even the parents are beginning to scare

At some point during the process of moving to my new house, I misplaced two of the most valued books in my library, Michael Weldon’s Psychotronic Encyclopaedia of Film and The Psychotronic Video Guide. Ecumenical, exhaustive, and entertaining, Weldon’s guides to exploitation cinema are required reading for the serious popcult archeologist.

I used keep both guides by my bedside at my old place, in easy reach for whenever I needed to double check some bit of trash cinema lore or just felt like some casual browsing. It bothers me that I have no idea where they ended up. I could purchase new copies of the both books, but over the years I’d gotten in the habit of using them as ersatz scrapbooks to store various clippings and photos dealing with cult cinema and camp/pop/junk culture in general, and those can’t be replaced.

I suppose I should bite the bullet and just do a thorough search of the attic, but the idea of digging to the bottom of the fifty-odd metric tons of nerd detritus my wife has stored up there kickstarts my procrasto-powers into overdrive. I think I’ll just mourn my poor lost biblio-friends with a post featuring songs from 60’s cult films.

The Supremes – Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine (theme to Dr. Goldfoot and the Bikini Machine, 1965, included on The Supremes box set, 2000) – The movie is a spy parody featuring the always welcome Vincent Price as the good doctor, and fading teen stars Frankie Avalon and Dwayne (Dobie Gillis) Hickman as the bumbling agents sent to foil his schemes. I have no idea why it didn’t win the Oscar for best picture. Oh, wait, I do – it’s an AIP 60’s “comedy” using the same lame tropes as their beach movies (Beach Blanket Bingo, How to Stuff a Wild Bikini, Bikini She-Wolves of the S.S.)

The Tempters – Stop the Music (featured, sort of, The Deadly Bees, 1966, included on GS I Love You, Too, 1999) – Get ready, this one’s a bit complicated. I really wanted to post “That’s All I Need You For” by UK beat group the Birds (not to be confused with the more famous Gene Clark/Roger McGuinn US folk-rock act), featured in this clip from the beginning of the film (keep an eye out for a pre-Rolling Stones Ron Wood):



Unfortunately the track doesn’t appear on the compilation the band released a few years back, so that was a no-go. The whiny blonde who appears at the end of the above clip is the heroine of the movie. She plays a Petula Clark/Lulu/Dusty Springfield-type pop star who takes a vacation on a small island where the death-dealing Apis mellifera dwell. The song she performs in the movie, “Stop the Music”, somehow caught the attention of The Tempters, a Japanese garage band, who released a cover version in 1968. That track is what I’ve posted here for you today. It’s all very simple and straightforward, right?

The Standells – Riot on Sunset Strip (theme to Riot on Sunset Strip, 1967, included on the soundtrack album) – When I was a full-on punk rocker, I used to get irritated by how the punk subculture was caricatured in the mainstream media in shows like Quincy and CHiPs. Now I realize that was merely part of a long, proud cinematic tradition of clueless middle-aged writers attempting to tackle the issues of youthful rebellion.* It’s a tradition that includes this film, in which the mysterious ways of the “hippie” are explored with a nominal degree of sympathy while still pandering to White Suburban America’s prejudices and anxieties.

The theme song is frustrating. The Standells come out swinging with a menacingly promising blast of garage punk which dissolves into painful hippy-dippy nonsense during the chorus. MORE ANGER, LESS WHINING!

Max Frost & The Troopers – Shape of Things To Come (from Wild in the Streets, 1968, included on Nuggets: Original Artyfacts from the First Psychedelic Era, 1965-1968) – Wild in the Streets was an exploitation flick about “the kids” voting in a rock star president who sends everyone over thirty to psychedelic concentration camps. It’s Animal Farm for folks who think a rock thrown at the head comprises subtlety. When I worked at the university library, I killed an afternoon reading some “sociology in sci-fi” anthologies published in the late sixties and was amazed at the violent reactionary streak of the “old school” writers when it came to the youth culture. The recurring theme in their stories was that the pampered baby boomer generation, with their single-minded pursuit of self-gratification, would bring about the end times.

OK, so their predictions were off by thirty-some years….

Target used “Shape of Things to Come” in ads shilling the chain’s faux-mod brand image, presumably because the Sic Fucks’ “Chop Up Your Mother” cost too much to license.

The Rabbit Habit – Angel, Angel, Down We Go (theme from Angel, Angel, Down We Go, 1969, included on A Deadly Dose of Wylde Psych, 2003) – This song presented a bit of a challenge in that there seems to be no band credit to be found for it anywhere. It’s not given in the compilation tracklist or notes (or label’s webpage). Amazon split the song title and listed the first part as the performer. “The Rabbit Habbit” is the name of the fictitious rock band whose members seduce and terrorize the members of a decadent rich family in the film, so I settled on that.

The Amen Corner – Scream and Scream Again (theme from Scream and Scream Again, 1969, included on The Very Best of the Amen Corner, 2000) – The theme song is the best thing about the film, which is a disjointed mess that squanders the talents of three horror film titans (Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, and Vincent Price) in a convoluted tale involving a race of psychotic superhumans and Cold War intrigue. It’s pretty much what one would expect from a Gordon (KISS Meets the Phantom of the Park, Master Ninja) Hessler film.


*also see Mark Waid’s current Legion of Superheroes run