Friday Random Top Ten

Ya pushes "shuffle" and ya takes yer chances. . .

1. Ooh Baby Bo Diddley
2. Uncomplicated Elvis Costello and the Attractions
3. He Loves Me Kirk Franklin and The Nu Nation Project
4. Bible Days The Swan Silvertones
5. Frontier Wives Frontier Wives
6. You'll Never Get Me Up In One Of Those Mickey Jupp
7. Duet: O Death, Where Is Thy Sting? Richard Westenburg/Musica Sacra
8. Sentimental Fool Roxy Music
9. Pirate Jenny Lotte Lenya
10. Yesterday Once More Redd Kross




Well, I swear to God that I didn't manipulate the shuffle or anything; I was really surprised when the first song was Bo Diddley; surprised and pleased. Frontier Wives were friends of A Cruel Hoax and A Social Club. We all started the First Strike Musicians' Collective in San José, California back in the mid-1980's. None of us could afford to record an album, so members of The Kingpins (a rockabilly band), A Cruel Hoax (the band I was in), and a strange country-punk band named Big Hair met and decided to pool our resources to record a Compilation Album. A month before we were going to start recording, Big Hair disbanded and members started three other bands: The Kettles, The Whistlin' Bullets, and The Frontier Wives. Scotty Long and Matt Rook started Frontier Wives and they stayed with the project. I love the chorus: I wanna die, like a Frontier Wife with a heart strong and true and a six-gun nestled by my side! Scotty suggested we check out this band named Social Club, so I went to see them at a gig at Gavilan College in Gilroy, CA. They knocked me out and I saw their music as complimentary to the music of A Cruel Hoax, so The Social Club joined the project. Everyone was responsible for their own material and then provided me with the finished product for mastering. We asked Harry Sumrall, the music critic at the San Jose Mercury-News to chose the song order as everyone knew that their song should be first on side one or side two. I took the tapes to Fantasy Records in Berkeley with Harry's song order. Now, Frontier Wives' drummer at the time was Kat Hill; she had a mouth on her, but most of us did. On the slate before the Wives' song Yahoo! she did a count and just started playing. No one was playing with her and she said, "I forgot to hit the f***ing sticks!" Then the song started. I thought it was funny and left it the master. When the test pressing was delivered to each band, the Kingpins had a fit because Kat's little funny came after their song Broken Hearts Man Game. "Kat said 'f***ing!' Kat said 'f***ing!' Everybody's gonna think it was us!" they whined. I reminded them that the only people who were gonna buy this record were local folks and everyone knew Kat talks like that. They kept complaining and wanted the album re-mastered with the Frontier Wives' slate removed. I refused and the record came out with the slate and no one complained. However, since the Kingpins made SUCH A FRIGGIN' STINK the Frontier Wives changed their name to the Frontier F***ing Wives, which was quite funny but embarrassed my daughters if I wore the T-shirt. Another Footnote from San José Rock History, as told by Padre Mickey!!!

Oh yeah, the other songs on the list are okay, too!