Mena Matos is shouting and screaming and then he´s singing softly like a crooner but whatever he did, it did make people go Gargalhadas – burst into laughter.
I like the way he seems to be imitating the teen singers of the 50´s/early 60´s:
MENA MATOS, Retalhos do fado, 1961
These two gentlemen are making fun of the teenagers who would go to the hair dresser, only to have very little hair actually cut. I think that Duo Humoristico might have had a point there. But what about the polar bear?
Here´s some scraps from a Portuguese magazine I found in a junk shop:
Funny fado songs from a forgotten time…
DUO HUMORISTICO CRISPIM, Os Meninos de agora, 1969
DUO HUMORISTICO CRISPIM, Pais, eu quero broas, 1969
DUO HUMORISTICO CRISPIM, Mais coisas a vista, 1969
Marcos told me that the character this gentleman is impersonating, is a traditional folk figure. Actually he´s one of the first Portuguese cartoon characters. Marcos should know, he works in Bedeteca, Lisbon’s only comics library.
I forgot the name of the character but seeing his bare ass on the cover was an image I just couldn´t pass up….
VITOR ROSADO, As broncos e as alegrias do zé povinho, 1969
VITOR ROSADO, O alfaiate vira-casacas (I PARTE), 1969
VITOR ROSADO, O alfaiate vira-casacas (II PARTE), 1969
The sad and sentimental fados might be the most well-known ones, but Sr. Peles soccer songs are definitely fados too. Compared to most German football related songs, these are in a league of its own. German football songs can be funny but I have yet to hear any, that are of this musical caliber. Now of course Domingos Pereira is a die-hard fan of the Portuguese team, but why must he insist, that the Portuguese team is better than the Brazilian one?
DOMINGOS PEREIRA, Seleccao Nacional, 1970
DOMINGOS PEREIRA, Peles Peles & Peles, 1970
DOMINGOS PEREIRA, Votos em abril, 1970
Happy Easter everyone! It´s springtime and finally Berlin is nice and sunny. Too bad I have to stay in all the time to work but I´m not complaining. It did not leave too much time to work on this blog though and I hope I´ll do better this month. So far it doesn´t look like it.
Found this 45 in a record store for 1 Euro a couple of weeks ago. It´s a little embarrassing but the fact that I bought it tells a lot about me. Apart from the much saner image that I might have of myself, I really do seem to be one of those “completist” collectors. I would buy any record Bernhard Frank made, even if it was really, really bad.
And this is bad. Oh man, Bernhard Frank, what did you think?!! This is a long way from his cool stuff. Then again I really like this record too. Non-German speaking people might miss some of the meaning, but there are some pretty funny lines in Eingeladen (Invited to the party of Dieter and Susi). The b-side Mit anderen Worten ( In other words) is pretty standard German Schlager fare but I still feel that Bernhard Frank can do no wrong. Bernhard Frank only wrote good songs, even if they were bad.
The local Berlin Hansa label was founded in 1964 by Christian Bruhn and the sons of Will Meisel Thomas and Peter Meisel. In 1973 they started a sub-label to promote artists and music that were a little more off-the-beaten-path than their mainstream material: der andere song (The other song).
The sleeve was designed by popular cartoonist Arne (Arne Leihberg, 1912- 1988), longtime contributer to the biggest Berlin newspaper.
Eingeladen is “bad”, but very, very catchy, so beware: listen at your own risk. You´ll have a hard time getting the song out of your ears again…
BERNHARD FRANK, Eingeladen (Auf der Party von Dieter und Susi), 1983
Hubba-Hubba-Zoot-Zoot is easily among the worst songs ever recorded. Pure nonsense.
This is the German realease of this Swedish group´s hit song. The sleeve was illustrated by Berlin cartoonist Ane (Aribert Nesslinger).
The song was also used in the German pop-music/comedy series Bananas:
One more legendary clip from Bananas. The Zeltinger Band from Cologne:
Before I´ll get to this week´s posts I´d like to let you know about a book and DVD of a fellow collector. Ralf Wenzel from Kassel recently finished putting together a pretty impressive and complete overview of the Klingende Post advertisement records. I posted a bunch of those last January and later helped out Ralf with some high-resolution scans and music files. He also made a nice website: www.die-klingende-post.de
(Das erste Buch über die Geschichte der Klingende Post Werbeschallplatten, liebevoll geschrieben und zusammengestellt von Ralf Wenzel, ist soeben erschienen. Die dazugehörige Klingende Post Webseite ist ebenfalls sehr gelungen und übersichtlich. Ohne so sympathische Verrückte wie Ralf, die auch an den Rändern der Popmusik wandeln und diese Ränder so wichtig nehmen, wäre die ganze Popmusik nichts. Irgendwann wandert schließlich alles mal an den Rand.
Das Buch gibt es sogar in zwei Versionen: als DVD (Buch im PDF-Format mit Musikteil und klassisch auf gedrucktem Papier. Einfach mal anschauen: www.die klingende-post.de
Ein kleiner Text von mir über die Klingende Post erschien am 18. Februar 2010 in der Wochenzeitung Jungle World, nachzulesen Online hier.)
(Teenager cartoons by Kurt Klamann from Taschen-Eulenspiegel magazine Nr.23, 1961 and Nr.40, 1962 published by Eulenspiegel-Verlag, East-Berlin)
I had a bunch of German rock´n´roll records put together to post before my computer suddenly went kaputt two weeks ago, so here they are now . I got this record from my grandparents when I was 14 years old in 1980 , I guess it must have belonged to one of my aunts or uncles.
Tutti Frutti is probably one of the worst German rock´n´roll cover songs from the 50´s although this budget version recorded for the Opera label, sounds even better than the original version by Peter Kraus , our German Pat Boone. It´s so bad it´s funny, still cracks me up after all these years.
” So geht´s jede Nacht bis morgens um acht, RRRRack´n´RRRRohll hat uns veRRRRRRückt gemacht.”
This is my favourite song of this week´s selection because it´s the wackiest. A parody-version of Rock Around The Clock by Pirron & Knapp, two Austrian comedians, sung in a Austrian dialect that is very hard to understand even for me. It´s hilarious the way they sing about how a guy is wearing out a lot of girls dancing rock´n´roll…
I´ve been meaning to post this for a long time but I´ve always hoped to find a sleeve for it. I´ve seen EP´s by Pirron & Knapp with cartoon sleeves and I have another one that was drawn by the German cartoonist Sepp Arnemann.
Alternatively I´ll post some close-up´s from a cartoon by Sepp Arnemann from his book “Lach mit!” (Norddeutsche Verlagsgesellschaft, 1951). The book has a foreword by famous German comedian Heinz Erhardt.
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.
Thomas “Tommi” Piper is a German actor, voice actor and musician who played his first roles in movies in the 60`s. He is well known in Germany for having done the voice-over for the TV-character ALF. 
It says on the back of the sleeve that he premiered as entertainer April 22, 1974 with a two and a half hour show called “Show about Show”. His first album ” Tommi Piper Entertainer” , produced by Michael Holm, came out in January 1976
“Monotonek” is a parody-version of Carl Douglas`s “Kung Fu Fighting” with changed lyrics in German. This is a comedy record first, that is making fun of the monotonous Disco music and the fancy Disco scene , but musically this is also surprisingly rockin`.
TOMMI PIPER, Billy-Kid-Eye-Joe und die Jungs von der Bronx, 1976
More silly music, but this time I couldn`t find out anything about the artist with the Musketeer moustache. As mentioned on the sleeve Horst Koch recorded at least one full album called “Das Blutbad und andere lustige Lieder” ( The Bloodbath and other funny songs). “Lachen” ( laughter ) is just that: a song about, and mostly consisting of, laughter. The first sentence is:” Och, ist der dick!”, meaning ” Man, he`s fat!”…
Somebody paid 3o Euros for this on eBay recently. Even more recently somebody paid 51 euros! Who are these people? I thought we were in a recession right now!
My own copy is not in a perfect shape and I only paid 50 cents in a thrift store a couple of weeks ago, but I think that`s a little closer to what this record should cost. I mean come on: a song about little green men singing: Bong-Bong-A-Beng-Beng-A-Bing-Bing-A-Bang-A-Bang-A-Bung-Bung-A-Boing…
Great silly music but still primarily SILLY!!! This is silly like crazy! This is music to destroy brain cells with! Music to terrorize your girlfriend/boyfriend with! Well you decide, if that`s worth 51 Euros…
I`m pretty sure nobody will ever pay 50 Euros for this one ( I paid 50 cents). If that last record was silly this is 
stupid. The equivalent to a chauvinistic 60`s Country & Western record. Actually this is a Hillbilly song but a very German one, even sung with a thick Bavarian accent. The lyrics are about swapping wives: a rich old one for a young pretty one. I know it all sounds terrible, but I love it. No information about the artist or the Cartoonist Kurt Franke to be found on the Internet .
Play this at your trendy bar Mr. Trendy 60`s DJ…
My girlfriend is the first and most important person that I ask if I am in doubt about anything. I trust her judgement. She is critical but also very open minded. If I would have shown her this record she would`ve probably shrugged her shoulders and said:”Terrible.” And she would be right. This record is terrible. But so is “Sex and the City”…
Eddie Johnson and his producers tried to coat-tail on the success of “Mr.Cannibal” that I posted last week, throwing in the same ingredients: Mau-Maus, cannibals and a mix of German and English lyrics. And it`s even more racist. But the music is better, Calypso-Beat or is this Ska? Strangely I couldn`t find out anything about Eddie Johnson at all.
However the artist that did the cover is Will Halle. Not the best Berlin cartoonist and not my favorite one but he had that typical simple and effective style that was popular in the 40`s, 50`s and early 60`s. Like his collegues Stenzel and Kossatz, Will Halle was a popular Berlin cartoonist and still is with a older generation of Berliners.
These guys were popular before the internet so I could only find out a few things there: Will Halle`s real name was Erich Will. He was from the town of Halle so he called himself Will Halle. He was born 1905 and either died in 1969 or 1980.
I have been collecting cartoon books for a long time and started to particularly look for Berlin cartoonists since I moved here 11 years ago.
Generally I don`t buy books that were published in Nazi Germany. Anybody who was published during that time was a collaborator. They were published in spite of all the other ( mostly more talented ) people that were persecuted, forced to leave the country or killed. It´s a contaminated time and I don`t want to have books around that carry that spirit.
A while back I had a discussion with fellow Berlin cartoonists who felt that in the case of Olaf Gulbransson, who was published in Nazi Germany, he was innocent because he wasn`t a political person. I disagreed because I think in a dictatorship there is no room for that. You are either a threat or you comply.
I found this book by Will Halle from 1940
in a thrift store for only 2 euros so I picked it up. It has a introduction by Heinz Rühmann, probably the most popular German actor ever. His career spun from the 30`s and 40`s to the 80`s.
The book is called “Das finde ich komisch- Ein Bilderbuch für Erwachsene” ( That`s what I think is funny- A picture book for adults ).
The miracle of alcohol
“Where is the wolf? I want to tear him apart!”
“Playing around”
The short-sighted man
“Excuse me, Professor- I`m the Model!”
The modest rake
” You wouldn`t believe what you can imagine behind there!”
It is not a political book and the humour is not Nazi humour. There are no antisemitic drawings in that book. But some Nazis must`ve laughed about these cartoons. It was published by Nazis in Nazi Germany. Maybe that makes it Nazi Humour?
So I still have a bad feeling about this book that was published when Germany`s brightest people were forced to be silent and thousands went into concentration camps and this guy didn`t think it was wrong to get the Nazi stamp of approval for his funny pictures.
But that goes for a number of Berlin cartoonists like Hans Joachim Stenzel, Hans Kossatz , Ferdinand Barlog and Horst von Möllendorf. They were respected and loved by a wide audience before and after the war.
But whatever, it`s only a simple cartoon sleeve of a silly German 45 from 1966…
Will Halle also did the cover illustration for this single and also designed a follow-up LP sleeve. This one was ADAM and the MICKY`S second single after their first one “Papa”, a parody of Dutch child-star Heintje`s “Mama”, sold 150.00 copies.
Humpta-Beat stuff with silly lyrics in the Hessian dialect for the party crowds at the Karneval. “John Brown`s Vadder” is a parody of John Brown`s Body. Adam und die Micky`s are still playing.
This Will Halle cartoon is from the 1959 anthology “Kleine St(r)icheleien”:
The balcony of the pleasure-lover
This was one of the first records that I thought about when I got the idea for this blog. But when I found out that Bear Family Records had featured it on a obscure CD about Dogs I didn`t want to post it because I wanted to stick with unreleased stuff only.
But why be so strict? Within my initial focus on odd German 45`s with cartoon sleeves this is perfect. “Wer hat meinen Hund gebissen?” ( Who has bitten my dog? ) is a great novelty beat song with nonsense lyrics, nice fuzz-guitar and a little bit of German hump-ta hump-ta…
The same goes for this 45. Pretty odd German stuff complete with a strange cartoon sleeve. Bear Family Records featured it on some CD comp but it`s just too good to let it pass.
Two great novelty beat songs:”Lisbeth”, a parody-version of THE TROGGS Wild Thing and the b-side a cover of They`re coming to take me away-Ha-Haaa! by NAPOLEON XIV both sung in Hessian dialect.
MALEPARTUS II., Ich glaab`, die hole mich ab, ha-haaa!, 1966
“Mr Cannibal” is sung in a mix of German and English:
” Oh, it was only a few years ago, I was a Mau-Mau-Joe in Kenya. I had no troubles with the income-tax or with the other sex in Kenya. And then one day there came a MINISTER so very sinister from BONN. I was so charming to his ASSISTENT she took me to her tent and say: Oh, Mr. Cannibal, FRESS MICH NOCH EINMAL! (eat me one more time!).
And then they took me back to Germany to make a MENSCH of me so fine. They also told me how to eat and drink and use the bathroom sink, so fine. And then we went out to a TANZLOKAL and with a pretty gal I danced and then she let me take her to her home and when I want to go she said: Mr. Cannibal, FRESS MICH NOCH EINMAL!…
And then I went to university to make GENIE (genius)of me, so KLUG (smart). And learn a lot about BIOLOGIE (biology) and then ANATOMIE (anatomy), so KLUG. And then one day the time was up for me and I was so happy to know, tomorrow morning I go home by plane and never hear again these words: Mr. Cannibal…
And now again I am a Mau-Mau-Joe like many years ago in Kenya. And have no troubles with the income-tax and with the other sex in Kenya. And every evening when the moon comes out I have to think about my DEUTSCH. And then the only words that I still know poor little Mau-Mau-Joe are these: Mr. Cannibal…”
( some actual Mau-Mau-Joes from 1957)
“Mister Cannibal” ,a cover of “Monsieur Cannibale” by SACHA DISTEL, reached no. 21 on the German charts in 1966. “Computer Nr.9″ is in a similar off-beat rhythm with some nice 60`s “computer”-sounds…
ANDY FISHER, Mr. Cannibal, 1966
ANDY FISHER, Computer Nr.9, 1966
Somebody from Taiwan recently copied my post. So if ever need a Chinese version of this post go here!
My girlfriend fished this out of a dusty box on one of the rare occasions that we went to a flea market together some years ago. I think both sides are on “Las Vegas Grind” or some other Crypt compilation.
This is the German pressing from 1966 on Golden 12 records. Pretty strange drawing of Alfred E. Newman on the sleeve. Obviously the artist wasn`t familiar with MAD magazine. “It`s a Gas” is a childish twist song interrupted by burping noises. Must have driven the parents nuts to hear it from their kids rooms over and over again…
Rock`n`Roll!
(UPDATE o9/04/ 2009: During our recent stay in the US, I found a copy of the issue of MAD magazine that “It´s a Gas” originally appeared in, at a cool new comic book store calleed Desert Island in Brooklyn. The flexible cardboard record was missing, but it would have been much more expensive with it than the 4 dollars I paid. Painted in watercolor by Norman Mingo, the long-time Mad illustrator who invented the image of Alfred E. Newman.)
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.
