It was quite a few years ago when I first heard of the mad daddy, aka Pete Myers. it was a wee boxout in Uncut magazine, probably between articles about Bob Dylan and Pink Floyd. Or the Who and the Stones. or, well you get the idea. A diamond in the rough is essentially what I mean.

Pete Myers was a DJ in the late 1950s, and broadcast on WHK in Cleveland. He created a persona for himself, The Mad Daddy, a good natured ghoul with his own far out rhyming patter.

The Mad Daddy show was one wild ride, with Daddy riffing his way through sound effects, distortion and the craziest music of the day. Daddy played the kind of Rock n Roll seldom heard by white ears and this helped him tap into the Ohioan teenage psyche. His off the cuff riffs and rhymes and advertising ad libs are what I think of when I think of American Rock n Roll Radio. Crazy shit done at 100mph, and with a real enthusiasm that few in the UK seem to have done (As far as I know anyway) And Pete was pretty mad away from the studio too, whilst on a contractually enforced 2 week sabbatical he was worried that Cleveland’s throttle jammers and mellow muffins may lose interest, so he arranged a publicity stunt; parachuting into a harbour full of Jello whilst dressed as Zorro, flinging records out on his descent. Lets forget the costume, records and dessertification of a working harbour were kyboshed by the authorities, Pete actually did the jump. His first ever! Mad? you better believe it…

Like all the best stories, this one has a tragic ending. Pete got the chance of going out on a New York station, and jumped at it. However those east coast morons just didn’t get Daddy, and the gig was cancelled after one show. The Mad Daddy flitted about a few other stations after that, and even transmogrified back into plain old Pete, but it seems he became depressed and disillusioned by his New York experience. Pete Myers committed suicide on October 4th 1968.

So long, Daddy. Let me pay a small salute by airing his 2nd last show on WHK ( I think), and lastly how about The Cramps own tribute. Lux Interior was one of Oobladi’s most fervent Mad Minions

squareamerica.com

Click on the pic, cats and kittens!

bob regan – tarantula
bobby bare – vampire
bracey everett – the lovers curse
the champs – experiment in terror
colin cook – heeby jeebies
jackie cannon – chill bumps
jerry dallman – the bug
ralph nielson & the chancellors – scream
the reekers – dont call me bug face
ronnie dawson – rockin bones
tommy bell – midnite dreams
trini lopez – fever
wild tones – martian band
jackie morningstar – rockin in the graveyard
rod willis – the cat
joe wallace – leopard man
tommy roe – caveman
phantom five – graveyard
round robin – i’m the wolfman
randy luck – i was a teenage caveman
bobby please – the monster
terry teen – the hearse

About 4 years ago a friend handed me ‘Post to Wire’ and told me to have a listen. The cover looked promising; a beat up caravan, sorry trailer, with the legend THIS IS THE LAND OF BROKEN DREAMS writ large on the siding and providing a major hint to the content. I don’t need to tell you this is a great album, and the one which broke Richmond Fontaine to the UK. Songs of heartbreak and loneliness interspersed with the inventive ‘Postcard From…’ vignettes set to a modern western sound; I played it nonstop and was hooked.

Post to Wire was the 5th release by the Fontaine, so I dug back a bit to hear the older stuff and was surprised to find a different sound. In amongst the rootsy tunes on Lost Son, Miles From and Safety there is a beating guitar heart borne from the likes of Hüsker Dü and Green on Red. Some real gems amongst these first outings too, check out Pinkerton, Cascade, Blinding Sight and Safety. The 4th album, Winnemucca, is a stone fucking classic. Northline, 5 Degrees below Zero and Western Skyline are 3 of the finest contemporary Americana songs you’ll ever hear. Whatever happened between Lost Son and Winnemucca changed the sound of the band for good. Winnemuca is an album forged from desert desperation. With the (relative) success of Post to Wire you may think RF would have continued to mine the same seam on their next release The Fitzgerald but in a courageous move they went for a stripped down Nebraska style sound. I’ll admit this was a slow burner for me, but perseverance brings reward, Mabel. The craft behind the songs on The Fitzgerald is incredible. If you can listen to The Janitor without feeling a lump in the throat then you truly are a cold, heartless bastard. One of the things I love about the Fontaine is the ever changing sound and Thirteen Cities (plus the subsequent $87… EP) stayed true to form. Guests such as Howe Gelb and Calexico’s Jacob Valenzuela fleshed out a mariachi vibe to the record. There was something of a more accessible sound in a few of the tracks like Capsized and the astonishing Four Walls, they would sit well in any radio playlist… but needless to say don’t. If Chris Martin wrote Four Walls Radio 1 would fucking wet themselves.

We Used to Think the Freeway Sounded like a River is the current release and doing pretty well by all accounts. It builds on the Thirteen Cities vibe, written and played in an accessible way but still retaining the dark undercurrent of Willy Vlautin’s lyrics. When Willy Vlautin writes he writes of the people around him; blue collar guys, waitresses, gamblers and drifters. The Boyfriends is Vlautin’s part nostalgic, part pained look back at the men in his (recently departed) mother’s life.
If my mother was alive I would never have written that song…even though I’m not attacking her in it. All I can say is I can’t remember any of my teachers or half the kids I went to school with, but I remember all of my mom’s boyfriends. And they’re stuck in my head like a fucking hammer. So I had to write this song.
He’s always written that way. On Safety the track White Line Fever has a trucker take centre stage in, for me, one of RF’s greatest moments. Drama, tragedy and human weakness are all played out with a rolling, tumultuous soundtrack. This song resurfaced on ‘obliteration by time’ sounding even better than before. If you check out one song from this post let it be ‘White Line Fever’ Vlautin is also enjoying success as a novelist, his first two novels getting great reviews and his third, Lean on Pete is due out next year. But don’t go away thinking Richmond Fontaine is all Willy Vlautin; it’s a bunch of friends playing together and enjoying what they do. Hopefully the new album will be a success for them, and they can continue making My Favourite Music.

And as wee treat, here’s an exclusive Hooverville rendering of ‘$87 and a conscience….’

In a heart breaking work of staggering originality we present our first rockin’ mix: Trains.

Carefully compiled by our resident 50’s throwback , there are some real gems in amongst the ‘names’. Check out the impish Iberians ‘Los Sirex’ and the fantastically named ‘Bob Ayers & the Secret Agent Men’

Click the pic!

Born in Libertyville, Arkansas Apollo fled the coop at 16 and has been riding the range ever since. A 49er with no mine, Apollo writes of heartbreak, loss and desolation and couches his words in vaudeville velvet. He takes aesthetics seriously, does James and his records have a fine hand crafted feel to them, which is also transferred to his live show. I first saw him play at the Ryman auditorium of Europe: Darvel Town Hall. As he took to the stage I was aware that something different and unique was afoot. Not only did Apollo and his band look different, like a prom group dragged through a hedge backwards, but they sounded different. (So different I don’t have a cheap and dirty analogy) It was very dramatic, even cinematic with Apollo switching between a normal mic and a retro style one full of feedback. He dipped, bobbed, weaved and stamped his way through the then current album ‘Good Grief’ I snagged a copy of said album that night and have been hooked ever since.

Good Grief is a nightmarish tumble through the America of Steinbeck and Fante. Harking back to the Civil War with ‘The Alamo’ and ‘All the Pretty’ Apollo shows he aint your normal hack. The follow up ‘Hide Your Heart In a Hive’ built and expanded on this splintered vision, check out the video for my favourite track, ‘Bad Old Buzzard’, below. He has recently released an EP ‘Angels we have grown apart’ and will be back this way in early October

I’d like to say Glasgow has been kind to James Apollo, but other than providing some interesting road tales, Scotland’s premier city has been a lonely furrow for our hero. I detect a change in the air though, and hopefully Apollo will see a difference on his forthcoming tour.

Chadbourne went on to release a series of solo albums and collaborations with the likes of The Violent Femmes and Camper Van Beethoven. With a sly wit, political jabs and an obvious knowledge and love of old time American music his is an acquired taste but well worth persevering with. The official albums vary wildly, side long covers of Tim Buckley songs, nasty blues with Evan John and reworkings of old timey stuff such as of Spike Jones pisstake on the Nazis. In addition Chadbourne has produced numerous live recordings of improvisation, often accompanied by the late Jimmy Carl Black from Zappa’s Mothers.

Apart from being able to apparently whip up a fresh and topical version of Country Joe’s Fixin’ To Die to suit whichever war America is currently waging Chadbourne invented the electric rake, an amplified garden tool which he uses to terrorise lazy daytime TV chat hosts. His version of the Billy Ray Cyrus stomp that was Achy Breaky Heart” (accompanied by Evan Johns) is transformed by his unique use of the electric rake. A unique individual and a bit of a treasure.