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Ichiban Launch Party at Lakeside Lounge

Big heartfelt thanks to everyone who's been pitching in to help out WFMU and Norton Records this past week.  We are grateful to each and every one of you.  If you can get to Prospect Heights this week, there is still a lot to do at Norton HQ.  Email me at wfmuichiban@gmail.com for directions.  There would be no Ichiban without Norton!  Please help if you can.

Greg Cartwright Spins

Dr. Filth & Greg Cartwright

I had a real good time recording a new DJ set with Greg Cartwright in studio D during the Ichiban 3 year anniversary week.  We were unable to record the back announcements so we won't get to hear that Tennessee drawl that we all love so much, but the music speaks for itself.

Greg Cartwright Spins Vol. 6 (mp3)

Holidays - Desperate
Kenny Owens - Wrong Line
Ted Lucas - Head In California
Keith Dennis - Almost Grown
Roy Hall - Little Queenie
Louis Jordan - Big Bess
Royal Rhythms - Lovey Dovey
Mosriters - Turmoil
Johnny Eager - Howl
Mad Man Taylor And His Piano - Rumble Tumble
Jerry Arnold - Honey Babe
Roscoe Shelton - Running For My Life
Len Wade - The Night The Angels Cried
Clyde McPhater - Shot Of Rhythm & Blues
Mosriters - On The Run
Four Flickers - Yo-Yo
Chain Gang - Little Black Book
Jackie Lee - Would You Believe
David Coleman - Foolish Heart
Danny Overbea - My Love
Al Brown & The Tunetoppers - Sweet Little Love
Danny Winkle - Don't Fall In Love
Arnold Sanford - LInda Lu
Holidays - Dark Valley

Happy Birthday Dr. Filth!

Big thanks to Dr. Filth for saving the day and keeping Ichiban streaming after we lost our main server at WFMU. We hope to be back up and running this week! In the meantime, let's wish Dr. Filth a Happy Birthday! Eat some cake and raise a glass. Thanks.

Tomorrow

You Tore My Brain

If you can get to Prospect Heights in Brooklyn this week, the Nortons need you! Email me at wfmuichiban@gmail.com for directions.  The clock is ticking. Thanks!

Let Her Dance!

Dust & Grooves Video Of Operation Norton

Saving Norton Records after Hurricane Sandy from Dust & Grooves on Vimeo.

Thanks to Eilon from Dust & Grooves for shooting this.

Deke Dickerson remembers his early days as a Norton Records artist

 In the 1980's, as a headstrong teenager fresh out of high school, I was in a band called the Untamed Youth.  We were the first "new" act signed by Norton Records, back in 1988.  It's hard to remember this now, but at the time the two main formats were vinyl records or cassette tapes.  CDs were an expensive medium for classical and jazz fanatics, and if my memory is correct the earliest CD players cost something like two thousand dollars.  LP's were definitely waning in popularity, and cassettes were the highest selling format....and don't forget the most miserable format of all, "cassingles,"  the majors' feeble attempt to replace the 45 rpm record with a two-song cassette tape.  If you were a normal alternative rock or heavy metal band in 1988, you put your new release out on cassette, and it would possibly be released on vinyl if you were signed to a big indie or major label.  There was no "hip" association with vinyl at the time.  It wasn't cool like it is today.  Mainstream people hated it.  A lot of people thought the pressing plants for vinyl were going to go out of business (and a lot of them did) during that time.

I remember asking Billy Miller if the Untamed Youth album would be released on cassette, since I was very worried (insert sad horn sound here) about our band's commercial potential in the marketplace.  Billy's response was that "cassettes are for Madonna."  When the Untamed Youth came to New York to play, Billy took me in the Norton-mobile to the pressing plant to see our record being made.

To an 18-year old kid, immersed in the new-to-me mystical world of intense, obsessive record collecting, seeing the antiquated processes and machinery that created these records was like a visit to the Wizard of Oz.  Machines wheezed and clunked and the air was thick and acrid with the smell of vinyl particulate and steam.  It was awesome.  I watched as Untamed Youth "Some Kinda Fun" LP's came off the line.  I was surprised at how much hand-work was involved, figuring it would be an all-automated process.  Nope, it was pretty much like the 1950's, low-wage folks inserting vinyl biscuits into pressing machines, hand-inserting vinyl into sleeves.

Billy Miller looked at a stack of reject 45's and pulled out a red vinyl 45 called "Roaches" by the Court Jesters.  "Hey, this one is a good doo-wop song about Roaches, you have it?"  I replied I did not, but I knew I certainly needed it.  Soon my world would revolve around doo-wop sounds about Roaches, one-man band songs about government cheese, and surf songs about monkeys.

We loaded a bunch of boxes of literally hot-off-the-press Untamed Youth albums into the Norton-mobile and drove to the Norton warehouse (different place than it is now, but still a musty, moldy underground bunker with the sort of infrastructure and wiring and plumbing one would expect from a city built upon the ruins of the previous three centuries).  There I was, a kid fresh out of high school, unloading a princely 1000 copies of my first record down some rusty stairs into a dark basement warehouse.  I probably knew at that moment, though my ambition wouldn't let me accept it, that super-stardom was not in my future.  Madonna had not started out this way.

Somehow I knew, though, that this was my place.  A world where a pancake-shaped molded vinyl particulate would be obsessed over as though it were the Shroud of Turin by a group of unemployed, broke jackasses that really, god bless 'em, really really cared about the music.  They could tell you about alternate takes, they could tell you about which pressings were vinyl and which were noisy styrene, they could wax philosophical about how Hasil Adkins and Jerry McCain had been separated at birth, even though one was white and one was black.  I felt all the same things, and I knew that Jerry Lee Lewis alternate takes were important to me, too, even if they didn't mean a damn to the friends I had back in Missouri.  For that moment of recognizing and accepting my fellow species of lowlife music-obsessed, record collecting miscreants, I owe Billy and Miriam and Norton Records a huge thanks. 

Now here I am, two and a half decades later, lugging my own vinyl pressings into my own storage space, 1000 copies at a time.  Vinyl is hip again in a way that we never would have predicted back in the 1980s.  I have no embarrassing cassingles in my past, and I have Norton Records to thank for that as well.

It saddens me now to think of the Norton Warehouse, submerged under Hurricane Sandy bilge water, those precious biscuits of vinyl waterlogged.  Some of those priceless nuggets have my own precious teenage angst garage band music recorded on them.  I remember lugging those boxes down the stairs nearly 25 years ago, and it makes me damn proud to know that Norton Records has hung in there that long--prospered, at that.

I know that the good people will come together and help save what records can be saved, and people will help Billy and Miriam recover from this tragedy.  Norton Records is too damn important to let some flood water put 'em out of business, where Madonna had failed to do so.  You can't drown the loud sound, indeed!

 All photos appear here courtesy of the Untamed Youth's Facebook page.

Norton Record Cleaning

Here's a picture of the flooded warehouse.

Boxes of records are being transferred to Norton HQ in Prospect Heights.

Bloodshot Bill does the heavy lifting.

Ted and Angie bring the records upstairs.

The gang washes every record and wipes them dry to await new sleeves to a Mad Mike soundtrack.

If you would like to help, call 917-671-7185 or email nortonrec@aol.com.  This will be going on all week.

Norton November On Ichiban

We dedicate the month of November to our heroes over at Norton Records.  Their Brooklyn warehouse was flooded with 4 feet of water during the Frankenstorm.  If you live in Brooklyn and have some free time, please lend a hand in salvaging what's left of the debris.  Volunteers are needed to sort/clean records at Norton HQ in Prospect Heights.  For the address call 917-671-7185 or 718-789-4438 or email nortonrecs@aol.com.  I will see you there!!

We're Back!

We lost our main Ichiban server during the storm, but Dr. Filth is holding down the fort until we can get back up!!  Tune in now!

Donations accepted!

Spookareno!

We welcome guest DJ, Phil Milstein from Probe Is Turning On The People  to handle the scary business here today!!  We still do not have power in our Jersey City studios so I've uploaded the show for you to enjoy now.

BOO!

1. Merv Griffin: House Of Horrors (Merc., 1962; wr. Ruth Roberts & Bill Katz; cond. Charles Greane)
2. Babs Tino: Dr. Jekyll Or Mr. Hyde (Kapp, 1963)
3. Cecil Campbell & His Tennessee Ramblers: Spooky Boogie (RCA Vic., 1950; actual chattering teeth!)
4. The Sharks: Spookareno (Sapien 1003)
5. Hollywood Flames: Frankenstein's Den (Ebb, 1958)
6. The Daylighters: Mad House Jump (Bea & Baby, 1959)
7. The Jayhawks: The Creature (From Outer Space) (Aladdin, 1957)
8. homemade hybrid: Casper The Friendly Ghost (TV sdtk.; Little Richard)
9. The Nightmares with Jimmie Maddin Orch.: The Headless Ghost (American Int'l., 1959)
10. Bob Ridgley: The Way-Out Mummy (Del-Fi, orig. unrel.)
11. Damon Fox: Black Widow Spider (Crimson, 1967)
12. Jack Rivers: Haunted House Boogie (Coral, 1951)
13. Jekyll & Hyde: Frankenstein Meets The Beatles (DCP, 1965)
14. Lon Chaney, Jr.: Spider Baby (from movie of same title, 1964; wr. Ronald Stein)
15. Lord Luther with The Kingsmen: (I Was A) Teenage Creature (Frantic, 1959)
16. Ray Noble & His Orch., voc Al Bowlly: Haunted House (UK, 1931)
17. Bryan "Legs" Walker: Trick Or Treat (Piper Platters (Temple City CA), 1959; wr. Bill Jacoby)
18. The Chubukos: Boogie The Devil In (Mainstream, 1974)
19. The Devils: The Exorcist (from Funk Cargo comp (Famous Groove, 1994))
20. Round Robin: I'm The Wolf Man (Domain, 1965)
21. The Sham-Ettes: (Hey There) Big Bad Wolf (MGM, 1966)
22. The Fairviews: Nightmares (Spin It (LA CA), c.1965; wr. Murray Schwimmer; pr. Nick Therry)
23. The Dell Vikings: The Voodoo Man (Merc., 1958)
24. Shalimar & His Friends: Voodoo Mash (pts. 1 & 2; Del-Fi, 1962)
25. Cathy Mills: Monster Hop (Tin Pan Alley (song-poem); wr. Gregory & Dienna)
26. Nita & Bonnie: The Graveyard Rock (Preview (song-poem); wr. Ash, Marsh & Susser)
27. The Villagers: Headless Nightmare (Petal 1410, c.1964)
28. Hot Rod All Stars: Ten Commandments From The Devil (Torpedo, 1970; wr. L. Briscoe)
29. Ron Waldon: Witch Girl (Vibra 101, 1961; wr. Clesi & Alcorn)
30. Murray Schaff & The Aristocrats: Tombstone Number 9 (King, 1956)
31. Morgus with The Daringers: Werewolf (Fulton (Det.), c.1959)
32. The Muleskinners: Wolfman (Soma, 1964)
33. Denny & Lenny with The Hollywood Ghouls: Monster's Love (Chance)
34. Billy Snel: Queen Of Halloween (Wild 100, 1960)
35. Jimmy Bowers: The Vampire's Ghost (Track 1002, 1958)
36. The Crewnecks: Rockin' Zombie (Rhapsody, 1959)
37. The Nightmares with Jimmie Maddin Orch.: (Ooh I'm Scared) Of The Horrors Of The Black Museum (Amer.
Int'l., 1958)
38. Eddy Arnold: Tennessee Hillbilly Ghost (RCA Vic. EP, 1957)
39. Ray Stevens: Laughing Over My Grave (Merc., 1964)
40. Rosemary Clooney: The Wobblin' Goblin (Col., 1950; pr. Hecky Krasnow)
41. Eddie Dean: A Gravedigger's Lament (Crystal 156, c.1948)
42. Janie Jones: Witches Brew (HMV (UK), 1965; wr. & pr. Sidney Gilbert; title sic)
43. Souls Unlimited: The Raving Vampire (pt. 1; Wigwam; wr. Bobby Green & James Parker; pr. Charles O. Johnson)
44. Jesse Stone: Who's Zat (RCA Vic., 1948)
45. The Mystrys: Witch Girl (Orbit (Sydney Aus.) 100, 1966)
46. Kay Bell & The Spacemen: Scream Along (With The Monster) (Vista, 1963)
47. The Monotones: Zombi (Argo, 1958)

special thanks to Bruce Milne and Tom Taber