What is it about nice people that attract total idiots?Nice people are martyrs. Idiots are evangelists.

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Friday, September 30, 2016

Time Machine week 92



So we have landed on the uneventful day of September 30th, 1969- so uneventful that I Googled for 20 pages and the best I got was the prototype Concorde broke the sound barrier for the first time, and the UK islands of Jersey and Guernsey issued their very first postage stamps.



And that is basically what they looked like.  I was disappointed, expecting something more on the lines of:

...but whadda I know?  Welcome to this week's Time Machine, where we get:  A dirty story in the UK 10;  a new hit by a band that has one #1 to their credit on the M10; and we ask the question: "Who are Chet and Jackie Powers, Dino Valenti (or Valente), and Jesse Orris (or Otis) Farrow, and what do he, she, or they have to do with Barbarella?"  We aren't mailing in this one- strap in and let's go!


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The gang this week includes KIRL St Charles MO, WSNY Schenectady NY, WPOP Hartford, WCOL Columbus OH, WGBA Columbus GA, WTRU Muskegon, WABC New York, WSGN Birmingham, WSRF Ft Lauderdale, KJR Seattle, WIXZ Pittsburgh, and KIMN Denver.  They racked up 29 different songs this week- including the Hot 100 low charter Evie Sands with Any Way That You Want Me (which Birmingham had at #1, despite sitting #77 nationally) and the even lower charter of Isaac Hayes' version of Walk On By (which Birmingham- again- had at #5 despite being #128 on Cashbox's national chart).  Others, like Ms Sands, who got #1 votes but missed the Panel 4 include the Rascals and Carry Me Back (St Charles), the Rugbys and You, I (Ohio), Peggy Lee's Is That All There Is (Georgia), and Nilsson's Everybody's Talking (Florida).


The race itself was tight 2/3s of the way through, with the eventual #2 having a 5-point lead- until the #2 song at the time hit #1 on the last three stations to win by 7!  The Panel picks:

At #4 with no #1s but 14 points, the national #2- the Stones and Honky Tonk Women.

At #3, with the #1 vote from Hartford and 21 points, the national #4... Shady, turn your head here... Bobby Sherman and Little Woman.

At #2, with the #1 from Muskegon and 24 points- but only three on those last three stations, a 15-3 collapse worthy of the '69 Cubs- the national #5, Oliver's Jean.

And playing the part of the New York Mets, with 5 #1s and 31 points, the national top dog as well... stay tuned.


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Oh, and the "how low can you go" crowd this week:

At #101, CSNY with Suite: Judy Blue Eyes.  Oh wait, scratch the Y, Neil was off on his own on that one.

At # 131, a song the Nuns taught us at St Louis Besancon in second or third grade- Original Castle with One Tin Soldier.

At #142, a song that's come up a few times around here, Crow's Evil Woman (Don't You Play Your Games With Me).

At #144- and on it's first, less successful attempt at the American charts- Jethro Tull's Living In The Past.

And the lowest of the low that I know (or at least have heard)- at #147, Rick Nelson and his Stone Canyon Band with She Belongs To Me.

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Okay, show of hands, all of you that knew Duran Duran got their name from the character Dr Durand Durand in the film Barbarella?

Okay, so Jane had ONE thing going for her...


One of the stars in this cult classic was Anita Pallenberg, lover to 40% of the Rolling Stones at one point and one of the "woo, woo" voices on their hit Sympathy For The Devil.  Another of those voices was piano man Nicky Hopkins, who in addition to doing time with both the Stones and the Kinks, was in the equally-cult band Quicksilver Messenger Service.  And here is where the crowd of names I mentioned at the beginning comes in.  Was it four people?  Six?  Actually just one- real name Chet Powers, the driving force of QMS as well as a former lifelong carny, who picked up musical talents from his Dad at a young age.  He even tried the Air Force once, but his psych exam noted while he had a lot of potential, he had little patience with the USAF not doing things his way, and was asked politely to leave.  Chet, who buddy David Crosby once said, "could write a song on the way to the bathroom," was the author of the song that sat at #11 on CB this week but got ignored by the Panel- the Youngbloods' hit Get Together.


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And coming into the M10 at #9 this week- new Lucius!!!!!!!!!!!!






In all honesty, I have my work cut out for me in the next few weeks, as I can see no less than four songs on the M10 with a shot at number one- and (he said with a smirk) oddly enough, they sit at #s 9, 7, 5, and 3 this week!


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Okay, well he may be Scottish, but that's close enough, so let's have Peter Capaldi give us a bit of inspiration this week:




"Shouting at people keeps you alive, healthy, young, fresh. "

I'll have to remember to use that one at work!  In the meantime, let's...





10- Here it was a 4-week number one in August- Zager and Evans and In The Year 2525.

9- Sitting at #23 back home, Bob Dylan and Lay Lady Lay.

8- It peaked in the top 40 just a few weeks back- Mama Cass covering the Beatles on It's Getting Better.

7- Cliff Richard, along with former Shadow guitarist Hank Marvin, and Throw Down A Line, which didn't chart here.

6- Here, Oliver was in the top ten with a different tune- Good Morning Starshine, which had already made the top 3 back in July.

5- Two weeks ago, the Bee Gees peaked at #63 in the states with the unheeded warning Don't Forget To Remember.

4- It was at #13 this week back home- Johnny Cash and A Boy Named Sue.

3- Here comes our dirty story.  This song was sung in French by Jane Birkin (for whom the Birkin Bag was named- no, seriously) and Serge Gainsbourg- a song he wrote for then girlfriend Brigitte Bardot, but then dedicated and sang with Jane when they became an item.  It was called Je T'Aime... Moi Non Plus, which translates to I Love You... Me Neither.  Now the dirty part comes in when people started figuring out the lyrics.  One of the first was the original record company, Fortuna, which yanked the single from further production.  But another label called MajorMinor picked it up- but as a result, it found itself competing with itself, thus peaking here at #3 for MajorMinor while simultaneously charting at #16 for Fortuna- even though the only thing that changed was the label.

So, being me, I had to find out what the offensive lyric was.  Well, the first "translation" I found had a line that went something like "lying between your back".  Curious, I dug deeper to a blog that actually took the time to analyse what Serge was trying to say.  The word the crap translation took as "back" has a plethora of meanings centered around, shall we say, the female genitalia- ovaries, kidneys, and groin were all acceptable translations- and thus, why the record got banned to a certain extent.




2- The funny thing, we have a version of this song by Tom Jones in the US of A at #6 this week, and the definitive version was Dionne Warwick which also hit number 6

******* MISTAKE ALERT***** MISTAKE ALERT*********

(This is an interruption by the Idiocy Prevention Bureau, who notes that Jones' hit was a completely different song.  We now return you to your UK top ten.)


*******MISTAKE ALERT******MISTAKE ALERT*********


(Couldn't just tell me so I could erase it, could you?)  Ah, yes, well the version in question- which is the Bacharach/David comp that Dionne did, I'll Never Fall In Love Again- is at #2 in the UK for Bobbie Gentry.

And Tops of the Pops?




CCR, with a song that peaked here in June, Bad Moon Rising!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


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And now, the M10.

Dinosaur Jr hangs on for one more week, slipping to #10 with Tiny.

The Monkees with Davy Jones singing Love To Love rise a pair to #8.

Agnes Obel and Golden Green move 2 to #7.

At #6-



Shakes slips from 1 to 6 with Strange Tides.  Laurie asked if that was the steepest fall from #1 on the M10.  Answer, no- tied for second.

The Explorers Club up 2 (a pattern develops) to #5 with their second hit, Quietly.

Castlecomer holds at #4 with Judy- one point away from being the biggest hit of their 4 M10 songs.

Shakes again, moving up (you guessed it) 2 spots to #3 with Tranquilize.

Keane may end up being the 11th song on the M10 to peak at #2, but they are enjoying it there- moving back up a spot to make it three weeks out of four.

And the #1s?  M10 Says:



...Dent May with Face Down In The Gutter Of Your Love!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

And, Panel says...



The Archies and Sugar Sugar!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!


Next time, meet me in October 1962- for real this time!

6 comments:

  1. Hi, Chris!

    September 30, 1969, was berry berry good to me. I vividly recall hopping on a plane and flying to the UK that day to be the first in line to buy those postage stamps. :)

    Any radio station that played records by blue-eyed soul songstress Evie Sands was super cool. Evie was one of the most underrated singers & songwriters of the 60s and I've got her best recordings in the pipeline on SDMM. The Rascals = more great blue-eyed soul and "Carry Me Back" is a terrific slab that I haven't heard in ages.

    Bobby Sherman - Isn't he the rowdy rocker who used to bite the head off a live chicken and set his electric guitar on fire at the end of his stage shows?

    Re: "Jean" I must ask this question. Why, Oliver... why???

    Crow's "Evil Woman (Don't You Play Your Games With Me)" is a killer recording. I love Music Mike's Y/T channel. If you have time, please humor me and watch this informative intro by Mike:

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2X5t_CAdGU

    UK thrush Billie Davis waxed a fine cover of Jetrho Tull's "Living in the Past." It's coming up on station SDMM so don't cheat and listen to it now. I already posted Rick Nelson and his Stone Canyon Band with "She Belongs To Me" - another great record in a year of music that really didn't suck much at all.

    The Youngbloods' "Get Together" was one of the "anchor songs" used in the motivational seminars I attended in the 80s. I used it in a 60 minute documentary I produced featuring highlights from one of the week-long events.

    I enjoyed the track by Indie band Lucius feat. lead ZINGER Holly Laessig.

    "2525," "It's Getting Better," "Good AM Starshine" - I owned all of these on 45. (If I owned them it means I liked them.)

    "A Boy Named Sue" was climbing the chart and hot on the radio around the time I was finishing up my summer vacay from college and working for a sewer contractor. I dug ditches, steam cleaned bulldozers and back hoes, applied sealant to roofs of warehouses in 100 degree heat, painted barns and even mowed lawns - anything the boss man needed done. I was darned happy when classes resumed and I could finally tell him to "take this job and..."

    "Bad Moon Rising" is probably my least favorite CCR song. When I worked at that MTV station my boss lady informed me that she loved the song and insisted I use it in a station promo I was putting together. Me no likey!

    Thanks, Chris, and have a Scrappy weekend!

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    1. Can't say I have the Jersey stamps, but once I got a French Indochina stamp in a trade for a goofy US Zip Code stamp...


      I liked Evie when I listened to it, and the Rascals were good if they didn't quite fire my imagination. I wish I could figure out a pipeline deal with the M10. I'm thinking of dropping TM altogether for an m15, but that prolly isn't happening any time soon. The problem really isn't the amount of songs, it's having 7 songs you want to cram into three slots!


      Sherman: No, he's that dopey kid with the PhD dog...

      I am actually subscribed to Music Mike's posts. He is great! I think I first ran into him a long time back trying to hear the Four Seasons' And That Reminds Me.

      I promise- no cheating!

      It's funny how songs heard at certain times get different reactions. You still liked Cash despite the work connotations, and the CCR song went the other way (although I don't know if it was your lesser favorite before the gig or because of it.) If you remember a couple of weeks back I mentioned not liking Heart's Barracuda because of being in the hospital at the time I first heard it- and yet, during the very same time in Parkview, I heard Bad Time by Grand Funk for the first time, and it remains an all time favorite... go figure, huh?

      AND breaking news, I KNOW what the TM100 celebration will be! I have "invited" some close friends to join us- you know, Mick and Keith, John and Paul, Brian and Mike, and that scrawny kid from Tupelo. Stay tuned for more details!

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  2. The song by Lucius was like getting my teeth pulled. Well, maybe not that bad, but I couldn't resist saying it. Will I be the only one with that low blow joke?

    My friend Marvin introduced me to "J'Taime moi non Plus" back when it first came out. The suggestive sounds of the vocalists didn't need much in the way of translation to figure this song out. I still like it.

    Arlee Bird
    Tossing It Out

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    1. I'm listening to Pulling Teeth as I type this! I do hop you are unique on the joke, lol!

      I liked the first part of J'Taime too... I got a little less enthralled as it got a bit breathy towards the end.

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  3. I was a bit of a Duran Duran fan back in the 80s and I didn't know that bit of trivia about Barbarella. :)

    And that quote: "Shouting at people keeps you alive, healthy, young, fresh. " - ah, yes. There are days when I want that to be true. At least it must be true at sporting events when we're cheering, right?

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  4. Chris:
    I like YOUR stamp better...lol.

    The panel picks (sans #1) were something. (sorry, I'll take Bobby Sherman over Oliver's JEAN, painful as that might be.)
    ---One Tin Soldier AND Suite: Judy Blue Eyes dwelling on the bottom? News to me.
    ---Knew the Duran Duran reference (even if I only saw Barberella a handful of times (and never in the theater, thank God).
    ---That was a really good Chet Powers story. never knew that. Get Together - staple song of the era.
    ---Lucius - good song. Always appreciate a tune I can pick out the lyrics to on the first pass.
    ---I've been practicing that Capaldi quote most ALL of my adult life (without even knowing it)...NOW, I know why...heh.
    ---Okay, THAT song by Oliver I liked.
    That is one interesting dirty story...LOL - love the "Idiocy Prevention Bureau"...!
    And, it seems the year 2525 is closer than we realize, but I digress...
    ---Finally a CCR tune - sweet!
    ---Shakes is competing with itself on the M10.
    ---Dent May and the Archies - two groups I never thought I would see in the same spot on the CWM-TM.

    Very good ride this week.
    (didn't have to use the wipers, either)

    And do keep those hits comin' from up there, brother.

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