Category: Music

Gin & Orange for Christmas

At 9 PM tonight this is where I’ll be.

https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/135080

Until then, on this Christmas evening I will be watching Top Secret!, the totally whacked-out follow-up to the totally whacked-out Airplane! This is the movie that made Val Kilmer whatever it was that Val Kilmer became. It asks and answers the question, “What if the Nazis had held onto power in East Germany at the end of WWII, and where the French resistance continued to resist?”

https://youtu.be/FHUgwQjO9Mo

Judy’s Living Bra

When “Judy in Disguise (With Glasses)” was released on November 25, 1967, everybody knew it was a play on the Beatles’ “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds”. Rather than being a novelty record, it’s a Psychedelic Blue-Eyed Soul masterpiece that took on a life of its own. The single stayed on the Billboard Hit chart for 16 weeks, compared to 11 weeks for “Hello, Goodbye”, knocking the Beatles out of the #1 spot in January.

The song is on John Fred & His Playboy Band’s second album, Agnes English, that was quickly given a new sleeve with the single’s title. I have an LP with the redone sleeve and, whaddaya know, the album is another creative musical gem from 1967.

Released only a few weeks after “Judy” was another perfect Psychedelic Pop record, “Green Tambourine” by the Lemon Pipers. These two singles are permanently linked in my mind, and when I hear one of them I always think of the other.

The “Living Bra” reference in “Judy in Disguise” came from Playtex, the company came up with the winning design for the spacesuits used in NASA’s Apollo missions.