On this week's episode of Hippie Love Turbo, on KUCR 88.3 FM you heard me play a song by Christie Laume and I mentioned how she was the sister-in-law to French singer Edith Piaf. Paif had a rough upbringing which shaped her emotionally charged singing style which included songs such as: Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien and La Vie En Rose which was covered by Lady Gaga in the 2018 remake of A Star Is Born. You can read a little more about Edith Piaf here.
During the halfway point of this episode I talked about how I've been watching the 1971 Japanese action show Kamen Rider. What I like about the show is how each episode is like a condensed B-movie that's full of rubber monsters, half-baked science fiction, and most importantly, high speed motorcycle action! The show also features campy fighting scenes that feel like a mix between the 1966 Batman series and a more violent version of Power Rangers. Speaking of Batman, in the second episode our hero fights a monstrous man/bat hybrid that has also cleverly been named Bat-Man, although the Bat-Man of Kamen Rider is a literal man with bat-like features that infects people with his viral saliva, vampire style. In a sense, Kamen Rider's Bat-Man shares more in common with the DC Comic character Man-Bat that first appeared in their 1970s Detective Comics series. The first episode in the series also features a man/beast hybrid that has another name that you may be familiar with, Spider-Man. Much like DC's Man-Bat, Marvel also played around with a literal version of Spider-man in their 1994 cartoon series by introducing a plot in which Peter Parker's abilities lead to him mutating into a more spider-like form until he becomes Man-Spider. Personally, my favorite twist on Spider-Man is a toss up between Spiders-Man, which is a version of Spider-Man which is made up of a bunch of spiders sharing a collective version of Peter Parker's psyche or Covered In Spiders Man, a bootleg toy made by the artist known as Obvious Plant. There are a ton of Batman and Spider-man spin offs/bootlegs and homages that could probably fill an entire book but I'll have to leave that for another day. Until then you can checkout this week's playlist below.
Rainy Daze - Stop Sign
The Roadrunners - LSD
The Pictorian Skiffuls - In Awhile
The Outcasts - Loving You Sometimes
The Sidekicks (Kaleidoscope) - Please Stay, Don't Go
Thorinshield - The Best Of It
Deloris Ealy - I've Been Looking
The Fame Gang - Spooky