in a boss salad bowl

They were the much lauded pioneers of the of the bubble-psych-folk scene, playing to packed houses from coast to coast, and inspiring scores of other bands. They were the one, the only...


The members of the legendary quartet met in San Francisco, where they attended the same junior college, during the Summer of Love. Shortly afterward, they departed Haight-Ashbury for swingin' Toledo, Ohio, claiming that the Glass City was more in tune with their creative vibes.


Sources disagree on whether the band took its name from one of lead singer Zelda's improvised dessert recipes (the official story) or if it referred to a potent form of LSD in vogue with the counterculture crowd at the time. Proponents of the latter theory cite the band's unusual and eclectic lyrics (which featured lines like "We're so hungry we could eat a mountain or a city") as proof of a hallucinogenic influences, though it should also be pointed out that Nelson, who wrote the lion's share of the Mirage's material, had the reading comprehension skills of a ten year old.

In any case, the band quickly made a name for themselves in the local scene, earning them a residency at the Kaleidoscopic Zoo alongside heavy funksters The Soular System and giving birth to a host of similarly-themed acts. For a short time it seemed that Toledo was poised to displace both London and Los Angeles as center of the pop music universe. As big as The Marmalade Mirage was in the Great Lakes region, the release of the the band's debut single in 1969 rocketed them to nationwide fame within days of the record hitting the stands.

"The Marmalade Is Made," written by Nelson and crisply produced by Phil Spector, perfectly captured the band's unique style and electrified a nation with its deeply insighful examination of the social, cultural, and political upheavals of the time.


"It's the song I've always wanted to write, but never could," said Bob Dylan at the time, and John Lennon stated that it inspired him to write "Imagine."

Unfortunately, the runaway success of the single exacerbated the simmering resentments that had arisen between the band members. It also didn't help that they found themselves rushed into recording a full length album by their label, which sought to capitalize on their newfound fame, despite the fact that they had only four songs in their repertoire. The other three members of the Mirage saw this as an opportunity to secure some publishing revenue, which angered Nelson and led to material such as this...


Suffice to say, the album tanked. The bad news that the Mirage had been dropped by their label arrived during the middle of their "Spread the Marmalade" tour, and caused a full-on brawl between the bandmates. Morris had to be stopped from braining Zelda with a microphone stand by Valerie Brown, the bass guitarist of opening act The Pussycats, who broke the guitarist's arm in four places, ending the tour and putting the band on permanent hiatus.

So ended The Marmalade Mirage's brief moment in the sun, reduced from legends to footnotes in the space of a few short months. Zelda moved to an artists' colony in Taos, New Mexico, changed her name to "Galadriel Starshine," and supplements what she earns teaching at a local Montessori school by making high-end dreamcatchers and selling them to celebrity clients such as Dennis Hopper. (She even made an uncredited appearance in Hopper's self-indulgent 1971 flop, The Last Movie.)

Nelson left the music business and entered politics. A protege of Bob Dornan, his effectiveness as representative for California's 46th Congressional District has been slightly diminished after he was videotaped in a motel room with two horses, a donkey, $500,000 in unmarked bills and an empty case for transporting weapons-grade plutonium from Scandia Labs. Calling the allegations and evidence a "left-wing smear job," Nelson has vowed to fight the vote of censure and $50 fine levied on him by the House Ethics Committee.

After Morris's solo career as a singer-songwriter failed to take off, he cycled through a number of engagements with various bands, including a three day stint with Red Rider and a gig filling in for Rick Parfitt for the last few shows of Status Quo's Japanese tour in 2000. His efforts to take a new line-up of The Marmalade Mirage onto the summer reunion concert circuit have been held up by litigation from the band's other original members.

Charlie took the small sum he made from the band and opened an auto repair business in Lorain, Ohio. He never bothered telling his wife or kids about his brief life as a rock star, saying to friends in the scene "that's all behind me now." He served as a proud member of the Rotarians and played a vital role in organizing their annual charity pancake breakfasts. He died in his sleep of a massive heart attack in the winter of 1997.

As I was unable to locate copies of The Marmalade Mirage's actual recordings (which go for nearly a grand on eBay), I've decided to go with a couple of spiritually similar tracks by some of the Mirage's fellow travellers. Diabetics be warned; things are going to get rather syrupy sweet 'round here in a moment...

The Pop Corn Generation - Kitchy Kitchy Koo (from a 1968 single)

The Tingling Mother's Circus - Positively Negative (from The Tingling Mother's Circus, 1968)

(Blame it all on Harvey Pop Comics #2; November 1969)

a short hike

From the pages of Josie & The Pussycats #69 (June 1973) comes this choice Melody Valentine moment:


While other comic book publishers were trending toward the lurid end of the spectrum back in the early 1970's, the upstanding folks at Archie Comics took pride in keeping things clean and wholesome....


Minnie & The Kneebones - Me & My Mini-Skirt (from a 1966 single) - Mini-skirts are fine and all, but I don't have the gams to carry off the look. What I really want is a ensemble like the one Alex is wearing in the above panels.

Josie & The Pussycats - I Wanna Make You Happy (from Stop, Look, and Listen: The Capitol Recordings, 2001) - Mission accomplished.

whisper sweet surprise

On the outside, this unassuming metal box may look like yet another means for Andrew to earn a row of stitches and a tetanus shot, but inside...

...is a veritable treasure trove of 7" wonders from the Me Decade, providing an interesting cross section of funk, rock, and disco flavors of the moment.

It's another one of Maura's estate sale discoveries, purchased a decade ago, then pushed to a corner of attic due to my lack of a functioning turntable. The organization and selection of the singles in the box makes me wonder if it wasn't part of an actual or aspiring DJ's collection, as it contains all the up-to-the-moment tracks one would expect to hear at any given booze-and-artificial-fabric-fueled wedding reception thrown during the wild years of the Ford Administration.

The only turd in the punch bowl regarding this astonishing acquisition was that the previous owner took rather poor care of the collection, and removed the individual singles from their sleeves and let them rattle loose between cardboard inserts. While some miraculously managed to remain pristine despite the abuse, most have skips, scratches and pops.

I usually take such eccentricites of wear and tear in stride, as they are part and parcel of what gives vinyl its unique charm. I was not thrilled, however, when I discovered that the two b-side tracks by the Buckeye funkateers (a.k.a. the Ohio Players) I had planned on posting today turned out to be sonically mutilated beyond recognition.

Oh, well. There's always Option B, which is sweet indeed...

Sweet - Burn on the Flame (the b-side to the 1974 "Fox on the Run" single) - Nothing like a little classic bubbleglam to kick the summer off on the right rockin' note. I think of it as the Platonic ideal behind the 1980's glam metal scene's host of imperfect shadows.

visual synergy: come and get your cheer on

Such is the cheertopian power of Bring It On Week that I've decided to make a second contribution to Chris Sims's celebration of all things cheertastic with a post spotlighting some music videos with a pronounced pro-pom-pom slant.

Toni Basil - Mickey - Though I featured this video in a previous visual synergy post, there was no way I could omit posting it given its historical importance in the development of cheer-crossover entertainment.


J. Geils Band - Centerfold - No, that's not former MTV VJ Martha Quinn. For a more in-depth discussion of the song's impact on a pre-pubescent Andrew, read this.


Nirvana - Smells Like Teen Spirit - I liked this song better when it was titled "More Than a Feeling" and performed by Boston.


Nada Surf - Popular - THIS JUST IN: High school is a clique-dominated sharktank. Shocking, isn't it? Also, isn't there supposed to be something about how Sasha plays with Britt in there somewhere? And that we need to always wear sunscreen?


Narcotic Thrust - I Like It - Those stories about what goes on at Montessori schools? All true, I'm afraid.

The Moog Cookbook - Smells Like Teen Spirit (from The Moog Cookbook, 1995) - Come as you are to the Korova Milk Bar, my be-flanneled and bowler-hatted droogies. The first round of drencrom is on me.

Racey - Kitty (from The Best of Racey, 2004) - True fact: Toni Basil's "Mickey" is actually a cover song. It was originally penned, with the title "Kitty," by the Chinn and Chapman songwriting team for the bubbleglam act Racey. When adapting the song to fit a female vocalist, Basil opted to go with "Mickey" -- a reference to Monkee Mickey Dolenz, who the dancer/choreographer had worked with in the 1968 movie Head.

gotta get away

This is (hopefully) the last entry in my toothache series of posts, and I had anticipated a more upbeat conclusion to things. I even had the perfect song picked out to accompany today's entry:

The Brady Bunch - It's a Sunshine Day (from The Kids from the Brady Bunch, 1972) - I know my affection for gooey, sugary things got me into this situation in the first place, but still...

But that decision was made yesterday afternoon, while my face was numbed into quietude by a local and I was giddy with how well things had gone. And go well they did; after a morning of trying to keep the increasingly excruciating pain at arm's length, my wife and I made the trip to the endodontist's office in Quincy Center. My wife was spot on about their quality of care. Every aspect of the treatment was handled with a maximum eye toward allieviating any pain or discomfort I might have been feeling. Because of my wretched state, they cut straight to the procedure from the consulation, and it was performed skillfully, quickly -- and most importantly -- painlessly. Seriously, I've had shallow fillings done that were worse ordeals.

The source of the pain was an infection at the root, so the endodonist wrote me up prescriptions for antibiotics (to clear out the remaining infection) and Vicodin (to handle any remaining pain in the immediate aftermath). I wasn't so keen on taking the painkillers, as my experiences have shown me that there's always an unpleasant debt to be paid for the sake of prescription pain relief.

AFTER the local began to wear off and the inflamed nerves resumed their final doomed offensive, I quickly changed my mind. I forced down a small bowl of soup (so as not to drop powerful narcotics into an empty gut), took a Vicodin, and laid back on my bed, awaiting the bliss of pharmaceutically-induced sleep.

And it truly was blissful, until the last of the local wore off, at which point the neighbor of the treated tooth went supernova, a sharp, searing pain that cut through the narcotic haze like a gamma ray laser. At first I thought the Vicodin wasn't working, but as the initial dose faded the pain got even worse. My mind began coming up with horrible scenarios like "what if they got the wrong tooth?" and "the jarring of the drill must have it cracked open."

As there was nothing that could be done until the morning, I prepared myself for another sleepless night, retreating to the couch (so as to not disturb the wife) and settling in until 9:00 AM with a bowl of ice cubes and some Katamari Damacy. To keep the pain at an almost manageable state, I started upping the dose. One Vicodin every four hours became one and a half every three hours, damn the consequences. Sometime after three in the morning, I did finally nod off for a stretch, but it was a sleep haunted by nightmares which can only be described as "Tina Yothers hosting a gameshow about the apocalypse, presented Phoenix Wright-style."

I woke at seven this morning with a severe narcotic hangover, but no pain. My original assessment of the problem -- a worse than usual case of post-op jarred bone trauma -- was apparently correct. Thank Providence for that, at least. I've spent the rest of the day so far alternating between staggering nauseously around the house and passing out cold on the bed, feeling like nothing so much as a dessicated husk of my previous self. (The lack of sleep and decent nourishment these past couple days hasn't helped.)

The lack of pain in my teeth and jaw is nice, though. Hopefully I'll be a state to fully appreciate that soon.

The Crystal Method - Trip Like I Do (from Vegas, 1997) - Over the ottoman, over the edge of the rug, over Oscar the Pughuahua, over my own two feet...

12 Days of Christmas - Interlude: A Winter's Tale

It's the last Friday night before Christmas. For too many people, the next three days will be a screaming tinseled nightmare of last minute shopping, travel hassles, and event planning...

...and that's exactly why it's important to take a little time to kick back, relax, and appreciate the little things that make life worth living.



The Cattanooga Cats - Sittin' by the Fireside - This cozy little bubblegum pop gem didn't appear on the cartoon felines' 1969 LP, but came from Mondo Daddykin's meticulously compiled collection of the music used in the show. (Oh, how I miss MD's blog...) The male vocals for the Cats were handled by Michael Lloyd of The West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band (and later a superstar producer).

he said the party's over

The Monkees - Kicking Stones (Teeny Tiny Gnome) (from Missing Links, 1987) - A "lost" recording from the 1966-67 period, it was included on the Missing Links compilation under the erroneous title of "Teeny Tiny Gnome," then later appended (with the correct name) to the 2006 two-disc reissue of More of the Monkees.

Friday Night Fights: It really starts movin', yeah!

In honor of All Souls' Day, this week's contribution to Friday Night Fights features the ghost of Knute Rockne showing that he can kick some serious ass, on or off the gridiron...and even from beyond the grave.

This one's for the Gipper, slimeball!
It happened in Kid Eternity #15 (May 1949). Kid Eternity, seen sporting the spiffy red cumberbund in the bottom left of the above panel, has the power to summon the spirits of dead (by shouting "ETERNITY!") to fight his battles for him.

Sure it's mildly disturbing and more than a little exploitive, but I'm willing to cut some slack to any comic where the shade of American humorist Will Rogers gets to hogtie the unquiet spirit of Torquemada, the chief architect of the Spanish Inquisition:

"We can't all be heroes because somebody has to sit on the curb and clap as they go by."
The Music Explosion - Little Bit O'Soul (from Little Bit O'Soul, 1967) - Where garage rock and bubblegum collide!

(Hats off to the presiding division champion.)

Halloween Countdown: October 7 – by the dark river's side

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you...


...Riverdale High's goth population. A more clean-cut and wholesome coven of children of the night you'd be hard pressed to find.

I'm not really seeing a "clique," so much as two Dungeons and Dragons enthusiasts who've purchased black trenchcoats at the local Kohl's in order to impress that one girl in the drama club. You know, the one who swiped her older sister's Best of Bauhaus CD and who writes angsty poetry about how hard it is to find a decent vintage clothing store or a place that sells clove cigarettes in the wasteland of well-heeled suburbia?

Okay, so maybe it is an accurate representation of the American goth subculture, apart from the utter absence of body piercings...

Blue Orchids - Sugar, Sugar (from Mystic Bud, 2004) - A darker shade of bubblegum, kind of like Black Jack, I guess.

Flesh for Lulu - Subterraneans (from Flesh for Lulu, 1984) - "The cruelest camouflage" referring to wearing a black crushed velvet longcoat, knee-high leather boots, and a quart of industrial white pancake makeup during the middle of August in a sunbelt subdivision.

On a non-snide bastard note, it's interesting how many 80's college radio staple acts from the U.K. started off with goth affiliations, only to vehemently repudiate the tag once they "made it."

(A special thanks to Chris Sims for bringing the Rivergoths to my attention.)

Friday Night Fights: Nutritional Fisticuffs

Dispensing beatdowns and dietary advice -- you don't see a lot of that kind of full-service superheroics these days.
(from World's Finest Comics #5, Spring 1942; reprinted in 100-Page Super Spectacular DC-18, July 1973)
Mud - Dyna-mite (from Greatest Hits, 1996) - The Brits went ga-ga for early 1970's bubbleglam. The Americans? Not so much, as they were too busy listening to coked-out, overly earnest Malibu millionaries whine about their personal problems via song.

(More powerful than a dozen atomic bombs.)

What "Age of Innocence?"

(with apologies to Edith Wharton)

Armagideon Time, in conjunction with Fawcett Publications, is proud to present this very special episode of Captain Marvel....

It's the combination of the doctor's cherubic face and pencil-thin moustache that adds that extra level of creepiness, don't you think?

You know that thought-provoking but contextually inaccurate line about how the Roman Empire had all the available technology to create a steam locomotive/microwave oven/"slammable" form of yogurt, but never managed to put the pieces together? This panel occupies a similar position in regards to erotic fanfic/slashfic. All that was lacking was some sort of system of electronic tubes by which some inspired fan could unleash his or her Billy Batson/Doctor Livingstone masterpiece upon an unsuspecting world.

DISCLAIMER: For the purposes of this story, the "Billy" character is a consenting adult who has been magically de-aged, because the author wishes to have his/her creepy fantasies while keeping things legal and aboveboard, ok?

(Yes, I really can't stand fanfic culture, if you haven't guessed that already.)

Of course, one doesn't have to resort to facile, lowest common denominator NAMBLA jokes. One could always choose to take a darker route:

Oh, Billy, didn't you pay attention to those movies they showed you in gym class at all? Maybe Kid Eternity should have conjured up the shade of Guy de Maupassant as a cautionary example.

The Pogues - Billy's Bones (from Rum, Sodomy, and the Lash, 1985) - An excellent way to start today's musical selections on a good note. RS&L is the definitive Pogues album for a lot of folks, running neck and neck with If I Should Fall from Grace with God, but I personally prefer the less polished sound of Red Roses for Me.

Anorak Girl - Billie's Joined the Fanclub (from a 1997 single) - It could have been worse, Bille could have become a regular commenter on the Newsarama boards or *shudder* the Yahoo forums.

Carter USM - Billy's Smart Circus (from 30 Something, 1991) - It has been my (admittedly limited) experience that a "smart circus" is one that you are lucky enough to avoid attending.

Bo Donaldson & The Heywoods - Billy, Don't Be a Hero (from AM Gold: 1974, 1996) - Paper Lace's version of this song hit the top of the UK charts at nearly the same as this version hit the top of the US charts -- a historical curiosity spawned by the draconian trade restrictions on bubblegum and sunshine pop music in place at that time. Fortunately the barriers were rolled back in time for American audiences to experience Paper Lace's magnum opus "The Night Chicago Died."

test pattern

I'm feeling a bit wiped today, so instead of a real post, here are a few music videos from Lush, a perennial Armagideon Time favorite.

De-Luxe


Nothing Natural



Sweetness and Light

As a special bonus, here's Lush's cover of the (in-)famous bubblegum standard, "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" from the 1990 Alvin Lives in Leeds compilation.

The only emperor is the emperor of...

...ice cream!

...ICE CREAM!

...ICE CREAM!

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Captain Beefheart - Ice Cream for Crow (from Ice Cream for Crow, 1982) - This musical oddity puts me in mind of this, for some reason.

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The Amazing Pickles - I Like Ice Cream (from a 1969 single) - Mmmmm... Pickles, ice cream, and bubblegum. A sign of pregnancy? Or a symptom of a potential tapeworm infestation?

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Ariane - Ice Cream (from a 1966 single) - Music for aller-allez danser... Feel free to get your Francophonic frug on.

what's a little fallout

1910 Fruitgum Company - 1, 2, 3 Red Light (from a 1968 single, collected on The Best of the 1910 Fruitgum Company: Simon Says, 2001)

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Mike Post and Pete Carpenter - Theme from Magnum P.I.

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(Thanks for the cards, Chris!)

everything we crave will be inside

First off, I’d like to thank everyone who took the time to comment on my last post. I felt a little dizzy from all the praise, but the consensus was that whatever I’m doing here is working for you folks. That’s nice to know, as I’m too complacent and old to change my ways at this point.

No real theme for today’s posts, just a collection of random thoughts with musical accompaniment.

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Concerning last night’s Grammy Awards:

I’m not a fan of The Police, as I consider them the kind of “new wave” music that my parents would listen to (also see The Eurythmics). However, for all the hullabaloo surrounding their reunion appearance, I was expecting something other than “Roxanne,” a song so overplayed and over-referenced that it has become more of a punchline (Scrantonicity! Woo!) than an actual song.

It would have been nice if, instead of pandering to public expectations, the band came out swinging with something a bit more unexpected and challenging, like this track:

The Police – Synchronicity II (from Synchronicity, 1983) – My love for this song has nothing to do with musical aesthetics, and everything to do with its ability to act as a mnemonic macro capable of calling up all the wonders and terrors of an early 80’s childhood. I don’t know why my brain chose to place a nostalgia trigger in this song, and not a better-loved track from that era, unless it’s somehow linked to the way I associate certain 70’s TV actors with the smells of various deli meats and cheeses.

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Speaking of 70’s TV, some kind soul has uploaded a condensed version of the notorious “punk rock” episode of ChiP's to YouTube. It’s a panic-mongering mainstream take on youth subculture (as pioneered by Jack Webb and countless “educational” films with titles like “Hippies: Smelly Red Dupes”) that would have had me seeing red back in my full on punk days, but now I think it’s hilarious as fuck, and as a bonus features a woman dressed like a streetwalking Raggedy Ann doll. Here’s the first part:



The rest can be found here and here. KEEP ON PUNKING!

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This might be old news to some of you, but Irdial-Discs has made The Conet Project, a four CD set of shortwave number station recordings, available for free (with a .pdf of the accompanying booklet) at their website. I first found out about these mysterious transmissions and other shortwave anomalies through William Poundstone’s Big Secrets, but lacked the means to listen to the actual thing until I stumbled across these recordings. The written descriptions don’t do the genuine articles justice. There is something fascinating and unsettling about these multilingual alphanumeric recitations and electronic blip tones, leaving one with the feeling that they are eavesdropping on the static-distorted conversations of upper band phantoms.

Here are two sample recordings from the set:

The Swedish Rhapsody

High Pitch Polytone

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While I’m digging into my bag of odds and ends, I’d like to put a plug in for The Dents, a local punk band that my wife has been raving about since she caught them during the intermission of last Saturday’s Boston/Philly roller derby bout. The Dents play tight melodic punk rock with some killer harmonies; just the sort of music my wife goes ga-ga for. You find out more about band (and score some sample mp3s) at their website.

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…and finally, because I feel like it, here’s some nifty bubblegum pop and rock courtesy of the Saturday morning cartoon universe.

The Banana Splits – I’m Gonna Find a Cave (from We’re the Banana Splits, 1968) – How is it that four guys in psychedelic animal costumes, fronting for some session musicians (including Al Kooper, Gene Pitney, and Barry White), managed to create music that exceeds the entertainment quotient of current Top 40 artists by a factor of ten?

Josie & The Pussycats – Stop Look and Listen (from Josie & The Pussycats, 1970) – The slightly scatterbrained Pussycat drummer, Melody, was my first childhood crush, along with the girl who played Becky Thatcher on The New Adventures of Huck Finn. “Blondes, always blondes,” says my very dark-haired wife. Hey, it’s not the girl you bring to the dance; it’s the girl you leave with that matters.

I’ve got love in my tummy

I watched the latest episode of Showtime’s Masters of Horror anthology series last night, and what promised to be an interesting premise ended up only confirming that the show has lost its way and whatever uneven charm the first season of the show promised. There have been a couple decent episodes this season. John Landis did a fine job with the darkly comic serial killer story, “Family,” and Joe Dante’s “The Screwfly Solution” was a interesting failure buoyed by the strength of its disturbing premise, a mysterious plague that induces violent behavior towards women.

It also hasn’t helped that the standards for being considered a “master of horror” have been lowered over the course of the show’s run. John Landis, Clive Barker, and John Carpenter? Okay. The guy who directed Fright Night and Child’s Play? Not so much.

Peter Medak, who directed last week’s episode, “The Washingtonians,” has an impressive enough resume, having directed episodes of Magnum P.I. and 1990’s excellent The Krays (featuring twin gangsters who terrorized 1960’s London with synth ballads like “True” and “Gold”), but little to commend him as a “master of horror” apart from his work on the 1980’s Twilight Zone series. Even the bona fide horror film directors involved have failed to bring their “A-game” to the project more often than not. Dario Argento’s second season effort, “Pelts,” elicited its horror unintentionally though a sex scene featuring a naked, hairy Meat Loaf.

Here’s the TV.com summary of “The Washingtonians”:

After his grandmother's funeral, Mike finds out an artifact in her basement could re-write the history of our nation. There are clues that suggest George Washington was in fact a cannibal, Mike must protect his family and escape from a band of Washingtonians, hungry for human flesh and willing to protect Washington's secrets.

Sounds pretty interesting, right? A grand historical conspiracy and folks eating people – what could go wrong? Quite a bit, actually, as the narrative flailed around between suspense film clichés, dark humor, and poorly developed political commentary and never really got the balance right. The notion of cannibalism as a metaphor for America’s rapacious appetite was already fleshed out (no pun intended) in Ravenous, and “The Washingtonians” lifted more than a little from that 1999 film. So much so, in fact, I had to double check the Internet Movie Database listings to see if it was a follow up effort by the same creative team. (It wasn’t.)

The problem with cannibalism as political metaphor is that it’s too facile, a cliché that even the most naïve college Marxist would hesitate to use on a placard. There is still strong story potential in the premise, but in order to make it interesting, one would have do a little research, extend the scope, and generally do a bit more than simply create a secret gut munching cult patterned after Boston-now-LA cult rockers The Upper Crust, then resort to a cute ending featuring a child uttering a profanity.

Oh, well. I should count my blessings. “The Washingtonians” was 100% free of sex scenes featuring Meat Loaf, so I can at least mark that in the plus column. It also inspired me to gather together this little smorgasbord of musical delicacies, cooked medium rare and served with a garnish.

The Ohio Express – Yummy, Yummy, Yummy (from The Best of the Ohio Express, 2001) – This song was written before the discovery that love was extremely high in trans fats and posed a hazard to the public’s health. The world has since learned to live with healthier love substitutes, although they can never get the flavor quite right.

The Flesh Eaters – See You in the Boneyard (from A Moment to Pray, A Second to Die, 1981) – Another album in dire need of a reissue. One of those records that left me feeling underwhelmed after the first spin, the unique mix of punk, deathrock, and new wave has grown on me over the years.

Anthrax (UK) – Capitalism is Cannibalism (from the Capitalism is Cannibalism EP, 1982) – Not the American metal band, but the British anarcho-punk act aligned with the Crass contingent of bands.

The Buoys – Timothy (from Timothy, 1971) – This catchy tune about devouring a colleague’s flesh was written by Rupert “The Pina Colada Song” Holmes, which makes me wonder if there’s a alternate version of that cheese pop classic out there featuring the lines “If you’d like eating human flesh at midnight/In the dunes on the Cape.” If there isn’t, there ought to be. This song was a minor hit in 1971, proving yet again that the Seventies were completely fucked up in the best possible way.

Oh, I suppose this post wouldn’t be complete without this blast from the past, so here you go:

The G.R.O.D.D. Initiative - Day 2: Anyone can see, she made a monkey of me

While Kevin Church continues his hard hitting series of posts dealing with anthrophobia in comics books, I’d like to use this opportunity to discuss similar trends in music. Case in point: Lancelot Link and The Evolution Revolution.

When the cast members of Lancelot Link, Secret Chimp were offered the opportunity to perform musical interludes between sketches, they had little idea of the creative constraints the network would place upon them. The members of The Evolution Revolution were extremely progressive and eclectic in their musical tastes. Lance drew his musical inspiration from the avant-garde rock of Captain Beefheart and Frank Zappa, and Mata Hairi’s love of The Velvet Underground and Nico was well documented. (Some detractors have since insisted that this affection was merely due to the album’s cover art, but their assertions should be dismissed as barely cloaked anti-simian hate speech.)

The fruits of the band’s recording sessions were played to the network executives, who were horrified by the raw, jungle-inspired, primal beats they heard. The suits then went behind the band’s back and called in legendary bubblegum producer Archie Andrews to remix the tapes into something more friendly to middle America’s homo sapien-centric ears. The band’s more experimental sounds (ambient fecal impact noise and atonal screeching vocals) were either buried in the mix or discarded entirely. Legend speaks of a lost acetate pressing of the material from the original recording session, but its existence is still unconfirmed as of this writing.

It would be another three decades before the raw power of simian music would reach the listening public, and it would take a quartet of (non-ape) cartoon characters to make the those infectious beats acceptable to the listening public. While the members of the Gorillaz chose not to incorporate the more radical methods of their simian predecessors (i.e. no ambient fecal noise), one has to admire their rather excellent efforts all the same.

(Editor’s Note: Please do not confuse the above ravings of a fever-ravaged lunatic with anything remotely associated with “the facts.”)

Lancelot Link and The Evolution Revolution – Yummy Love (from Lancelot Link and The Evolution Revolution, 1970) – In truth, this group was pretty close to a Grass Roots (“Midnight Confessions”) side project, using material (including rejected GR songs) by the same songwriters and session musicians employed by that band.

Gorillaz – Tomorrow Comes Today (from Gorillaz, 2001) – When I listen to this track, or anything off of Daft Punk’s Discovery, it triggers bittersweet feelings of nostalgia to the summer of 2001, before 9/11 gave G.W. Bush the opportunity to graduate to “dangerous idiot” from “pathetic joke.” It sad how much this country has changed since then; that horrible tragedy brought out the worst in a lot of people…or rather, it emboldened them to go public with their ugliness and find a receptive audience.