A favourite for Halloween!
I just had about had a heart attack of insane
gushing record nerd pleasure the first time I heard this exotic surf beatnik
jazz freakout cum psychosexual teenage radio drama. One rainy night Julie and
Jimmy get lost in a cave. Over the next two and half minutes they desperately
call each other’s names and yell things like “Look out for that bat! Aaaarggghhh!” while tremoloed guitars and
evil organs stab and slide and poke them all over the place. Bandleader Gary
‘Spider’ Webb lays down the heavy jungle beat and gets extra wild and jazzy
whenever something scary is happening to Jimmy and Julie. And it only gets
better / worse on side 2! “I’ve got to find Julie and get out of this cave.
It’s been two long days…”
Gary Webb was fittingly enough a touring member of
the Hollywood Argyles, a made up studio group that songwriter / producer Gary
Paxton had sent to the top of the charts with ‘Alley Oop’ in 1960. In 1962 he
did it again with Bobby ‘Boris’ Pickett’s immortal ‘Monster Mash’. In between
the two Gary Webb made his own stab at horror hitmaking, but no avail. Still,
I’m sure he’d be pleased to know that 51 years later, Jimmy and Julie are still
stuck in that cave and our hearts.
You can hear my uncle Nosferichie1250 playing 2 hours of spooky records, including both sides of this one,
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