KBGA just had it’s annual Birthday Bash and on this, their 12th birthday, they had a 50’s theme party. You bet I was glad to DJ, offering up my old-school rock & roll records. Heck, some boppers even got up and danced.

Photo courtesy of Niki Payton, CDB Records

People had on some pretty slick get-ups, and the greasers fully represented. Here’s some more shots of some stylish folks:
KBGA Missoula’s Photos - BIRTHDAAAAY BASH

Thanks to the headliner, Monotonix, the night ended up being quite possibly the greatest night of Rock & Roll I’ve ever experienced. The Bugs went on after I played this here DJ set, but I think I lost a bit of respect for them (not really) when they yelled over the mic, “Fuck the fifties.” People in the fifties were the first to actually rock - actually Rock and Roll - and for the most part I don’t think anybody has really rocked that much harder since then, until Monotonix.

Be sure to see all the photos and footage of the wild night over at my new home site: Monotonix Wreak Havoc at KBGA’s Birthday Bash

Unfortunately, due to a bad setting, I didn’t get a good recording of the tag-team set Collin and I did before Monotonix, which worked the crowd into a frenzy. Ok, well, not really. They were bored and impatient, so they probably would have danced to anything. Anyway, here’s my set. Sorry, no Buddy Holly, no Duane Eddy, but nevertheless, enjoy.

Set List:

I usually only present to you here oldschool vintage vinyl, but I’m making an exception for this newly released, yet instantly timeless album. The music of Miss Rebel is so inline with my nostalgic old-western mindset as of late, that this record literally hasn’t left my turntable in the couple weeks since I’ve owned it – with the exception of flipping it from A side to B side and back.

It wasn’t really coincidence that I was horribly hung-over when I first listened to this record (I had purchased it from Lana the night before at the peak of my high on Total Fest), but upon hearing the hung-over heartache in her own lonely voice, it couldn’t have been more appropriate that I was. When you listen to this record, if you’re not awakening squint-eyed and melancholic to the Sunday afternoon sun, you just might yearn to be; Lana’s languid and lulling cowgirl crooning provides a sentimental comfort in the blues.

Lana, herself, describes the music simply as, “Shed those tears, baby. It’ll be all right.”

Hear more from Lana herself:
http://lanarebel.com
http://myspace.com/lanarebel

Available on Missoula’s own Wäntage USA Records:
Read Wäntage’s review, then Buy the album

‘Loneliest Love Song’ on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cxdKq_tBuq4

BBC Coverage of Lana Rebel, and Juanita Family:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/collective/A4138986
http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio1/onemusic/huw/juanitafamily.shtml

Where it all started for Lana:

Little Lana, her sister and cousin at a rehearsal for Honeysuckle Rose.

My dad was a crew member during the filming of Honeysuckle Rose. My first trip on an airplane took us out to Austin for a few weeks where we stayed with Dad at the hotel, and got to meet the band and cast. Pretty neat. I remember dancin on my dad’s feet at that rehearsal. And Paul English riding up on his motorcycle. They were teaching Amy Irving some of the songs for the film. Everyone was so sweet to us. I remember my mom being really happy about how humble they all were, and kind to the crew families. A virtue that I can certainly apreciate now that I’m grown up. Thanks Willie and Family! Thanks, Mom and Dad!

Little Lana, sister, mom, and Willie.

MISS LANA REBEL
ALL I NEED

12″ LP WAN050
Wäntage USA Records

The album itself is a collector’s item. Only 208 LPs were printed, each numbered and autographed. The beautiful album art was created by Lana herself, and is complete with a handcrafted lyric sheet, full of even more hand-drawn rustic cowboy scenes. From the raw paperboard construction to the hand-stamped spines, this album has a unique DIY, yet very professional flavor.

Credits

–

All songs written by Lana Rebel, © 2007
except “Purify” written by Rev. James Jordan, © 2007

Recorded Feb. 2007 at
Stereo Disguise Recording Laboratories
by Pall Jenkins – San Diego, CA
Produced by Pall Jenkins and Lana Rebel
Mastered by Rafter Roberts

Tracklisting

Side B:
1. Road Song (2:32)
2. Purify (3:16)
3. Blue Song (3:36)
4. Yes Is Better Than No (3:15)
5. All I Need (5:04)

New York Stock Exchange:: Heart Attacks:↑ 2 3/4 || Mental Illness: SPLIT 3/1 || Ulcers:↑ 1 || General Chaos:↑ 1/4 || Great Society:↓ 5

Set List:

Artie Resnick likes to tell the tale of how he wrote the Young Rascals’ “Good Lovin’ ” in twenty minutes. Here, with his wife and Joey Levine, he went into the studio and constructed a group called the Third Rail, which had a hit record named “Run Run Run” that never let its social significance get in the way of good solid humor. A winner from the summer of 1967, and when, pray tell, else?

It should be rad enough that I present to you here the “Waylon Jennings of Yugoslavia,” but I hope you’ll find what has prompted me to make this lengthy (if not epic) post to be especially interesting.

I might possibly be the only one who’s given this album air-time on American radio, at least in the past couple decades. I’ve included it in several sets on KBGA, and even gave it a spin at a live DJ outing recently. Not long after posting the recording of that set [Z!080318RE2 - No Good Woman], being at the top of limited google results for the album, I was contacted by one James Jajac, whose father photographed the album cover.

Close-up of back cover of Vraćam Se Kući LP, photograph by Dragutin Jajac

My father was living in Astoria at the time and he used to shoot pictures of his friends band “Time.” He was friends with the guitarists Boris and Ernest. There were a lot of Yugoslavians immigrating to Astoria at the time and so venues began to spring up to meet the need. One such bar, on 44th street and Broadway, called “Turn Hall” was where a lot of Yugoslavian bands would play. Many of these musicians were the older singers of Jugoton records. My father says that Maki was the opening act (and/or host) for many of these established singers, and this is how he got noticed and eventually landed his record deal. He says that there was a lot of buzz about his Jugoton contract; apparently it must have been quite a good one. Jugoton at the time was looking for some new blood, and this was an album that, I suppose, was meant to appeal to both the immigrated Yugoslavians and the people back home. The title of the album translates to “I am coming back home.”

The album cover was trying to convey life in America and, going along with the title, some sort of transport (though to my knowledge the subway doesn’t stop in Croatia). The cowboy costume may have had a tongue-in-cheek aspect to it, or maybe not, but the image of a cowboy is still very much a symbol of America. They shot pictures of Maki as a cowboy, in central park with some horse carriages, and with corvettes, but the shots of him on the subway and on the train tracks created a more unified concept: the NYC skyline with the United Nations in the background, the cowboy, the subway covered in graffiti, and this immigrated singer laid out on the train tracks with a Jugoton contract under his belt. I suppose it is a success story. He came to America to escape oppression, maybe poverty, and now he is coming back home!

Another note: My father accidentally left his camera case in the cover shot! You can spot the small black case behind Maki’s legs. Thankfully it is hardly noticeable. He says he did so because it wasn’t the safest neighborhood at the time and he wanted to keep all of his equipment together, but he forgot to move it out of the way once they began shooting.

My father worked for United Press International (UPI), shooting pictures, but mostly color printing. After working for many photo labs fixing and repairing equipment, he eventually came to co-manage his own photo lab in NYC at (the second coming of) Larson color labs. He was well known for the quality of his prints and was chosen specifically by many photographers to print the images for their gallery shows. He took great pride in the quality of his work and fortunately that did not go unnoticed. Thats my father, Dragutin Jajac. Most people know him as DRAGO.

Džo Maračić Maki : Vraćam Se Kući LP, with sleeve from Jerry’s Records in Pittsburgh.

This record came into my possession about a year ago. I was working at Record Heaven in Missoula when a Mr. Brian McDermot interviewed me for an article about record collecting in Montana. The Vintage Vinyl Revival radio show ended up being featured in that article. Learning of my eclectic taste, Brian promised to score me a couple of oddball records when he was back home in Pittsburgh. He was looking forward to hitting up Jerry’s Records in particular. This Yugoslavian import is one of the records he brought back for me.

Jerry’s hand-scrawled description pokes a little lighthearted fun, likening this foreigner to Waylon Jennings – decked out in his best “American Cowboy” getup, complete with chaps, sheriff’s badge and “pistol.” I called up Jerry at his record store to see if the name “Waylon Jennasovic” rang a bell with him.

Oh I just made that up! Yeah, that was just a joke, like here’s the Waylon Jennings of Yugoslavia. It’s just a joke I made up, and it’s not very funny either. (laughs) I do that sometimes. If there’s a bunch of little Chinese girls, or oriental girls, singing in a choir, and there’s no English at all on the album, I’ll draw an arrow and say, “Yoko Ono’s first album.”

As is often the case, what begins as sheer novelty, ends up growing on me and results in profound admiration. Even though I still get a chuckle out of Džo’s cowboy costume, stylistically I think the album art is right on the money, and on second thought, incredibly nostalgic. The strange imported sounds of the album have really grown on me as well, especially the title track.

Džo might be relatively unknown in these parts, but apparently he has no shortage of fans, as Youtube gives proof to.

Upon learning a bit of the back-story, thanks to James and Drago Jajac, I’m all the more intrigued by Jugoton Records, and this phenomenon of cross-cultural East-European music. I spent a little bit of time in Eastern Europe a few years ago, and remember hearing nothing but mainstream American music, mostly weathered and worn-out tunes from the 60’s and 70’s. It’s interesting to think how American pop-culture has influenced the far corners of the music, not to mention film, industry.

Wikipedia has some interesting things to add about Jugoton Records:

Jugoton was especially popular among the youths behind the Iron Curtain who couldn’t travel to western countries and rarely had access to western music. One of the solutions to obtaining western music was to go shopping in Socialist Yugoslavia which was not an Eastern Bloc country, but a member of the Non-Aligned Movement largely opened to western influences. Thus the Yugoslav records gained a cult status in Eastern Europe and became a sort of symbol of the western popular culture. […]
With the breakup of Yugoslavia in 1991, the name of the company became Croatia Records.

Croatia Records official site:
http://www.crorec.hr

Džo Maračić Maki : Vraćam Se Kući LP : Jugoton Label

Stereo LSY 61295
1976 Jugoton Records
Poduzeće Za Izradu Gramofonskih Ploća Zagreb-Dubrava
Made in Yugoslavia

Producent: Djordje Novković
Urednik: Vojno Kundić
Photo: Dragutin Jajac
Design: Ivan Ivezić

Strana 1

1. Ja Se Opet Vraćam Kući
2. Ptica Leti Jatu Svom
3. Ide Džo U Meksiko
4. Opet Su Kratka Tvoja Pisma
5. Čekaj Da Se Sjetim
6. Romantična Ulica

Strana 2

1. Srce Ti Je Kamen
2. To Je Bila Priča Oca Mog
3. Moja Obala
4. Nikad Više
5. Ti Si Žena Koju Volim
6. Sanja

These little tune-totes must have been a short-lived trend in the hey-day of 45rpm singles. I was pretty excited to come across this one in an antique store, especially considering it still has what must be the collection of the original owner. The name & address sticker of one Sheryl Johnson plastered on each of the records clued me in. I like to imagine a teenage Sheryl showing off her tune-tote to her friends, or sitting by herself listening to “Johnny Angel” and longing after her latest crush.

While I might never know who you really were, I thank you Sheryl Johnson for the time capsule of music. By the way, I’m keeping your nostalgic collection in it’s rightful place in the tune-tote.

Set List:

Electric Lemon, original vinyl LP
Stereo PLP 1913

If you want to hear what this album sounds like, you’ll have to first pay the corporate music industry its proper dues.

The other morning I received a phone call from Verne Langdon himself, requesting that I remove his music from this site (on my most popular post so far, a halloween mix: How to Invoke Spirits, Demons, & Unseen Forces). Apparently he did not appreciate the free publicity. I believe his words were, “I don’t need your help.” I should have known better, I mean, show of hands, who hasn’t heard of Verne Langdon? He did ask very nicely, however, and I am more than happy to oblige.

The main purpose of this site is to spread the appreciation of music to be found on vintage records, and to turn people on to some good old, if not odd & rare music they may not have otherwise considered. I aim to provide a service, and do not wish to be of a disservice to anyone, nor to hinder any musicians from earning an honest living. I was very pleased, in fact honored, to speak with Mr. Langdon personally, and the conversation we had has me thinking about how to improve my services.

In the posts to come I will continue to strive to introduce people to interesting and enjoyable tunes, especially that which may not be available by other means. For any music that is still in print, I will do my best to provide links and direct traffic to official sources. If that effort is still not appreciated, then I will be glad to remove content from any record labels who don’t appreciate free advertising, or artists who do not want people listening to their music.

Electric Lemon Record Co. and Dejavu Record Company CDs and MP3 downloads can be purchased from Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, CDNOW, CD Universe, Best Buy, Borders, eMusic, iTunes (US, Japan, Canada, Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Europe, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom), MSN Music, Real/Rhapsody, Sony Connect, Napster (US, UK, CAN), MusicNet (US, UK), Yahoo Music Unlimited, Musicstrands.com, Virgin Digital, FYE, Musicmatch, Peer Impact/Wurld Media, Buymusic, Audio Lunchbox, Cdigix, AB-CD.com, Pure Tracks, Music.com, Pressplay, RealNetworks, MyMPO, Bollyvista, AOL MusicNow, Ruckus, Karmadownload, Titan Tunes, and Snocap via the Artist’s Music MySpace!

(You can also find Electric Lemon and Dejavu CD’s on eBay!)

I encourage you and your website visitors to purchase and enjoy our products!

Many Thanks,

- Verne Langdon

www.dejavu-record-co.com
www.electriclemon.com

Visit The World Of Verne Langdon at http://www.vernelangdon.com

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It still doesn’t quite fit my mood – at the moment women don’t seem entirely evil – but for some of you, perhaps they do. As promised, remixed set #2 from the recent live session at the Palace Billiards DJ Lounge:

Set List:

From the recent live session at the Palace Billiards DJ Lounge, I remixed the original recording into two sets, which have a little better flow and unity. I’m not quite in the mood for the heart-break sounds that make up remix #2, so enjoy this more upbeat set for now.

Set List:

Set List:

Stereo R-8117
Ranwood Records

Buzz Martin is the real deal, and once the novelty of a singing logger wears off, what you have is the most genuine folk singer you’ll ever find. Buzz had a pure, authentic and downright enjoyable hillbilly sound, and being a logger by trade, he delivered an honest, poetic and usually comedic portrayal of the common working man of the western hills.

Featured Track:

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