Thursday, March 4, 2010

Chiyo and the Crescents


Here is Pink Dominos by Chiyo and the Crescents. From the original Break Out label out of California. Rumor has it that it was recorded "in a shoe store."

Kim Fowley heard it, and it eventually came out on the ERA label. Unfortunately, the B-side was replaced with a different song.

The original "other side" was the searing guitar surfer "Devil Surf" (check out the other side over at WFMU's Ichiban Rock and Soul page (along with a pic of Chiyo and the band).

Chiyo was kind of unique in the California surf scene as being one of the few female surf guitarists. She owned and operated a guitar/amplifier shop. This is probably where she hooked up with the Crescents. She was easily twice the age of the rest of the band. I'm not sure if this was her label, but she probably put up the money for the recording, etc.

From what I could learn on the internet, she was a native american who married a japanese business man, which gave her the exotic moniker of Chiyo Ishii.

Pink Dominos became somewhat of a hit, spending a few weeks in the top 100 and eventually caught the ear of whoever picked music for Ghoulardi's show back in the 60's where it was heard frequently.

Pink_Dominos



(unfortunately, this copy has a bit of a warp right at the beginning, but seeing as it's pretty rare, beggers can't be choosers...)


Don't forget to check out the awesome Devil Surf over at

http://wfmuichiban.blogspot.com/

3 comments:

  1. My copy is on ERA records (flip is "Breakout")
    Is yours above an early verion (or only early label)?

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  2. as far as i know, this is the original label...why they changed the b-side for the ERA release is beyond me. supposedly, there is a bunch of chiyo material that remains unreleased to this day.

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  3. we have 2 copies of this look like they were hardly ever played one a white label and the other on the break out label one is mayple suryp and the other is devil surf the same song

    ReplyDelete