NOTE: This is a pre-production transcript and may not match the final show precisely.
Hello! And welcome to the next episode of How Good It Is, the show that takes a closer look at songs from the rock and roll era, and we check out some of the stories behind those songs, and the artists who made them famous.
My name is Claude Call, and the nose swab isnât as bad as I thought it would be.
Remember to check out the website, How Good It Is Dot Com, and the Twitter, and the Instagram, and of course the Facebook page, which can be found over at Facebook dot com, slash, (ow) How Good It Is Pod.
And now Iâve got the Patreon Page, where you can show the podcast a little financial love, just like Gary Black and Jeremiah Coughlan did, and I thank you both very large for that. I donât really know anything about Gary, but I can tell you that Jeremiah is a very funny guy based on the West Coast of the US, and heâs the co-host of a baseball podcast called Brine Time, which is presumably on hiatus since baseball in general is on pause these days. But you can check him out on the Instagram atâJeremiah Coughlan. And in the meantime, you can be like Jeremiah and Gary, and check me out at Patreon dot com, slash how good it is, and of course you can find that link at the website.
And while Iâm giving the shout-outs here, let me also say hello to Dana and Aimee, the hosts of the Run Eat Drink Podcast. Theyâre a married couple out of Florida who travel the country to participate in destination racesâfive or ten K, or half-marathons, and they also find great places to eat and drink in those towns. They take their running seriously, but not so much so that itâs a complete bore, and they absolutely enjoy sharing food and drink tips with listeners. And theyâve just made it to their fourth Podiversary, with Episode 117. Say, guys, this is my Episode 118 and I havenât quite made it to three years. Maybe Iâm built for speed and theyâre built for endurance. Anyway, Hi Aimee! Hi Dana! Iâm totally in your head now!
[TRIVIA]
Hereâs a neat trivia question for ye: Name the artist whose greatest commercial success came from an alter ego he created based on a childhood nickname he had. This may not be who you think it is, so think carefully.
It seems almost poetic that a song titled âWild Thingâ has a little bit of weirdness attached to it. So letâs turn back the clock to 1965, when a man born James Wesley Voight but more commonly known as Chip Taylor, wrote the song. Does that name James Voight sound kind of familiar? Heâs got a slightly more famous brother named Jon Voight. Which makes Chip Taylor the uncle of Angelina Jolie. At that time, Chip Taylor was mostly known for writing Country songs, but he got a call from record producer Gerry Granaham who wanted some rock and roll. Plus, he didnât have a lot of time to put something together. And when I say ânot a lot of time,â according to Taylor the song was needed the next day. Fortunately, he had studio time already booked for recording a country tune, so he called up his engineer Ron Johnson and said, âIâm coming over, have my stool set up, and hit record as soon as I sit down.â He also told Johnson to turn the lights off so that he could lose himself in the in the song, just kind of feeling his way through it. Iâm a little sad that I couldnât find a copy of the demo to share with you, because Iâve read accounts that itâs pretty sparse, with some tambourine and Johnson doing what Taylor described as âa little thing with his hands.â Weâre going to talk about that in shortly.
In an interview with Mojo Magazine in 2008, Taylor says that the pauses and hesitations he does in the song were because he wasnât sure what he was going to do next. However, later on he came to embrace those pauses as being integral parts of the song. Anyway, the next day, his demo was presented toâŚ
âŚah ha! You thought I was going to say The Troggs, didnât you. Nope. The song was recorded first by a group called Jordan Christopher and the Wild Ones.
[WILD ONES]
Gerry Granaham approved and produced the song for the Wild Ones, and the record was released on November 1, 1965, where it pretty much failed to sell. And despite Jordan Christopherâs name being out front, the song was sung by another member of the band named Chuck Alden, who later expressed regret for not performing it more like Taylorâs demo.
[WILD THING]
As I mentioned, the Wild Ones version didnât do much, but it did catch the attention of a garage band out of the UK named The Troggs. Now, The Troggs were signed to Larry Page, who was The Kinksâ manager, and recording on his label, called Page One Records. And when The Troggsâ first single flopped, they were given the choice of recording âWild Thing,â or another song called âDid You Ever Have to Make Up Your Mindâ, and if that sounds at all familiar, itâs because when The Troggs chose âWild Thing,â the other song went to the Lovinâ Spoonful.
In early 1966 The Troggs recorded the song, and it was released in April of that year.
The song was recorded in one complete take at Olympic Studios in London, but that doesnât mean they knocked it right out and they were done. What that means is that it got recorded all at once, without any overdubs or other post-production work. They did have to record it more than one time to get it right, and in this songâs case, the final recording was Take Two. To be fair, they didnât have a lot of studio time booked. In fact, they had NO studio time booked. Instead, when an orchestral session ended early, the band zoomed in to fill up the rest of the hour that Page had already paid for.
So whatâs up with that flute solo in the middle of the song? Iâm glad you asked. If you know anything about this show by now, you know that itâs not a flute. Itâs an instrument called the Ocarina, which is a very old wind instrument, going back as much as twelve thousand years. It looks like a hollow teardrop about the size of your hand, with a small projection to help you hold it. And while it can have anywhere between four holes and a dozen, most of them nowadays have only four, ever since an English mathematician devised a way to play a full chromatic octave using only four holes. Score one for Math! Anyway, when The Troggs heard Taylorâs demo, they thought that they heard an ocarina, but it was Ron Johnson using his hands to make a whistling sound. So they got an ocarina for the recording session. Go figure!
The Troggsâ version went to Number Two in the UK and Number One in the United States, but hereâs the interesting thing: Because there was a dispute over distribution rights in the United States, the record was released here on two different labels: Fontana Records and Atco Records. If you happen to have an original copy of the US release on Atco, you may notice that the songwriting credit is wrong. The A side, âWild Thingâ is credited to lead singer Reg Pressley, while the B side, called âWith a Girl Like Youâ, is credited to Chip Taylor. Actually, the A side is credited to âPresleyâ with one S. The credits read correctly on the Fontana versionâin fact, thereâs a different B Side called âFrom Homeââand subsequent releases for Atco are correctly labeled, but itâs an interesting goof nonetheless. For what itâs worth, it doesnât add a whole lot to the recordâs value. You might get ten bucks for it. At any rate, because of this bit with the dual-label release, and the fact that both pressings came from the same master recording, âWild Thingâ is the first, and so far only, song to reach the Number One position for two different companies simultaneously. Now, thatâs not to say that they sound exactly the same. As it turns out, the Atco version has something the Fontana version doesnât, specifically right after Pressley sings âYou move me,â thereâs a little audible click, which was edited out of the Fontana version I THINK the click is Ronnie Bondâs drumsticks clicking, because itâs in time with the music and makes sense, but listen closely and judge for yourselfâŚ
[ATCO CLICK]
OK, now thatâs it for the Troggsâ version, and you know how I roll: I like to share a couple of covers of the song with you at this point. And wow: are there a lot of covers out there. And most of them are very good in their own right. But let me start with this one, because it came out not long after the Troggsâ version was released. This is a parody recording from 1967 by a comedy troupe called the Hardly-Worthit Players, recording under the name Senator Bobby. The âsenator Bobbyâ weâd be talking about here would be Bobby Kennedy, so the record is full of inside jokes about the Democratic Party and the Kennedy family in general. Plus, itâs peppered with the Senator getting coaching from the recordâs producer while heâs recordingâŚ
[SENATOR BOBBY]
That parody actually made it to Number 20 on the Billboard Chart.
That same year, the Jimi Hendrix Experience performed at the Monterey International Pop Festival, and their rendition was captured on the album that was released in August of 1970, just a few weeks before his death.
[HENDRIX]
This is one of the more notable and known covers, but it was never released as a singleâŚ
âŚIn 1988, standup comedian Sam Kinison recorded a novelty version of the song which appeared on his album titled Have You Seen Me Lately? Paired up with a video that got a lot of airplay on MTVâa video which probably set back male/female relations a few years, even for 1984âit had a lot of rock and roll celebrity cameos, plus an appearance by Rodney Dangerfield and the then-infamous Jessica Hahn as the woman at the center of it all. Kinison flipped the script a little bitâOkay, a LOTâand made the song rather misogynistic, setting up the Wild Thing as a heartless woman out to ruin menâs livesâŚ
[KINISON CLIP]
I have no idea whether any of the performers in the video played on the record itself, as I wasnât able to find a personnel list for the song. But the record did make it to Number 18 on the Billboard chart.
LA punk band X recorded this next one in 1984, and it didnât do much of anything until it was used as the theme music for Charlie Sheenâs character in the 1989 film Major League.
[X]
That opening note just sucks you in and takes you for an amazing ride. Itâs probably my favorite coverâŚ
âŚIt was actually tough to find the record, or even a downloadable version for a long time, but I have seen it on Amazon Music and Spotify lately. Now, a lot of people listening to this song thought it was Joan Jett, and I kind of get that. But I think part of the confusion arises from the fact that her old band, The Runaways, used to perform the song in their concerts, a recording of which was captured on their Live in Japan album from 1977. But that recording also makes it clear that itâs not Joan Jett singingâŚ
[RUNAWAYS]
âŚanother one which I really like is this one from 1981, recorded by Siouxsie Sioux, who most of you know from Siouxsie and the Banshees. But this is from her work with her other band, the Creatures. She added some lyrics, and the whole thing is very sparse, with just human voices and these Tarzan Movie drums going on. Have a listenâŚ
[SIOUXSIE]
âŚI know itâs not everyoneâs cup of tea, but I like that one a lot. Also pretty good is this one by Liz Phair, which was originally recorded for her Exile to Guyville album but instead wound up on an EP and a bonus track. Again, sheâs changed the words and the general sentiment, but the guitar line is there:
[LIZ PHAIR]
Now, in listening to all these covers, I started to think that thereâs just no way you can screw this song up. There are NO bad covers of this song! And I wasâŚkinda right on this, but there are a couple of questionable ones. Let me give you the more controversial one first:
[MUPPETS]
Let me tell you: I grew up watching Sesame Street, I do like the Muppets but to tell you the honest to goodness truth, when theyâre not on the Street, their charm completely escapes me. I hope weâre still cool even though I confessed that to you. The Muppets took a couple of shots at this one; the first was in Episode 222 of The Muppet Show, in which Animal performed the song by himself. That show first aired in the summer of 1977. And then in 1994 we got the clip you just heard, from the Kermit Unplugged album.
And then thereâs this one, from Hank Williams Jr. in 1984. Iâm just going to play part of the song, but you really need to hear the entire thing for yourself. Hank adds an extra verse where heâno, I canât spoil the surprise. Go listen to the record. And then get back to me and tell me if you made it all the way through without laughing out loud, because I donât know what he thought he was doing there…
[HANK WILLIAMS]
Oh, dear. Letâs cleanse our palates, because
Itâs time to answer todayâs trivia question. Back on Page Two I asked you about the artist whose greatest commercial success came from an alter ego he created that was based on a nickname from his younger years.
[HOT HOT HOT]
The artist in question is David Johansen, who was part of the proto-punk band the New York Dolls, but he found some genuine commercial success when, in the late 1980s, he put on the persona of an extra smooth lounge singer and called himself Buster Poindexter. âBuster Poindexterâ is a name that people called him when he was a young intellectual thug growing up on Staten Island. Buster Poindexterâs big single, âHot Hot Hotâ only made it to Number 45 on the Billboard chart, but it also got to Number 11 on the Dance Club Play chart. That first Buster Poindexter album got to Number 40 on the Billboard Albums chart, and thatâs as big a success as Johansen got, from a chart standpoint.
And, thatâs a full lid on another edition of How Good It Is. If youâre enjoying the show, please take the time to share it with someone, and maybe even leave a rating somewhere, and now you can support the show over at Patreon dot com, slash How Good It Is.
If you want to get in touch with the show, you can email me at HowGoodPodcast@gmail.com,
Or you can follow the show on Twitter or Instagram at How Good It Is.
You can also visit, like and follow the showâs Facebook page, at facebook dot com, slash How Good It Is Pod.
Or, you can check out the showâs website, How Good It Is Dot Com, where you may find a few extra bits.
Thanks, as usual, to Podcast Republic for featuring the show.
Next time around, weâre going to find out How Good It Is when we try to find out what the frequency is, Kenneth.
Thanks for listening, and Iâll talk to you next time.