Six Questions With Tommy And The Rockets

Tommy Stubgaard (aka. Tommy And The Rockets) is a rock n roller from Odense, Denmark. Playing a joyous mix of fifties and sixties influenced pop punk, he has released three albums and a handful of EPs and singles chock full of songs about summer, fun and girls. He has worked with members of The Connection and The New Trocaderos and last year released a single with The Dahlmanns.  His latest release is a split 12” with Sweden’s Psychotic Youth called, "Scandinavian Flavor" It is available digitally and on vinyl and CD courtesy of Snap Records. 

CASEY:  Tell me about your early days?

TOMMY:  I grew up in Odense, Denmark.  Population about 175,000.  I grew up with my mom and my older brother who's about three years older than me. I have three half brothers, as well.  I moved to Copenhagen when I was about 26, but moved back to Odense when I started having kids.  I like it here. It's not too small for nothing to ever happen but also not so big that it totally consumes you. I do miss Copenhagen though, especially when it comes to music related stuff.

CASEY:  When did you start getting into music?

TOMMY:  I started to listening to music seriously at a very early age.  My Dad listened to stuff like Shakin' Stevens, George Thorogood, Wreckless Eric, Dave Edmunds and stuff like that, music that I still listen to to this day.  My older brother brought home a lot of albums from the local music library when I was very young and that sort of paved the way into my fascination with the Ramones and AC/DC. I always find it difficult mentioning all of the bands and artists I've been inspired by since there are so many. My all time favorite is The Ramones.  Rocket To Russia is my all time favorite album.

CASEY:  When did you start playing music?

TOMMY: Got my first acoustic guitar at age ten or eleven and got my first electric guitar at thirteen.  I had a few guitar lessons by a teacher I had in school but it was mostly just stringing a few chords together and that was that.

CASEY:  Tell me about your first band.

TOMMY:  It was a band at elementary school.  I don't remember what we called the band, something very juvenile, I'm sure.  The first "proper" band I had was also with musicians I went to school with who were a few years older than me.  It's hard to remember in detail but I think I must have been fourteen or fifteen when we first started.  It was hard rock influenced.  I still have the demo tapes we did.  Our drummer suggested the name Horticulture and that's what stuck for some reason. Horrible, horrible name!

CASEY: Tell me about Tommy And The Rockets.

 

TOMMY:  The idea to form a new band had been in my head for a while. I had been without a band for about two years and I was eager to get back into playing. I was going to call it Tommy And The Torpedoes initially.  One thing led to another and I soon hooked up with Michael Chaney who's a great lyricist.  We started tossing around ideas and he had a song he originally pitched to another band that I ended up having a crack at.  It just took off from there.  We ended up writing a whole album together, an album that initally meant to be just a single, then an EP but ended up being a full length album.  We also wrote an EP together.  Chaney brought in musicians to help like Brad marino from The Connection who played drums on those two releases and Kris Rodgers from The Dirty Gems who played all the keys.  Chaney and I stopped working together, though.  Let's just say we didn't see eye to eye.  Anyway, I've kept releasing stuff under the Tommy And The Rockets moniker with me playing most of the instruments and doing the bulk of the writing.  I've had guest musicians on some of the recordings but, in general, it's just me trying to do the best I can.  

CASEY:  What are your future plans?

TOMMY:  I want to put a full length album out and then focus on putting a band together. So, if there's anyone who's reading this who wants to be in a band with an old fart like me, don't hesitate to holler.

--Casey Redmond

Tommy And The Rockets Facebook Page

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King Uszniewicz & The Uszniewicztones: Teenage Dance Party

 

So, the story goes that back in the early seventies Cub Koda, the lead vocalist and guitar player for Brownsville Station, wandered into the Orbit Room cocktail lounge at the Brentwood Lanes  bowling alley in Detroit and witnessed one of the worst musical performances he had ever seen.  In the liner notes of this album Koda describes the experience this way; "Lame out of tune vocals delivered with third rate Elvis imitator enthusiasm...horrid two and three note guitar and sax solos...flagrant disregard for tempo or even remotely keeping their instruments in tune...every song in their repertoire being played in same monotonous key of E natural."  Ladies and Gentlemen we bring you, King Uszniewicz And The Uszniewicztones.

King Ernie Uszniewicz (pronounced, You-Sneb-Bitch) was a Detroit vocalist and tenor saxophonist who trolled the Detroit bar band scene back in the seventies. Ernie and his band, the Uszniewicztones (U-Tones for short), landed a five night a week gig at the Orbit Room where their auspicious meeting with Cub Koda resulted in a recording deal with his own 1-Shot record label.

They released a single (Surfin' School/Cry On My Shoulder) and recorded three albums (all produced by Cub himself) before it all fell apart at the end of the decade.

Teenage Dance Party is their first and perhaps best (worst?) album. King U and his right hand man, guitarist Logjam Lurch Patterson, lead the way as the band bludgeons its way through golden oldies like" Little Latin Lupe Lu", "Papa-Oom-Mow-Mow" and "Greenback Dollar". Highlights include covers of The Novas' "The Crusher" and The Broadside Brass Bed Band's ridiculous, "Little Dead Surfer Girl". Drunk, out of tune, out of control and fun best describes the contents of this album. 

Koda lost track of the band in 1979. Their gig at the Orbit Room ended when the bowling alley burned down and Ernie reportedly quit his day job (wrapping produce at a motor city IGA) and left town.

Was there really a band called King Uszniewicz & The Uszniewicztines? Some say it was all a hoax, perpetuated by Cub Koda himself and that Ernie and the U-Tones never really existed. Koda died in 2000, so we may never really know. I like to think they were a real Detroit area bowling alley band. And I like to think they're still out there somewhere. Maybe Ernie split to Florida and is playing  nursing homes and senior centers. Just enjoying the good life. Now that's a nice thought.

You can listen to the U-Tones blistering version of "The Crusher" HERE

Casey's Website

The North Pole Chimney Shakers

The North Pole Chimney Shakers are the Artic Circle's premiere (only?) rock n roll band. Consisting of a group of former employees from Santa's Workshop, they spend their days collecting their unemployment checks and watching F-Troop reruns and their nights mixing it up at various North Pole watering holes. Their beer fueled live sets consist of sloppy garage rock and blues covers with a few originals thrown in for good measure. Their first record, the controversial "Mrs. Claus's Blues", not only got them fired from Santa's Workshop, it also got them a brutal beat down from a group of nasty elves and the "Bowl Full Of Jelly" himself. Still, they persevere. You can listen to "Mrs. Claus's Blues" HERE

The North Pole Chimney Shakers Are;

Rock N Roll Casey   Vocals, guitars, drums

Lars St. Nicholas: Tambourine, beer runs

Herbie "The Dentist" Usziewicz: Keyboards, bowling

Eddie "The Jingle" Kringle:  Musical Saw, hygiene

Songwriter; Rock N Roll Casey 

For more information go to:http://cmsr11.weebly.com

Casey’s Really Scratchy Record Collection Presents: The Twilight Zone : A Sound Adventure In Space

 

If you are looking for some weird creepy sounds this Halloween, look no further than this weird sixties album by the Marty Manning Orchestra, “The Twilight Zone: A Sound Adventure In Space.”

In 1960, the year this album was released, Marty Manning was a renowned conductor and arranger for Columbia Records. In the fifties, he had worked with such luminaries as Tony Bennett, Vic Damone, Buddy Greco and Barbara Streisand.  He even won a Grammy for his work on Bennett’s “I Left My Heart In San Francisco”. 

Marty Manning In Action

Perhaps bored with arranging strings for tin pan alley balladeers, Manning and producer Ernie Altschuler got together and recorded this freaky way out soundscape.

Filled with traditional instruments such as woodwinds, brass, guitars and pianos, Manning and Altschuler also threw in the kitchen sink of sound using a huge array of percussion instruments (marimbas, xylophones, tympani, tuned bongos, tuned logs!?!) and weird futuristic sounding instruments such as the Martinot, the Serpent (a snake shaped brass instrument) the Bazzimba and the Ondioline (an early synthesizer played by Manning himself). Add in the voice of Lois Hunt,who wails throughout, and you get a set of space age bachelor pad circus music from Mars.

The Serpent

The Ondioline 

In addition to the cover of  “The Twilight Zone Theme”, the album contains such spaced out numbers  as, “Forbidden Planet”, “Far Away Places” and “Spellbound Concerto”.

Not sure what exactly the Columbia Records executives thought of all this but it was the last experimental album Marty Manning ever put out. For the remainder of the sixties, he went back to arranging music for such MOR schmaltzmeisters as Perry Como, Sarah Vaughn and Harry Belefonte although he did release a cool 45 cover of “The Tarzan March” in 1966 under the name Marty Manning And The Cheetahs.

Marty Manning died in 1971.

Although it wasn’t a hit in its time, I like to think it was an influence on future prog rock Gods such as, Yes, ELP and King Crimson. Could that make Marty Manning the Father Of Prog? Sure, what the hell, why not?

Casey’s Website

Weird & Interesting Facts about: Screamin’ Jay Hawkins

 

Halloween is only a couple days away and what better way to celebrate than to look at the life of The Godfather Of Horror Rock N Roll, Screaming Jay Hawkins.

Weird & Interesting Facts:

-Jay Hawkins was born and raised in Cleveland, Ohio.

—He lied about his age and joined the Army at the age of thirteen and fought in World War II. He was captured and spent eight months in a Japanese POW camp.

—While in the Army he learned to box and in 1949 was the middle weight champion of Alaska.

—An accomplished pianist and guitarist, Hawkins worked as a sideman before going solo in the early fifties.

—In 1956  he recorded his classic, “I Put A Spell On You”. The song was supposed to be a serious ballad but Hawkins got drunk during the session, entertaining the band by screaming and grunting his way through the tune. Legend has it that he was so inebriated during recording that he blacked out and had to relearn the song later in order to play it live. The record eventually sold over a million copies.

—When performing the song live he would jump out of a coffin dressed in a cape and wearing a bone underneath his nose. He would proceed to stomp around the stage screaming, grunting and carrying on. General mayhem ensued. One of his stage props was a stick with a skull on top he named Henry.

—Screamin Jay recorded dozens of albums through the years doing everything from Opera to Country. He recorded several Tom Waits tunes  ("Heart Attack & Vine", " Whistling Past The Graveyard") which suited his both his voice and delivery.

—He acted in a number of movies including “Mystery Train”, “A Rage In Harlem” and “American Hot Wax”

—Check out his documentary, “I Put A Spell On Me” featuring Bo Diddley, Eric Burdon, Arthur Brown and Jim Jarmusch. It can be streamed via YouTube.  You can check it out HERE

—Hawkins was as wild off stage as on marrying six times and fathering 33 kids!

—He died in 1999.

Written by Casey Redmond

Casey’s Website

Jud Strunk: The Forgotten Troubador

Jud Strunk was a seventies singer/songwriter. In the early part of the decade , he had a big hit with “A Daisy A Day” a bittersweet tune about the devotion of an elderly widower. 

Although his heyday was at the height of the mellow singer/songwriter era, he didn’t fit into the long haired hippie style of the time. He dressed conservatively, kept his hair combed and well above the collar and he played the tenor banjo instead of an acoustic guitar.

Strunk was raised in Buffalo, New York and graduated from the Virginia Military Academy in 1959. In the early sixties he toured as a one man show for the United States armed services. He acted on Broadway and made appearances on Bewitched and was a regular on Rowan & Martin’s Laugh-In.

A Daisy A Day hit the upper reaches of both the pop and country charts in 1973. He placed other songs in the country charts including Bill Jones General Store, The Biggest Parakeets In Town and The Next Door Neighbor’s Kid.

The astronauts on the Apollo 17 lunar mission brought along a copy of Daisy A Day making it the first song ever played on the moon!

A native of New York, Strunk moved to Maine in 1960 and became a Maine folk hero of sorts. Many of his songs were about the characters and places of his adopted state. He ran for a Senate seat there in 1970 and reportedly lost by only one one vote.

Strunk’s music falls into the early seventies folk/country style. Think a mellower John Denver. (Yes, I know, that seems impossible.) He was a good songwriter with a lot of humorous story songs and nostalgia for a simpler time. The production often tips his music into MOR territory with an over use of strings and backing vocals and his banjo is too often buried in the mix. Despite these drawbacks, Strunk’s song craft and humor still manage to shine through.

Sadly, Jud Strunk is all but forgotten today. Amazingly, none of his studio albums have ever been released on CD and you won’t find any available on any music streaming services either. You can still pick up used vinyl copies on Amazon, e-Bay and Discogs for a couple bucks and there are some videos of him performing live on YouTube. He is well worth checking out.

Strunk, a licensed pilot, died in a plane crash on October 5th 1981. He suffered a heart attack just after take off. He was 45 years old.

Written by Casey Redmond

October 3, 2020

For more information on Jud go to,

http://judstrunk.com/

Casey’s Website

Juniper: Teenage Rock N Roll

 

If you are looking for a fun breezy pop record to wind down the summer, Juniper’s debut album just may do the trick. 

A fun collection of tunes about roller coasters, teenage garage bands and boys (lots of songs about boys), the music touches on many different styles including punk, bubblegum, glam, surf, Latin and eighties pop.

Juniper is the fifteen year old daughter of singer/songwriter and WFMU-FM disc jockey Michael Shelley who wrote six of the songs on the record and co-wrote one with Juniper and one with Juniper and Bucky. In addition, there are a handful of cover tunes written by members of Teenage Fan Club, The Muffs and The Rubinoos.

The album is filled with an amazing group of guest musicians too including Marshall Crenshaw, Chris Geddes (Belle & Sebastian), April March, Chris Collingwood (Fountains Of Wayne), Mark Spencer (Son Volt), Steve Goulding (Mekons), Dennis Diken (Smithereens) Greg Towson (Los Straitjackets) and Ira Kaplan (Yo La Tengo) just to name a few. Michael Shelley plays guitar, bass and a variety of keyboards throughout the album. 

Speaking of Michael Shelley, the production on the recording is incredible. As on his own albums, he takes the minimalist approach with just the right amount of guitars, keys and drums with touches of more “exotic” instrumentation (harp, congas, electric sitar) giving each song a unique mix but with plenty of room to breathe.

Juniper is a vocalist and song interpreter far beyond her years. She handles a wide variety of different styles with ease and subtlety. Think a younger Amy Rigby or Palmyra Delran. She also plays keys and flute on several cuts.

Track By Track 

(It All Started On) The Dragon Coaster:  Understated beach rocker....Love on a roller coaster...Think Beach Boys’ “Amusement Park, USA"...Only cooler.

 Kids On My Corner: Nice pop-punk ditty... "Joe's Garage" for Generation Z...Best lyric, "The other kids in the cul-de-sac/ Wouldn't like The Beatles if they came back"...Co-written by Juniper.

Everybody's Got A Crush On Chad: Righteous T-Rex style basher... Chad sounds like every parents worse nightmare...James Dean meets Arthur Fonzarelli meets Draco Malfoy.

 Best Kept Secret: A fine slice of eighties pop that would do The Go-Gos/Bangles proud...Co-written by Tommy Dunbar of Rubinoos fame....Believe it or not, that's Marshall Crenshaw on the guitar solo...One of my favorite tracks on the album.

Boys! Boys! Boys! Boys! Boys!: Guess what this one’s about?...First single off the album and deservedly so...Great power pop tune that attempts to answer the age old question: Why do teenage boys act like morons?...Answer: Something to do with the pre-frontal cortex, maybe...The keyboard break, played by Belle & Sebastian’s Chris Geddes, manages to reference The Beatles “Strawberry Fields” and Sweet’s “Fox On The Run”...Pure genius

Sticking With My Henry: A song of devotion with a great guitar solo courtesy of  Son Volt’s Mark Spencer.

Girls Just Want A Boy To Rest Their Head Upon: Nice co-write by Juniper and Michael...Pretty nostalgic ballad...Sounds like a lost Connie Francis song or a Grease outtake...Mercedes Bralo’s harp is a nice touch...When I say harp, I am not referring to a harmonica.

Poke You Eye Out: A Latin flavored tune co-written by Linda Marr and the late Kim Shattuck of Muffs fame...Flamenco guitar solo by Jose Luis Ushina

Gotta Draw The Line: Another album highlight...One of Juniper’s best vocal performances...Great back up singing from April March and Megan Reilly...Juniper plays the organ on this one too.

How Long She Gonna Stay In That Room: Fun song about another favorite teenage pastime; spending an inordinate amount of time in your room...Smashmouth inspired keyboard and wah-wah guitar by Michael Shelley who also wrote the tune.

Punk Rock Boy: Penned by Francis Macdonald of Teenage Fanclub...This song also may cause discomfort in parents of teenagers (see “Everybody’s Got A Crush On Chad”, above)...Chris Collingwood of Fountains Of Wayne chips in on backing vocals.

I Don’t Want To Dream About You: Another nice vocal turn from Juniper...She also adds flute and organ to this one...Perfect song to end the album...There is even a brief electric sitar solo by Keith Yaun. (Eat your heart out Denny Dias!)

For more information on Juniper, go to: https://linktr.ee/junipersongs

***I recorded an interview with Michael Shelley a year or so ago. You can check it out HERE

—Casey Redmond

August 14, 2020

Casey’s Website