DIE CANDY KIDS, Youpi-youpi, 1962

Posted: August 26, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 60s, Twist Records | 4 Comments

“Youpi-Youpi was a bandit who lived deep down in the forest that´s why his feet always got cold in the wintertime. One day he caught a cold and went into hiding but when he had to sneeze he was found. Youpi-youpi was taken to court and hanged. La la, la la la, la la, la la la. A bandit´s life is not easy. “

DIE CANDY KIDS, Youpi-youpi, 1962

What a sweet little bedtime story, told in rapid twist time by these 12 year olds. The Candy Kids were Dutch-Indonesian brothers Reggie and Raymond Berghahn who first appeared as special guests  of Amsterdam Rock´n´Roll group the Strangers who later changed their name into Danny Angel and the Crescents. From 1961 to 1963 the Candy Kids  managed to record twelve 45´s including two German releases.

There are a couple of photos showing the kids together with the Crescents in this video:

I gathered all this information from the essential Dutch Indorock website. If you don´t already know it, check it out. It is in Dutch but it´s worth  for the really cool photos and record covers alone.


DIE LUCKY STARS, Ananas, 1961

Posted: August 26, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 60s | 1 Comment

“I don´t want bananas and I don´t want oranges. All I wish for is pineapples. It is a treat, almost as sweet as a kiss. From morning to night,  all I want is pinapples, pineapples, pineapples.”

Exotic fruit like pineapple (Ananas) was  still a big deal in 1961 in Germany so it was only logical to have the Lucky Stars dedicate a whole song to this new sensation.  I couldn´t find any information about these girls or about the original version of the song.  Is it  Phil Harvey´s Willy Boy song recorded by Phil Spector for Imperial in 1959?

All I know is that if I would be in advertising today and needed a song to sell pineapple,  I´d use this one…

DIE LUCKY STARS, Ananas, 1961

TEROSON, Please Hold The Line, 1966

Posted: August 18, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 60s, Flexible Records, Promotional Records | 2 Comments

I pretty much buy any flexible record I can find,  if they are cheap and they usually are and they should be because they were free giveaways to begin with, only used to make people buy some silly product. No matter how rare they are,  I would never pay real money for any of them. The music on most of these records is pretty lame and the advertising is… well, old.  Still, some of the sleeves do look real nice and as silly as that might be, I do buy a lot of records just because they look nice and if they´re as thin as a flexi-disc I can always cram them in somewhere.

This flexible record advertising for Teroson auto polish surprised me however because of the FUZZ GUITAR  that suddenly appears out of nowhere and disappears just as fast. Herman and his gang  sure played a mean fuzz guitar and a pretty squeaky organ too…

TEROSON, Please Hold The Line, 1966

“My Beautiful Car” sounds exactly like Sloop John B. and I bet they never paid the Beach Boys any royalties for it either…

TEROSON, My Beautiful Car, 1966

TEROSON, Eine amüsante Plauderei an der Tankstelle, 1966

PETER LORENZ, Programm der Berliner CDU, 1971

Posted: August 18, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 70´s, Flexible Records, Political Records, Promotional Records | Leave a comment

Peter Lorenz was the first German politician that was ever kidnapped . His kidnapping also marked the first and last time that a German government would comply to the demands of the kidnappers.

From Wikipedia:

In 1975 Lorenz was candidate for mayor of West Berlin. He was kidnapped by the terrorist group Movement 2 June three days before the elections on 27 February. The terrorists demanded a release of several imprisoned group members, including Horst Mahler, one of the founders of the Red Army Faction (RAF) and future RAF terrorists Verena Becker, and Rolf Heissler. Mahler refused to be exchanged but the other prisoners were set free.

After the militants had been flown out to Aden, South Yemen, Lorenz was set free on 4 March.

One of the freed prisoner – Rolf Heißler – became a member of the group which abducted  Hanns-Martin Schleyer in 1977 to exchange him for imprisoned RAF members. After the operation had failed, Schleyer was killed. Heissler was one of his two murderers.

I bought this record a while ago in a thrift store in the street that I live in. Strangely the place where Peter Lorenz was held hostage in for six days in the spring of 1975, a basement of a store-front in the Schenkendorfstr. 7, is only a block away from my place. I walk on that street every day. Back then this area of Kreuzberg was a poor run-down working class district, that would later be the fighting-ground of parts of the squatters movement. Incidentally the same state-owned corporation that was pushing the redevelopment of this part of Kreuzberg in the late 70´s and early 80´s is keeping it from complete gentrification today. At least in my house none the residents have moved out in the last 13 years.

The Schenkendorfstrasse No.7 today:

On this one-sided flexi-disc Peter Lorenz  can be heard speaking in a friendly slightly local Berlin accent. Campaigning for the 1971 Berlin elections to become mayor of Berlin he  talks about building better housing and reasonable rents for everybody. Even the terrorists were said to have been surprised that the supposedly evil conservative politician they kidnapped was a regular and nice guy. Peter Lorenz died in 1987.

Peter Lorenz, CDU-Werbung, 1971

(Ein kleiner Artikel über diese Schallplatte, Berlin Beatet Bestes Folge 57, erschien am 5. August 2010 in der Jungle World. Zu finden online  hier.)

ÜETLI-DUO, Schnaaggi-Schaaggi, 1962

Posted: August 12, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 60s, Cartoon Sleeves, Promotional Records, Switzerland, World | Tags: , , | 2 Comments

Usually in the summer my girlfriend and I try to spend at least a couple of weeks on vacation somewhere where it´s nice and sunny. This time it was only one week in Zurich.  And from every trip I bring back records but my girlfriend really hates thrift stores, flea markets and actually any old junk, so I try to keep the time spent with that to a minimum. Her dislike also shows me what a strange pleasure it is to dig though dark and dusty stores, instead of enjoying the sunny life outside. If  it wouldn´t be for her, I´d probably spent my whole vacation  getting my hands dirty in old boxes.

Thanks to her we spent the days exploring the city and swimming in the Zurich lake. We also went to see The Jackets, a great Swiss  garage band, at the Rote Fabrik and met Lurker Grand, author of Hot Love, the most comprehensive book on the early Swiss punk scene (1976-1980). Hot Love, a coffe-table size book with tons of  full-page photos of  punk bands, records, flyers and even self-made punk clothing, really is a graphic masterpiece. Lurker is  currently working on a follow-up book on the Swiss Post-Punk scene of the 80´s.

The Swiss equivalent to a charity shop is a Brockenhaus. These Brockis are great because, unlike a lot of stuff in Switzerland,  they are cheap and, like everything  the Swiss people do,  very well organised. I always find lots of  cool records there. Maybe not the rare punk material that is mentioned in Hot Love,  but you can find that at the Good bad Music for bad, bad Times Blog here, here , here and here.

This record is a advertising for the new electrical train up to Uetli mountain, close to Zurich. The Schnaaggi-Schaaggi was the old steam train that operated until 1962. It´s running again in the summer months and I hope to make it up there the next time I visit Zurich.

So, listen to the old steam train and take a Cha-Cha-Cha-Trip with the Schnaaggi-Schaaggi…

ÜETLI-DUO, Schnaaggi Schaaggi, 1962

ÜETLI-DUO, Nimm´s gmüetli uf de Üetli, 1962

HAWAII TRIO- HORST BUSCH, Aloha Oe, 1961

Posted: August 12, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 60s, Hawaiian Records, Instrumental Records, Switzerland, World | 3 Comments

Another record I bought in Zurich in August at a Brocki for 50 Rappen, about 40 Cents. In the early 60´s Hawaiian music was popular all over the world, even in Switzerland. The Horst Busch Trio played  German Framus guitars, at one time the biggest guitar producer in Europe. Besides that I couldn´t find anything about this group at all…

HAWAII TRIO- HORST BUSCH, Aloha Oe, 1961

HAWAII TRIO- HORST BUSCH, Isle Of Bali, 1961

HAWAII TRIO- HORST BUSCH, Blume von Hawaii, 1961

HAWAII TRIO- HORST BUSCH, Tahiti Love Song, 1961

LAYA RAKI UND DIE SCHOCK-KINGS, Oh Johnny hier nicht parken, 1963

Posted: August 12, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 60s, Twist Records | Leave a comment

Laya Raki was born in Hamburg in 1927 and started her career as an exotic dancer in the late 40´s and early 50´s.  She appeared in various German films until she went to England in the mid-50´s and became one of the most popular pin-up girls of the era. She continued to play in British and American movies and on TV into the late 60´s,  mostly in seductive supporting roles. Laya Raki probably still is the most glamorous person ever to come from Hamburg. Of the long list of films she appeared in I sadly couldn´t find any  clips to post here.

Probably inspired by the success of the equally sexy Nora Nova, who recorded the great quasi-feminist twist songs “Ich bin kein Engel – Ich bin ein Biest” (I´m not an angel-I´m a beast) and “Männer gibt´s wie Sand am Meer” (Men are a dime a dozen) in 1963,  Laya Raki took her twist song “Oh Johnny hier nicht parken” (Oh, Johnny don´t park here) even further. It sounds like Johnny is not supposed to park on her. It is the most sexually charged German twist song ever recorded. Although it sounds tame today, I´m not surprised that in 1964 it was ” banned by a Nuremberg court who thought her ecstatic moaning was imitating coitus“. Indulging in all the saucy lyrical details and Laya Raki´s appearance, the German spiegel magazine pretty much echoed the German society´s moral double standards in an article of April 22, 1964, on  the various  court decisions the “Johnny-song” aroused.

Her backing band the Schock-Kings recorded another telling 45 for the Carina label: “Lady Chatterley” and the  suggestive “Adele”.

This  45 looked quite dirty and dusty when I bought it at a Brocki in Zurich for 50 Rappen and it didn´t have a sleeve but once I cleaned  it, it played well…

LAYA RAKI UND DIE SCHOCK-KINGS, 1963

LAYA RAKI UND DIE SCHOCK-KINGS, Faire L´amour, 1963

DIE SCHOCK-KINGS, Das war die Lady Chatterley, 1962

Posted: August 12, 2010 | Author: | Filed under: 60s, Adult | Leave a comment

By today´s standards the Schock-Kings are not the least bit shocking. “Lady Chatterley” is reducing the famous literary original to a tale of female desire. The flip “Adele” , is a little more raunchy, leaving it to the listener to fill in words like: “dicks”, “cunt”, “fucking”  and “shit”(?). All of this accompanied by the most awul Oom-pah-music imaginable. As I´ve written before, risqué Oompah-music was very popular in Germany in the 1960´s. There were hundreds of groups playing and recording this thinly veiled, insinuating party-music.

The small Carina label from Frankfurt mostly produced German Schlager and “Stimmungsmusik” but also the long-running rock´n´roll group “Fats and his Cats”.

DIE SCHOCK-KINGS, Das war die Lady Chatterley, 1962

DIE SCHOCK-KINGS, Adele, 1962

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