Night of The Living Dead's Unidentified Music Box Melody and The Fun Sons - Hippie Love Turbo Radio Show - Code Word "Chayote"

We started this episode of Hippie Love Turbo, on KUCR 88.3 FM with a song by The Fun Sons titled: Don't Hold It Against Me which is the B-side on their Hang Ten single. If the name Fun Sons sounds familiar, you may recognize them from the soundtrack of the 2016 action video game Mafia III. Of course, The Fun Sons wasn't really a band but rather one of Question Mark and The Mysterians' aliases. According to the Michigan Rock and Roll Legends Hall of Fame (whew!) Question Mark and The Mysterians were pressured to quickly put out more singles in order to bank on their recent success with 96 Tears. During this time the band's label, Cameo-Parkway, released another single by the group, this time a novelty surf record under the band name The Semi-Colons. Did Cameo succeed in squeezing out a couple more hits from The Mysterians? Maybe, but it wasn't enough to keep the label from folding and being sold in 1967. 

As the show went on you heard The Rebels perform their cover of The Zombies' song It's Alright With Me which I found, along with another artist you heard on this episode Moha Jamin, on a compilation titled: Pebbles Vol. 10, Iran Pt. 1, Originals Artifacts from the Psychedelic Era. There are two volumes floating around the web but I couldn't really find a lot of information about most of the artists.

 

Anywho, because I mentioned The Zombies I went on a little tangent about the music box that appears in 1968's Night of the Living Dead. If you haven't seen the film, there's a scene around 20 minutes in where one of the main characters finds an unusual and creepy sounding music box which, along with her recent trauma, leaves her in a momentary stupor. The automaton music box features lovely moving doors which open and close, however, according to Joe Kane's 2010 book Night of The Living Dead: Behind The Scenes of The Most Terrifying Zombie Movie Ever the melody that plays during the scene actually came from another music box which belonged to Karl Hardman, who co-produced the film and played one of the more hostile characters, Harry Cooper. The origin of the haunting melody appears to be lost to time as many people have failed to properly identify the song but maybe someone out there can let us all know what it is.

Well, that's it for this episode's summary! Thanks for reading the blog and be sure to listen over the air on KUCR 88.3FM on Saturdays at 9pm, or on Mondays at 10pm. You can also listen through KUCR.org, Radio Garden, or Tune-In.

Check out this episode's playlist below:

 

The Grodes - Cry A Little Longer

From Rockabilly to Psych and then to Polka? Hippie Love Turbo Radio Show - Code Word "Garlic"

On this episode of Hippie Love Turbo, on KUCR 88.3 FM we kicked things off with a song by Tony Church and The Crusade named Can You Picture Yourself. The A-side to the groups' only single, a song named Love Trip, is a moody track with some wild tape delay and a vocal styling reminiscent of Eric Burdon. I'm sure it'll work its way into a future episode but if you are interested in hearing more work by Tony you can check out another single that he released with his brother Rocky Chirchiglia's band featuring the songs A Car and Oh! By The Way. Unlike Love Trip or Can You Picture Yourself Tony's other single can be classified as rockabilly and follows the normal conventions of the genre, almost to a fault. At the time Rocky Chirchiglia was known for his work in the rockabilly genre but over time he became more popular through his Italian and polka music. A lot of Rocky's work is somewhat scattered and difficult to find online but if you are interested in hearing some of his live performances there is an older YouTube account that's posted some of his work at various events in the Youngstown, Ohio area.

Rocky Chirchiglia via  RockyChirchigliaBand

 

After Tony Church and The Crusade, you heard Dirty Shame, a song performed by a group from the Bronx named The Age of Reason. Although The Age of Reason featured Larry Russell on drums he's better known as the bassist that played with Billy Joel during his first tour including the famous Sigma Sound Studios performance for WMMR on April 15, 1972. For many years, the set was shared unofficially through bootlegs until it was featured on an enhanced version of Joel's Piano Man that was released by Sony in 2011. If you are interested in learning more about The Age of Reason and Larry Russell there is a small article on Garage Hangover, as well as, a short video where Larry discusses The Age of Reason and how he first became involved with Billy Joel.

Later on, you heard the band Wimple Winch and I spoke about how their work was compiled into two releases, The Wimple Winch Story: 1963-1968 and The Wimple Winch Story Volume 2: 1966-1968 The Psychedelic Years. The two compilations are somewhat confusing because volume one appears to have all the same tracks that appear on Volume 2 whereas Volume 2 simply omits the band's earlier tracks from when they were known as Four Just Men. To add to the confusion there was another compilation released in 2020 named Just Four Men 1964-1968 which has some live performances and alternative takes. If you only have time to check out one release (of if you are more interested in pop psych music) I'd suggest you stick to Volume 2 because it features the band's best output. You can read more about the group on Manchester Beat.

That's it for now, folks. Thanks for tuning in and for reading the blog! Don't forget that you can listen over the air on KUCR 88.3FM on Saturdays at 9pm or through KUCR.org. If you'd like, you can also listen to KUCR through Radio Garden or Tune-In.

You can listen to this episode's playlist below:

 

The Age of Reason - Dirty Shame
The Nightwatch - Too Long
The Last Knights - Twenty-Four Hours A Day