THE BEST OF ANNETTE (1984)

LET'S HEAR IT FOR ITALIAN CHICKS!!! Man, did I ever want to titty-fuck the shit out of Annette Funicello, and I know I’m not alone in that sentiment!

The ultra-saccharine MICKEY MOUSE CLUB was rerun on syndicated television during the mid-1970’s, presumably to cash in on the then-pervasive nostalgia for the 1950’s, so us kids of the Watergate era could witness a children’s show that looked like it was made by and for Hitler Youth rodent-mutants. It was a soul-free parade of excruciatingly upstanding white kids in crewcuts, prim skirts and mouse-eared yarmulkes who went by the group moniker “Mouseketeers,” and performed cutesy old standards that were ancient when dirt was invented — anything to steer the youth of the USA away from that godless rock ‘n’ roll and “race” music! — buttressed by the occasional cartoon from the Disney catalog and vomitous chapters of original serials like “The Adventures of Spin and Marty,” a nondescript chapter play that would have been vastly improved (to say nothing of being considerably more interesting) if its tweener stars had been portraying fifties-era homosexuals. I hated all of it, but I could not tear my gaze away from the cutest of the female members of the Mouse Gestapo, the doe-eyed, kinky haired brunette goddess that was Annette Funicello (born 1942). In the earlier segments she was merely the only somewhat-ethnic-looking of Uncle Walt’s stormtroopers, but then puberty hit, and it hit with a motherfucking vengeance, transforming the once simply appealing kid into a bodacious bombshell from the Boot (I have heard it reliably reported that many an adolescent male tuned in simply to watch Annette breathe in those tight sweaters, and I can tell you that such was certainly the case for me). Anyway, Das UberDisney was quick to exploit Annette’s newfound one-handed potential, giving her an eponymous serial on the TV show and casting her in many, many roles in slapdash features and guest parts on ancillary shows such as ZORRO.

By the time she hit her early twenties Annette had moved on to the BEACH PARTY series, a gaggle of low budget ozoners where she unconvincingly starred with Frankie Avalon as his chaste surf bunny girlfriend, films that ran perpetually on Manhattan’s Monday through Friday
4:30 MOVIE show, each and every feeble one displaying her pasta-fed assets to their best advantage (except for the one where she was pregnant and they shot her from the tits up, and who could complain about that?). Those films and her Disney output yielded a small mountain of mediocre singles and LPs, as well as her non-movie and TV-related works, and all but one of the tunes found on this oversized drinks coaster of an LP are about as weak as pre-bubblegum can get. The one that doesn’t eat raw cojones is the theme song from THE MONKEY’S UNCLE (1965), one of a handful of pictures she co-starred in as the squeeze of gay-as-the-hills Tommy Kirk. The reason that tune doesn’t suck is that it’s an effort heavily ruled by the "California Girls"-era Beach Boys.

"NEW YORK, LONDON, PARIS, MUNICH..."

If you were listening to the radio during the spring and summer of 1979 you are no doubt familiar with “Pop Muzik,” a monolithic one-hit wonder of epic proportions. You know it, the one with the nasal chorus of:

New York, London, Paris, Munich
Ev’rybody talk about (pause) Pop Muzik!

I tell you, the fucking thing was everywhere and that’s no mean feat for a tune as bizarre as it was at the time. Punk never really had any impact on the airwaves in the States and the so-called "new wave" had not really happened yet so no one knew quite what to make of “Pop Muzik,” but it had an infectious tune and you could dance to it, so it was welcomed with open arms by a bewildered public. Come to think of it, this hit at about the same time as Gary Numan’s equally epochal “Cars,” making them the real vanguard of new wave. (I love how both of those songs are considered '80's music and neither of them actually hail from that decade.)

Anyway, most people never bothered to pick up M’s (real name Robin Scott) full-length album — I certainly didn’t until years later when I snagged it for a dollar in a cutout bin — and there’s good reason for that: other than the hit single every other track bites a huge, veiny moose cock.

My curiosity about the LP was spurred by how good the song on the B-side to “Pop Muzik” was, a truly strange synth-rocker entitled “M Factor.” When I picked up the forty-five and had listened to the A-side a few times I flipped the disc over and checked out the also-ran, a song that was actually strong enough to warrant a featured release of its own. Yet for some obscure reason “M Factor” was omitted from the “New York, London, Paris, Munich” album, which really pissed me off since I got the single years before I really started taking good care of my records and it had existed for years without a sleeve, collecting the inevitable pops and hisses encountered when played again. Then, again many years later, I stumbled across a mint condition Mexican twelve-inch single that included both “Pop Muzik” (here retitled “Muzika Pop”) and “M Factor” (“Factor M”). But what made the disc really noteworthy was the fact that it was one of those records where you had to drop the needle in precisely the right groove, depending on which song you wanted to hear; side A included the single-length version of “Pop Muzik,” excuse me, “Muzika Pop,” and “M Factor,” while the extended version of the hit dominated side B.

The only previous experience I’d had with that wacky groove trick was with Monty Python’s “Matching Tie and Handkerchief” album, an LP that is actually three-sided thanks to the gimmick, but the M single gave me no warning. I eventually figured it out and then realized that it was written on the jacket and as I don’t speak much Spanish…

THE ARABIAN NIGHTS-THE VOYAGES OF SINBAD THE SAILOR

This seemingly innocent kid’s record — from Disneyland Records no less — is a beautifully disguised gem that introduced me to the concepts of adultery, subterfuge as self-defense, wholesale misogyny as enforced local policy, Islamic vengeance, and lust built through anticipation. It focuses on the famous story of how Scheherazade kept a bitter, cuckolded sultan from serially marrying, fucking and killing the young women of Baghdad by telling him serialized fantastic tales for one-thousand and one nights, during which time he grows to love her for her fascinating yarns (to say nothing of her drop-dead beauty), all of which, though somewhat cleaned up for a younger audience, is presented in a completely straightforward manner that does not talk down to the kiddies and accents the proceedings with excerpts from Rimsky-Korsakov’s beautifully evocate Scheherazade suite. And as for Scheherazade herself, the actress who gives her voice sounds sexy and exotic as hell! No joke, this has been one of my favorite records for thirty-seven years — I got it from my grandmother when I was six — and if given a choice of keeping only ten of the albums out of the 2000-plus I’ve acquired, this would absolutely make the cut.

DISCO TEX AND HIS SEX-O-LETTES

Ah, Disco Tex…

Back in the days when disco was first erupting onto the scene, the single “Get Dancin’” made it to number ten on the Billboard chart, bolstered by a mindlessly catchy beat, lyrics that could have been written by a five-year-old (and just may have been) and the flaming exhortations of former-hairdresser Sir Monti Rock III (aka “Disco Tex”) urging the listener to get on the dance floor because “we need you!” No joke, this was the outright gayest thing ever heard in the Top 40 up to that time, a distinction that even the Village People didn’t eclipse because most of the general public didn’t get the gag until the flack over “In the Navy.” Just listening to Disco Tex’s ranting and raving about how we have to get together and “boogie woogie woogie” will wear you out and possibly inspire an urge to throw on a feather boa and some fierce jewelery.

"FIST" GOODBODY'S TRAVELING TORTURE SHOW

This album may just be the oddest on display here in the Vault's record library, and that's saying something! I found it for a dollar in a cutout bin and just had to have it. I mean, how often do you find an album of sounds and music for your at-home S & M sessions fronted by a crazed uber-queen, on the Hot Waffle label no less?

Side A features eerie background music that drones on for about twenty minutes, and side B repeats the same track, only with the added bonus of the occasional whip-crack sound effect and some poor bastard screaming, "Yaaaah!" by way of emphasis. Why is this not available on CD?

"FIDDLER ON THE ROOF GOES LATIN" (NO, SERIOUSLY!)

At first glance, this would seem like a disaster waiting to happen.

Considering its ludicrous title and seemingly questionable concept, if ever there was an album that had no right to be as good as it is, this is it. Joe Quijano's approach here is absolutely serious — much to my initial disappointment — and the Latin-style instrumental covers of the musical's deathless tunes are truly excellent. This is due to come out on CD, but has been delayed for some unknown reason.

WHEN NEW WAVE MET THE SHITKICKER AESTHETIC: YIP YIP COYOTE

Yip Yip Coyote first came to my attention by being featured on the soundtrack to BACHELOR PARTY, and the tune included there, "Dream of the West," came from out of nowhere to become one of my favorite recordings.

A project of Malcom McClaren, the mastermmind — some would say Svengali — behind the Sex Pistols and Bow Wow Wow, Yip Yip Coyote is solid proof that McClaren's tack of throwing anything against the pop music wall to see what sticks was not necessarily a sound business strategy; where the Sex Pistols succeeded on genuine social outrage and Bow Wow Wow offered a then-unique multicultural stew of rock and African Burundi rhythms, Yip Yip Coyote was a conceptual clusterfuck that attempted to gene-splice cowboy themes with overproduced dance music, and with the exceptions of "Dream of the West," "Cry Like the Wind," and the charming "Pioneer Girl," the album yields little worth listening to, and the British-accented vocals just do not work in conjunction with its shitkicker aesthetic. Nonetheless, if you hate the LP's contents, its cover makes for a striking wall decoration.

"ELVIS' GREATEST SHIT"

The title says it all.

No way would the estate of the King allow this compilation to be released legally since it contains literally the worst shit Elvis ever recorded, most of which is culled from his "films." A goldmine of unmitigated crap, this is a real endurance test, even for the most diehard of Elvis-heads, and includes such cringe-worthy horrors as "Song of the Shrimp," "Dominic the Impotent Bull," "There's No Room to Rhumba In A Sports Car," the virtually-unlistenable "Confidence," "Signs of the Zodiac," "Queenie Wahine's Papaya," and — I shit you not — "Fort Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce." We also get treated to a couple of live tracks that present a very wasted Elvis butchering a couple of his classics, but the album earns its hefty collector's price with the inclusion of the King's incredible rendition of "Old MacDonald Had A Farm," in which Elvis sings the Old MacDonald part and makes it clear that if the animals of his farm ever get out of line he will merrily eat each and every one of them. And just when you thought this album was as over-the-top as it could possibly get, the distributors — listed as both "RCA Victim Records" and "Rip-Off Corporation of America" — included a xeroxed copy of one of Dr. Nick's prescription sheets, a horrifying artifact that makes one wonder just how Elvis survived as long as he did.

This totally illegal 1983 classic was re-released on CD in 2004 on the Dog Vomit label, so start your Google search now!

BIZARRO SHIT FROM THE '80'S: "WOLFMAN TAP" by Electric Guitars

Time to delve once more into the Vault's crazy record library!

One of the zillions of bizarre one-shots to grace the alternative airwaves back in the days, this 1983 oddity is ostensibly a dance floor record but it eschews the familiar disco and new wave sound to give a breathless audience… (Wait for it!) a tap dance record about a werewolf who’s so psyched to be a lycanthrope that he just can’t help but to channel his inner Savion Glover.

???

How the fuck does someone even come up with a concept like that? And despite the group’s name there is nary a trace of electric guitar to be found anywhere on this twelve-inch, so the whole thing makes even less sense. A true masterpiece!