“Tex Ritter’s gone and Disney’s dead
The screen is filled with sex.” – The Statler Brothers via Whatever Happened to Randolph Scott circa: 1973.
Tag Archives: Reprise Records
Primitive Percussion
Caught this the other night during Throwback Thursday while eating mashed potatoes and breaded chicken adjacent to the howling hi-fi. What, no giblets (for those keeping score)?! Primitive Percussion appears to be a Thurston Knudson release on Reprise from 1961, and has just bumped itself to the top of my want list ($1725.85 RFTC Rocket Pack aside… sigh).File Under D for Dino
No, not the fun loving, prehistoric Snorkasaurus from Bedrock, but instead, the golden-throated matador, and decades old wearer of many hats, Dean Martin. Originally released in 1961 by Reprise, Dino Latino takes the Italian American south of the border for a stampeding collection of Latin gems. Check it out, if only for the outlandish cover.
The 1969 Warner-Reprise Record Show
In 1969, Warner-Reprise released a pretty badass 2-LP comp titled, The 1969 Warner-Reprise Record Show. The Kinks, The Mothers of Invention, The Jimi Hendrix Experience, The Fugs, The Dead, Tull, Neil Young, and Fats Domino all make their prominent appearance. It’s a pretty solid comp; mixing well-known with mysterious obscurity. We paid $0.33 for this double LP, and she’s well worth every last dime.
Dino on My Mind
Everybody can use a little Dino Martino on a random Tuesday evening, am I right? I remember, more like I can’t forget, a rumor about Dino drinking nonalcoholic, or watered-down cocktails during The Dean Martin Show and other public appearances where we was seen “drinking cocktails.” Descent shtick, I suppose. Anyway, I can’t, for the life of me, think of any current day Dean Martins! I can see Michael Bublé as a modern day Sinatra, although I’ve never heard any accounts of Bublé beating women, but he’s young. (The Prudent Groove does not advocate the beating of women, and has a zero tolerance policy towards arrogance in general.)
That Record is Something Else, Man
I’ve been holding out for the 2012 remastered mono / stereo reissue of The Kink’s 1967 masterpiece, Something Else by the Kinks, but had to pull the trigger on this original US stereo pressing when faced with the decision. Chapter two in the “perfect album string” that started with 1966’s Face to Face and ended with 1971’s Muswell Hillbillies (6 albums in total), Something Else… is home to the following flawless cuts: Harry Rag, Waterloo Sunset, Death of a Clown (a Dave track), David Watts, and Two Sisters. Like with all early, middle, and late Kinks releases, Something Else… is nothing short of essential listening material. Ray Davies = genius… that is all.
We Are the Draught Beer Preservation Society
Sundays are for resting, so get off your computer and enjoy what’s left of your weekend. (On the left, the 1968 US Reprise Records pressing, and on the right, the 2011 UK Sanctuary Records double “orange splattered green” mono / stereo release.) God save the Village Green (and what’s left of your weekend)!
Here a Kink, There a Kink, Everywhere a Kink-Kink
I’ll place here, a lovely little 1970 promotional blurb about the almighty Kinks from the Warner Bros. / Reprise Records comp, (yesterday’s) Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies. Featured amongst the comedically informative booklet that accompanied this amazing comp, The Kinks are fashioned with great respect, and chuckle-heavy-esteem. It’s fun to see Kink-day adverts.
Death by Trolley
Band name: Death by Trolley aka DBT. Does it exist? No, but it should. Do any of you remember the Twilight Zone episode, Judgment Night? For those that don’t, it’s a microscope peak into the looping, déjà vu hell of a German U-boat captain forever reliving the victim’s side of his own, malicious, and blood spilling attacks. For me, a death by trolley, accompanied by Eddie Cano’s version of The Trolley Song, is my own personal night of judgment.
The hit and run victim to this proposed, personal death loop, I picture myself merrily strolling along with a carefree heart, and a suspicious smile. All this is abruptly interrupted at around the 30 second mark when, WHAM! out of nowhere I’m violently struck by the Death Trolley. Able to force out a few, labored breaths, I accept my fate, and proceed to give in to the sweet, calming void of death… only for the entire trip to loop and begin its eternal cycle, that which has no end.
Eddie Cano plays my end song, a duet with the booming, forceful abruptness of the Death Trolley.
First You Love Me, Then You Get on Down the Line
Monday mornings are about as celebratory as striking a 10d x 3in nail through your foot, but that didn’t stop the newly formed supergroup (circa: 1975), Fleetwood Mac, from churning out a righteous soundtrack that pairs perfectly with a stiff cup of joe on this, the beginnings of another working week.
Written by Lindsey Buckingham, Monday Morning launches the 1975 self-titled album (the band’s second… self-titled that is), and features, for the first time, the inclusion of the now defunct, but once romantic pair, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks.
Monday morning you look so fine… so long as Mick Fleetwood and crew are pumping groove-juiced energy through the speakers, Monday mornings look a’okay.
Reprise Records is Synonymous With the Excitement of Today’s Music
… or so they claim. Although I’m not a fan of the late, womanizing crooner Frank Sinatra, I find myself acquiring a decent amount of his label’s records these days. Most recently, 1967’s The Live Kinks, where I discovered this lovely gem.
Signing the North American distribution rights to Don Ho, The Kinks and Dean Martin is a respectably eclectic maneuver for a label founded by the Rat Pack King (I prefer Dean Martin, myself), and it speaks to the ever enveloping, changing winds that swept through the later half of the social 60s… or so I gather… I wasn’t around then, so all these bits of online data could be nothing more than inaccurate gibberish… much like The Prudent Groove. I like inserts, and I like The Kinks. Good day.
UK vs. US
Why the UK and the US didn’t get along is something I’ve never been able to comprehend. Oh sure, things may be all fine and good now (for now…), but back in the day (and before my time), it seems that ego took precedent over creative output. Case in point, this Reprise Records insert from (roughly) 1965.
Featured on this beautiful little rock artifact (rock-ifact?), are two albums, or rather fabrications released by The Kinks. First (left side near the bottom) is the US version of their 1964 debut called simply, The Kinks. The original track lineup, cover art and title have been ignored for the supposed candy-grabbing, fat-bellied, narrow-minded delights of US audiences. Here it is titled You Really Got Me. There, it’s appropriately titled The Kinks. Why the change? Yet another age-old question whose real answer has been mummified and lives buried within the damp and dusty crypt of music’s blotchy past. (Wikipedia offers their decent explanation of this butchering practice that can found here.)
Second, and along the same lines is 1965’s Kinks-Size (middle). Here, US meatheads grabbed material from the EP Kinksize Session, leftover tracks from their debut, and both sides to two of their singles, Tired of Waiting for You and All Day and All of the Night. This Frankenstein makes for a decent listen, because let’s be honest, there really isn’t a bad Kinks song (before 1973), but it’s disjointing and certainly NOT what the band had intended. Wankers, the lot of them!
So, what’s the point? I dunno. Why couldn’t we all just get along? That, or I just really dig old inserts. Carry on.
No… I’M the One Who Loves You!
The great debate continues… which Deano Martino loves you more? Is it left Deano, or right Deano? They both claim to offer their affection, so which do you choose? And by choosing one over the other, do you then set a precedent for the “less than” Deano? I mean, does he then attempt to love you more, or does he go in the other direction and abandon you all together, figuring your choice, or favor rather, for the “other” Deano is just too much to bear and isolation is better than the heartache of rejection?
The great debate continues… but one thing’s for sure… it’s Dean Martin time, damn it!
The Great Lost Kinks Album Versus Prudentman and the Groove Go Round (Part One of One)
What once was lost… should sometimes remain lost. Not the case with this arousing little nugget of Kinks history. The Great Lost Kinks Album, for those of you who don’t know, was NOT in fact an album recorded by the band that was mysteriously whisked away by the inevitable hands of fate, then miraculously found and released some seven years later to a wide and welcoming audience. Instead, The Great Lost Kinks Album was a compilation of B-sides, film and television themes, songs written and performed by Dave Davies for his never-released solo album, and various other unreleased tracks.
Apart from containing some pretty damn rare (at the time) Kinks tracks, TGLKA (you can figure it out) was not authorized by the band, and according to the lovely Wikipedia article, Reprise, the label, never even informed the band of its release. According to the same article (mentioned in the previous paragraph), the band (The Kinks… keep up) became aware of the album only after it appeared in the US Billboard charts. A lawsuit ensued and Reprise was forced to discontinue the album in 1975, some two years after its release, and the rest is Kinks history.
On a COMPLETELY unrelated note, why are we still fastening our shoes with string? Velcro tried (and failed) in the 80s, but it’s 2013, people! We haven’t developed an updated technique with which to secure our feet clothes? We need to get to work!
To Play and Play Again!
Quick question… Q: What do The Kinks, Dean Martin, Duke Ellington, Frank Sinatra and Nancy Sinatra all have in common? A: Quite a bit actually; you’re going to need to be a bit more specific.
Fine, I’ll tell you. They were all monumentally talented artists on the Reprise Records label. As a longtime collector of the Kinks, I’m a bit surprised to find Duke Ellington and Dean Martin to be their egg-borrowing neighbors. Apparently Reprise was started by Frank Sinatra in 1960, and then sold to Warner Bros. Records in 1963… and a year later the label would land the rights to Pye Records (UK label of the Kinks), and the well-rounded and eclectic Reprise Records family was born.
This is an insert from Frank Sinatra’s Strangers in the Night album. Not being a huge fan of the womanizing crooner, I decided to avert my attention to the brothers Davies. Have a good Saturday!
The Prudent Groove 