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Exclusive Original Television Soundtrack Album
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There are 5 messages in this issue of Spectropop.
Topics in this Digest Number 176:
1. Hal and the Archies
From: Frank Youngwerth
2. Archies in Hollywood???
From: "Donny Hampton"
3. Re: Hullabaloo on VHS and DVD
From: "Mike Arcidiacono"
4. Hullabaloo
From: Paul Urbahns
5. Hullabaloo
From: LePageWeb
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Message: 1
Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2001 23:49:38 EDT
From: Frank Youngwerth
Subject: Hal and the Archies
> LA studio drummer Hal Blaine played on "Sugar Sugar" and
> "Jingle Jangle", they are in his discography. So at
> least some of the Archies stuff was done in LA.
There may be other Hal Blaine discographies, but the one
I have doesn't list any Archies records. I remember
reading an interview with Gary Chester (who did a lot of
Dionne/Burt sessions) with an interesting and believable
account of how he ended up playing on "Sugar Sugar"--a
track that sure sounds like it was done in NYC. Maybe Hal
added some overdubs, or played on an alternate broadcast
version (as with the Monkees).
Frank Youngwerth
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Message: 2
Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 15:45:40 -0000
From: "Donny Hampton"
Subject: Archies in Hollywood???
Hi Mikey,
You wrote:
>LA studio drummer Hal Blaine played on "Sugar Sugar" and
>"Jingle Jangle", they are in his discography. So at
>least some of the Archies stuff was done in LA.
This is different from the information I got from Jeff
Barry, so I forwarded your post to him for feedback.
Here's his reply:
DC:
The drummer on "Sugar Sugar" was the late Gary Chester -
I know - I was there - I produced it (the track) - on the
East coast.
Jeff
I'm also anticipating some feedback on this matter from
Ron Dante, lead singer of The Archies.
Don Charles
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Message: 3
Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2001 12:45:25 -0700
From: "Mike Arcidiacono"
Subject: Re: Hullabaloo on VHS and DVD
Marc Wielage wrote:
>Speaking of SHINDIG: I'm pretty sure that most of those
>shows that survive are all from 16mm B&W kinescopes. I
>don't even think any of the original videotapes survived,
>to my knowledge.
>
>--MFW
Yes, thats true. And not only SHINDIG, but also Hullabaloo
(except for the last few episodes which were done in color)
and Hollywood A Go GO. One problem was that these shows
were recorded on One inch videotape, but in a format
called "C". Around 1970, most networks switched video
formats (which they would do many times since), and those
"C" tapes would not play on the current machines. so, the
executive braintrust figured "why pay storage fees on
these old "C" tapes" , and threw out most of them. The
tapes that DO survive are mostly kinescopes that were
saved by the producers, technical staff, ect. They are not
great in quality but are now all we have. At least
computer technology today allows us to clean up and
correct some of the deficencies of these tapes, so that
the quality is at least passable. I personally have a huge
collection of these shows, and its a damn CRIME that the
original one inch tapes were not preserved . But at least
the kinnies have stayed with us.
Oh..and by the way...the color Hullabaloo shows are simply
fantastic!!
Mikey
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Message: 4
Date: Mon, 04 Jun 2001 18:19:19 EDT
From: Paul Urbahns
Subject: Hullabaloo
Glen wrote:
> I saw the second DVD at a friend's house last night, and
> I believe that many of the toons had live vocals
> performed over studio-recorded backing tracks.
I noticed they did some of that too. But too many of the
songs the artist misses on the lip-sync to be real. It
probably depends on the artist and the individual show.
Probably during the run of the series (using these two
volumes as a sample) 50 percent of the stuff is live or
sung live to a pre-recorded track.
Paul Urbahns
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Message: 5
Date: Tue, 05 Jun 2001 02:56:04 -0000
From: LePageWeb
Subject: Hullabaloo
Paul Urbahns commented on the Spectropop group:
> Since Hullabaloo relied so heavy on lip syncs (Shindig
> didn't) why didn't the compilers put the original hits in
> stereo. Instead the whole thing sounds like its coming
> out of the 4 inch speaker in the side of your black and
> white TV.
Marc Wielage replied:
> Granted, they could have gone in and synced-up the
> hit songs in stereo with the visuals, unless they
> were live performances. But even that's a lot of
> trouble. Given the limited market for these videos,
> I suspect it's an expense the home video firm was
> simply unwilling to pay for.
Hey Guys,
Late last year someone gave me 12 or so hours of MPI Home
Video's Hullabaloo on videotape, but the copies were
off-line in various stages of post production (these were
being edited and sub-titled for a foreign market). On
some of the episodes the audio obviously hadn't been
tweaked yet, during certain sequences there was clearly a
sync problem between the audio and visual elements that
was not due solely to poor lip syncing (although there
certainly was a lot of that too). These "pre-tweaked"
segments also had a lot of audio phasing problems. Other
tapes were copies of the final production masters, and
these didn't have such problems. This led me to believe
that at least some work was done on the audio portion of
the programs when being prepared for video release.
Sometimes I wish they HAD dubbed the audio, even in mono.
For instance, when Bob Lind appeared, he played acoustic
guitar and sang Elusive Butterfly over his record, making
Nitzsche's gorgeous arrangement nearly inaudible.
A few things really struck me as strange that I would
like to mention here - One is Barry McGuire, who appears
on the program far more than his resume of hit records
would warrant. What is even funnier is our Eve of
Destruction prophet performs like a Vegas lounge act.
Watching a suit-n-tied McGuire hosting Hullaballoo and
singing all the hits of the day with his gruff voice, you
can't help but laugh - This is Eve of Production, not
Destruction. It is very strange. And Peter Noone! "My,
the Yanks are eating this up!" you can see him thinking
as he bounces all over the set with that goofy grin...
Other than that, there is a whole heck of a lot that has
little or nothing to do with 60s pop/rock, and that was
rather startling. Watching the tapes with friends, "Not
EVERYTHING from the 60s was genius!" became the running
gag I mean Hullaballoo even tried to capitalize on their
dancers national visibility by featuring them on the
show: Lada Edmunds, a fantastic go-go dancer with
marginal vocal talent, and male dancer Patrick, who sang
his record called "I'm In Love With Five Different Girls".
Right.
Other oddities include Soupy Sales hosting an episode in
which his sons appear (Tony and the Tigers), and Jerry
Lewis hosting when the Playboys are on (Gary and Jerry
dueting on a cover of Help - gulp!) Freddie and the
Dreamers seem to be on every other episode. Good god,
were they even on the charts for more than a couple of
weeks?
There are some priceless moments, though. The Shangs!!!
Wonderful! And when I saw the Ronettes introduced in the
opening segment of one of the shows I almost fell off my
chair. Naturally, their performance was cut (synch rights,
anyone?). Other highlights for me were appearances by the
Cyrkle, the Strangeloves, the Yardbirds, the Hollies,
Moody Blues (Go Now), Byrds and Bobby Fuller Four. On the
femme side, great bits by Nancy Sinatra, Joanie Sommers
(Before and After), Dusty Springfield (Some of Your Lovin')
and Jackie DeShannon.
Brian Epstein, Hullabaloo's English correspondent,
introduced many English acts who actually filmed their
bits in the UK. The disdain for the Searchers written on
Epstein's face during their performance was hilarious. On
another segment, he introduces another friendly rival's
discovery, Marianne Faithfull singing "As Tears Goes By".
Great stuff.
These are definitely worth spending a long weekend going
through.
Jamie
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