Spiked! The Music of Spike Jones
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Album:Spiked! The Music of Spike Jones
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There only seems to be about 3 or 4 collections of Spike Jones music. I got this one in 1994 and it is fantastic. The wicked awesome album cover is by Art Spiegelman (Maus). You can see every page of the really great booklet the cd came with at discogs http://www.discogs.com/viewimages?release=730245. I wanted to post some tracks from the album. It's so freaking good. If you want to bone up on your history you can check out his wiki http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spike_Jones. If you get a chance also check out the documentary The Spike Jones Story. It's very intertaining and interesting. Spike Jones is the shit!
Comments (22)
Spike Jones - Laura 2:59
Spike Jones - I Wonder Where My Baby Is Tonight 2:46
I saw the cover of the album and knew right away who the artist was. Such a great series of books, a must read for any kid who is in the 7th and 8th grades
For sure. His art blew my mind away. I used to have a bunch of old Raw books that were pretty sweet. I think I only have 1 now. :(
Definitely did the Speigelman cover. Love some Spike too, Groon really got me with his mix the other day, and I followed your link to Internet Archive, but only found about 2 songs - which are good, but I definitely gotta be on the look out for this one!
Seems like there were a few shows on that link as well. I've found about 4 sites online that archive old 78's. I was going to check out at some point to see if anyone has posted old Spike Jones. This one is really good. You can get it used for $2.99 on Amazon plus S+H. That's not bad. My copy is definitely very used.
just sent you two messages, dont think they went through. Just wanted to tell you thanks for the music cd's, I have this feeling they got swallowed up by that damn hamster. I should have gotten them on MOnday, neighbor got them and brought them over last night. Have a great fourth, and I feel like I am repeating myself at this point..........probably because I am.
Yeah, I'll keep a look out. I'm sure the demand for spike is pretty low where I could find something for the right price!
I've told this story before on MOG, but this is a good place to tell it again:
Spike Jones and his band guested on the old Jack Benny teevee show once.
Benny (for plot reasons now forgotten - i was maybe twelve when i saw it) took a gues soloist spot with the band. Jones was conducting with a long-barreled revolver.
Benny begins to play - the usual hideous performance. (Of course, it should go withut saying that Jack Benny was in reality a consummate violinist - when he met the Marx Brothers early in their career, he was playing in the house band in a Waukegan vaudeville house, a job that involved learning new tuns and arrangements every week.)
Jones recoils in horror, tries to shut Benny down; Benny, oblivious, plays on.
Jones, driven beyond endurance, shoots Benny.
Benny slumps against the wall, continues playing.
Jones shoots Benny again.
Benny slides down the wall to a sitting position, still playing.
Another shot. Benny is now supine on the floor. Still laying, though.
Jones stands over him, two more shots into the recumbent form.
Benny plays the last note. Finally dies.
I have read that Jones' recording of this - originally written for a Donald Duck cartoon called Donald in Nutsy Land - was originally banned by the BBC, because of the rude sound effect. (Calling the Bronx Cheer a "raspberry" derives from Cockney rhyming slang, where you pick a phrase that rhymes with the thing you wanted to refer to ... and then didn't say eht rhyming part. In this case, the phrase is "raspberry tart"...)
However, when the Disney cartoon (renamed Der Fuehrer's Face due to the popularity of Jones' recording) began playing in cinemas all over the UK, the BBC lifted the ban.
I was a devoted Howdy Doody fan in them there days. I Do Not Remember This...
Howdy Doody's voice, as a lot of people know, was by Bob Smith. Smith had to pre-record all of Howdy's dialog - on acetate disks.
And then everyone had to play to the recordings - and some poor soundman had to cue up each bit of dialog and play it at the right instant. And the show was live. (Long before video tape; this clip, is a kinescope - a film shot off a monitor.)
Clarabell, in this clip, according to notes on YouTube, was played by Lew Anderson, who had replaced Bob Keeshan (yes, Captain Kangaroo), the orignal Clarabell, when Keeshan quit in 1952 over a salary dispute. Anderson was, in fact, a jazz trombonist, and so is playing his own part here.
Rawk - It bears repeating!
Tyler - We do have to be economical in these times.
fairportfan - that's a lot of great info. Did he really kill Jack Benny?! I'll have to check out the videos later. Great stuff!
Somewhere among my mouldering LPs is "Spike Jones Is Murdering The Classics!" which contains the "Homer & Jethro at the Opera" track. (I found "Il Barkio" priceless.) It's time for an Internet search for more Spike!
I looked to see if YouTube had a clip of the Jones/Benny bit, but it doesn't.
And i looked for the Donald Duck cartoon, and found several copies, but they were all had audio synch problems, and most of them were terible vdeo, too.
Great cover art, great CD, great videos, great post.
This post reminded me, so i listened to a few tracks - i'd forgotten that Jones' rendition of the Hawaiian War Chant ends with a guitar riff that finishes up with something closely resembling the sound of a tube amp destroying itself..
Wahiawa786 - I've heard a tape recording from a record of that when I was younger but it's been a while. Definitely need more Spike.
Spike - Glad you liked it. Now there isn't a bias being a fellow Spike is there? :)
fairportfan - I thought I had that Hawaiian War Chant but doesn't look like it. He definitely has some explosive sounds in some of his songs.
Thanks fairportfan! Most excellent.
Awesome callback to a geeeeeenius. All's I know is that Spike was and remains one of the all-time greats. As a young lad, it was Spike, Stan Freberg's records, Jean Shepherd's monologues, and Ward & Scott's Rocky & Bullwinkle cartoons that primarily informed my sense of humor.
You do have a very well informed sense of humor Mike. Your a very punny guy! ;p