On this episode of Hippie Love Turbo, on KUCR 88.3 FM you heard The Gants play their song I'm A Snake and I mentioned that their hometown of Greenwood, Mississippi was used as a stand-in for Jackson, Mississippi during the filming of the 2011 film The Help. Although the film was nominated for many Academy Awards and Octavia Spencer won the award for Best Supporting Actress, the film has been critiqued for taking the viewpoint of white characters while perpetuating the cliche of a white savior. In fact, both Viola Davis and Bryce Dallas Howard have expressed regret towards their involvement in the film. Although Greenwood was used as a substitute location for Jackson it too has a history of racial inequity and violence.
Getting back to the band, it doesn't seem like there's a lot of info on The Gants but I did find an interview on an archived version of their old official website. The interview goes through the bands origin and how they went on tour and shared the stage with popular bands including The Animals and The Yardbirds.
On a different note, I played Los Iberos' version of The Castaways' hit song Liar, Liar and I mentioned that Debbie Harry recorded her own take on the song for the 1988 film Married To The Mob. Before Married To The Mob Debbie Harry had also preformed on other movie soundtracks including the song Rush Rush which appeared on the soundtrack for Scarface, Feel The Spin for the film Krush Groove, and later she continued her soundtrack work with a cover of Eddie Cochran's Summertime Blues for 1993's That Night before performing on the bizarre soundtrack for the trashy (but lovable?) Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Next Generation. Ms. Harry has done a lot of additional work as both an actress and singer on various movies over the years but one common thread in her work in film is that there's always something unusual about the projects she attaches herself to.
Speaking of unusual movies, this week's movie suggestion is American International Pictures'
Dr. Goldfoot and The Bikini Machine starring the master of low budget horror Vincent Price. Unlike most of Price's work
Dr.Goldfoot leans more towards a comedy than anything else but if you pay attention to the set pieces you'll see that many of them were used in other AIP films such as the spooky
The Pit and The Pendulum which also starred Price. The best thing about the movie has to be the theme song by The Supremes which plays during an
animated introduction made by none other than Art Clokey who is best known as the creator of Gumby and Davey and Goliath. The plot revolves around Dr. Goldfoot's foolproof plan to steal the world's wealth by creating a band of robot seductresses that obey his every command. There's more to the movie but that's the basic premise and although I'm sure everyone can predict how the film will end I think it's still zany enough to be entertaining for at least one watch. If you don't have the time to watch the full length film there is also a sequel of sorts that aired as a special episode of the variety show
Shindig! The movie also got a proper sequel named
Dr. Goldfoot and the Girl Bombs which I haven't seen but from everything I've read it seems like it should be avoided.
This week's playlist can be found below:
