type
She's the one who put it in

Thus are the first 4 lines about the first 2 women in the truthfully-titled tale "88 Lines About 44 Women".  Chances are good that you heard the song (in one version or another) at least once during the early- to mid-1980s.  But chances are even better that you've never heard, let alone seen, the album that spawned this sardonically-catchy tune.  For the uninitiated, here are a couple more choice stanzas:

Jeannie was the perfect lady
Always kept her stockings straight
Jacki was a rich punk rocker
Silver spoon and a paper plate

Tanya Turkish liked to fuck
While wearing leather biker boots
Brenda's strange obsession
Was her certain vegetables and fruits

http://www.the-nails.com/nra.html

The Nails had already been an active band for 7 years, and had self-released an EP (Hotel For Women) that contained an early, embryonic version of "88 Lines...".  But it wasn't until RCA Records signed them in 1984 that the band, led by darkly charasmatic singer/writer Marc Campbell, seemed to find the sound that would catapault them to...well, obscurity

Why the album Mood Swing didn't hook an abundance of listeners is a lingering mystery to me.  Admittedly, "88 Lines About 44 Women" had a difficult radio nut to crack, as the blue lyrics made most programmers balk at adding it to their playlists (even after the band created a "special radio mix" that blanked out certain offensive passages, without affecting the underlying music).  However, the first single off of the album was an equally-catchy cover of The Hombres' "Let It All Hang Out" for which RCA even financed a MTV-ready video:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X7QTjyi3Xrs

Unfortunately, for some reason, the version of the song on the video is a weaker mix than the cut from the album.  Still the upbeat infectiousness is intact, and the video could've acted as an entree to the album for an unaware public.  Alas, MTV didn't add the video into heavy rotation, and the single stiffed, too.

Beginning with the striking cover art and continuing through the narrative strand of several songs, Mood Swing seems to be a sonic love letter to New York City.  The title track asserts that "It's a wonderful city / Even on its knees".  The haunting "Home of the Brave" finds Campbell namechecking himself as he marvels that "The jukebox plays apocalyptic bebop".  To him, no other city stacks up to New York: "Hong Kong smells like dying fish / And Berlin still stinks of Auschwitz".  He wants to "...go where the wild things play."    I was never aware that a video had been produced for this song, but of course I found it on YouTube:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UIqSdmWUtrY

Since first hearing this LP while working in a Washington, D.C.-area record store, it's been one of my all-time favorites.  I eagerly awaited the follow-up Dangerous Dreams (with its parallel-universe sequel to "88 Lines...", "The Things You Left Behind") and yearned to see the band in concert.  I never got the chance; RCA dropped them and the band called it quits soon thereafter.

Neither of the RCA albums ever made it to CD over the next two decades.  Finally, the band licensed the masters from their old label in 2007 and reissued the recordings (with some choice bonus tracks) on their own CityBeat imprint.  The CDs can be obtained through the usual channels, or at the band's website  www.the-nails.com  (where you can hear all sorts of rare tracks as well, including songs only recently re-discovered).  And please be sure to look for Marc Campbell's first solo project, scheduled to arrive early next year.


[Originally released: 1984   CD reissue: 2007     Key Tracks: "88 Lines About 44 Women", "Home Of The Brave", "Mood Swing", "Let It All Hang Out"]

Andru Reeve

It's not a wholly-original idea, but it's something that I've always found myself doing anyway --  proselytizing to anyone and everyone about Great Forgotten Albums, particularly those that have been criminally-neglected in the CD reissue category.   This is entry #1 in what I hope will be an occassional but regular series here on the TURN ME ON, DEAD MAN blog.

Wild Exhibitions  by Walter Egan



Walter Egan has been making music most of his life.   He first made sonic waves back in the late 1960s, when Gram Parsons covered his song "Hearts On Fire" on the Grievous Angel LP.  He formed a few short-lived bands, but the only one that made any noise was the fun-loving surf combo he and bandmate John Zambetti dubbed The Malibooz.  The band, formed during the heyday of Beatlemania, disbanded and reformed several times, eventually recording for the nascent Rhino Records label in the early 80's, and managing to score a minor hit with "Hot Summer Nights."

However, Egan is mainly remembered for one huge hit song: "Magnet And Steel", his 1978 duet with the hottest female rock singer of the time, Stevie Nicks.  It was from his 2nd solo LP, Not Shy, produced by Nicks and fellow Fleetwood Mac singer/guitarist Lindsey Buckingham.  After that Top 10 success, Walter Egan's star was on the rise.

Unfortunately, his next two albums, Hi-Fi and The Last Stroll, did not excite the record-buying public and didn't generate any radio hits, either.  By the time he landed a record deal with MCA's subsidiary label Backstreet, Walter Egan was yesterday's golden oldie.   What would become his 5th and final album for the better part of the next 2 decades was issued in 1983, along with a promising lead-off single, "Full Moon Fire":

http://web.archive.org/web/20060220033718/http://www.walteregan.net/Walter_Egan-Fool_Moon_Fire.mp3

Despite the return of heavy-hitting helpers like Lindsey Buckingham, no one seemed interested in Walter Egan anymore.  Both "Full Moon Fire" and the mother album, Wild Exhibitions barely charted.   He was released from his contract and he dropped out of the limelight for the next 16 years.  (Although he did find the time and the inclination to appear on  the popular Jeopardy! game show program in the late '90s, prompting an interesting moment with host Alex Trebek.   During the introductory segment, Egan identified himself as a singer and songwriter. Trebek asked him if we would know any of his songs.  Egan responded by singing the chorus from "Magnet and Steel."   The audience had a spontaneous and collective 70's flashback and burst into applause).





As LPs faded away and CDs established themselves as the dominant audio format, only Not Shy initially appeared as a reissue, briefly, on the Razor & Tie label.   Eventually, 2fer import editions of Fundamental Roll / Not Shy  and  Hi-Fi / The Last Stroll  also were issued on CD.   But what I consider one of his most cohesive album (as a conceptual whole, not just a bunch of songs) had never been remastered for CD.  

Until this past summer.  Finally, Renaissance Records obtained the rights to this forgotten masterpiece and issued it for digital posterity.   I love this album; "Full Moon Fire" is a great adrenyline-pumping starter, and from there the Beach Boy-ish compositions never fail to put a smile on my face.   "Such A Shame" should've been a hit.    Highly, Highly recommended for anyone who's a sucker for a good pop hook.  

(Originally released: 1983.   CD reissue: 2009.    KEY TRACKS: "Full Moon Fire", "Such A Shame", "I'll Be There")

I grew up in a small town in southern Minnesota and, as you might imagine, I didn’t have much access to cool record stores or radio stations. The one radio station in town devoted quite a bit of airtime to the farm reports, which are so monotonous that they can bring the listener to an almost Zen-like state after a time. Then one night I was changing the stations on my radio and I tuned in 1090 AM, KAAY from Little Rock, Arkansas, and I heard the program “Beaker Street”.

“Beaker Street” ran from 1966 through the mid-1970s and was patterned after underground radio shows that existed in large cities at the time, but the 50,000 watt KAAY was directionally aimed to up the midsection of the United States. “Beaker Street” was broadcast in a makeshift studio at the transmitter just outside of Little Rock and Clyde Clifford served as both the DJ and the engineer for the program. KAAY did this to save money, because stations like KAAY with directional antennas were required to have an engineer at the transmitter around the clock. “Beaker Street” was broadcast in the wee hours of the morning and KAAY let Clyde Clifford play whatever he liked. He played all sorts of hippie and progressive music (the name “Beaker Street” is supposedly a reference to LSD being made in beakers, as the show played plenty of acid rock), particularly longer album tracks seldom heard on AM radio. “Beaker Street” anticipated the FM AOR and classic rock formats, but the show didn’t adhere to any sort of format constraints. “Beaker Street” was one of those maverick shows where you might hear anything.

I thought (and still think) "Beaker Street" was the coolest thing I had ever heard.  One distinctive thing about the show was the background music used as an audio bed for voiceovers between tracks. Years later I wrote to Clyde Clifford and asked him where he got that music.  He told me that it was  “Cannabis Sativa” by Head, a spacey 17-minute electronic track. Though this track added enhanced Beaker Street's ultracool atmosphere, it had a functional purpose, too.  He used this as  an audio bed to drown out the sound of the transmitter’s cooling fans, which could be heard in the poorly insulated studio.

I got this poster from KAAY before they pulled the plug on "Beaker Street."  I wrote Clyde Clifford and asked him to play something by the MC5 (he chose “Ramblin’ Rose” off of Kick Out the Jams) and I requested a poster.  I kept it over the years and scanned it to use as a cover image for a tribute compilation I posted on the mixtape sites "Art of the Mix" and "Zen Running Order."  It's interesting to see how many other websites my scan has popped up on.

"Beaker Street" has been the subject of a Ph.D. dissertation and a fanclub on Facebook.  “Beaker Street” was resurrected several years ago and is now streamed on the Internet on Sunday evenings on The Point 94.1, which you can hear through the Beaker Street website.

Turn Me On, Dead Man is an Internet-only radio station on Live365.com that plays garage rock, punk, and psychedelia from the last four decades. The starting point for the show is material that was recorded from 1965 to 1969 by bands that made a few records before disappearing into oblivion. Fortunately, these records have since been preserved on compilations such as Nuggets, Pebbles, Teenage Shutdown and many others. You ll also hear better known artists that delved into psychedelia. The show also explores punk, garage revival and neo-psychedelia of the late 1970s and 1980s, as well as garage and psychedelic influenced work of recent years.  The station started in February, 2000.

Turn Me On, Dead Man Station ID

 Listen to Turn Me On, Dead Man on Live365.com