Join me at the brand new Tonga Hut Palm Springs! I’ll be spinning exotica, lounge, surf, instrumentals and swingin ’60s sounds for your mid-century style dining and imbibing! I’ll be there from 7 PM till…they pull the plug! No Cover! Tonga Hut Palm Springs 54 North Palm Canyon Drive, Palm Springs, California 92262, (760) 322-4449, http://www.Tongahut.com

Tune in to this week’s episode of Over Under Sideways Down on LuxuriaMusic.com with your host Lee Joseph – for an Edie Adams and Ernie Kovacs special with guest Josh Mills!

Josh Mills, who runs the estate of his mother Edie Adams (www.edieadams.com) as well as that of Ernie Kovacs (www.erniekovacs.com) will be bringing in a variety of music from both the professional careers of Edie and Ernie but also music from their personal collection. This will include Kovacs comedy albums to Edie’s out-of-print LPs from the 1950’s and ‘60s. Selections will include music/comedy from The Ernie Kovacs Record Collection (Columbia 1977), Percy Dovetonsils….Thpeaks (Omnivore 2012), The Charming Miss Edie Adams (1959), Edie Adams Sings?….Music to Listen to Records By (arranged by Henry Mancini, MGM 1959), Showtime on Broadway (Columbia 1964), The Charming Miss Edie Adams (RKO, 1959), It’s A Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World and more. Plus, Josh will be brining rare vinyl from the personal collection of Edie and Ernie selecting tracks that were either prominently featured on their shows, artists who appeared on their shows or the actual records from those shows.

Join me 2/12 at 3-5 PM PST for a special Over Under Sideways Down dedicated to the Hanna Barbera Records label ’65-’67 during LuxuriaMusic.com’s Sponsorship Drive. I will be giving away an original Five Americans “EVOL Not Love” 7″ record with picture sleeve during my show to a lucky sponsor! For two hours, tune in for a stack of fabulous Hanna Barbera 45s which I’ll be playing in chronological release order. Listen here or check the Over Under Sideways Down Podcast Page if you miss the live broadcast.

Hanna Barbera Records, a/k/a HBR was a short-lived division of the Hanna-Barbera cartoon studio active between 1964 and 1967. The label’s all-over-the-map roster included not only records based on their cartoon characters, but a healthy dose of  garage rock, soul, psychedelia, country, folk, records licensed from England, the Pacific Northwest, Texas, and artists such as Les Baxter, Louis Prima and Scatman Courthers. Former Buena Vista Records (Disney) mailroom employee Danny Hutton was hired by suggestion of Kim Fowley to HBR’s head A&R person, Larry Goldberg to gauge what was hip with the kids and as a result, Hutton found himself with a career as a vocalist and eventually leader of Three Dog Night. Tom Ayers, who later convinced RCA to sign David Bowie also worked as an A&R person at HBR

Aside from a slew of cartoon oriented LPs and a small stack of LPs aimed at teens, Hanna Barbera Records released well over 70 45s by artists such as The Dimensions, Tidal Waves, The Guilloteens, Five Americans, Chocolate Watch Band (as The Hogs), The New Breed, The W. C. Fields Memorial Electric String Band, The 13th Floor Elevators, The Abbey Tavern Singers, Jean King, Simon Stokes, the afore mentioned Baxeter, Prima and Courthers, and many, many others.

If this sort of thing interests you I recommend you check out Yogi Bear’s Nuggets, a Hanna Barbera 45s Guide by Guy Laurence on the Spectropop website, and  From Wall of Sound to Huckleberry Hound: The Vinyl Side of Hanna-Barbera on the WFMU website

3rd Annual Winter Surf Fest
Saturday, January 18, 2014, 12 – 7 PM

at The Starting Gate

5052 Katella

Los Alimitos, CA, 90720

www.startinggateoc.com 

$20.00 cover for the entire day!

Facebook invite page

While the weather in Southern California might be getting colder this time of year, it certainly doesn’t affect the spirit of the thriving instrumental Surf Music scene.  For the 3rd year in a row, the organizers responsible for one of the largest Surf Music events of the year, the SurfGuitar 101 Convention, have assembled some of the world’s best contemporary live Surf Music bands for an incredible seven-hour extravaganza of reverb-drenched guitar goodness at the 3rd Annual Winter Surf Fest.

From the San Diego area comes Jason Lee and the R.I.P. Tides, a hard-edged trio that will be promoting the debut of their first full length LP on Dionysus Records.  From Northern California comes the masters of traditional Jewish tunes gone Surf, Meshugga Beach Party, complete with beards, outfits and shtick. In a special reunion performance comes San Diego’s The Sand Devils, who bring their unmistakable brand of dark and ominous Surf. Local San Gabriel Valley favorites The Volcanics will don their trademark sweaters, take the listeners into a 60s time machine and perform many of the newer tunes from the recent release of their second album The Lonely One on Double Crown Records. Out of the ashes of one of the most influential of the 90’sSurf revival bands, The Ghastly Ones, comes Boss Fink, a Hot Rod-themed romp including former members of The Huntington Cads. And, rounding out the bill comes the day’s annual opener, High Tide, an all-star band featuring some of the best veteran players from the scene including members of The Torquays, The Planktones, The Reventlos and Insect Surfers.

In addition to the exceptional talent on stage, the event will feature a shopping area spilling over with specialized vendors selling Surf Music records, CDs, posters, t-shirts, books, magazines, musical instruments and other related accessories and collectibles.

The venue offers a full kitchen and bar throughout the show, so prepare to settle in, relax and enjoy an entire day of some of the very best pounding drums, throbbing bass, and dripping with reverb twangy guitars anywhere!

Tune in to Over Under Sideways Down on LuxuriaMusic.com Wednesday, 3-5 PM for an all-first generation surf instro and vocals in honor of the upcoming Winter Surf Fest at The Starting Gate in Los Alamitos!

As we get closer to year’s end, lucky Southern California residents have two fabulous holiday events to attend this weekend – on Saturday, 12/14 A Very Vintage Xmas variety show and marketplace at the mid-century Mayflower Club in North Hollywood and on Sunday 12/15, Jonny Whiteside’s rockin’ Messaround at the Viva Cantina across from the Pickwick Bowl in Burbank

Saturday, Dec. 14, 2013: 6 PM A Very Vintage Xmas featuring The Martini Kings, Burlesque, Comedy, a Vintage Marketplace and More!
Mayfair Club
11110 Victory Blvd.,
North Hollywood, California 91606
(818) 769-9805
Doors Open for Vintage Vending at 6:00 pm – LAST MINUTE HOLIDAY SHOPPING! 
Show Starts at 8:00 pm-Midnight
$15.00
Tickets available here – or at the door if there are any left!
FREE PARKING in the Mayfair lot

Fans of swanky lounge music (a la Rat Pack era), cocktails, dancing, modernism, exotica and tiki, lowbrow comedy and magic, burlesque, vintage fashion, accessories collectibles and art – join us for a night of retro madness at one of the valley’s oldest private clubs!

Join The Martini Kings for a very special night of vintage variety acts. Hilarious Comedy, Amazing Magic, Titillating Burlesque, Dancing, DJ Lee Joseph, Delicious Cocktails and Tasty Snacks, Vintage Vendors, and of course – the intoxicating sounds of L.A.’s leaders in lounge – The Martini Kings featuring our 8 piece big band including our vocalists, the fabulous Sonny Moon and fantastic Miss Kate Campbell…..with this year’s special guests Emmett Hadley’s Olde-Tyme Christmas Band! And a special visit from the Big Man himself….Santa!

Sun., Dec. 15, 2013, 6 PM:  Jonny Whiteside’s Messaround
Viva Cantina
900 West Riverside Drive
Burbank, CA 91506
All ages; FREE SHOW!
FREE PARKING across the street at Pickwick Bowl (same owners).www.vivacantina.com

with Golden Sombrero, The Mau Maus, The Billybones, South Bay Surfers, Dick & Jane Family Orchestra

It’s an All Ages Free Admission Yuletide Frolic of Deep Mayhem, High Merrymaking and All-Around Untamed Unparalleled Musical Ka-Pow!

Messaround shotcaller Jonny Whiteside rallies five of the finest, freakiest bands in all of Los Angeles for this flat-git-it, once in a lifetime shimmy-shakin’ shindig. The participation by epic, epochal 1977-era Los Angeles punk rock pioneers The Mau Maus and the Billybones  is an event of such rollicking tribal significance that there is not hyperbole enough to adequately capture the Olympian-scaled artistry and achievement these men carry with them. Rick Wilder and Billy Bones are not only history making trailblazers and proud punk tradition bearers they are performers both yet capable of absolutely sizzling, high-voltage stage presentations and vocal performances of masterly, arresting interpretive power. Their creative resources, as evidenced on two recent and respectively superb albuns, are as emphatic and fiery as ever, demonstrating just how fortunate we are to be able to witness this level of sheer rock & roll disrectitude. MAUS MAUS! BILLYBONES!

Golden Sombrero, led by Ward Dotson, the skewed guitar genius (who’s brilliant playing defined the Gun Club’s sound just as much as did Jeffrey Lee Pierce’s vocal) finally returns to the ‘Mess! Throwing down a kaleidoscopic selection of late 50’s-early 60’s Adult Contemporary, every song is like a case of spontaneous combustion and the resulting incandescent conflagrations are wondrous to behold. With boss bassist Steve K and jazz-informed drummer Charles Maxey, Golden Sombrero extends and enhances the Dotsonian School of Musical Cool with admirable, reckless velocity.

Underground Bombshell Jane Cantillon scrubs up her unruly brood The Dick & Jane Family Orchestra for another intoxicatingly unpredictable visit. DJFO is magnificently pop-centric exercise in real-now, old school oddball that’s laid waste to audiences everywhere from the Cinegrill to NYC’s Limelight. Teamed with indefatigably swinging-strumming-spouse Richard Ross, an uptown head with a dog-eared downtown hep that lends the proceedings an bewitchingly indefinable cool, and steady-rolling rock apostle Lee Joseph on bass, Dick & Jane Family Orchestra’s mixture of offbeat charm, earthy aggression and expectation defying creativity—including a brand new Jane-composed Christmas tune—is assuredly gonna knot your tinsel into a terrific twist!

The South Bay Surfers These Paragons of mind shattering underworld rock & roll impurity once again convene to deliver their traditional Christmas set–you’ll hear everything from “Feliz Navidad” to “Run, Run Rudolph” in an entirely new and wild, wild, wild way!! Damaging cerebellums across the Southland since the 1980s, the indescribable SBS show–an alchemical combination of fetishistic passion and naked inadequacy–is second to none. Not for the timid, the SBS’ dedicated employ of aimlessness, chaos and deep reverence is revelatory in its sheer, bizarre display of sideshow weird (“so woefully deficient in the talent department that they could possibly be the world’s worst rock & roll band.” — All Music Guide) Ho, Ho, Ho

Tune in to Over Under Sideways Down on LuxuriaMusic Wed, October 30 between 3-5 Pacific for the Obligatory Over Under Sideways Down Halloween-esqe show featuring some of your typical Halloween and monster records – with an added dose of whacked wax and flipped flops for a bit of spice in your candy-coated ear!

This morning, my girlfriend calls and tells me that the kitten we adopted together almost a year ago caught her first bird which she brought into the house. She made the kitten drop the finch and hoped that it would be OK, but Moon Fox had effectively ended its’ life. I suggested that she give the bird a dignified burial in one of the soft dirt mounds by our desert house.

About 5 pm this afternoon, I see a young bird fly right into a window outside the door of the Dionysus office here in Burbank. The poor thing fell and hit the ground upside down, freaking out, attempting to flap its’ wings to no avail. I gently turned the bird over with my shoe and watched as it laid there in shock, breathing rapidly, eyes opening and closing with its’ head down, beak on the ground. I called my girlfriend, told her the story and asked if there was anything she suggest I do. She told me to leave it be. I felt genuine sorrow for this bird. My girlfriend and I were both feeling a bit sensitive today.

I sat back at my desk, able to see the bird outside the door, lying there, taking my eyes away from the computer screen every few mometns to see how it was doing, hoping it would come out of shock and fly away.  About 15 minutes after the bird’s crash landing, I decided to go into the warehouse and look for a box for another potential bird funeral but came back out to find the bird up and on its feet, just standing there, alive but still. I snapped a photo with my iPhone then went to the door to get a  better look. Out of nowhere appeared a praying mantis, walking right towards the bird. I did not know what might transpire between the two so I closed in and inadvertently startled the bird who took off and flew away. I felt a wave of relief and happiness for my winged friend’s recovery!

The bird’s recovery

The Praying Mantis then walks a few more steps and stands exactly where the bird had been laying, turns its’ head and stares at me – I was even able to take a photo of it in that position. The Mantis then went towards the same window that the bird had flown into, seemingly checking itself out. I texted my girlfriend details on what had just happened to which she replied “That’s pretty David Lynch right there…”  At that point, she sends me a link to a website called Spirit Animals / Praying Mantis. The very first paragraph reads:

IF PRAYING MANTIS HAS CRAWLED INTO YOUR SPACE;
Usually the Praying Mantis makes an appearance when we’ve flooded our lives with so much business, activity, or chaos that we can no longer hear the still small voice within us. Taking a step back and some simple meditation would be in order here because the external din we’ve created needs to be quieted so that we can come back to our own truth. The Praying Mantis always comes to us when we need peace, quiet and calm in our lives.

Mantis messenger staring straight at me

After reading this I went back to the door. The Mantis had vanished. OK, I have been  busy, a bit flustered, somewhat chaotic and stressed, and have had little to no rest in the past couple of weeks. It’s not the greatest way to exist I guess. I stepped back, closed my eyes, did some deep breathing and thinking. Even though I went back to work, I decided to write about this episode and put the words “peace”, “quiet” and “calm” on my priority list. I’m going to keep those words on all of my priority lists in the future and will try to dedicate some time daily to these three things.

Tune in to LuxuriaMusic.com for a Saturday Night Special on 10/19 at 7-9 PM Pacific featuring The $1.98 Technicolor Dream with Over Under Sideways Down host Lee Joseph. This one-off show promises budget label psych exploitation, religious ranting, head-shop freakout records and more guaranteed to have you running for the Thorazine!