Tune Wedgie Alert!! Do you remember,”Little Children” ~ Billy J Kramer & The Dakotas ?

[Parlophone Records, 1964]

Hey! lol Stop asking why and how these songs come to my jukebox mind until you understand how you put a dollar in the machine, it sucks it in and then you get to choose your songs.

Oh, nyet, just kidding.  That is not how my mind works! Sadly, I do not get paid for my recollections, it is just a function of time, my mind and having been a radio disc jockey across so many genres, especially overnight Top 40 or “CHR” for almost forty years, that tunes actually stuck and play randomly, from  a time when music was actually played by musicians and the (new at the time) synthesizers would just dress it up a bit.

Billy J. Kramer (love the hair do) and the Dakotas were part of the Beatles-spirited “British Invasion” of the 1960s. Born Billy Ashton, he was, as you can see from the Shindig video below, one of the most unassuming, neat, mild-mannered performers of those years.

This tune appeared to me last night, without any special reason and as often when I was in bed trying to fall asleep! It is my special type of harmless mental illness and insomnia, I guess.  Maybe I need to get laid more. “Little Children” has a kind of banjo sound, don’t you think?

I remember “Little Children” as a kind of obscure tune played on Rick Scklar’s greatest station in the nation at the time, “Music radio 77 WABC“, New York City, mostly leading up to the top of the hour station identification jingle package (that is what short tunes like this are good for from a disc jockey standpoint – timing). it is an interesting tune because he seems to sing to being annoyed by his girlfriend’s little sister busting them when they are making-out.  I am not one to judge…“around“…

Do you remember “Shindig” on (ABC TV, I think) and “Hullabaloo” followed to compete on a rival network at that time?  There were only seven channels on television back then.  What a scene and so much music to be recalled and now, via YouTube, seen again.

I love how the whole band bows with thanks at the end of the last note. It is so classy!

 

 

Remember to check out my krates-full-o-jointz-musik-only blog, https://achilliadsmyvinylrecordshoppe.wordpress.com/ for the latest reviews, public comments and retrospectives as they happen.

Fireflies…Lightning Bugs and the Magic of Romance

Fireflies

June is the time for the rainbow of insects, the firefly, or as we called them back in the neighborhood, “lightning bugs” . I have a hard time describing them as “insects” even, because they do not bite nor harass humans, they only add magic to the din of twilight this time of year.  I admire how they seem to hover just above the lawn, blinking rhythmically and randomly like aircraft coming-in for a secret landing, but never really touching-down.

They are associated with pixies as in the Shakespearean play “A Midsummer-night’s Dream”. I wish upon them and even still try to get one to “light” upon my hand or finger while sitting upon my porch at dusk. I wish upon them; this year I wish for continued good health, that my distant lover is safe, not stressed and for the lucre lubrication that gets the film based upon our reality and us in the same area code “asap”.  

Without destroying their sexy romantic and imaginative evocations, I want to point-out that they are technically called Lampyridae and are from the beetle family “Cleopatra” (don’t ask, ok?), and they use something called bioluminescence to attract the things they reproduce with and/or eat. How do you say “Lampyridae”? Looks kind of like “larvae”. Creepy, but the only beetle that can land on me – The Beatles can always sing to me!  “Bioluminescense” sounds like a good idea for a men’s cologne or lady’s perfume, right?  

When the seas runs dry and The Stars Fall From The Sky, She's a vulnerable flower and she believes in me...

Fireflies always seem to appear out of nowhere in the warm June air, and still amaze me in a child-like fantasy way. Fireflies were the subject of a song by the male American R&B/Soul group The Temptations, back when I was in my Junior year of college which I hope that you can hear below. Melvin really got some deep “timbre” on that record! We called that collection “the black album”, of course the real title of it is “A Song For You”.  Similar to a song about rainbows, I feel that the few songs that refer to fireflies conjure references to successful prestidigitization and monetary gifts! So get one to light upon you finger the next chance you get; even let it rub some of its magic greenish-yellow essence upon your skin, then say a heartfelt prayer that soon what you wished for, you will achieve.

Tune Wedgie Du Jour

I have a great feeling about the vibes I am now receiving.  One reason is that Harold Dow of the Dow Twins in New York City (which should BE a separate state by the way) sent me a link to a video late last week that changed my life.  I will not copy that link herein however.  Nope, but late on Easter Sunday afternoon, the following song began to play in my musical mind and got stuck there – another “tune wedgie”.  Ahh, the good old days of innocent television shows – so far as we could see – in black & white in the right-after-the-Beatles-landed era.

Life IS awesome, but I am unable to move towards living it to the fullest.  Please press the gold button on the right…