Singles Collection Episode 8: Micky Dolenz vrs. The Vampire! (re-post)

Seeing as how I'm drumming for Micky Dolenz this Saturday night in Bangor, Maine, I felt that I would re-post this special Micky Dolenz edition of the singles collection. This time out it's Micky singing Harry Nilson's "Daybreak" from the 1973 film, "Son of Dracula". Apparently, this was the only original song used in the film. This single is the promo edition which features a different mix than the released version! I have always been a huge fan of this song and Micky sounds amazing on it. Enjoy!

Daybreak MP3

For those of you who are interested in coming this Saturday night, you can check out more about it here.

When Children's Heros Go Disco Part 5

Here's a Super 8 film for "Mickey Mouse Disco". It was released in 1980 and was occasionally shown on television during the early days of the Disney Channel (back when you had to pay for it). Shortly after that it disappeared into obscurity and has yet to be released on DVD.

When Children's Heros Go Disco Part 4

After the huge success that Sesame Street saw with its disco records, the Disney company jumped on the band wagon in 1979 with their own brand of children's disco. The result: Mickey Mouse Disco. As with "Sesame Street Fever", the album included disco-fied versions of Disney classics as well as new songs with a disco beat. Though it was late to the party, the album was fueled by a television ad campaign and as a result, went double platinum! I loved this album! In fact, when I was home from school for an extended sick leave due to chicken pox, I would crank this puppy up on the living room stereo, break out all of my stuffed animals and host my own disco every day! I even had bottles of apple juice that were my "beers" that I would drink "at the disco". (I was kind of a dork) Anyway, here is that album that I still own to this day. Enjoy!

Mickey Mouse Disco

When Children's Heros Go Disco Part 3

Well, after the release of "Sesame Street Fever" and "Sesame Street Disco", we fast forward about 24 years and the world gets to see a remix album made from these records! What's that, you say? A remix album from Sesame Street? Yes, it's true. It happened like this: back when the album was a hit, the record's executive producer, Arthur Shimkin commissioned Larry Levan to do remixes of "C is for Cookie", but they remained unreleased until 2003, when a strange twist of fate occurred. Ninja Tune records was looking to license the track ‘Pinball Number Count’ for the first ‘Now, Listen’ mix CD (these were mix CDs that were released in the 90s). The Pinball song had never been released commercially and was the holy grail for Sesame Street fans and DJs alike. However, the song was not allowed to appear on the album due to worries within the Henson corporation about content on some of the rap tracks on the CD. They thought that it was an unsuitable setting for their material. Instead, Ninja Tune took it upon themselves to make a separate mix containing all Sesame Street songs. It was during a scouring of the Sesame Street archives at their NY offices that they found the unreleased mixes of "C is for Cookie" done all those years ago. As a result, a 12" single was put together with the Pinball song and several different remixes of the Cookie song as well. Here is that find for you now! Here is "Sold Steel presents Sesame Street". Enjoy!

Solid Steel presents Sesame Street

When Children's Heros Go Disco Part 2

Following up on last week's post we have another disco record featuring children's television stars. This time around, it's the sequel to "Sesame Street Fever" entitled, simply, "Sesame Street Disco". Since "Sesame Street Fever" was such a hit, the powers that be decided to release this follow up album the next year. Sesame Disco! is a 1979 Sesame Street album, a follow-up to the previous year's Sesame Street Fever. The big difference here is that most of the songs on the album were written especially for this release, whereas the first disco album was more classic Sesame Street songs put to a disco beat. As with the first album. "Sesame Street Disco" was also nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Recording for Children, but it lost to the soundtrack album of The Muppet Movie. Here is that second disco album brought to you by the letters D-A-R-T-M-A-N. Enjoy!

Sesame Street Disco

When Children's Heros Go Disco Part 1

My son is heavily into Sesame Street. As is the norm, his favorite is Elmo but he does have a fondness for Bert and Ernie, Big Bird and Grover. It pleases me immensely that all of these Sesame Street records that I have collected over the years can actually have a purpose. I play them for him regularly and he even has his own little i-pod with a giant collection of the albums on it. Yesterday we took a listen to a rare gem, "Sesame Street Fever". It was, disco-y but it was still cool since it was the Muppets. I mean, when Henson was alive, the Muppets could do no wrong. (Since his death, they have gone wrong numerous times but that's another post). Anyway, it made me think that there was a rash of disco-related cash ins when the dance fever craze became a sensation. Over the next few days we'll take a look at how that sensation affected the children's market. Today, obviously, we are focusing on Sesame Street Fever. This album came out in 1978 and features disco interpretations of familiar Sesame Street hits. The album's title and cover is an obvious and quite frankly, a hilarious send up of the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack. And speaking of Saturday Night Fever, the Bee Gees' own Robin Gibb appears as a guest vocalist and can also be heard in conversation with Cookie Monster during the introduction to "C is for Cookie". Believe it or not but this album reached #75 on Billboard's album chart and was certified Gold by the RIAA. This album was even nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Recording for Children, but lost to another Henson production; the first cast album from The Muppet Show. As with all disco stuff, once the novelty wears off, you are pretty much done with it. Thankfully, this album is so short that the novelty wears off about the same time the record ends. Here for you now is Sesame Street Fever. Enjoy!

Sesame Street Fever

Faster, Funnier and Wilder

Last year I posted the soundtrack to Clint Eastwood's smash hit film, Every Which Way But Loose. The film, which many people advised Clint not to make because it would ruin his image, was such a huge success that it spawned a sequel entitled, "Any Which Way You Can". I had the pleasure of seeing this film in the theater with my parents and as much as I loved the movie, I couldn't help but love the guy that sat behind us even more. For some reason, whenever there was a fight scene, this guy thought he was in the movie as an extra in the crowd. He was constantly shouting out, "Get him, Philo! Come on! Hit him! Hit him hard!" While some people were obviously annoyed by this display, my father and I found it quite amusing and looked forward to more fight scenes where this young man could display his shouting prowess. An interesting bit of trivia about this film is that , Clyde, Philo's pet orangutan, looks a little bit different in this film than he did in the first. That's because the first Clyde had grown too big and was considered too dangerous to return to film work. So, they hired another orangutan to play the part. (On a sad note, AWWYC's Clyde died two weeks after filming was completed from a brain hemorrhage.) The soundtrack to this film is just as good as the movie and makes a great companion to the first film's soundtrack. Featuring great songs by Glen Campbell, Sondra Locke (still Clint's girl at the time), Fats Domino, Gene Watson, Johnny Duncan and two of my personal favorite songs: "Cow Patty" by Jim Stafford and the classic head scratching duet of Ray Charles and Clint Eastwood, "Bar Room Buddies". Here is that great soundtrack for you now. Enjoy!

Any Which Way You Can OST

Classic Television Episode of the Month: The Partridge Family

Check out this cool episode from the first season! Be on the lookout for the musical performance where David Cassidy's hair switches from long and parted in the middle to cut without bangs and back again!

The Names Behind The Icons

Mental Floss has posted a great article featuring the real names for characters such as Captain Crunch, Barbie and Mr. Clean. Who knew? Check it out!

The Best of The World of Wonder: The Apes Get Funky

This was one of my favorite albums as a kid and it still holds a giant place in my heart today! It's Jeff Wayne's Space Shuttle playing The Theme From Star Trek and The Planet of The Apes. It features funky versions of these tunes as well as the themes from Batman and Superman and a few original tunes that have titles such as "The Ape Planet" and "Beyond The Outer Limits". The first track has a few skips but the rest of the album is in pretty decent shape. Hope you like this as much as I do! Enjoy!

Jeff Wayne's Space Shuttle - Theme From Star Trek

There's A Moon Out Tonight

Keith Moon changed the face of drummers forever. Since "Moon the Loon" appeared on the scene with the legendary group, The Who, the stereotype of the rock and roll drummer has been that of the crazy, out of control, wild child. Even Animal, the Muppet drummer, is based on Keith Moon. Moon was an amazing human being besides the image and was an interesting character as well as an extremely creative drummer. One of Moon's oddest moments was a solo album that he released in 1975. Rather than using the album as a chance to showcase his legendary drumming skill, Moon chose to sing on all the songs, and only played drums on "Crazy Like A Fox", "The Kids Are Alright" and "Move Over Ms. L" In addition to Moon's singing, the album features contributions from Ringo Starr, Harry Nilsson, David Bowie, Joe Walsh, Jim Keltner, Bobby Keys, Klaus Voorman, John Sebastian, Flo & Eddie (Mark Volman & Howard Kaylan of The Turtles), Spencer Davis, Dick Dale and Suzi Quatro's sister Patti Quatro. The idea for a solo album came from Moon's bandmates (John Entwistle and Roger Daltrey) releasing their own albums. The album was widely considered a joke, and received many bad reviews. Moon was not dissuaded by the reviews, and started work on another similar album, which was never finished. Two Sides of the Moon was re-released by Repertoire Records in 1997, including the finished songs that Moon had made for his next album. Two Sides... was again re-released by Castle Music and Sanctuary Records in July 2006, as a two-disc Deluxe Edition, featuring the original 10 songs plus 41 bonus tracks. Here for you now id the original 1975 release of "Two Sides of The Moon" featuring classic cover songs with a twist. In addition to the songs, I've also included the art work for both sides of the album cover. If you don't understand why I am including both, you will once you download "Two Sides of The Moon." Enjoy!

Keith Moon-Two Sides of the Moon

Office Rock

Here's a video clip of the Grass Roots performing "Let's Live For Today" (one of my all time favorite songs) on the Jimmy Durante show. If the blond haired guitarist on the left looks familiar, you might be a fan of The Office. It's none other than Creed Bratton. And believe it or not, his real name is Creed Bratton. Enjoy!

Finally A New Podcast!

I knew it had been a while since I put together a podcast but had no idea it was almost a year ago! I had started this podcast back in July of last year and just finished it last night. It's a special podcast in two ways. First, it features songs from soundtracks of both films and television shows. It's a wide variety of genres and eras so it covers a lot of ground. The other odd thing about this one is that it features absolutely no talking from me whatsoever. Some of you will be pleased to hear that I am sure but at the same time, there is no list of tracks either in print or in the podcast itself. Most of the songs are recognizable and whatever talking there is in the podcast is directly from soundtracks as well. Please enjoy this very special edition of Dartman's Whacky Podcast! Here is Dartman's Whacky Podcast #14: The Soundtrack Edition. Enjoy!

Podcast #14