Tuesday, December 1, 2020

From Unknown To Obscurity Dept. - Fred Cole

Fred Cole was pretty successful in avoiding wealth and fame over an unusually long music career. His early band The Weeds had their name changed (by Lord Tim Hudson, who also managed The Seeds) to the shockingly inappropriate The Lollipop Shoppe, in an attempt to win the teenybop audience they were genetically unsuited to. It's a strong album, but the creepy gothic feel of the cover is exactly right - this is more Adams Family than Partridge Family.

Fred followed his own phosphorescent light through the hard-rockin' seventies, into the eighties and beyond with the punk/hardcore combo Dead Moon, whose albums complete the incomplete package offered here. Look him up on wiki - he's got a great draft-avoidance/homesteading story which I'm too lazy-assed to re-type.

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20 comments:

  1. Farquhar Throckmorton IIIDecember 1, 2020 at 7:07 AM

    The end of the sixties is where Fred (and culture in general) loses me, so two downloads incoming; the swell Lollipop Shoppe album, and the eleven (yikes!) Dead Moon albums, which I'll be deleting from my hard drive, so grab 'em quick if this is your cup of meat.

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  2. Farquhar Throckmorton IIIDecember 1, 2020 at 9:28 AM

    Here's Dead Moon: https://workupload.com/file/YzuxvUGzJKB

    To qualify for the extry-trx version of Just Colour, tell us about your hats. Are you hat-type guy, headgear-wise?
    I think I read that the Death Of The Hat occurred when JFK refused to be seen in public with one, setting a style precedent. I think it's a damn shame. Guys look good in hats and suits. Even homely guys.

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    1. Jack Kerouac's CatDecember 1, 2020 at 8:39 PM

      That's correct, specifically JFK's inauguration. Also changing hairstyles, and lower headroom in automobiles contributed to hats falling out of fashion.

      Over the years, I've worked frustratingly on several ad campaigns, for manufacturers trying to bring hats back into "Vogue".

      Hats don't look good on me.

      Delete
  3. Cordelia's WristwatchDecember 1, 2020 at 11:56 AM

    Dead Moon's "Fire In The Western World" is good

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  4. Farquhar Throckmorton IIIDecember 1, 2020 at 7:51 PM

    Chapeau.


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  5. Jack Kerouac's CatDecember 1, 2020 at 8:52 PM

    Furtive.

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  6. RobertDecember 1, 2020 at 9:10 PM

    Gee, thanks Farq! I just recently heard Dead Moon's "Defiance" and liked it a lot so I'm stoked to hear the others.
    I didn't know about the Lollipop Shoppe connection. Not that I ever heard them, but I remember flipping past it in countless delete bins back in the day.
    Oh, alright, hang on. At least five times at Woolworth's and Kresge's and another three times at the Rite-Way bin. There, counted.
    Not a hat-wearer, me.

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  7. RobertDecember 1, 2020 at 9:25 PM

    Oh and twice more at Sam the Record Man in Toronto.

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  8. jonderDecember 2, 2020 at 4:37 AM

    Kennedy may have killed the hat, but Donny's tried to bring it back. The snapback doesn't quite seem presidential, especially when Dear Leader hawks his own merch.

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  9. Hazy DaveDecember 2, 2020 at 9:37 AM

    I require extra large hats, so adjustable size baseball caps and stretchy thermally protective unfashionable items are my mainstays when I'm not collecting rays on the solar sex panel.

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    1. Farquhar Throckmorton IIIDecember 2, 2020 at 9:53 AM

      Moi aussi. I have an unfeasibly large head, and living Out Here in the tropics needs must protect the flesh oasis, girt as it is by wayward strands of gossamer silver, from the pitiless harshness of the sun. I sport non-team brand ball caps or a kind of Panama deal. I look like shit, but nobody gives a damn out here.

      Delete
  10. BambiDecember 2, 2020 at 6:18 PM

    I'm not a hat wearer, excepting wooley headwarmer in freezing conditions. You don't see many hats in the south of England these days, excepting the baseball cap, which doesn't count as a hat in my book.

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  11. UncleBDecember 3, 2020 at 10:00 AM

    The greatest accomplishment of "The Lollipop Shoppe"? The uniting of Norton Records' Miriam Linna & Billy Miller (1953-2016). A Crazy Rekkid Kollector Factoid which even made Billy's NY Times obit...

    "Miriam Linna, said. Mr. Miller and Ms. Linna met in 1977 at a record fair in New York. She was an original member of the punk-rockabilly group the Cramps and the editor of a fanzine for the rock band the Flamin’ Groovies. He was a fanatic collector. “He was selling, I was buying,” Ms. Linna said in a telephone interview on Monday. “I was looking for ‘You Must Be a Witch’ by the Lollipop Shoppe,” a 1960s Las Vegas garage band. Mr. Miller had the record and invited Ms. Linna to drop by his apartment to pick it up. A marriage of true minds quickly followed."

    Smooth move, Mr. Miller... Very Mae "Come up & see me sometime" West....

    Also worth Czeching out:

    https://dustandgrooves.com/miriam-linna-billy-miller-norton-records/

    Oh, and thanks for Moon-ing us. Witch is to say... Aw, fergeddit. Trying not to be too tawdry what with it being the Season for Greetings...

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    Replies
    1. Farquhar Throckmorton IIIDecember 3, 2020 at 10:09 AM

      You're welcome, UncleB - and I'm digging your new-style unified comment stragedy!

      Delete
    2. UncleBDecember 3, 2020 at 10:11 AM

      More like disjointed. And no, I did NOT inhale...

      Delete
  12. UncleBDecember 3, 2020 at 10:10 AM

    Gene The Hat twin spin time. O.K., so that act (whomever he was) did have more than ONE 45...

    I'd say that hats are essential. Knit. Especially over night, when trying to stay warm in an unheated domicile in the brutal December frigidity of the low 60s (° F.).

    Yes, I suppose the next gripe will be about apparel seen on the opposite end of some humans (hipsters?) in these parts. Socks with sandals? Really???

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    1. Farquhar Throckmorton IIIDecember 4, 2020 at 8:12 AM

      One of the many, many truly great things about living in Thailand is nobody even notices, leave alone cares about or judges, what you wear on your feet. Out here, socks with pool shoes counts as winter footwear.

      Delete
  13. Dr DDecember 4, 2020 at 7:00 AM

    My favourite Lollipop Shoppe factoid is that manager "Lord" Tim Hudson was also Ian "Beefy" Botham's one time manager (after one of his - Botham's - entanglements with the ECB and MCC over recreational drug use). He - Hudson, do keep up - was also one of the voices of the "Beatle" vultures in Disney's Jungle Book.
    So there you have it; a direct line through Vegas and The Weeds, Disney's Kipling and The Long Room at Lords Cricket Ground. You just can't make that sort of shit up.
    Unless you're on recreational drugs too.

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    1. Farquhar Throckmorton IIIDecember 4, 2020 at 8:13 AM

      This ranks with Susan Dominus' bombshell news on the Feat. Feat piece for treasurability. Thank you!

      Delete
    2. UncleBDecember 4, 2020 at 8:39 AM

      Fab. Beatley birds in a '6Ts Disney flick. The type of nol-edge nuggets pop culture vultures cherish being reminded about. Thanks, guv'nuh.

      Delete

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