THE PIPKINS / NICK GILDER / NOICE / “HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS” / PLASTIC BERTRAND

THE PIPKINS – “GIMME DAT DING!” (1970)

The Pipkins were the grandfathers of Gorillaz — a 1970s cartoon band never meant to exist in the flesh, instead taking shape only in playful album form. I guess you could call The Pipkins a novelty act, but such a tag would diminish the truly psychotic nature of this record. Here, the uneasy blend of funk, honky-tonk, Herb Alpert cheese and Wolfman Jack vocals makes for a great cock-eyed listen.

From the online record store website of BadCat Records:

“The early-’70s saw an explosion of English pop acts hit the American charts. One of the odder entries were The Pipkins. The brainchild of producer John Burgess, The Pipkins were a one-shot studio entity built around the talents of singers Tony Burrows, Roger Greenaway and writers Albert Hammond and Mike Hazelwood.

The concept actually started out as a paid commission. In 1970 Hammond and Hazelwood were asked to write a song for the UK children’s television show Oliver and the Underworld. The goofy ‘Gimme That Ding’ attracted considerable attention, Columbia Records even electing to release it as a single. With Capitol acquiring American distribution rights, ‘Gimme Dat Ding’ b/w ‘To Love You’ (Capitol catalog number 2819), enjoyed a similar reaction domestically, eventually going top-10. More than willing to jump aboard The Pipkins bandwagon, Capitol wasted little time releasing a supporting album. Produced by Burgess, the cleverly titled ‘Gimme Dat Ding’ is pretty hard to adequately describe. Imagine Edison Lighthouse or White Plains-styled British pop, but speeded up to 90 rpm with running commentary from Wolfman Jack (Burrows furnished the bass voices), and you’ll get a feel for tracks such as ‘Sunny Honey Girl’ and ‘My Baby Loves Lovin’ ‘. Add a dollop of English music hall influences (’Busy Line’ and ‘Are You Cookin’ Goose?’) and you’ll start to get the idea. The album actually managed to hit #132 in the States.”

The Pipkins – Gimme Dat Ding! (ZIP file)

NICK GILDER – “YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE” (1977)

Nick Gilder left his post as singer for the Canadian band Sweeney Todd in the mid ’70s in order to kickstart his solo career, and his first album was “You Know Who You Are”, a sugary collection that unfortunately came too late, as glam was quckly evaporating by ‘77 — hell, even T. Rex went a little harder-edged at the time with his final record “Dandy In The Underworld”.

Gilder’s voice is truly strange, in that he sounds more girlie than Diana Ross. He’s got a ridiculously high vocal range, and it’s most curiously on display for “Tantalize”, a swirling synthy piece of craziness that got me hooked on the rest of the record right away. I first heard it when it was played for me by a fellow KXLU DJ years and years ago. He briefly flashed me the cover art and briefly whispered one word, “Tantalize!”, before he played the track in question. Its “Fox On The Run”-style intro was undeniably strong, and it took me another few years to track the LP down, since I could never remember the name of its singer —

Nick Gilder – “You Know Who You Are” LP (ZIP file)

NOICE – “TonÃ¥rsdrömmar” (1979?)

Noice were a Swedish adolescent punk pop band who debuted in 1979 with this album, “Tonasdrommar”. Subsequent records went in a more New Wave direction, leaving the leather jacket look behind. The album’s vocals are surprisingly well-rendered, harmonies and all. Not sure if the kids wrote any of the material themselves, or if they had the whole affair shephered by a Kim Fowley-type character, because a Noice fan page I found claims:

“Noice got their key to success by winning the rockband competition ‘ROCK 79′. They were contracted by the record company Sonet and the music publisher/producer Ola HÃ¥kansson. He believed in their talent and helped them releasing their first single.”

Noice – “TonÃ¥rsdrömmar” (ZIP file)

VARIOUS ARTISTS – “HAPPINESS OF THE KATAKURIS” soundtrack (2001)

Japanese film director Takashi Miike is a unique bird. Stylistically, he’s a loose amalgam of John Carpenter, Fassbinder and Russ Meyer. Yeah — you heard me. The British website Midnight Eye, currently the most well-thought-out resource on current Japanese film anywhere (in English) on the web, puts it like this:

“Takashi Miike hardly requires introduction anymore. His sudden rise to fame over the course of 2000, when his films ‘Dead or Alive’ and ‘Audition’ made the rounds of international film festivals leaving audiences shell-shocked in their wake, proves the impact of his quite extraordinary work. Miike is one of a rare breed: a director with originality and a truly unique vision on his art and the world. He has walked the tightrope between the artistic and the pragmatic for [fifteen] years now with hardly a misstep, an amazing feat considering he has directed more than [60] films.”

The working conditions on most Japanese films are the complete opposite of the bloated lethargic Hollywood way of doing things. Principal photography on nearly all of Miike’s features usually takes three weeks straight (with no days off); it’s how he’s able to produce such a ridiculously large body of work. With such a short timeframe, and with the same genre conventions overlapping in many of his films, Miike builds in left-field stylistic loopholes that make it clearly known that he’s in this to have fun, in spite of the creative obstacles moviemaking can throw at whoever’s at the helm.

This is none more apparent than in Miike’s first musical, the frenetic “Night of the Living Dead”-meets-”Sound of Music” non-stop nonsense of “Happiness of the Katakuris”, a remake of the Korean horror/comedy “The Quiet Family”. Claymation, impromptu J-Pop and karaoke numbers, zombies, non-sequiturs, and one very, very big sumo wrestler’s corpse all make for an unsettling good time — and unfortunately, the soundtrack has no American or European release. I’m not sure what effect listening to these tracks without knowing the film will have, but hopefully this will make you not only spend with the film the bestest ninety minutes of your 2007, but it’ll also make you seek out some of Miike’s other films.

Various Artists – “Happiness Of The Katakuris” soundtrack (ZIP file)

PLASTIC BERTRAND – “CA PLANE POUR MOI” (1978)

This album is sure to make any frown turn upside-down. Most everybody I mention Plastic Bertrand to have no idea who I’m talking about, even when I say “You remember, from that scene in ‘National Lampoon’s European Vacation’, when they’re running through the Louvre? You know — that song that’s playing…?” But everyone, once they’ve heard the title track, picks up on it pretty quickly.

Trouser Press sez:

“One of the first punk gag records and still one of the greatest, ‘Ça Plane pour Moi’ was a major European hit in late ‘77 and early ‘78, launching the career of blond Belgian pretty boy Roger Jouret, aka Plastic Bertrand. Scuttlebutt at the time claimed Bertrand was the invention of some anonymous French studio pranksters; in fact, Jouret had already played drums in an earlier Belgian punk trio called Hubble Bubble (whose one LP was notable for a trashy cover of the Kinks’ “I’m Not Like Everybody Else”). Together with producer/songwriter Lou Deprijck, he created the persona of Plastic Bertrand, a jolly satire on the safety-pin image and jackhammer crunch of punk.

‘Ça Plane pour Moi’ (’This Life’s for Me’) is truly great dumbness — Bertrand singing verbose, seemingly nonsensical French lyrics over a classic three-chord Ramones roar with Spectorish saxes and a winning falsetto “oooh-weee-oooh” on the chorus. [The album] also contains more of the hilarious same — a spirited remake of the Small Faces’ ‘Sha La La La Lee’ and ‘Wha! Wha!,’ wherein Bertrand does barnyard animal imitations.”

In the face of this, I was surprised that there was more than this one album; Bertrand churned out enough stuff over the years to even have a greatest-hits package CD! But this album is a tight, quick romp, with all the songs based around a similar 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4, 1-2-3-4 snare smack. I also appreciated the goofy sax work throughout. Before long, all the songs here will have you singing along, even if you have no idea what the words are.

Plastic Bertrand – (ZIP file)