Tag Archives: surf rock

“Tequila” by The Champs (as seen in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure) PLUS Collecting The Vinyl & Cassettes

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Today is National Tequila Day and I can’t think of a better track to mark the occasion. I don’t drink hard liquor anymore but I used to enjoy Tequila shots.

“Tequila” by The Champs was first released in 1958 and hit number one on the Billboard Hot 100. The song was re-released in 1987 as the demand for the track suddenly rose because of it’s appearance in Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure.

It was available as a 7 inch 45 RPM disc. That version have a long and short version on sides A and B. It had a similar cover to what we see below, which is the 12 inch 45 RPM version.

The surprising thing about the 12 inch version is that the B side contains a rather wacky hip hop track called “Pee-Wee’s Dance” by Joeski Love.

courtesy of discogs
courtesy of discogs

Now I have a new record to add to my list of “grails”. If you are not a vinyl collector, let me explain what a “grail” is. The term comes from the Monte Python movie Quest For The Holy Grail. The records on a collector’s list of grails are usually hard to find items that may have special appeal to the collector.

It was released as a single in it’s own right. As a kid I remember hearing the Joeski Love track on the radio. I had a compilation cassette called Rap’s Greatest Hits that included the song. I used to bump this in my little boom box all day. I would love to find this on vinyl in good condition.

By now you must be wondering what this song sounded like. Well we won’t let you down! Here it is!

Note that the vocals are a little too low in the mix and hard to understand. It’s not you. They needed a better compressor on the vocals. I hope someone finds the master tapes and does up a nice new mix. Then they can re-issue the 12 inch double single again as a remaster.

TAKE MY MONEY!

“Surfin’ Bird” by The Radioactive Chickenheads

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John James Audubon was a French-American ornithologist, naturalist, and painter. He is remembered for his extensive studies of American birds. He made detailed illustrations of birds in natural habitats. Audubon’s The Birds of America is considered by many to be the finest ornithological work of all time.

The dude was born on April 26, 1785 and so National Audubon Day occurs on April 26 every year. It’s not a bad time to do a little bird watching.

The strange thing is that a group of people now believe (or pretend to believe) that birds are not real.

Taylor Lorenz (NY Times) reports, “In Pittsburgh, Memphis and Los Angeles, massive billboards recently popped up declaring, ‘Birds Aren’t Real.’ On Instagram and TikTok, Birds Aren’t Real accounts have racked up hundreds of thousands of followers, and YouTube videos about it have gone viral. … Adherents even protested outside of Twitter’s headquarters in San Francisco to demand that the company change its bird logo.”

“The events were all connected by a Gen Z-fueled conspiracy theory, which posits that birds don’t exist and are really drone replicas installed by the U.S. government to spy on Americans. Hundreds of thousands of young people have joined the movement, wearing Birds Aren’t Real T-shirts, swarming rallies and spreading the slogan.”

So yeah. The song of the day is “Surfin’ Bird” as covered by one of our favorite currently active touring groups, Radioactive Chicken Heads. The song has not been officially released yet. We currently feature the version by The Ramones on the live stream.

I really love the visuals in this video. It’s a cluckin’ great time!

-Wacky Alex