Board Member Ellie Greenwich Dies

A founding member of the ARChive’s Board of Advisors died today.  With sadness we report the death of songwriter Ellie Greenwich.  Pretty much a recluse for many years now, her great music lives on through classic songs like  “And Then He Kissed Me,” “Da Doo Ron Ron,” “Chapel of Love,” “River Deep, Mountain High” and “Be My Baby.”   She also sang some perfectly silly ones like “Niki Hoeky.”  Her version of this is rockin’.  Do Wah Diddy, she will be missed.

…above LP from the ARC collection :   Ellie Greenwich Composes Produces and Sings. (United Artists, USA, UAS 6648, LP, 1968).

Summertime + the music stories are adequate

• We recently found four Elvis bracelets at a flea market. While the packaging looked right, the bracelets themselves seemed a little iffy. What did these rocks have to do with Elvis? The date is 1956. So maybe “Jailhouse Rocks?” Our pal the internet turned up pics of the backing card and a reason for the diecut. Seems these were originally ‘Dog Tag Bracelets” and those were the cut out words. So someone just attached available bracelets. I hope they are Bakelite and worth much more than any Elvii souvenir. Jon thinks they’re melted bits of old telephones. Regardless, it’s a reminder of how your career can be on the rocks even if you’re tombstoned; this April both Madonna and Mariah buried the King’s record (36) for the most number one singles on the Billboard charts.

• EMI announced today that they have a NEW CEO. Elio Leoni-Sceti comes direct from handling the Woolite and Lysol accounts at Reckitt Benckiser. Qualifications? He’s gonna clean up the music business

Leoni-Sceti says that if the Melvins can make an album called “Lysol,” HE could run a record company!

By the way Reckitt Benckiser refused to give permission for Melvins to use the name, “Lysol” and our copy has black tape over the title. Yep, the right guy for the job.

• Q : Reporters asked A-Rod how he kept so fit, and commented that his unbelievable condition must have a lot to do with diet. Then they asked what was the most harmful thing he’s ever eaten?

8th Grader’s A : Wedding Cake.

Staff A : Madonna

• Speaking of musical snacks (and consumer goods), boxes of dal and curry from Kitchens of India all contain a Classic Indian music CD. I’ve gotten two of the four different titles so far, and, well, they’re tasty. They call the series “Indian Classical Maestros,” and artists include Ustad Bismillah Khan (Shehnai), Ustad Amjad Ali Khan (Sarod), Pt. Tarun Bhattacharya (Santoor), and Dr. Chitti Babu (Veena).

• As you may know we are putting together the NYMIA (launch in the fall) a webthing that will host info on all musical artists and music related businesses in New York. PROOF that it’s worth doing, and the wealth of talent lurking in the concrete underbelly of the Empire State, is the band, Tragedy, who do a metal tribute to the Bee Gees. Recently, Jon and Dan came across their MySpace page. Turns out, they’re taking the soft summer hits of the 1970s and making them very, very metal. Few remember, and this tribute does not help, that the B Boys (ARC has 72 of their releases from around the world) were an experimental band at launch – B. would play them right along Pearls before Swine and the Fugs. Rehear “Bee Gees’ 1st” and see why.

• Rell talk: Dan and Jon have taken John Hodgman’s course on hobo names twice now, and can be properly considered experts in the field. If you’re looking to find names for unidentified hobos mentioned in recordings by the likes of Whale, Jimmy Smith, Gene Autry, Karen & Cubby and John Lee Hooker, Jon and Dan are your guys. Yeeeeah! So, now what? Standby…

• We’ve been doing a lot of scans for the new Grammy Hall of Fame going up in LA. Well, after a while it gets kinda boring. But we did zoom in on a Cream LP to pull this exciting screen saver. Your’s for the taking

And finally, if you are one of the few who have not taken the time to hava look at the “Dancing” video on U-tub [sic] please do so. It is an an example of the good that companies do, in this case a chewing gum concern, oft lives after them. An simple idea taken to the heights.

Dance Fever

File this as Part Two in an examination of the wonderful world of K-Tel as an instrument of dance education. The kids loved Dan’s previous Pop and Lock post featuring Breakdance (K-Tel NU3360) which helped spread the good word about the hip hop revolution way back when. Today we present Disco Fire (K-Tel TU2590) another hot one one from the folks at K-Tel. It’s a double album of top disco hits with instructions in the gatefold on how to do the “Hot Chocolate”. Never heard of this particular dance craze, though I was decidedly in the anti-disco camp when this hit your local bargain bin, so forgive my ignorance if the Hot Chocolate is in fact your all time fave rave. For you disco newbies here are the steps you’ll need to add the Hot Chocolate to your disco line dance arsenal.

And here’s what you’ll look like, with a little practice. Try whistling “The Hustle” while you watch.

Now, boogie down, my funky chickens!

– J.

Doing The Good Day

B. came back from Europe yesterday with all sorts of exciting stories and a stack of great records. One record that caught my eye was this 45 with an instructional picture sleeve about how to do a dance called the “Casatschok”:

As you might imagine by the name, the dance and music has a kind of Cossack vibe to it, but the photos made me think of all the instructional dance-craze records here at ARC, some of which we’ve blogged about before. (BTW, if you were wondering you absolutely CAN see the Casatschok on YouTube! If you click here, you can see some old footage of Los Tontos doing a highly choreographed version of it; clicking here will get you a modern, far less choreographed clip of it “in the wild.”) So, with Casatschoking fresh in my head, it was cool to look up in the subway this morning and find instructions for a new dance – a morning dance – called the “Good Day”:

The Good Day is a dance advertising Fox 5 News NY’s morning show featuring Jodi Applegate, Mike Woods and Ron Corning (they’re in that order on the poster, BTW). If you want to see the Good Day in action, you can click here to see all sorts of clips of it. Nice, right? However, there’s a problem with the poster! It only shows three moves and according to the Fox 5’s own instructional videos, the Good Day can have up to FOUR. So, if there’s anyone out there with the skills of an artist, would you make and print out a few “spin” moves that match the subway instructional, get out there and tape them up so that straphangers will actually know how to DO the dance? I go home on the 7 train, and it’d be great to see some on my way home tonight, so get to work!

To recap: The Good Day. It’s not the Dutty Wine. It’s not even the Soldier Boy (Who’s Soldier Boy? And what in the heck is that dance?). But if we all work together, we can take this Good Day dance worldwide. Who’s with me?

- dtn

Pop and Lock

The ARChive is a deep and wonderful place. As I was sorting through the children’s section for the records I wrote about yesterday, I came across these two gems, both from 1984 and I just had to share. First, we have Break Dancin’ For Fun and Fitness (Atlantic 80187-1)

It’s a gatefold talk-over instructional album that “teaches” people how to break dance, and it has photos of all the moves to back it up. There’s even a primer about learning how to speak the lingo. It features members of the Big Apple Breakers, the Furious Rockers and there to “explain it all” is Rodanne “Rosey Rose” Hoare, “Superstar Choreographer of New York’s famed Roxy Disco.” It’s not exactly the most thrilling record I’ve ever heard – maybe best described as “of its time.” I can only imagine what one of Rosey’s classes in 1984 might have looked like. (Headbands and leg warmers, anyone?)

Second, we have Breakdance (K-Tel NU3360) which promised the “Best Music for Breakdancing,” and invited any and all to “Learn to Moonwalk, Electric Boogie, Footwork, Headspin & Top-Rock.” It is a far hipper album. Side one has some great music on it (incl. “Rockit,” and “Wheels of Steel”) while the B-side – the one with all the instruction – is artfully done and listenable on its own. There’s even a warning to parents and the physically infirm, as well as contact information for the New York City Breakers Fan Club (send c/o Hip Hop International, Inc).

1984 was when kids like me growing up outside of New York City would have first become more aware of break dancing, and records like these were part of that early promotional wave. It’s kind of great to come across them again.

BTW, click on the images and you’ll get bigger, better versions. Ones you can actually read!

dtn

ps. if you like the records that teach you how to dance, click here for an instructional LP from K-Tel on how to do the Hot Chocolate!