Hey There Junior

In case you might be wondering, the picture just to the left is from my old school - Frankfurt American Junior High in Frankfurt, Germany. The picture is from what I can tell, a rough scan taken from the 1980/81 yearbook which means that buried in the middle of all those plastic winter jackets and faded blue jean clad kids could be yours truly. What does this have to do with pop culture? Well Frankfurt, Germany circa 1978-1981 had a ton to do with my personal cultural upbringing and after all, this blog IS about the pop culture junkie that is John J. Cannon.

To be honest I actually lived in a military housing area in Höchst which, while part of Frankfurt am Main, was situated between Frankfurt, Wiesbaden, and Mainz Germany. This made for an interesting time as we were located smack in the middle of a mainly German area yet still had cool stuff like an AYA (American Youth Activities) center, gym, bowling alley, movie theater, snack bar, etc. While other military "brats" may have lived in a much larger housing area, I lived in one that had about eight buildings which housed three stairwells of apartments each. This actually made for a closer knit group of kids to hang out with creating a sort of gang-like bond. (Gang in like good way) It was pretty much like living in any other American neighborhood in the late seventies. We'd ride our bikes, hang out, play sports seasonally, etc. When we felt froggy it cost very little to jump on the bus/train/subway and head into Frankfurt for all kinds of cool stuff like hitting the big Post Exchange, head shop, skating rink, and every Franfurt teenage partiers dream spot...Gruenenburg Park. (think the kids on "That 70's Show" sitting around the table in Eric Foreman's basement and you'll get my drift!)

Now in late seventies Germany I, like many other red-blooded American males had only two things on my mind - music and girls, and a lot of times they usually went hand-in-hand. I cannot recall too many moments NOT hanging out with either a) a boombox cranking the likes of Ted Nugent, Rush, or Aerosmith, b) Farrah Fawcett haired girls, or c) both. This oddly enough created a situation which would amount to getting in the least amount of trouble. Hanging out with the just the guys somehow always ended up with someone tanked, bloodied, bruised or worse yet...something set on fire. This might explain why I didn't get in too much trouble between 1978 and 1981. I mean, I did things that COULD have gotten me in trouble but no one is trying to be too loud when...well you probably get the idea.

Not that "no trouble around girls" rule never seemed to work at Frankfurt American Junior High. My fascination, obsession, whatever, with girls constantly made me late for class or got me in trouble in class. Once I remember in math class (a class I hated then and still hated when I took in college a while back) I got detention for making out with a girl. Why I ever thought I wouldn't be seen is beyond me. I guess maybe I just didn't care. To make matters worse, I was busted making out with the same girl in detention which led to more detention and you guessed it - a third offense which led to a short suspension. Was it worth it? I'm sure I thought so then.

Now if the above paragraph makes me sound like some 13-year-old Don Juan then think again. I was about as experienced as a rookie ballplayer and shyer than a scared puppy. But I sure had fun learning!

When I wasn't trying to be with girls I was daydreaming about girls and that usually meant lying on my bed (slow down - it gets way less interesting perves!) with a giant set of headphones on listening to any of my numerous record albums with thoughts of minimalistic teenage rock & roll debauchery bouncing around in my head. It was usually Styx or Boston for romantic thoughts, Nugent or Van Halen for dirty thoughts, and Rush or Pink Floyd during many moments of utter confusion in regards to the fairer sex. Yeah we all grow up to realize that chicks are hard to figure out...well they were hard to figure out then we were just too young and stupid to realize it!

Now as teenagers sharing a common school but spread out across the expansive area known as Frankfurt we would have to gather to see each other outside of school and that usually happened at one of three places - football games, Gruenenburg Park, or the skating rink and each had their pros and cons. The skating rink was cool due to the low lighting, loud music, and close proximity to pizza. Many Friday and Saturday nights were spent huddling in dark corners. Football games were fun only if you left and walked into town or took the path into Gruenenburg Park where you were pretty much free to do whatever the hell you wanted to. This usually involved everything from getting high, to drinking beer or Jagermeister to of course...being naughty. I can 100% pinpoint Gruenenburg Park as the place I first got high, drunk, and past first base. But one particular day stands out as the funnest day I had there and that was the day that was SUPPOSED to be my second to last day in Europe.

I was set to run my final track meet before flying back to the states and way before the race I had decided that winning, or even placing, was pointless. So once the gun went off I took off around the track and headed into the park. (the race went through there and then back to the track for one more lap) This was a distance race and the rest of the runners must have thought I was nuts...but I had a plan. I ran into the park well before anyone else and there were some friends (names withheld for sake of possible repercussions) waiting with a nice collection of Henninger beer, a pipe, and some hash. As the other runners breezed by I caught a nice buzz, kissed a pretty girl, then headed towards the field. Somehow I still managed to come in fourth. Not good enough to place but not bad considering that I "floated" across the finish line! Needless to say I promptly threw on my sweats and headed off for a great afternoon and night of drinking, listening to tunes, and saying farewell to friends.

Sadly this was the last of the good times for a while. We temporarily moved to Atlanta, Georgia and I, with my long hair and jeans, was forced to spend a year in a school surrounded my stuffy preppies who listened to the worst possible music ever. It was hell! But thank God on the last day of school we relocated to Augusta and while I would not call my life a "dream" life it improved 100% over the stay in Atlanta.

So now it's like twenty-five plus years later. Even though I rarely drink and never get high I still love my music loud and still cherish those fond crazy memories of living in Germany!

If only I could just find a way to get back into those size 29 jeans!

Record Covers; Better or Just Bigger?

(photo Joseph Hall from sleeveface.com)


While going through a room full of vinyl records, music Cd's, cassettes, etc. I was moved to ponder how much music has changed in just the forty plus years I have been alive and by that I am more referring to the change in music product more than anything else.

Of course music itself has changed dramatically over the years prompting the almost useless need for additional genres and in many cases, musical sub-genres. (What happened to the days when you could toss everyone in to a handful of categories? - rock & roll, soul, country, jazz, classical) but what strikes me is how different music LOOKS today than it did even just twenty years ago.

I can remember as a Junior High student shelling out $5 for a new vinyl LP. It was more than just a musical experience; the artwork (and liner notes in some cases) were just as much a part of the thrill of getting a new record as the music itself. Even now when I pick up a new CD I immediately want to tear off the shrink wrap and check out the artwork. My favorites have to be the "essential" or "collection" Cd's that have a decent sized booklet with a bio or track by track info. I have so many KISS "collection" CD's with a booklet containing a band history written by some journalist or another that I probably have the band's history memorized (guilty) but for some reason, they never get old. But somehow, compared to the old LPs, they're just not the same.

So many things have changed about music. It used to be that unless you picked up the latest music magazine or bought the records, you wouldn't visually see too much of an artist. It created a sense of mystery that built up artists to almost larger-than-life proportions. Now with the Internet not only are your favorite musicians visible on a 24-hour basis, so is every band from Los Angeles to Tokyo and in between. Perhaps this explains why the music portion of a released product has pretty much pushed the visual portion aside. Twenty years ago you could slap a record on the turntable and while it was rocking your world, check out the cover art, liner notes, even advertisements for merch if you wanted! Now people are just as happy to quickly download music to their ipod and move on. The artwork has not only taken a backseat (which in many ways it always was the passenger to the music) but in a large majority of cases these days, the artwork has been banished to the trunk with all the other discarded, used, and forgotten Lego's of our adolescence.

Below are just a few LP's that had an impact on my life. Not just for the music but for the visual presentation as well. Some of these had me glassy eyed and staring for hours, some were just really cool. There were surely many more but these are a few I pulled out of a hat for the sake of this written ramble.

AC/DC
Highway to Hell 1979

This one is unique to me for the pure fact that I spent much of my time trying to decipher whether this cover was in fact a photo, or an incredibly life-like piece of artwork. Every time I see this cover (or a version on a t-shirt) for some reason i am immediately drawn to the button on Angus Young's shirt. Don't ask me why, it just happens. Throw in some great teen rebel music like "Beating Around the Bush" and "Touch too Much", and the title track and you have a record featuring the perfect match of music and art. Yeah Angus has the devil horns on the cover but shouldn't they really have been on Bon Scott?

Aerosmith
Draw the Line 1977

One of the most interesting art interpretations of an album title ever. A line drawn around the cover that makes up a cartoon image of the band! Get it? O.K., so it's much deeper than that but at first glance kind of cool. By the time that "Draw the Line", their fifth album, came out Aerosmith was considered to be so huge that original pressings didn't even feature the band's name or logo. Music-wise this is Aerosmith at their most drug-infested rock & roll swaggering best. The title track is a Steven Tyler/Joe Perry masterpiece and side two opener "Kings and Queens" is a monster track.

Angel
White Hot 1977

Like a lot of the bands I enjoyed growing up, I discovered the music of the band Angel via an older kid in our American housing area in Germany. We would wander around listening to tunes on his portable cassette recorder, occasionally partaking in some "herbal" enjoyment. (Unlike the music, that was something I got over pretty fast) One of the tapes this kid would play was called "White Hot" by this band Angel and it had a smoking side two opening track called "Got Love if You Want it" that would turn out to be perfect air guitar material despite the heavy presence of keyboards in the band. The music pushed me to run right out and buy myself a copy on vinyl. The cover painting of the band tied to the stake ala Salem witch trials style is an amazing piece of artwork and features the band's "reversible" logo which read the same no matter which way you turned it. The inside sleeve contains a great picture of the band plus of course all the cool merch advertising that was typical of albums released on the Casablanca label in the seventies (KISS being the biggest example of this).

Cheap Trick
Live at Budokan 1979

In the 70's live albums not only provided a fan the chance of hearing all of a band's top tunes on one record but also to enjoy the "live" experience through not only the sonic sound that came through on most live records from this period, but also from the great artwork and booklet usually included. These live releases tended to be double albums complete with gatefold cover and a ton of live pictures. That would probably explain why a good bit of the albums in this list are live. In the case of Cheap Trick's Live at Budokan, it's just a freakin' great record! The songs are incredible, the order is perfect, and the crowd is pumped! Toss in the incredible visuals including the booklet which is written in English AND Japanese and you have one helluva album!


Cheap Trick Dream Police 1979

While "Live at Budokan" may be Cheap Trick's all-time greatest album, for my money follow-up "Dream Police" is their best studio release. With tunes like the incredible title track,the rollicking "The House Is Rockin' (With Domestic Problems)" pop gem "I'll Be with You Tonight", lush ballad "Voices", this album is about as complete as it gets and to top it off...the artwork with the guys dressed in white police outfits is incredible. The gatefold art is cool with each member standing next to themselves in a police lineup. Pretty cool and pretty clever for the time. Just a note: Follow-up album "All Shook Up" is also a great record and perhaps one of Cheap trick's most underrated releases.

David Bowie
Diamond Dogs 1974

This particular album is very personal to me as my late uncle Michele introduced me to the music of David Bowie via this very record on a trip to Italy a year after this record came out. The youngest of my Mom's siblings, I would always get to stay at his house during visits which always meant listening to cool records by such bands as Deep Purple, Bob Dylan, and Michele's fave artist, David Bowie. Michele even had this cool red portable player that played 45" vinyl singles that slid into the side sort of like a CD. To this day I have yet to be able to track one of these down! Of course just one look at the cover and you can tell why a nine-year-old American male in the 70's would dig the art. It was as out of this world as you could get in 1975 (aside of KISS) and making it even more interesting? You could open the gatefold up and discover that bowie was actually half shock rocker-half dog! Well not really but the art was done as to make him look that way. Oh yeah - the music is great to and includes Bowie fave "Rebel Rebel."

Dogs D'Amour
Dynamite Jet Saloon 1988

I originally picked this release up on cassette through a mail order in a music magazine solely because I thought the ad in the magazine looked cool. Thank God I did as this band (as well as frontman Tyla's solo stuff) has turned out to be a huge influence on my own music. Probably when I started to worry less about the slickness of a vocal production and started to listen more to the feel of vocal presentation itself. No one will ever accuse Tyla of being a powerfully clean singer but that's cool, his artistic vision comes across in his words, voice, AND visuals with Tyla being the main supplier of art for most of the band's releases. This one is catching as it uses two great complimentary colors in black and pink but in a different way than the normal big pink on black letters. Throwing in a second shade of pink would normally be considered a no-no but in this instance works great with the artistic idea. Once I picked up the actual album I was even more blown away by the overall presentation.

Iron Maiden
Killers 1981

Another thing that made album covers so important was the influence it could make on whether or not to purchase an album by a band you had never heard of. For me such a band was Iron Maiden and the reason? I saw Eddie staring at me from the cover of the band's second release "Killers" while walking through a German mall. I immediately ran home, begged my folks for some cash, ran back to the mall and bought the record. To this point the heaviest tunes I had regularly listened to were Black Sabbath and Van Halen and from the moment I put this record on I was speechless! I stared at the cover while sitting indian style in front of my stereo, headphones strapped on, tunes just a blasting! "Murders in the Rue Morgue" is still one of my all time favorite metal songs and easily my fave Maiden song. While former Samson singer Bruce Dickinson would replace original frontman Paul Di'Anno just a few months after "Killers" was released and help take the band to new heights, the first two Maiden releases featuring Di'Anno (as well as a more raw sound)stand out as my favorites by the band.

Kiss
Alive! 1975 & Alive II 1977

Now in a discussion of great album art I suppose that a case could probably be made for just about every KISS LP that came out between 1974 and 1982 what with all the color, bombast, art, liner additions, and fun little extras that came with each early KISS release. Perhaps 1976 triple album release "The Originals" might have the most as it features the first three albums complete with paper replicas of the covers themselves as well as a cool booklet but as far as regular KISS releases go, the two live albums release in the 70's - Alive! and Alive II take the cake. What makes these two releases interesting is how the band used them to bookend different points in their career, Alive! featuring songs off the bands first three studio releases, and Alive II featuring songs from their next three. In these two packages you have a pair of live albums released by the same band only two years apart that feature no common songs between the two! Both releases came in a gatefold presentation. Alive! featuring handwritten letters from the band and a knod to the first three studio albums on the inside, Alive II sporting a great live shot across the entire inside of the gatefold. Visually stunning and filled with tons of color and flash. Toss in the myriad of booklets, cards, tattoos and extras that came out with one or the other and you had rock & roll records that were just as loud and fun visually as they were musically!

Led Zeppelin
Physical Graffiti 1975

Led Zeppelin's great record "Physical Graffitti" was not only loaded with some great tunes, but was also a visual oddity being presented as a double LP in a slipcase. Adding in the fact that while most double albums in the mid seventies were either soundtracks or live releases, Zep's 1975 masterpiece stands out as a ground breaking piece of work featuring fifteen studio tracks scattered over a pair of vinyl records. While mainly known for the 8-minute plus track "Kasmir", Zeppelin's sixth release was chock full of great stuff. That not only included the music, but the cover itself which featured a four-story artful recreation of a five-story New York tenement block with the windows cut out so you could see strategically placed sections of the inner sleeves (4 different sides). In regular setup the windows spelled the album's title, but by switching the sleeves around you could make different "tenants" appear in the windows including Robert Plant and Richard Cole in drag!

Ted Nugent
Double Live Gonzo

To say that Ted Nugent's "Double Live Gonzo" was my introduction into a whole new world of wild unadulterated rock and roll would be an undertatement. This double live over-the-top masterpiece left me in awe that something so raw and blunt could even be released legally. The cover with the Nuge on his knees covering his ears just screams "PLAY IT LOUD" and man did I! The inside of the gatefold, with it's multiple live concert shots, was a wonder to behold for a kid rarin' ro run wild but as of yet let loose. On the inside could be found loud sex-driven stories of rock and roll topped with blistering guitar solos. The fury of just the last three songs alone, "Wang Dang Sweet Poontang", "Cat Scratch Fever", and "Motor City Madhouse", possibly contributed to my desire to commit underage acts of filth as much as any of the "foxes" at my school.

Pink Floyd
Wish You Were Here

Yet another group that I was turned on to courtesy of my late uncle Michele. While in later years I would find my desire to listen to Floyd diminish, "Wish You Were Here", with its simple yet stunning cover, remains a time stamp from my youth. The album, in part a tribute to original Floyd member Syd Barrett, is perhaps best known for the title track despite it never having been released as a single. Starting with the flaming businessman on the cover, the artwork is a representation of the four elements,with the other three elements represented by a faceless salesman selling Pink Floyd products in the desert (earth); a naked female figure in a grove, barely visible behind a windswept red veil (air); and a splashless diver half submerged in Mono Lake (water). A postcard with an alternate version of the diver with "Wish you were here" written on the back was also included.

Quiet Riot
Metal Health

While musically not one of my favorite albums of all-time, Quiet Riot's major label debut "Metal Health" was a fun hard rock driven album that sat nicely side by side with all the other hair band records of my HeadBanger's Ball youth. Sure it had some classic lyrics like "wanna kiss the lips not the ones on your face" (geez) and the openly naughty words were probably just as responsible for it becoming a best selling album as their cover of Slades "Come on Feel the Noize" but while the tunes weren't all that special (O.K. I'll admit "Slick Black Cadillac", a tune reworked from the days when a young Randy Rhoads was a founding member, was pretty choice) the cover art with the guy who looked suspiciously like singer Kevin Dubrow wearing a straightjacket and Hannibal Lecter style mask was brilliant! I must of recreated that cover in everything from pencil to pen to chalk on paper, walls, and even inside a few yearbooks.

Rolling Stones
Sticky Fingers

How brilliant was THIS album cover?!?! A shot of jeans with an actual working zipper revealing a set of male underpants? I can only imagine not only the expense of creating the cover but also trying to explain the concept to the A&R guy at the label - "well y'know mate it's a zipper and when you pull it down you see Mick's bulge under his knickers." This at a time when it wasn't unusual to stuff your illegal stash down your pants and now you could hide it in Mick's britches...um record. But not only was the cover cool, this 1971 release chock full of Jagger / Richards nuts, um gems is considered by many to be one of the best Stones records ever released and personally, it my fave Stones platter period. Side one alone contains "Brown Sugar", "Sway", "Wild Horses", and "Can't You Hear Me knockin' for crying out loud! Flip it over and BLAM! "Bitch", "Sister Morphine", and "Dead Flowers', among others. This record is so freakin' rock & roll that it probably needed a zipper just to breathe!!

Rolling Stones
Some Girls

Very similar in concept to Zeppelin's "Physical Graffitti" cover wise, the Rolling Stone's "Some Girls" album uses a cutout design which also makes use of the sides of the inside record sleeve to change the faces found on the cover. Those cover, featuring a weird array of faces made up Rolling Stones member and iconic female celebrities, would come under fire when Lucille Ball, Farrah Fawcett, Liza Minnelli (representing her mother Judy Garland), Raquel Welch, and the estate of Marilyn Monroe threatened legal action. Revised future editions found all celebritiy likenesses removed. What makes this record even more interesting in how the band took then popular music forms such as punk, disco, and reggae and infused them into the already legendary Stones sound to oddly enough create music that was for all intents and purposes undeniably Stones. "Miss You", "Shattered", and "Beast of Burden" are all classics that would offer a glimpse of where the Stones would be heading for the following decade.

Rush
All the World's a Stage

Next to KISS' "The Originals", this double LP housed in a triple gatefold would turn out to be one of the prized possessions of my youth. While not as spooky as the studio album the band was supporting on this tour, "2112" and nowhere near as mainstream as "Moving Pictures", "All the World's a Stage" stands in a class all its own. Just the tri-fold cover itself is a marvel housing an endless number of live photos on the inside. While never a huge Rush fan, some of the tunes found here in live form are among my fave songs by the band expecially the rocking "The Temples of Syrinx." Many of the numbers fall into a fantasy realm which has never been my norm when it comes to music but overall, a good rocking record with great visuals.

Styx
Crystal Ball

Featuring not only a visualing pleasing cover, "Crystal Ball" by AOR / arena rock band Styx not only introduced Tommy Shaw musically but verbally as well. The inner sleeve features not only photos of each member of Styx but also a brief bio for each one in particular Shaw and how he came to not only join Styx but be held in such good faith that the album itself would be named after the Tommy Shaw composition of the same name. Shaw would provide lead vocals for three of the album's seven songs and "Crystal Ball" would become the launching point to the band becoming one of the biggest bands of the seventies.


Whitesnake
Come An' Get It

Way before "Still of the Night", and "Here I Go Again" David Coverdale and Whitesnake were tearing up most of the free world outside of the U.S. with popular bands like AC/DC taggiing along in support. Matter of fact, by the time of the release of 1981's "Come An' Get it" the band already had four releases and all that kept their latest record from reaching number one in the UK was Adam and the Ants "Kings of the Wild Frontier." Featuring Coverdale's bandmates from Deep Purple, Ian Paice on drums and Jon Lord on keyboards, "Come An' Get It" was part Purple style rock part strut cock rock shoved along by ball busting drums and hooky choruses. It was everything I dug about the soulful rocking side of bands like Bad Company but with more balls. But like many records back in the day, I never would have heard the music had I not been inclined to buy the record and I was sold on this one purely on the fantastic art on the cover. The snake coiled up in the class apple on the front and the smashed glass apple sans snake on the back was so visually stimulating I would just stare at it while listening to the record through my huge set of headphones. This is one of those "UHHH!" records that not only makes you feel rockin' but a bit sexy as well!

Those are just a small bit of the records that impacted my younger days not only musically, not just visually, but in complete packages. Some I dug better musically, some I prefer visually but as a whole, each and every one has or still does kick major vinyl ass!

Book 'em Dano!

OK, it's true, I don't know who Dano is aside from a character on a one-time popular television show. But that's cool. This blog is all about things like popular TV, music, movies, etc. so I'm cool like that. But here's what I do know - by the end of this summer all you who read this, dig it, and really care can enjoy it even more when I put out my very first book to be named after this blog (well sorta) Reflections & Confessions of a Pop Culture Junkie Volume One.

So what will RCPCJV1 contain? (my wife says I like to use initials so there's one for you Jeannie!) Well since you are asking...it will have some personal anecdotes such as the ones found on this blog, but also poetry, lyrics, and short stories, all related to pop culture or at least my personal pop culture!

So keep an eye out here for the release date. I'm currently fine tuning the manuscript and pouring over art choices before I send this off to the publisher. Hopefully by the time you shoot off firecrackers for the Fourth of July you'll be able to get a copy!

Thanks,
Stoney

Before ipod...There Was Boombox

I just recently jumped on the whole portable mp3 bandwagon when I picked up a cheap little player on Ebay and I gotta say, it's pretty cool. You can put it in your pocket, buy one of those things that you can use to attach your player to your wrist or arm, or just toss it on the table while you're rockin' out. It may be portable but as far as any type of "coolness" is concerned...it falls way short.

Back in the days of my youth we also had portable ways to play our favorite music. Unlike the mp3 player where you store all your fave tunes in this little player though, back in the day you had to carry your music around with you separately. But it was worth it and added a little groove to the average swagger. Of course the portable player I'm talking about is a boombox and the music? Piles and piles of cassette tapes.

While I had cassette players and even a small cassette player with AM/FM radio before, it wasn't until 1979 that I got a boombox - a big (but not the biggest) Sanyo box with cassette, AM/FM radio, external mics and a handle that went from one end all the way to the other. What I liked best about mine was that it was mainly black with hints of silver where all of my friends boxes were pretty much all silver. Now all I needed to do was dub some records onto tape and maybe even hit up the Post Exchange for some new tapes. But before I hit the streets crankin' my tunes, there was one accessory I so desperately wanted to add to my new boombox. A little decor, if you will.

A foxtail to hang from the handle!

So with foxtail hooked in place, I grabbed my boombox on one end of the handle, so it would tilt slightly towards the ground giving me that "I could care less" air of coolness, and sauntered down the stairs of our apartment stairwell and onto the sidewalk of the American housing area I lived in. I was blasting Ted Nugent's "Weekend Warriors" when I heard an unfamiliar voice calmly say "Cool, the Nuge." It was this new long-haired kid, Pat Barron, who had moved to the neighborhood while I was gone on holiday with my folks. Pat was a tall long-haired skinny guy who wore blue denim from head to foot. Years later when I first saw pictures of Metallica's Cliff Burton I often thought how much Burton reminded me of Pat. But anyway...

Here was this new kid hanging out on the front stoop with MY friends when my new rockin' boombox and I should have easily been the hit of the day. Pat wasn't carrying a cool set of tunes. But he was definitely cool. In the end we all headed to the park and talked about whatever cool stuff 13-15 year olds talk about with the soundtrack for our youth provided, although briefly, by me and my rockin' jukebox!

Years later Pat and a couple of other friends including my buddy Wayne Smith who lived right across the hall from me in Germany, also ended up in the area. Pat in Evans and Wayne in Hephzibah. Both of those guys joined the military. Wayne is still in the service I believe while the last I heard Pat traded in his Marine stripes for coast guard ones.

I may not have that boombox anymore...but I got the last laugh...

...I still got the hair! (for now)

Slithery Sssssssinema

I tend to have a soft spot for many things from the 70's. The music, the television, and of course, the movies. For every world famous movie like Star Wars or Saturday Night Fever, there are a ton more "cut-out bin" level movies that went on to be forgotten. (cut out bin-a display in a store filled with "clearance" items, most commonly used in reference to music records that have a corner of the cover cut off or punched by a hole punch to mark them as clearance items.) Luckily for me, and others who love these old B and C rated movies, most have been released on low cost DVDs in recent years making it possible for a new generation of film fans to "suffer" through them. Many have achieved some level of cult status, others just exist to fill a nostalgic void.

One such "lost" film from my early childhood was an eerie horror film called Sssssss.



Originally released in 1973, I actually had the pleasure of catching this movie for the first time on the Armed Forces Network in the mid 70's in Zweibrucken, Germany in 1976. With only one English language channel you were kind of stuck with whatever was on TV which was usually made up of second rate movies and episodes of TV programs well past their original debuts in the U.S. For the remainder of my childhood and teen years Sssssss would remain a must watch every time it came on late late movie television programming. Sadly sometime in the late 80's TV thought itself too sophisticated for overly crappy movies and the showing of rare movies that failed miserably at the box office (or even failed to make it to the theater going straight to TV before even "straight to video" was thought of) slowly faded away leaving those box office bombs lost in film limbo. But let me offer a quick description of Sssssss.



Dr. Carl Stoner (cool name, played by Stother Martin ala Slapshot, Up in Smoke)is a seemingly nice old guy who experiments on animals for the betterment of science in particular snakes and to move things along Dr. Stoner hires an assistant, college student David Blake played by up and coming actor Dirk Benedict (Battlestar Galactica, The A-Team).

To protect David from the venomous snakes, Dr. Stoner injects the eager assistant with "antibiotics" which immediately brings a change, which Dr. Stoner insists is normal, in David's appearance and health. The first to notice is Stoner's daughter Kristina (played by Heather Menzies of Sound of Music and Piranha fame) who has grown fond of David which apparently she tends to do with many of her father's assis...um "experiments."

Now you may already see where this is going. The kind Dr. Stoner is actually a mad scientist who is wildly occupied with perfecting a method of turning humans into King Cobras. David is not his first attempt and so far, Dr. Stoner has failed miserably creating several "half human half snake" people which he disposes of by selling to a carnival to be used as part of their sideshow. Somehow Kristina ends up roaming around the carnival at night and comes across "Snake Boy" who she immediately recognizes despite the reptilian dude being completely hairless, blueish green and missing half an arm and both legs. This is easily the most chilling part of the movie.

In the end Stoner finally manages to get it right and turns David into a King Cobra. In turn "King David" turns on the good doctor and swallows him whole. Unfortunately for "King David" (and Kristina who somehow knows that this big ass snake is her boyfriend David) a mongoose from the lab escapes and puts its own "bite" on big Dave essentially bringing a chiling end to the movie.

Does this sound unbelievably too out there to actually exist? All it takes is a quick search on Ebay and you can pick up a copy of the film for probably less than 10 bucks and see for yourself. But I gotta warn you, Sssssss may slither its way into being one of your guilty viewing pleasures!

Tasty

by John "Stoney" Cannon

I found you sitting here
Chilling out with the others
In my possession imported beer
We’ll share this night together

My attractions usual go much deeper
But I’m struck by your snug presentation
Wrapped in colors bold and much sleeker
No other could be competition

So quickly, my chariot awaits
Just a second I’ll open the door
My senses so do salivate
Loudly my engines they roar

To my castle it can’t be too soon
For my keys I impatiently stumble
Such decisions I find in the room
The counter, the couch, or the table

Let’s strip you of all of your trappings
Soon you’ll be burning inside
On deaf ears and eyes fell your warning
Suggesting the heat first subside

Minutes, seconds lead to the moment
You’re dealing with no mere beginner
The alarms arrive so convenient
Now it’s time for my microwave dinner

First Kiss?

The year was 1976 and I had just landed in the center of the U.S. from a four-year stint in Zweibrucken, Germany. Well, at least close to the center as we were always told that the exact middle of America was somewhere in Kansas and Dad got stationed in Fort Riley. So for all intents and purposes, we were in the general vicinity.

First of let me just say, Fort Riley, Kansas in 1976 was pretty dang cool, especially for a 10-year-old kid with a new bike, a wild streak, a bit of hyperness, and a desire to explore. Within biking distance was two lakes, a pair of pools (one in-door, one out-door), a couple of movie theaters (I guess they grew things in double there) not to mention a ton of cool hills and valleys to speed down on a banana seat bike or California Freeformer skateboard. In the summer there was always a breeze and in the winter you could play in the snow without an insane amount of layers of clothing.

There's was always plenty to do and better yet, it could be done without the assistance of parents.

What made that year even funner, besides having a great two-wheel mode of transportation, was a couple of cool presents I received during the year. First was a little black and white TV (which would eventually end up attached to a Sears pong game console) for that early Saturday morning cartoon fix, and a neat transistor radio. While not my first experience with music, this allowed to me to live that now classic existence of listening to music at night with the sheets pulled up over my head in an attempt to muffle the sound so Mom and Dad couldn't hear.

It wasn't long before I took over Mom's slightly larger radio / cassette player and started taping my fave songs so I could hear them whenever I wanted. I particularly enjoyed listening to Paper Lace's "Billy Don't Be a Hero" and "Seasons in the Sun" by Terry Jacks. Other songs that were a part of the neighborhood sing-a-long fare were Shaun Cassidy's "Da Doo Run Run", and some silly tune by a band called Flash Cadillac featuring Wolfman Jack called "Did You Boogie (with Your Baby)." To say that our tastes were simple and unrefined would be putting it mildly. The easier you could sing-a-long to it, the better.

One day as I got ready for school I heard this catchy tune just out of the corner of my ear. I turned to listen but at that exact same moment Mom called me for breakfast so I popped in a tape and hit record hoping that afterward the deejay would say who the singer was. Listening to the tape later I did end up with one side full of music but no mention of the artist.

So it was then my mission to find out who sang this song I so quickly became hooked on.

In my youthful wisdom I decided I would tape the song every time I heard it. Eventually I would hear the name and maybe even talk Mom into buying the 45" single.

This went on for weeks! Eventually I had a cassette with this tune taped over and over and was no better off than I was before! So I gave up.

Another part of my 10-year-old activities was scouts. Scouts was something I started taking part in when I first arrived in Germany. It was fun to do odd things and get rewarded with a badge for your efforts. Well at least it was fun to me at the time.

On one particular scout outing I was riding in the back of a car with a couple of my fellow scouts. The talk was the usual, "have you seen this movie?" or "did you hear what happened to so and so at the pool?", etc. Somewhere along the way I just started singing this tune that I had forgotten about. I didn't even realize I was singing. That is until one of the other scouts asked me "do you like Kiss?"

to which I replied "who?"

"You know, Kiss, the band that does that song."

"um...yeah, of course I like Kiss." I said slowly.

Back in 1976 who DIDN'T know who Kiss was? Their faces were plastered all over notebooks, pencils, puzzles, and anything else you could sell. I knew who Kiss was.

I just didn't know what they sounded like. At least until I found out that the song I so feverishly tried to connect to a band was in fact, Kiss.

The song? "Beth."

To be fair, based on just having heard "Beth" I still really didn't know what Kiss sounded like. But that would soon change as I spent the end of 1976 hanging out with Jerry (my scout co-passenger) and getting schooled in all things Kiss. We even went dressed as Kiss for Halloween! I was, of course, Peter. No makeup, just Kiss costumes our parents picked up at the Post Exchange. (sorta like Wal Mart for military folks)

A couple days before Halloween I got to go over to Jerry's to watch the Paul Lynde Halloween special which featured Kiss performing three songs, "Detroit Rock City", "King of the Night Time World" and "Beth." It is still one of my most fondest memories from my childhood.

I eventually admitted to Jerry, who by that time had become my best friend in a way that he was Fonzie to my Ritchie, that I really didn't know much about Kiss when we first met. He was cool about it and seemed sort of pleased that he had done such a cool deed as introducing me to such a cool band as Kiss.

A few months later, Jerry's Dad got reassigned and I would never see Jerry again. It was a sad moment but as an already experienced military brat I was used to seeing friends come and go. But while Jerry had to go, he left with me a very valuable gift.

Over the years I have become friends with people from all over the world because of my continuing love of Kiss and their music. I've experienced writing to Kiss fans in East Germany while the Berlin Wall was still up, I've talked Kiss with fans from Italy, and I've traded tapes with fans from coast to coast.

So I got my first Kiss from a guy named Jerry.

At least it wasn't Vinnie Vincent!

(My first KISS kiss actually came from a sweet Italian lass a couple years earlier.)