Songs That PEARL HARBOUR Taught Us

Cowgirl Pearl

Do you love Pearl Harbour as much as we do?  It's not a contest -- but if it was, this blog would win!  Here's a deluxe edition custom combo compilation thingy of songs that Pearl has covered, as well as a couple cover versions of songs from Pearl's solo debut (Don't Follow Me, I'm Lost Too)!

If you don't know her story, Pearl is the daughter of a Filipina and an American serviceman, so "Filipino Baby" is almost autobiographical.  As a teenager, Pearl emigrated from Germany to San Francisco, where she became the singer for Pearl Harbor And The Explosions.  She left the band after a difference of opinion in musical direction.  "I wanted the show to be more wild rock & roll. They were more interested in jazz, funk, and rhythm & blues," she later recalled.  In concert, The Explosions covered the rockabilly classic "Black Slacks" as well as Ron Wood's "I Can Feel The Fire" and Nick Lowe's "Let's Eat".

Pearl traveled back across the Atlantic in search of that wild rock & roll sound, and cut her 1980 solo debut in London with Nigel Dixon, Steve New, and Wilko Johnson on guitar (all of whom have been featured here).  Geraint Watkins played keyboards, and his music has been compiled here by Koen.  

Ian Dury with Pearl

Mickey Gallagher produced the album, and Pearl covered Ian Dury's "Rough Kids", as well as "Losing To You" (from Nigel Dixon's band Whirlwind) and "Cowboys & Indians" from Geraint Watkins & The Dominators.   Another cover she recorded (which became a signature song of her career) was "Fujiyama Mama".  

Pearl married Paul Simonon (whose brother Nick briefly played drums for Pearl), and she toured Japan with The Clash.  Today's comp includes a live "Fujiyama" and "Hit The Road Jack" from that tour (with a descending bassline similar to "Stray Cat Strut").  Speaking of the Stray Cats, Pearl and Wilko joined them onstage at Montreux for a version of "Be Bop A Lula" (you can barely hear Wilko near the end).  Pearl also covered "Wrong Em Boyo" with The Mods, a Japanese punk band who played on her third solo album. She later sang "Brand New Cadillac" with The Colts, another Japanese band.

Pearl with The Mods

Pearl and Paul eventually divorced, and she returned to San Francisco.  Her last solo album (so far!) was recorded with East Bay Ray (whose guitar work with the DK's and other bands has also been featured here).  

Here Comes Trouble was recorded as a tribute to Phillip Bury, the beloved frontman of Buck Naked & The Bare Bottom Boys. Phillip was tragically killed in 1992.  Stinky LePew (aka Stinky Naked) joined Pearl on the album, and the title track was a Bare Bottom Boys original.  

The "jukebox" portion of today's share includes several other originals that Pearl recorded, and the "songbook" section features two covers of Pearl Harbour originals: "Do Your Homework" by Supersnazz and "Heaven Is Gonna Be Empty" by Hanoi Rocks.  There was a Swiss band called Satellits who covered "Alone In The Dark" (also from Don't Follow Me), but I can't afford their EP and I've never found an mp3 online.  Help me, internet!

IN THE MIX Vicki Peterson Edition Vol. 2 with Bangles, HOODOO GURUS Steve Wynn, ACTION SKULLS!

IN THE MIX Vicki Peterson Edition Vol. 2.  My musical mash note to VICKI PETERSON continues.

On Vol. 2, there are more BANGLES tracks Vicki sings lead on, which include two of my favorite songs by the group; James, and Crash & Burn.  Their amazing early track Want You is here along with More Than Meets The Eye, I Got Nothing, Lay Yourself Down, & Get The Girl (Live At The House Of Blues).  There’s even Make A Play For Her Now which Peterson co-wrote with Vinnie Vincent (formerly of KISS!)

In the early days of THE BANGLES, the whole group supplied backing vocals for HOODOO GURUS.  Vicki & her sister Debbie sang behind MATTHEW SWEET, and Vicki backed STEVE WYNN & GIANT SAND on her own.  

Vicki Peterson seems to love to be in a group, and there are tracks from her bands; THE PSYCHO SISTERS (with SUSAN COWSILL), THE ACTION SKULLS (with John Cowsill & Billy Mummy), & CONTINENTAL DRIFTERS.  And of course a cut from her newest & highly recommended release Long After The Fire (with her husband, JOHN COWSILL).  

Long After The Fire is available on bandcamp as a download, a CD, or on vinyl: Vicki Peterson & John Cowsill

 

Easy to Whistle, Hard to Forget: Welcome to Idiot Records!

Trust the Dutch to come up with weird concepts… At the end of the 1970s a couple of Dutch punks from Twente decided to start their own record label and called it De 1000 Idioten. Their marketing ‘strategy’ was to have at least a thousand idiots buy their product(s) to break even and perhaps even make a profit!

 

With that in mind, they released the first punk song, Van Agt Casanova, in Dutch by an artist called Paul Tornado. To their surprise, more than 5.000 copies were sold via mail order only! When the number of copies exceeded the estimated one thousand, they changed (slightly) its name in 1981 to Idiot Records.

Although set up as a punkish label, they soon started releasing other genres as well: pop, new wave, big band, rockabilly, and hard-to-classify weird sounds, sung not only in Dutch, but also in English, German, and even in French.

Their first bunch of records was either released as 7 or 10 inches, another quirky distinction from other labels… Dutch artists and bands included KEWI University of Swing, Wisselink, Fay Lovesick/Lovsky, Mathilde Santing, Joep Bruijnjé, Boulevard of Broken Dreams Orchestra, Gigantjes, Stephen Emmer, Smithereens, Nils Wieland, Jump! Dickie Jump!, Bram Vermeulen, Siobhan, and others.

Idiot lasted only until 1990, but luckily, it was taken over by Basta Records, another independent Dutch label.  Only 1 compilation CD was ever released, 1997’s First Idiots, which focused mainly on the early years. That same year Basta Music Sampler - Sense & Sensitivity was also released, which included several Idiot artists.

Of all those artists, only Mathilde Santing really broke through; she had a few hit singles, covered Randy Newman, and in 2012 collaborated with Todd Rundgren and the Dutch Metropole Orchestra.

No matter their lack of success, Idiot Records pumped out a pretty cool selection of music which i.m.o. is still worth listening to and perhaps will pique our visitors' interest in checking them out for more! 

Plenty of original songs, including a quirky tribute to fictional British flying ace Biggles and a weird cover of the old classic Woolly Bully!

Love Love Love those Triple Song Titles

Richard is the fourth Beatle of this blog, an honored guest who has generously shared a number of compilations with us from his vast music collection.  His features on the artists Buy Off The Bar, Claw Boys Claw, Eton Crop, The Four And Onlys, and Johnny G (as well as his Plurex Records and Whistling Grandpa compilations) are entertaining, informative, and unique.  Much of this music simply cannot be found anywhere else on the wild world of webs.

He is also Chief Researcher on our Triple Song Title committee, a title that I just made up and conferred upon him right now (congrats, Richard).  On behalf of the committee, thanks thanks thanks for your diligence and devotion to our quixotic cause.  Richard has found literally hundreds more triples that haven't been posted here yet.

Richard recently suggested that Valentine's Day would be an appropriate time to share his stash of over a hundred treble-titled love songs.  What better way to woo your loved one?  Download them all, or make your own mix of "Love Love Love Songs" from your favorite artists.  The object of your affection will be mightily impressed by your strangely obsessive but thoughtful gesture! He or she need never know who actually did the digital "crate digging"! Your secret is safe with JOKONKY!  Here's a whole lotta love -- virus-free, no commitment, no batteries included and no strings attached -- with love from us to you.

IN THE MIX Vicki Peterson Edition Vol. 1 Bangles PSYCHO SISTERS Continental Drifters

IN THE MIX Vicki Peterson Edition Vol. 1

I’ve loved THE BANGLES since day one.  They perfected a mixture of jangle pop, folk, psychedelic garage rock, and Beatlesque harmonies that I never get tired of, and when I saw them live on their reunion tour, they really delivered.

Guitarist VICKI PETERSON sang lead on maybe a third of the band’s songs, and she wrote, or co-wrote, a lot of them.  I was surprised to discover (in my researching this post) that one of my favorites by The Bangles; Hero Takes A Fall was one of the first songs she wrote with Susannah Hoffs.

IN THE MIX Vicki Peterson Edition Vol. 1 starts off with an early collaboration between Australia’s HOODOO GURUS & THE BANGLES.  They also backed TOM PETTY & THE HEARTBREAKERS.  

Aside from her Banglemates, Peterson’s voice blends best with SUSAN COWSILL’s (her sister-in-law) with whom she formed THE PSYCHO SISTERS.  The two originally supplied guest vocals for THE CONTINENTAL DRIFTERS, and were asked to join the group which also included Peter Holsapple of The dBs, & Mark Walton of The Dream Syndicate.

PETERSON is a born collaborator—and a fantastic harmony singer.  She’s also sang background vocals on recordings by REDD KROSS, GIANT SAND, & JOHN DOE, & I’ve included a track from her newest & highly recommended release Long After The Fire (with her husband, JOHN COWSILL) on bandcamp as a download, a CD, or on vinyl:  Vicki Peterson & John Cowsill After The Fire

I’ve mixed in some live performances.  Three tracks by THE CONTINENTAL DRIFTERS were recorded in New Jersey bars, two by THE PSYCHO SISTERS recorded live on L.A.’s KCSN FM.  

 

The Future's So Bright, We Should Be Wearing Shades

Last Sunday my old company had organized a walkathon for charity, on the island of Koh Kret.
The day before I’d assisted with setting out the routing, similar to the previous year.
It was a fun event with a 100+ people attending, finished around 11 am, and we were thinking about having a sort of celebratory drink at one of the islands’ restaurants/bars.
This time however the sale of alcoholic beverages were prohibited due to the upcoming elections.
As long term expats we’re kind of used to this but unnecessarily to say we didn’t particularly approve of it either since foreigners aren’t allow to vote anyway!
Surprisingly enough though we managed to find a restaurant that was happy to serve us beer, great!
Soon afterwards we were happily chatting, nibbling away some snacks, and enjoying our drinks, but still, something wasn’t quite right…

Problem was the background music, not too loud but still very present, old English hits, but the more ‘poppy’ ones, very popular songs here, which all of us probably had heard at least a million times before. Beloved karaoke classics like “Have You Ever Seen The Rain”, “Sutter’s Mill”, “Yellow River”, “Love You More Than I Can Say”, “Beautiful Sunday”, “Cottonfields”, etc.
By the time “Mississippi” from Dutch band Pussycat began, I couldn’t handle it any longer and politely asked if we could change the music.
‘Sure, go ahead.’ More than that wasn’t needed and a quick search through YouTube turned up ZZ Top’s “Cheap Sunglasses”, a whole different kind of music, powerful and with plenty of guts, let’s rock!
Suddenly our party became a lot more fun (& noisy I guess) and we ran through a lot of rock classics.
As our beer consumption increased dramatically the restaurant’s owner didn’t mind our group's erratic behavior…
About 2 hours later we decided to call it quits, paid the bill, and (a bit wobbly) left the restaurant.
The next few days that ZZ Top song was stuck in my head and I began to wonder what other glasses (with or without sun) songs I remembered.

Some were obvious, like Dwight Pullen’s rockabilly classic “Sunglasses After Dark”, Corey Hart’s “Sunglasses At Night”, but others less so; Miranda Lambert’s “Pink Sunglasses”, Inner Circle’s “Sunglasses At Nite”, etc.

Some digital digging turned up more glasses and shades related songs, including 3 unusual Japanese ones.

And before I knew I had a new collection ready for JOKONKY… 

Musically it goes all over the place, but on the whole it’s good fun, judge for yourself.

However, be sure to put on some shades while listening to this collection!

Steppingstones (Part 3)

Here's a third set of Steppingstones.  This series is a companion to Nuggetized (punk covers of Lenny Kaye's seminal collection of garage rock and psychedelic artyfacts), and a stepchild of the ongoing Punks Got Soul cover song series.  There's overlap among the three series -- but whatcha gonna do about it?

The inspiration for Steppingstones was a disastrous press conference where a drunk and boorish John Lydon claimed that the Sex Pistols never played cover songs.  Marc Bell (aka Marky Ramone) immediately responded, "Stepping Stone!"  Henry Rollins was there too; he kept quiet, but he knew from his SOA days that "Stepping Stone" was adopted as an anthem of the DC hardcore scene by kids who had learned it from the Great R&R Swindle soundtrack.  

Steppingstones #3 digs a bit further into the bubblegum and glam rock years, as well as landmark early 70's records from Alice Cooper, Patti Smith, Lou Reed, Brian Eno and the Modern Lovers that inspired the first decade of UK punk.  Stretching across the British Empire this time to include The Scientists (from Down Under) and The Forgotten Rebels (from Canada).  

I hope that you can forgive the presence of Paul Francis Gadd (his prison name) and separate the undeniable art from the irredeemable artist.  His appeal for release was denied in 2025, and rightly so. 

As with previous volumes, the original songs (on vol. 3.1) are generally longer than the punk versions (on vol. 3.2).  So there's a bonus track on 3.2 of T. Rex jamming with The Damned on a live version of "Bang A Gong".  The original recording bangs on for over 12 minutes, so I made a few crude edits in Audacity to reduce the length without sacrificing Rat Scabies' glorious drum solo.  

Speaking of The Damned, they have recently released Not Like Everybody Else, a covers album which serves as a tribute both to the late Brian James and to the music that inspired the band.  Rat Scabies, Dave Vanian, Captain Sensible and Paul Gray are touring this year to promote the record.  I saw them in concert last spring, and they've still got it!  Dave is in great voice, and the Captain is still an idiot savant, firing off brilliant solos while bouncing around as loony as ever.  Paul is a master of that Rickenbacker tone (like Lemmy and Bruce Foxton before him), and Professor Scabies beats his drumkit until it begs for mercy.  (SPOILER: no mercy granted.)  The tour is no "filthy lucre" cash grab, it's a celebration of fifty fuckin' years of mindless, directionless energy paired with magnificent showmanship.