After I returned to our hotel I showed the Thai owner, who had told me where to search for record-stores in Chinatown, what I found. He congratulated me to my discoveries and seemed surprised that I had only chosen records from Thailand, even though I didn´t know the language. When he saw this record he said: ” The Impossibles! They were great! They were the Thai Beatles!” I was happy he told me, because I had no clue, but I could also feel a touch of envy in his reaction. Obviously he really liked the music I had found, but for a glimpse of a moment he gave me the feeling of not being entitled to have these records, because I couldn´t understand what they were about. However, no matter how cool he might have found the records I presented to him, it´s not like he would have gone out and searched for them by himself. He wouldn´t have liked digging through dusty old boxes for hours to find them. The Thai Beatles sold tons of records and I bet you can still find them easily today if you search for them in Bangkok. It only takes some time. And you shouldn´t mind getting your hands a little dirty.
The Impossibles had a long career recording a number of albums into the 70´s. In 1974 they even went on a Scandinavian tour. In 2001 they reformed and are still playing today.
I only recorded this one song, a balad with a nice fuzz guitar, because the other songs were not rock songs. There must be more rockin´stuff by the Impossibles, but this is all I´ve got.
Los Apson were among the most well-known Mexican beat group of the 60´s. I first heard of them when I bought the Mexican Rock´n´Roll Rumble And Psych-Out South Of The Border bootleg LP in the mid-90´s. That record was put out by some record collectors from California who would find Mexican records either in California or when they would cross the border. Here in Berlin original Mexican records hardly ever show up, so of course I picked this 45 in the plain but striking Peerless label company sleeve up, when I saw it in a Lisbon record shop.
Los Apson seem to still be performing in Mexico. I bought a legit Los Apson CD published by the same independent Peerless label, the oldest record company in Mexico that has since been bought by Warner, in the late 90´s on my one and only trip to Mexico. My girlfriend and me were on vacation and I didn´t really get the chance to do any real record shopping. I randomly bought a couple of Mexican LP´s but found no Mexican rock´n´roll. My girlfriend still makes fun of me, because one of the shops ripped me off when they sold me a shrink-wrapped LP that later when I opened it, only contained some cardboard paper.
This is not the most rockin´ of Los Apsons´45´s but it´s the one I got. Nunca se lo digan is a cover version of I´m so lonesome I could cry by Hank Williams. Despite the title Desilusion has a nice easy-going vibe and a cool guitar break.
Last week me and a friend of mine made a little excursion to the south of Berlin. Another fellow collector had told us of a charity shop/ youth center that was selling books and records. He had found the place when visiting his grandmother. It was a area of Berlin I had never visited since I moved here 13 years ago. Small one-story houses with nice gardens lined the streets and no foreigners and no freaks were anywhere in sight. We were very curious about that tip of our friend. How could anything cool be found here?
Surprisingly inside there were thousands of LP´s and 45´s and of course no other customers. We spent a couple of hours digging though every box and both got away with a nice batch of 45´s. I bought some soul, some beat and some nice oddball records.
(“The Rotting Stumps” from Go Go comic book Vol.1, No.5, 1967, Charlton Comics)
Over the past years I have posted some other Tempo releases here, here, here, here and here. Tempo was a German cheapo/variety labels that produced mostly cover-versions of current hit songs. It says on the label that these two songs by the McWhites were originally British recordings but there was a “Hang On Sloopy/Sloopy Poopy” 45 by the Rainbows (not the Berlin group) on the Belgian Dino label. If this is the same song, I don´t know.
Another Tempo EP from the thrift store . If you´re tired of listening to the original versions by the Stones, Sam the Sham & The Pharaohs and Chris Andrews for the millionth time, you might enjoy these German beat groups fighting with the English lyrics.
In the case of Ball Balla, a hit for local Berlin beat group, the Rainbows , the lyrics are simple enough. This little snippet from a Lupo Modern (No. 17, April 20, 1966) comic book explains why Balla Balla became so successful: only 3 percent of all humans can memorize more than two short sentences straightaway. Because there are only two words in this song that are repeated 76 times, it gives people a sense of satisfaction and superiority.
In 1966 Balla Balla hit #3 in the German charts and won the Rainbows a bronze Bravo Otto, right behind the Beatles and the Stones. At the time the silly novelty song compromised their credibility with the die-hard beat fans but Balla Balla remains to be one of the most original German rock´n´roll songs. In 2001 Bear Family has re-released all their cool 60´s beat material, including their equally silly “Kommando Pimperle” and “Rotkarierte Petersilie”. Today “Balla Balla” is still a relatively common German expression. One would say ” Das ist ganz schön balla balla”, meaning ” That´s pretty nutty”.
Another part of a comic-strip from Lupo Modern comic book No. 32, 1966:
Last week I also purchased this British cheapo/department store EP at the charity shop. When I bought it, it didn´t have a sleeve. Luckily, later when we played our new acquisitions, the missing Top Six company sleeve was on one of the 45´s that my friend had bought at the same place. Generously he let me have.
There are six cover-versions of 1965 British hit songs played by unnamed bands on this EP: “The Price Of Love” by the Everly Brothers, “I´s Just A Little Bit Too Late” by Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders, “Colours” by Donovan, “I`m Alive” by The Hollies, “She´s About A Mover” by The Sir Douglas Quintet and “Crying In The Chapel”, that Elvis took to number one on the British charts in 1965 where it stayed for two weeks.
Actually this is almost too good to be posted here. It´s a fantastic LP and I was surprised when I searched for it on the internet and found, that it has never been re-released (apart from Hummel-Twist that appeared on a bunch of comps such as the Beat on The Krauts Im Star Club Hamburg LP Vol.2 that Dionysus/Romulan re-released in the 90´s and on one of Bear Family´s Tausend Nadelstiche CDs) at least to my knowledge. There´s no reason why this music should not be heard by as many people as possible. But please let me know if I´m wrong. If this ever saw a proper re-release, I´ll delete it immediately. This album definitely deserves one. Posting music of this caliber (and format!) will be an exception here and I´ll return to my usual beloved garbage pickings next week: the music that doesn´t need to be heard by as many people as possible…
I bought the album 10 years ago in pretty excellent condition (so please take the time to look at my supersized scans) and initially I only wanted to post one track of it ,Hully Gully, because Troy pointed out in one of his recent comments that the Hully Gully song seems to have been a trigger for violence when played in the Beatles Star Club era. Toni Cavanaugh´s version is pretty free and wild and has some lightning-fast guitar breaks but it´s not a very aggressive song. The wording “Halli Galli” however, directly derived from the Hully Gully dance craze is still used in Germany. We say: “Da is ganz schön Halli Galli!“, like, there´s some action going on! Mostly it´s positive but it could also mean a quarrel. Toni Cavanaugh´s Hully Gully is one of the wildest Hully Gully songs I know:
We´ll what about this outbreak of violence when Hully Gully was played? I don´t know these things, I was born in 1966. I did however grow up in Hamburg right by the Alster, the beautiful lake that lies in the center of the city. My father and my mother went to the Star Club on one of their first dates. I´ve been living in Berlin for 13 years now and I love Berlin but Hamburg is my home town and will always stay close to my heart. I´ll always be a Hamburger.
Toni Cavanaugh (Orlester Watson Cavanaugh) was born in Indianapolis in 1939 ( the year my mother was born). He landed in Germany in the late 50´s as a US paratrooper and was stationed near Mannheim but soon found himself entertaining the troops on various stages around Germany. After his military time he ended up in Hamburg in the blossoming rock´n´roll scene on the Reeperbahn. In 1960 he was drumming in Tony Sheridan´s group the Jets for a while, who were playing the Top Ten club regularly. He also played with Tony Sheridan in the Star-Combo, kinda the house-band at the Star Club from 1963 to 1964.
In 1962 he had his own group, the Bats. 1964 saw the release of this LP Rock´n Twist Slop Hully Gully with the Liverpool Triumphs.
Side 1 starts of with a rousing versions of
Long Tall Sally (wrongly titled My Babe on both the label and the sleeve)
and a fast saxophone-driven version of What I´d Say.
Hummel-Twist is Tony Cavanaugh´s most well-known song, likely because it was the only one sung in German on this LP. Hummel Hummel Mors Mors is a very old greeting of local Hamburgers. As legend has it, Hans Hummel was a poor worker, a water carrier in the 18th century, who was always teased by little kids, so he replied: “Klei di an´n mors!”(kiss my ass). The greeting is a call and response thing. When I was a kid and we were on a family trip, me and my brother used to look for passing cars that were also from Hamburg. When we found one, we´d scream “Hummel Hummel” and sometimes they would scream back “Mors Mors” to our greatest delight.
The lyrics to Hummel-Twist go like this:
Hummel Hummel Mors Mors, ich bin ein Ausländer/Don´t you know , ich sprech´kein Deutsch/ My mother told me, don´t you go/ Hummel Hummel, ich weiß nicht, was das heisst/Hummel Hummel Mors Mors, yeah yeah, Mahlzeit!/…/ Hummel Hummel Humel Mors Mors, mein Mädel hat zu mir gesagt: Wenn du kommst nach Deutschland mein Kind, man sagt: Hummel Hummel Mors Mors, sagt jeder Hamburger/Ich bin ein Ausländer, ich möchte deutsch lernen, Hummel Hummel Mors Mors, JAAA!/…/Hummel Hummel mors Mors, ich bin ein Ausländer/Hummel Hummel Mors Mors, ich weiß nicht, was das heisst/ Hummel Hummel, Hummel Hummel, Hummel Hummel/ Hummel Hummel … Mors Mors…Ich weiß nicht, was das heisst…Aaah!…Is´egal!…Wie geht´s?
Side 1 ends with a version of Money that sounds similar to a lot of versions from Star-Club groups, BUT this has a great drum and saxophone sound! This sounds like it was recorded live and it was!
then the aforementioned awesome Hully Gully, Slippin´and Slidin´ (again wrongly titled We are slopping. Yea, there are a lot of mistakes on this record…),
and a funny little number calledTwiullyop, a mix of the words twist, hully gully and slop. Otherwise a pretty straight beat stomper:
The album closes with a soulful rendition of Tell Me, Baby.
In 1965 Toni Cavanaugh got a deal with Teldec and recorded four songs in German backed by the “Beat Brothers”, among them Kingsize Taylor, Howie Casey and some members of the Blizzards from Stade, a small town near Hamburg.
Toni Cavanaugh continued to play with various groups in Germany into the 70´s, but finally went back to the states, leaving the music business behind altogether. He died in a nursing home on November 5th, 2005.
Like other African-American expatriate rock´n´rollers such as Rocky Roberts in Italy and the great Harold Nicholas in France, Toni Cavanaugh left some very fine recordings in Europe. It´s time that they are paid a little more tribute to.
I´ve been really busy these past weeks with work so I haven´t been able to meet my Thursday deadlines recently. Sorry for all of you who come here regularly to find no new posts. I´m trying to work on it.
A bunch of cover versions this week . I already posted another one of Bernd Spier ´s records last year here. He covers two Chuck Berry tunes on this one. Ohne ein bestimmtes Ziel is a pretty accurate German translation of No Particular Place To Go, but without any of the sexual connotations of Chuck Berry´s original. This is a pretty common record here in Germany but that shouldn´t make it any less enjoyable.
Yea, before you laugh about this, wait til you heard the rest of this week´s cover versions. It gets waaaay worse…
These Brits had the courtesy to record these two songs in our beloved mother-tongue. If only some of the currently popular artists would also do that! It would bring a much needed comical element to their music.
I would buy Lady Ga Ga singing in German any time…
The Gisha Brothers were a very competent group of musicians from Hanau, Hesse. They started out as a jazz group in the mid-50´s and later made the transition to beat music.
I also have their last CBS 45 from 1966 Cement Mixer/Never Let Me Go which is a little rougher and where they are singing in English.
I want to express my deepest sympathy for the recent tragedy that our Polish neighbors have suffered from, the death of their president Lech Kaczynski and dozens of other officials. Greetings to all the very nice people I met in Warsaw and I hope to see you soon. My heart is with you.
Ostberlin Beatet Besseres has already done a condolence post a couple of days ago but I´m so busy with work right now that didn´t get to it earlier.
I bought this record more than ten years ago in Bangkok together with a whole batch of other 45´s. This was the only Japanese record I found and it didn´t have a sleeve. I will post some of these records from Thailand at a later date.
The Wild Ones were one of the most popular Japanese Group Sounds(GS) groups, though not the wildest. They were more like the Japanese Beatles and they still play dressed in matching Beatle outfits today.
And then Mario pulled out this record and I was floored! Another Bernhard Frank record! Together with his group: The Rockets! And it is another winner! As I´ve written before, I have yet to hear a bad song Bernhard Frank recorded. Thanks again Mario!!!
The Kaskade label released records of very different caliber among them one of Frank Zander´s early records (together with his group The Q), arguably one of Berlin´s most well-known Pop/Rock musician. Because it was a very local label I suspect Bernhard Frank was indeed from Berlin. The rather primitive sleeve sure didn´t help selling his music. So far I couldn´t find out much about him. Mario bought the record many years ago but had no information about it either. Just like many unknown artists and groups that I featured here before, Bernhard Frank´s full story remains to be told.
Liebesmelodie is a strong rocker with a catchy melody, driving drums and tambourine, great guitar break and lots of yeah yeah yeah. Amazing!
Boy und Girl is somewhat more pop-ish but again with a wonderful guitar break. Two brilliant Berlin Beat songs! Yeah!!!
The British group Brian Diamond and the Cutters recorded this German version of their own song Big Bad Wolf for the German Vogue label. It was their 4. single out of five. The German songwriter left the title: little woman don´t be afraid of the big bad wolf. But a lot of the wolf metaphors are missing in the German version. Thankfully musically it´s just as rockin´.
Like many other Rock´n´Roll wolf songs (Sam the Sham & the Pharaohs´Lil´Red Riding Hood, Lord Dent and his Invaders´Wolf Call ) this has a great wolf call and guitar break…
Last week I found a record in a local thrift store that is exactly the kind I had in mind when I started Berlin Beatet Bestes: silly, German and with a cartoon sleeve. It even rocks.
I posted the first Malepartus II. record last November. This, the second Malepartus II. single, was recorded by an entirely different band to cash-in on the success of Lisbeth, a cover version of Wild Thing. The original Malepartus II. group was actually the Kingbeats from Frankfurt. Their drummer Jürgen Zöllner later joined BAP and is still playing with them.
The cartoon sleeve was drawn by Will Halle, a cartoonist from Berlin. I already wrote a bit about him here.
Both songs stay within the initial novelty concept of mixing primitive Troggs-style Beat with silly German lyrics sung in the Hessian dialect. Fraa, bring de Äppelbrei! is about a hungry kid demanding his apple porridge. Ei Lorche is even more silly with lots of funny noises and lyrics about a parrot called Lorche that is driving his master crazy because it is talking too much.
Haro sent me the sleeve to the Michael and the Firebirds 45 that I posted earlier this year here. This is their second single on the Star Club label. The A-side is a great German cover-version of the Zombies hit She´s Not There. The B-side is a Michael & The Firebirds original. One year later their vocalist Michel Kogler got famous as the voice of the million-seller Black is Black by the manufactured Beat group Los Bravos. Kogler wrote the music and the lyrics to Black is Black. After his time in Los Bravos Michael Kogler tried his luck recording several records under the name of Mike Kennedy in the early 70´s but failed to chart.
Anyway this is excellent German Beat music! I love the Zombies and I love She´s Not There and this is a great German version of that song…
For all you aural gourmets out there this was recorded with a slightly bigger Bit-rate than I usually do. Courtesy of Haro from Partenheim!
7´´ Star – Club Single 148 515 STF – Stereo – 1965 – D – ” Michael & The Firebirds ” ! - Band : ” Michael & The Firebirds “ Label – Nr. : Star – Club 148 515 STF – Stereo Matritz – Nr. : AA 148 515.1 F / AA 148 515.2 F Musikverlag : Minerva Music Land : Deutschland ( Germany ) Erschienen : 1965 Zustand : Platte und Cover sehr gut erhalten ( VG+ / VG+ )Besonderheit : Zweite 7´ Single – Ausgabe dieser doch damals wenig beachteteten Band, die aber für meine Begriffe sehr gute Musik ( Beat ) gemacht hat ! - Single – A Side : Lass Sie geh´n ( She´s Not There ) 2´24 ( Rod Argent / J. Nicolac ) Single – B Side : Make Me Happy 2´12 ( R. Lindt / P. Ström / G. Tilgert ) Group : ” Michael & The Firebirds ” -
Beschreibung : Hier eine sehr gut erhaltene original deutsche 7´ Star – Club Single im blauen Standard – Cover mit Bild von ” Michael ( Kogel ) ” auf der Coverrückseite. Auf der A. Seite erklingt die deutsche Cover – Version “ Lass Sie geh´n ” des Welterfolges ” She´s Not There ” der ” Zombies “,ceiner englischen Top – Beat Band der 60er Jahre. Die B. Seite ist mit einemcSong der Band selber bestückt ” Make Me Happy “, der ebenso gut eingespielt worden ist. Zu ” Michael and the Firebirds ” kann man folgendes schreiben undzwar wurde er am 25 April 1944 in Berlin mit dem Namen ” Michael Kogel “ geboren. 1964 tauchte er mit seiner Band in Köln im Glaspalast, einem Beat -schuppen in Köln – Ehrenfeld, auf. Dort wurde er von dem Kölner Musik -Produzenten ” Nils Nobach ” entdeckt und der produzierte auch die erste 7´Single der Band, die auf dem Ariola – Label unter der Nummer 10 960 AT( Mono ) mit einer tollen Bildhülle, die die Band komplett zeigt, erschien und zwar war auf der A. Seite ” Der Knüller Mausi Müller ” ( deutsche Version des US Top – Hits ” Abigail Becher ” von ” Freddie Cannon ” ) zu hören sowie auf der B. Seite ” Wir sind eine Dancing Band ” ( einem deutschen Stimmungssong der von der Band verbeatet worden ist ). Leider war diese Platte ein wenig erfolgreicher Wurf in Deutschland, sodaß gerade diese Single in gutem Zustand mit dem original Cover als sehr selten anzusehen ist. Auch der Produzent ” Nils Nobach ” brachte ” Michael Kogel ” 1966 mit der spanischen Band ” Los Bravos “ zusammen, die damals einen guten Sänger suchten und er hatte Glück das er mit der Band den Song ” Black Is Black ” einspielte, den er selber komponiert und getextet hatte und wie wir wissen, wurde der Song Weltweit ein Riesen Erfolg. Alle Aufnahmen, die dann von ” Los Bravos ” bis Ende der 60er Jahre erschienen, wurden mit dem Top – Sänger ” Michael Kogel ” aufgenommen und waren teilweise auch sehr gute Erfolge. Später stellte sich dann raus, das niemand von der bekannten Band ” Los Bravos ” an den Aufnahmen zu ” Black Is Black ” selber mit gewirkt hatte, sondern diese mit englischen Studio – Musikern gemacht wurden, nur der Sänger ” Michael Kogel ” war echt. Nachdem sich die Band in Spanien Anfang der 70er Jahre auflöste, brachte Michael unter dem Künstlername ” Mike Kennedy ” noch einige Platten auf den Markt, die aber vor allem in Deutschland wenig Beachtung fanden !
I´m a little late again because I´m still worn-out from last week´s Comics-Festival in Munich. As usual it was a blast! It´s always great to meet all the other cartoonists and of course the readers of my comics. Some even follow this blog, like Robert from Stuttgart. Guess what he gave me? Another Bernhard Frank single! Robert bought it at a flea-market and didn´t even like it that much. Thanks a lot Robert!
I think it´s a great record! Amazingly the guy only wrote great songs!!! This one is a little more on the Pop side but still the Rocker shines through on both songs. Lichtspielhaus is about going to the movies with your lover. A great rockin´ up-tempo Pop song.
I think I like the b-side even a little bit better. A mid-tempo song with a big Beatles influence. Rote Segel (im Sonnenuntergang) translates to Red Sails In The Sunset but it´s a completely different song. Much better than the famous one. Beautiful. I love it!
By the way, if you like these songs, Michael over at the (60´s)Mostly Uncomped Blog just made another nice Beat compilation including the other Bernhard Frank songs I posted here and here. You can download the whole package and a bunch more he collected easily with a mouseclick. Good job, Michael!
So apparently Bernhard Frank got a break with Philips but so far I couldn´t find out anything about him. I`m sure sooner or later some information about him will surface. This is great stuff!!!
Heiko Henss is included in a Bear Family Beat compilationcalled Frankfurter Szene, so I assume he was from Frankfurt. He recorded at least one other 45 for the Vogue sub-label Hit-ton.
Take It Easy is a great Pop/Beat song very much like the stuff Drafi Deutscher did. Und der Himmel weint is a German cover-version of the We Five´s 1965 hit song You Were On My Mind.
Josef Laufer was one of the few artists ( like Karel Gott, Waldemar Matuska, Vaclav Neckar, Hana Hegerova) from Communist Czechoslovakia who got to record in Western Germany. Of course they also recorded and performed in East-Germany, a socialist brother-country.
Here you can see Josef Laufer playing alongside Vaclav Necker in a Czech musical. The guy posing on the ladder in the denim jacket, that´s him. Very cool. I can already hear the Russian tanks rolling in the back …
I have four of Josef Laufer´s early EP´s that he made for the Czech Supraphon label and even one on the Romanian Electrecord label but none are as rockin´ as these two songs here that he sings in German.
The Danish Sharks and Sir Henry and his Butlers, another Danish group who the Sharks cover here, might not be remembered by everybody. But the clapping in this song BAM-BAM, BA-BA-BAM, BA-BA-BA-BAM and the shout “LET`S GO” can still be heard in the Football stadiums throughout Europe.
Ilias from Athens just mentioned it in his comment below so I thought it fitting to show this video here too.
Singer Aliki Vougiouklaki dancing and singing the Hully Gully in a Greek film from 1964:
I hope I`m not making it too difficult to make this site appear but I`m having fun right now and I`d like everybody to see this other video too that Ilias sent me a link of. Three goofy Greek guys singing Cin Cin in Greek and a very sexy Aliki Vougiouklaki making another appearance! It´s hilarious!
About me:
My name is Andreas Michalke. I´m a cartoonist from Berlin, Germany and I like collecting records. Most of the records I find in thrift stores or at flea markets here in Berlin. I like a lot of music but I thought I`d focus on odd German records. Preferably with cartoon covers.
All my scans are high-resolution. If you double-click on them they will get much bigger.
I´m trying to post only stuff that is out of print and not available in any format. The music is recorded from my original vinyl only. I`m doing this to preserve otherwise forgotten cultural artifacts. Mainly stuff that nobody in their right mind would re-release anyway. But who knows... If anyone who is responsible for this music or claims ownership, wants me to remove their work, let me know, I will do so immediately.
Leave a comment or send a E-Mail to: monobrutal(at)hotmail.com
After I returned to our hotel I showed the Thai owner, who had told me where to search for record-stores in Chinatown, what I found. He congratulated me to my discoveries and seemed surprised that I had only chosen records from Thailand, even though I didn´t know the language. When he saw this record he said: ” The Impossibles! They were great! They were the Thai Beatles!” I was happy he told me, because I had no clue, but I could also feel a touch of envy in his reaction. Obviously he really liked the music I had found, but for a glimpse of a moment he gave me the feeling of not being entitled to have these records, because I couldn´t understand what they were about. However, no matter how cool he might have found the records I presented to him, it´s not like he would have gone out and searched for them by himself. He wouldn´t have liked digging through dusty old boxes for hours to find them. The Thai Beatles sold tons of records and I bet you can still find them easily today if you search for them in Bangkok. It only takes some time. And you shouldn´t mind getting your hands a little dirty.
About me:
My name is Andreas Michalke. I´m a cartoonist from Berlin, Germany and I like collecting records. Most of the records I find in thrift stores or at flea markets here in Berlin. I like a lot of music but I thought I`d focus on odd German records. Preferably with cartoon covers.
All my scans are high-resolution. If you double-click on them they will get much bigger.
