THE McWHITES, Sloopy Poopy, 1965

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.

Anyway,  a funny combination of words:

THE McWHITES, Sloopy Poopy, 1965

THE McWHITES, Satisfaction, 1965

THE BLUE CATS, Hang On Sloopy, 1965

THE McWHITES, New Orleans, 1965

THE BLUE CATS, Balla Balla, 1966

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:

THE BLUE CATS, Balla Balla, 1966

THE BLUE CATS, Ju Ju Hand, 1966

JAMES MORRIS, Yesterday Man, 1966

THE STARS, Get Off Of My Cloud, 1966