Ok, Kiddies, Finksters, Weirdos and Mad Daddy-O’s, Here’s
something that’s been taking up some of my time these past few months. Let’s
rewind a few years back to when our tale really begins. I was lending a
monkey’s paw on Something Weird’s Greatest Hits LP with Something Weird’s
Fearless Leader, Lisa Petrucci and King of the Weirdos Howie Pyro. During this
time, Lisa mentioned to me that Lux Interior had sent a cassette tape to her
husband and founder of Something Weird Video, Mike Vraney. It was a cassette
tape of music for Something Weird’s series called Nudie Cuties (and Peepland
USA). Back in the early days of SW Mike was cobbling together nudie loops into
two hour tapes. These tapes featured scenes of gals dancing, prancing, and of
course ROCK CLIMBING in the altogether. Mike had used the tape as a music bed
to the action taking place on the screen.
Lisa also told me that Lux was a HUGE fan of the series, as
well as a huge fan of the company in general (who isn’t?!). She told me that Mike said Lux used to do
housework with Nudie Cuties playing in the background! Picture Lux all decked
out in his, um, “LUX-Ness” vacuuming or dusting! If I remember correctly, she said “a tape” and
that if she found it; I “would be the first to know.” At the time, my mind was already reeling with
almost daily communications with Howie about songs that we all loved from the
AMAZING library of flicks from the SW catalog of mind blowers. Add to that madness, the thought of a tape
that Lux sent to Mike filled with music that he thought would be cool for the
Nudie Cutie series? Yowza! What could be on that tape?
The caveat was that the tape was lost and located somewhere
within the VAST Something Weird Archive.
Years went by and every once in a great while I would
mention the tape to Lisa, but it was still lost somewhere in the Never-Never Land
of WEIRD.
As time went on, my mind wandered back to the tape and Nudie
Cuties. Maybe I could track down the
original VHS tapes and just go through them all “for science.” But that was a
daunting task as the original VHS tapes hadn’t been ported over directly to
DVD, so the DVD’s were different than the original tapes. Oh yeah, and
also….there’s THREE HUNDRED AND SEVENTY volumes of Nudie Cuties and Peepland
USA tapes! There would really be no way
to tell which music was from where. HUNDREDS and HUNDREDS of hours of gals
dancing, prancing and don’t forget--ROCK CLIMBING! I pictured myself becoming the “Pop-Eye”
version of the Flaming Carrot; emerging from my shack, after watching hundreds
of hours of gals frolicking, clad only in an old sweat stained overcoat with a
permanent “pop-eye-d” gaze, dried drool at the corner of my mouth, mind
shattered and wrecked beyond reason.
One day, about a month or so back, a box bearing the
Something Weird address appeared on my front porch! How curious! There’s almost
NOTHING like receiving a mysterious package from Lisa and SW. “What could it
be?” I thought as my hands began to shake while opening the almost foot long
box. You guessed it, it was cassette
tapes! Over two dozen of them! Lisa sent
a nice little note telling me I was the Custodian of the Something Weird
Cassette Tape Archive.
Commence complete BRAIN MELTDOWN.
It wasn’t just “a tape.” Lux had sent multiple tapes for use
in the series! In this batch, there are 10 or so 90 minute tapes made by Lux
sometime in the 90’s I’m guessing. There are 5 tapes with Lux’s handwriting on
the spine, as well as one playlist/track listing for a tape NOT included (or if
it is, I haven’t found it yet). Also
included is a sticky note from Lux saying “Hey Youze – Here’s another of these
here tapes – Talk to ya soon!” The note
is signed with his iconic signature.
The tapes themselves are filled mostly with easy listening type
tunes; think Esquivel, Arthur Lyman, John Barry; along the lines of Lux and
Ivy’s Favorites Volume 16. There is also a fair amount of seriously obscure “moody”
surf music. There are also 2 full tapes of what I would call double entendre
dirty songs. These could easily be used to torture someone. One or two songs is
funny, but 3 hours? “STOP! I’LL TALK!!!”
I would say that I have been able to identify maybe 75 percent of the music
so far, either songs I recognize, or with the help of music identification
software. Something I usually don’t like to use, but since there are so many tapes
and songs, it was kind of a necessity.
It’s been really amazing going through the tapes and picking
up on these little amazing things. One tape has two songs from what have become
known as The Vip Vop tapes. Tapes Lux made back in the day, and that have been
since bootlegged. This is huge clue that this particular tape was made by Lux.
Of course these are two songs that I’ve been trying to identify for over 20
years! Fingers crossed that someday they will be uncovered (along with maybe
another 60 or so songs that are a mystery from these new tapes).
What will happen with these, you ask? Well, I’m digitizing
them and trying to ID songs where possible. Other than that I don’t know. These
tapes “could” result in I don’t know how many volumes of Lux and Ivy’s
Favorites. But, is the world ready for volume upon volume of this kind of
stuff? Or I could do a best of? I don’t know, we’ll see what happens.
I love the titles he
gave them. Carrying on the tradition from Forbidden City Dog Food, Lux would
title his tapes with songs from the particular compilation he was making. My
favorite here is obviously PUSSYFOOT COCK FIGHT. A combination of Bob and Phil
& The Orchestra’s Pussyfoot and The Sheik's Men song called Bangkok
Cockfight. A quick YouTube search will clue you in to the kind of music is on
this tape.
I want to thank Lisa Petrucci for entrusting me with this
insanity. It has been quite a thrill being a “tape detective” and matching up
tapes with their proper tape covers. Over the years I’ve been sent various
tapes like this, but never at this volume. In times past I would spend
sometimes years trying to identify songs myself, or with the help of people
like Howie Pyro or Rex Doane. The experience of excavating tapes like this is a
real thrill, and of course it opens up a whole new world of trying to track
these songs down on their original format, either on 45 or LP. It’s so cool
hearing an old favorite, or being completely blown away by something you’ve
never heard before (you’ll never hear it all, but it sure is fun to try!).
Please check out somethingweird.com and check out what they
have to offer! There’s the afore mentioned SOMETHING WEIRD’S GREATEST HITS on
LP and CD, as well as The Spook Show a Go-Go LP that I wrote some of the liner
notes for, amazing soundtracks, as well as THOUSANDS of some of the craziest
and coolest movies ever made (available on physical media or digital download),
including, oh, you know; 270 volumes of Nudie Cuties!
(NOTE: It’s almost impossible to figure which volumes the
music Lux picked for Nudie Cuties, or if even Mike used all of it, but odds are
they would be in the first 100 volumes, so that should narrow it down for some
future “popeyes” in training!)
