I don’t know anything about this record, except that it was pressed in the Philippines for the Pathe Marconi/EMI label and that it found its way somehow to a thrift store in north Phoenix. Released in 1975, it compiles a small handful of European dance singles, including the oft-collected smash “El Bimbo” by Bimbo Jet, as well as its follow-up “La Balanga. These tracks were no doubt repackaged to take advantage of the burgeoning disco market that had begun to nudge its way out of the clubs by the mid-seventies and onto the turntables of regular folks. The disco scene had been going strong for years in the real world by this time, but was just starting to make a dent on the US charts.
Monthly Archive for September, 2007
Back in the days before media saturation, folks relied on their own resources in order to amuse themselves. You could find people clustered under awnings, along roadsides and behind bus stations — notebooks in their laps, ball-point pens at the ready — all chuckling to themselves over their latest doodle or humorous cartoon. I miss those days; I still have all my old notebooks. Somehow, when I was younger, I had nothing better to do with my time than fill page after page with crude drawings. As I grow older and their memory grows more and more distant, these drawings make less and less sense to me. But I guess they must have made sense to the editors of Breakfast Without Meat magazine, because they used to publish ‘em.
Continue reading ‘Breakfast Without Meat Part Three – Stupid Comics’
In this exclusive interview, Phoenix broadcasting legend and real estate celebrity “Wonderful” Russ Shaw reminisces about “Love Workshop,” the comedy show he co-created in 1976 with Tod Carroll for the progressive rock station KDKB-FM. He also shares stories about the early days of free-form radio in Phoenix and the various local luminaries he met along the way. he also talks about pirate radio, doing stand-up and selling houses.
Non-Phoenicians who maintain enough interest to keep reading this rather long interview to the end might gain context from this article about KDKB radio, as well as the KCAC Lives! blog, where surviving staff and fans share their memories of KDKB’s predecessor, the short-lived KCAC-AM. Honorable mention must also be made of the online station Radio Free Phoenix, Andy Olson’s tribute to the classic progressive radio format of the seventies, and KDIL-FM 666, the home of Phoenix’s infamous pirate station. Meanwhile, you can dig Russ firsthand on the Bloodhound Blog, which is predominantly – but not solely — about his adventures in the real estate trade.
Continue reading ‘Love Workshop – The Wonderful Russ Interview’
I recently had the pleasure of contributing to the 365 Days Project, hosted on the WFMU site. Despite the hate mail I received from a certain camp who felt I offered too little respect to my subject, the experience was otherwise benign. Bostworld gained no surge in hit counts for my effort; in fact, I’ll probably give up my Google ranking for the album I contributed. (I guess I deserve it for recycling one of my previous posts.) No matter: logrolling is sometimes the better part of valor.
I visited the WFMU studios on more than one occasion back when my old group used to regularly breeze through their neighborhood. For my band mates, it was just another alterna-format station with a standoffish know-it-all staff that liked us better back when no else had ever heard of us. But I was already a WFMU fan by that point. I was dating a girl who was not only a regular listener — she was a bona fide Irwin Chusid groupie. If fact, if the truth were to be told, Irwin had an indirect influence on Puppets listening habits, thanks to her. Unless I’m confusing him with someone else, Irwin’s dupe for her of the “Burn The Honky Tonk Down” compilation is directly responsible for the onslaught of George Jones songs the Meat Puppets used to cover live.
Continue reading ‘Your Favorite Little Podcast: Episode Seven’