Joe Strummer was a highly political-minded musician with a love of music from all over the world. While many of you may only know a few of The Clash singles like “Rock the Casbah,” the group had a lot of diversity and is celebrated as one of the most unique and innovative punk bands in history. Even fewer people seem to be familiar with Joe’s work after The Clash, but if you’re a fan of the band, I highly recomend checking it out.
Joe was born John Graham Mellor on August 21, 1952. He was born in Turkey to a British foreign-service diplomat and a nurse. In his early years, he spent time all over the world, including Cairo, Mexico City and Bonn.
During his school years, Joe and his brother attended a private school in London. Joe developed an interest in rock music, including Little Richard, The Beach Boys and Woody Guthrie –he even started having his friends call him “Woody” for a few years.
At the same time, his brother became immersed in the National Front and killed himself in July 1970. Joe had to identify his body after it had laid undiscovered for three days. The event dramatically affected Joe, and would certainly play a role in his anti-National Front stance throughout his later life.
After graduation, Joe began attending college in Surrey, where he considered becoming a professional cartoonist. In 1973, he moved to Wales to attend an art college, but dropped out. While there, he began working as a gravedigger and started playing with his first band, The Vultures.
When The Vultures broke up, Joe returned to London where he started The 101’ers with his two squatter roommates. The name came out from their address, 101 Walterton Road. They originally played covers of American R&B and blues songs, but soon Joe began writing original material.
Joe learned to play guitar from his friend and band mate, Tymon Dogg. Unfortunately, Tymon taught him how to play right-handed, despite the fact that he was left-handed. The result was that Joe felt he was mostly limited to strumming chords. After this, Joe dropped his “Woody” nickname and began calling himself Joe Strummer.
In 1975, Joe married a South African woman for £100 so she could obtain British citizenship. He used the money to buy his telecaster that later became his signature instrument.
The 101’ers played a show in London in 1976 and a group completely unknown at the time, called the Sex Pistols, opened for them. Strummer was really impressed by the group and when he was approached by Bernie Rhodes and Mick Jones to join their band, London SS, he jumped on the opportunity. Unfortunately, the group broke up right when Joe was about to join. Instead, Joe and Mick formed a new band, called The Clash, with Paul Simonon.
Interestingly, The Clash’s first show involved them opening for the Sex Pistols on July 4, 1976.
Within the next year, the group was signed with CBS records. Most of their songs had a highly political theme, such as racism, unemployment, police brutality and more. Joe was highly active in the Anti-Nazi League and the Rock Against Racism campaigns.
In 1978, Strummer started dating Gaby Salter, the pair stayed together fourteen years and had two daughters. They were never married though, because Joe couldn’t find the woman he married for citizenship to get a divorce.
While in The Clash, Joe and his other bandmates got in a series of problems with the law. In 1977, he was arrested for spray painting “The Clash” on a hotel wall. A few years later, he was arrested in Germany for hitting a violent audience member with his guitar. The incident affected him and later he remarked, “I nearly murdered somebody, and it made me realize that you can’t face violence with violence. It doesn’t work.”
Before the release of Combat Rock, Joe’s manager pushed him to disappear to help sell tickets for an upcoming tour. Strummer was only supposed to hide at someone’s house in the city, but he opted to really disappear and ran off to France. During this period, no one, including the band’s managers, knew where he was.
Around the time “Rock the Casbah” was released, the band members began to argue a lot and Joe fired Mick Jones. This left the group with only two original members.
In 1985, the group released an album, Cut The Crap, under the band name “The Clash Mark Two.” The album was a major disappointment to fans and critics and Joe decided to disband The Clash.
Rolling Stone chose London Calling as the top album of the 1980’s.
After The Clash breakup, Strummer acted in a lot of movies, including Walker, Straight to Hell, Mystery Train and I Hired a Contract Killer. In the last film, he really did little more than play music in a cameo role. The songs from the movie were released on a limited edition promotional single credited as, “Joe Strummer & the Astro Physicians.”
In the early nineties, Joe replaced Shane MacGowan as the lead singer of The Pogues. He also produced their Hell’s Ditch album.
Around the end of the millennium, Strummer got together a lot of top-notch, yet mostly unknown musicians to form his new backing band, The Mescaleros. This group soon released a number of albums. When in concert, the group also played a number of Clash favorites.
At one of the group’s shows, Mick Jones was in the audience and joined the band during the song “Bankrobber.” During the encore, Jones played guitar and sang “White Riot” and “London’s Burning.” This was the first time in almost twenty years that the pair performed on stage together.
On December 22, 2002, Joe Strummer died unexpectedly at his home in Somerset, England. He became the victim of an undiagnosed heart defect.
Before his death, Joe worked hard to help create an organization called Future Forests (now changed to The Carbon Neutral Company) that plants trees to combat global warming. He was the first musician to neutralize the carbon created in record pressing through planting trees. Since he began the practice, Foo Fighters, Coldplay and Pink Floyd have all followed in his footsteps.
To pay tribute to Strummer, Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen, Dave Grohl and other musicians got together to perform “London Calling” at the Grammies.
Additionally, many bands recorded songs paying tribute to Joe, including Stiff Little Fingers, Street Dogs, Cowboy Mouth and more.
Even a train was named after Joe, the Class 47 locomotive 47828 was called “Joe Strummer.”
The 2007 Sundance Festival featured a documentary about his life, called Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten.
I know many readers may not like rap and may complain about the selection this week, but like all of these articles, the band was chosen by user requests. If you’ve got a band you want to see tidbits about, just list them in the comments, thanks! Alternatively, if you want to see more rap artists, leave them in the comments too.
The Notorious B.I.G., a.k.a. Biggie Smalls, was born Christopher George Latore Wallace on May 21, 1972. His father was a small-time Jamaican politician and his mother was a Jamaican pre-school teacher. His father left the family when Biggie was only two and his mother was rarely home, as she had to work two jobs to pay the bills.
Always a hefty lad, Biggie was nicknamed “Big” by the time he was ten years old. In adulthood, he measured about 6’3” and anywhere from 300 to 380 pounds.
At his school, he was a great student and won several awards in English programs. This master of the language would later prove crucial in his rapping career.
Biggie grew up during the peak of the crack epidemic and, like many kids around him, he ended up dealing drugs. Although he was selling crack since he was 12, his mother never knew about it until he grew up. He continued to sell drugs up until first child was born, at which time, his label manager, Sean “Puffy” Combs, insisted he stopped selling for good.
His high school, George Westinghouse Information Technology High, also had Jay-Z, Busta Rhymes and DMX in attendance. This was the same period that Biggie began rapping. He performed in a few groups, the Old Gold Brothers and the Techniques, and he sang on the streets by himself. By seventeen, he decided to drop out of school.
Notorious had long had a problem with the law, starting with his 1989 arrest for weapons charges. The next year, he was arrest on a probation violation and a year after that he was arrested for dealing crack. The third time, he spent nine months in jail. Much later in his career, he was arrested in 1996 outside of a New York club for threatening to kill two fans, punching one in the face and smashing the windows of their taxi cab. That same year, he was arrested again for drug and weapons charges. In 1997, he was ordered to pay $41,000 to someone who claimed to have been beaten and robbed by Biggie and his entourage in 1995, but the criminal robbery charges were dropped.
After his 1991 release from prison, B.I.G. decided to release a demo tape under the alias “Biggie Smalls,” the name of a gangster in the 1975 movie Let’s Do It Again. He later discovered the name was already in use and decided to change it to “The Notorious B.I.G.”
In 1992, The Source featured Biggie in their “Unsigned Hype” column, dedicated to unsigned rappers brimming with talent. This helped him get the attention of the A&R department of Uptown Records and one of their producers, Puff Daddy. He signed to Uptown, but almost immediately left to join Puffy’s brand new label, Bad Boy Records.
Biggie’s big break came when he added vocals to a remix to the Mary J. Blige song “Real Love,” which reached #7 on the charts.
In 1994, Notorious married singer Faith Evans only nine days after meeting her at a photo shoot for Bad Boy Records. Only four days later, he had his first commercial success with the song “Juicy,” which reached #27 on the charts.
His first full-length album, Ready To Die, was released at a time hip hop was dominated by West Coast artists. The album reached #13 on the charts and was certified four times platinum. Rolling Stone said the album “almost single-handedly… shifted the focus back to East Coast rap”.
By 1996, he was the top-selling male solo artist and rapper on the US pop and R&B charts. He also won the award for Best New Artist, Lyricist of the Year, Live Performer of the Year and Debut Album of the Year at the Source Awards. The Billboard Awards named him Rap Artist of the Year.
Unfortunately, his success peaked at the same time as the East Coast vs West Coast Rap feud. A former associate of Biggie, Tupac Shakur, accused him of involvement with a November 1994 robbery that left Tupac shot and out of thousands of dollars in jewelry. Notorious said that he was near the scene of the accident, recording an album but was not involved with the crime.
Tupac soon signed with Death Row Records in L.A. and the two labels became wrapped up in an intense rivalry. Tupac’s song “Hit ‘Em Up” involved claims that he was sleeping with Biggie’s wife and that Biggie stole his style and image. Biggie did not respond to this, saying it wasn’t his style to respond.
During all of this drama, Biggie was trying to record his second album. It took over 18 months to complete, between interruptions from the hip hop wars, legal problems and an injury he sustained during a car accident at the time. The accident resulted in the use of a cane for the rest of his life.
On Sepember 7, 1996, Tupac was shot and killed in a drive by in Las Vegas. The murder remains unsolved, but reports detailing Biggie’s involvement sprung up immediately. Notorious denied the rumors, saying he was in New York working on his album at the time.
Lil’ Kim had a working relationship with Biggie for a few years and when he helped direct her 1996 debut album, Hard Core, the two became entangled in a love affair. She became pregnant with Biggie’s child, but had an abortion.
After the events of 1996 unfolded, Biggie claimed he wanted to focus on obtaining a “peace of mind.” “My mom… my son… my daughter… my family… my friends are what matters to me now,” he explained.
On March 8, 1997, Biggie flew to L.A. to present Toni Braxton an award at the Soul Train Awards. He was booed by some of the audience who blamed him for the death of Tupac. After the award show, the entire entourage attended a Vibe magazine party at the Petersen Automotive Museum. When the Fire Department closed the party early, the streets became crowded with people leaving. Biggie rode in a GMC Suburban when a black Impala pulled beside his vehicle and the passenger, neatly dressed in a blue suit and bow tie, shot him multiple times with a 9 mm pistol. Biggie was pronounced dead at 1:15 and the murder remains unsolved.
While many murder suspects include members of the West Coast hip hop family, one of the more popular theories was detailed by Randall Sullivan in his book LAbrynth. Sullivan’s thesis is that both Biggie and Tupac were murdered by Marion “Suge” Knight, co-founder of Death Row Records, and retired LAPD officer David Mack. His book supposes that the hip hop war was trumped up to make the murders easier to cover up. He backs up his assertions with the fact that the LAPD did not fully examine murder links to Death Row Records. This theory is further examined in the documentary Biggie & Tupac by Nick Broomfield.
Based on the evidence by LAPD officer, Russell Poole, and the book by Sullivan, Biggie’s family filed a wrongful death lawsuit against the LAPD in 2005. Their claim accused the department of having enough evidence to arrest the murder, but failing to do so. The case was declared a mistrial after the judge worried the police were withholding evidence. The family attempted to expand their lawsuit, but failed, this was enough to get the case reopened in July 2006 though. The family filled a second wrongful death suit in April of 2007.
Of course, the pendulum swings both ways, and Tyruss Himes, a.k.a. Big Syke, was implicated of the murder by tv channel KTTV and XXL magazine and filed a suit against them for defamation. His case was later thrown out of court.
Fifteen days after the Death of Biggie, his double disc album, Life After Death, was released and hit #1 on the billboard charts. The album was later certified Diamond. The first two singles from this album, “Hypnotize” and “Mo Money Mo Problems,” were both #1’s and Biggie was the first artist to do this after his death. Spin magazine named him Artist of the Year and made “Hypnotize” its Single of the Year in 1997.
Since his death, Biggie’s vocals have been sampled in songs by many artists, including Ashanti, Jay-Z, 50 Cent, Alicia Keys, Usher, Lil Wayne, Nelly and Michael Jackson.
He was named the greatest rapper of all time by both The Source and Blender magazines. MTV listed him as the third Greatest MC of All Time.
This year, a biographical film, Notorious, was released by Fox Searchlight Pictures. Producers of the film include Puff Daddy, and Biggie’s mother, Voletta Wallace. The film raised over $42 million worldwide. Unfortunately, the violence of hip hop continues. On opening night, a fan was shot by another film-goer in Greensboro, North Carolina.
The Killers were named after a fictional band that appears in the music video for the New Order song “Crystal.”
Brandon Flowers was originally in another Las Vegas band called Blush, but was forced to leave the group after he refused to move to Los Angeles with the rest of his group members in 2001.
The Killers were started by Brandon Flowers and David Keuning who then recruited Ronnie Vannucci Jr. and Mark Stoermer to join the group.
The band mostly played small clubs in Las Vegas and quickly garnered the attention of Alex Gilbert, a representative for Warner Bros UK. While his label wasn’t interested in the band, he showed the demo to a friend back in England who worked for a label called Lizard King who signed the band. The label is now named Marrakesh Records.
The first album from the band, Hot Fuss, was released in 2004 and the record became a triple platinum hit practically overnight. After about half a year, the band was already making cameos on popular American shows like The O.C.. (Photo Via Sleepin’ Beauty [Flickr])
If you’ve heard the line “I’ve got soul but I’m not a soldier,” you can thank The Killers. They first used that line in their song “All of These Things That I’ve Done,” and was quickly borrowed by Robbie Williams, U2 and Coldplay.
When the album Sam’s Town came out, Brandon Flowers put his foot in the mouth before the release by promising it would be “one of the best albums of the past twenty years.” It received very mixed reviews by fans and critics alike. Of course, sales were still good.
In 2007, the band released Sawdust. The first pressing had a demo version of “Move Away,” but it was said to be a mistake by the record label and since then, it was replaced by a different version of the same track.
Brandon Flowers is a practicing Mormon and the group has stayed tied in with their religious beliefs, including the release of three Christmas songs over the last three years.
Throughout the years, the band has worked with such big-name musicians as Lou Reed, Elton John and Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys.
There are some minor controversies between the band and other groups on their US label, Island Records. Flowers accused bands such as Fall Out Boy and The Bravery of riding on his group’s coattails. Since then he has apologized.
The next album the group is coming out with will be all cover tracks, including covers of Tom Waits, Rod Stewart and Genesis.
David Byrne, Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth attended art school together in Providence, Rhode Island. It was there that the three formed their first music group called “The Artistics” in 1974. This first band fell apart within a year, but when the three moved to New York City together, they continued to be work on music and even shared an apartment together.
Chris and Tina were dating at the time and married in 1977. They are still together to this day.
June 8, 1975 the group played their first show together as the Talking Heads. They opened up for the Ramones and the performance took place at the legendary club CBGBs.
The name “Talking Heads” cam from a friend of Tina’s, who found the name in the TV Guide, where it was used to describe “a head-and-shoulder shot of a person talking as ‘all content, no action,’” Weymouth explained, “It fit.”
A year later, the group added their forth and final member, Jerry Harrison. He previously played with The Modern Lovers.
Sire Records signed the band in 1977 and group soon released their first single, “Love ? Building on Fire.” Interestingly, their first album, Talking Heads: 77, did not contain this single.
Many music fans recognize the name Brian Eno as a famous producer that worked with Roxy Music, David Bowie and U2. He also is known for his long relationship with the Talking Heads and David Byrne. He met the group when he began working with them on their second album, More Songs About Buildings and Food. Eno recorded a song in 1977 called “King’s Lead Hat,” which is actually an anagram of “Talking Heads.”
If you’ve ever used the phrase “This ain’t no party, this ain’t no disco,” you have the band’s single “Life During Wartime” to thank.
In 1980, Tina Weymouth and Chris Frantz began working on a separate project, the popular alternative band, Tom Tom Club. At this same time, both David Byrne and Jerry Harrison decided to release solo albums.
One of the band’s most popular songs “Once in a Lifetime,” was not a hit initially, but grew in popularity due to a very strong and interesting music video. You may recognize the song as the one that says “And you may tell yourself ‘This is not my beautiful house!’ And you may tell yourself ‘This is not my beautiful wife!’” While I couldn’t find a quality video version of it, I did find this Muppets version that is strikingly close (and perhaps even more fun):
The group’s 1983 album Speaking in Tongues was followed up with their last tour, which was captured in the documentary Stop Making Sense. The film is largely regarded as one of the top music documentaries ever created.
The film True Stories was created by David Byrne and features all of the band members. The group covered all the songs in the film and released them as an album with the same name.
Radiohead got together in 1985 and decided to name themselves after the Talking Head’s song “Radio Head.”
Although the Talking Heads stopped working together after their last album, Naked, was released in 1988, it took an additional three years before the band officially announced their break up.
Within the same year as the band’s end, they did get back together one last time to record a single for the movie Until the End of the World. The video only featured two of the band’s members though.
In 1996, David refused to get back together for another album, but the other members were interested and they released No Talking, Just Head under the band name The Heads. This record featured guest vocals from Debbie Harry of Blondie, Andy Partridge of XTC, Gordon Gano or Violent Femmes, Michael Hutchence of INXS, Richard Hell and more.
A tour followed the release of this album and Johnette Napolitano of Concrete Blonde performed vocals during these live performances.
David Byrne was displeased with the group’s abbreviation of the name “Talking Heads” and opted to sue the group for acting on “a pretty obvious attempt to cash in on the Talking Heads name.” (Photo: David Byrne)
In the years since, David Byrne has continued to work on soundtracks and solo albums, often with the help of Brian Eno. He also works as a visual artist and his work has been displayed in a number of art galleries around the world. Many of his public art installations have been anonymous though.
In 2005, he began working on a disco opera with Fatboy Slim. It will be based around the life of the former First Lady of the Phillipines, Imelda Marcos.
Last year, Byrn turned the entire Battery Maritime Building in Manhattan into a giant musical instrument. He hooked the pipes, heaters and other pieces of the structure electronically to a pipe organ.
Jerry Harrison has become an important producer who has worked with bands such as the Violent Femmes, the Fine Young Cannibals, General Public, Live and No Doubt.
Chris Frantz and Tina Weymouth continued to record as the Tom Tom Club up until last year. Their singles have been sampled by Grandmaster Flash and Mariah Carey.
While the Talking Heads did perform together for their 2002 induction to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, a reunion remains unlikely. David Byrne says his refusal to reunite comes down to differences in musical tastes and some bad blood between the group members. However, Tina is critical of David and has publicly referred to him as “a man incapable of returning friendship.”
The Melvins were named after a much-despised Thriftway supervisor of band member Buzz Osborne.
The group started in the early 80’s by the members who attended school together in Montesano, Washington.
Throughout the years, the group has had trouble finding and keeping a permanent bass player. As a result, Buzz Ozborne and Dale Crover have been the only consistent members. Least you worry though, the bass players do not spontaneously combust like the drummers in Spinal Tap.
Many people have heard the group being credited as a huge influence of the Seattle grunge scene, but fewer people know that Kurt Cobain actually tried out to play bass in the group but he failed after forgetting all the songs because he was so nervous.
Kurt stayed good friends with the group, particularly drummer Dale Crover, and even worked as a roadie for them at a few shows. Later, he produced and played on two songs on the group’s album Houdini.
Aside from bands in the grunge scene, The Melvins have influenced a lot of other bands, including Tool, Crowbar, Mastodon, Eyehategod and Boris, the last of which were named after a Melvin’s song.
Dale Crover helped out Kurt Cobain in 1988, by playing drums for Nirvana on their ten song demo. Later this demo became part of their first album, Bleach. Dale later introduced Kurt to Dave Grohl, who would become the group’s long-term drummer.
Also in ’88, Osborne and Crover moved to San Francisco. This is when they lost their first bass player, Matt Lukin, who decided to stay in Washington. Matt later formed the band Mudhoney.
In 1992, The Melvins released three EPs based on the idea of the four Kiss albums each featuring a member of the group. Later in the year, the group tried to release a full-length album called Lysol, but the album had to be renamed Melvins because “Lysol” was trademarked.
The group was always a big fan of Kiss, so they were honored when Gene Simons played bass with them at Lollapalooza in ’93 and ’94. He also played on the song “Goin’ Blind” with them at a Primus concert in 1993. This track was a Kiss song that The Melvins covered on Houdini.
Atlantic refused to release the group’s highly experimental album Prick, so they released it under Amphetamine Reptile Records. Because they were still limited to releases under Atlantic, Prick was released with the band’s name in reverse.
A picture on the Tool website shows The Melvins in an image covered by lunchmeat that spells out “Melvins say…Tool Sux!”
In 1999, the group released three new albums and one of the highlights of these albums was a cover of Nirvana’s “Smells Like Teen Spirit,” sung by Leif Garrett.
There was originally going to be a European tour supporting the group’s album with Dead Kennedy’s singer Jello Biafra, Never Breathe What You Can’t See, but it was canceled due to some problems with bassist-of-the-time, Kevin Rutmanis. Later, Dale Crover and Buzz Osborne admitted that their bassist had “disappeared.” He returned for a short time in 2005, but then officially quit the band.
In 2006, The Melvins became a four piece by adding a second drummer, Coady Willis, from the band Big Business. Dale Crover said, “we want to do this ‘mirror image’ type of thing. We’ve kind of fused our two drum sets together, and we’re going to try and do some crazy thing with it.”
The B-52s are from Athens, Georgia and was formed in 1976. The group was named after a beehive hairstyle resembling a jet nose. The girls in the group would frequently wear beehive wigs during the early period of their performances.
The origin of the group started after the original members, Ricky Wilson, Kate Pierson, Keith Strickland and Fred Schneider, shared a giant cocktail called a Flaming Volcano at a Chinese restaurant. After sharing their drink, they set up a jam session that night and soon played their first gig at a Valentine’s Day party.
There are actually two official spellings of the B-52’s, one with the apostrophe and one without. Up until last year, the apostrophe was required, but they dropped it for the release of their album Funplex. Now both forms are considered correct.
By 1978, the group released their first single, “Rock Lobster,” which helped them develop an underground following. They were soon performing at CBGB’s and Max’s Kansas City in New York City.
Their first album proved to be quite successful in the UK and the group performed in to a packed audience in London the next year. Among those in attendance were Joe Jackson and the members of Scritti Politti.
The group has performed twice on Saturday Night Live. Once in 1980 with host Teri Garr and once ten years later with host Alec Baldwin.
In 1982, the band released an EP with David Byrne of the Talking Heads. A full album was planned, but never was completed, so the Mesopotamia EP featured the songs that were recorded all the way.
The record Whammy! was initially released with the song “Don’t Worry,” however the song had to be removed from further pressings due to copyright issues with Yoko Ono.
Fred Schneider released a solo album in 1984, featuring band members Kate Pierson and Ricky Wilson. This album featured a song called “Monster” about the creature living in his pants. The video for “Monster” contained appearances by RuPaul, Keith Haring and Tina Weymouth of the Talking Heads. He released a second solo album in 1996.
In 1985, the B-52’s were working on a new album called Bouncing Off the Satellites, when Ricky Wilson, the group’s guitarist and brother to singer Cindy Wilson, died. The death was originally said to be caused by cancer, but was actually AIDS-related. Everyone in the group was severely affected by the death, particularly his sister, Cindy. As a result, everyone temporarily parted ways to deal with the loss.
When the group re-formed three years later, they began working on the album Cosmic Thing, which ended up being their most commercially successful album.
The song “(Shake That) Cosmic Thing” was the first single on Cosmic Thing and was used as one of the main songs on the movie Earth Girls Are Easy.
The second single from that album, “Love Shack,” has become the group’s most famous tune. RuPaul was in the video for the song. Later they re-recorded the song with slightly different lyrics (“Glove Slap”) for The Simpsons.
The video for the song “Deadbeat Club” featured an appearance by Michael Stipe of R.E.M., who was from Athens, Georgia like the rest of the group.
Kate Pierson sang in Iggy Pop’s song “Candy” and the track was his only commercial success. She also sang on R.E.M.’s songs “Shiny Happy People” and “Me in Honey.”
Cindy Wilson also lent her vocals to a few songs from the group Martini Ranch who was headed by the actor Bill Paxton.
In the early 1990’s Cindy Wilson took time away from the band to be with her family and the group released the album, Good Stuff, as a trio. This album was one of the band’s most political albums although the members had dedicated time and energy to a variety of causes throughout their career.
Frank Schneider lent his vocal stylings to the song “Bride of Frankenstein” on Elvira’s 1994 album Elvira Presents, Monster Hits. Later on, he performed with Sleater-Kinney on a cover of the song “Angry Inch” from the movie Hedwig And The Angry Inch.
In 1994, the group appeared in the live-action movie of The Flintstones, acting as the BC-52’s, and they also sang the title track, “Meet The Flintstones.” The same year, they also recorded the theme for Nickelodeon’s Rocko’s Modern Life.
The group recorded the song “The Chosen One” for the Pokemon 2000 movie, the theme for Scooby-Doo and The Cyber Chase and later played the song “Orange You Glad It’s Summer” for a Target commercial.
The Maryland Ensemble Theatre of Fredrick, MD, created a musical based on the B-52’s music. The piece is called Planet Claire and involves a girl named Claire being transported to Planet Topaz where she meets aliens very similar to people she knows back on Earth. The first performance occurred in 2002 and it was quite a success, leading to a second production by the Baltimore Theatre Project in 2004.
Last year, the group released Funplex, their first full album in over sixteen years. Exclusive, limited-edition copies signed by the group were sold at Newbury Comics and FYE.
Oingo Boingo is a strange band with an odd name, but not quite as strange as the group started out. In 1972, they were originally a performance art group called The Mystic Knights of The Oingo Boingo. The group was a blend of theater, comedy and music. There were up to 15 members at any given time and over 30 instruments involved in the show –some of them handmade by band members. Most of the members would wear clown make up and the band played tunes from anywhere between the 1890’s and 1950’s.
In fact, the band’s most famous member, Danny Elfman, wasn’t even in the group when it started. Instead, his brother, Richard, was the band’s leader and founder. Both Danny and Richard grew up listening to music very outdated for kid’s their age –Danny’s said his favorite tunes were obscure jazz records from the thirties.
The original band was named after a fictional secret society in Amos n’ Andy called The Mystic Knights of the Sea. As far as the “Oingo Boingo” part of the name, it’s hard to say. The words mean nothing and there seems to be no reason for the band using the title other than liking the way the two words sounded.
There are few recordings of the group in their pre-Danny Elfman times, but during the period, they did release a record about Patty Hearst called “You’ve Got Your Baby Back.”
In 1976, Richard decided he needed to focus more time on his film-making, so Danny took his place in the group and they began shifting their efforts from the theatric side into the musical aspect they are now known for.
One of Oingo Boingo’s most famous performances during this transition period of the band was on The Gong Show. The group won with 24 out of a possible 30 points.
In 1977, the group played in the movie “I Never Promised You A Rose Garden.” They appeared during the dream sequences of the main character. This was to be the first of many movie and soundtrack appearances for the group, including “Fast Times at Ridgemont High,” “Weird Science,” “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2,” “Back To School” and “Bachelor Party.” By this time, they started getting a decent underground following from their Gong Show appearance and part in the film.
Interestingly, one of the least known movies Oingo Boingo took part in may have been the best insight into both the psyches of the Elfman brothers and the essence of the early work of the Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo. That movie is Richard Elfman’s cult classic, “Forbidden Zone.” This strange movie was filmed in black and white with the intention of post-production colorization (something which wasn’t completed until last year). In the movie, Danny plays the devil and sings a swinging cover of Minnie the Moocher with some modified lyrics to suit the film’s plot.
By 1980, The Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo became an actual rock group, which was cheaper and easier to travel with than a full stage show. They also slimmed down their line up to a respectable 8 members, fittingly, they also shortened their name to only two memorable words: Oingo Boingo. At this time, the group also released their first hit single, “Only a Lad.” By 1981, the group was signed on A&M and released their first full length album, also called “Only a Lad.”
One of the tracks from this first album, “Capitalism,” was considered to be one of the “50 greatest conservative rock songs” by The National Review.
The group’s third album was “Good For Your Soul.” On this record, the group inserted a secret message on the song “Cry of the Vatos.” When you play the song backwards, a pro-Christian message is heard. They wanted to make fun of all the conservative paranoia about music that was popular at the time.
Within a few years, Danny already had some issues with A&M and he decided to release a “solo” album under MCA Records. In actuality, the record was a group effort that was only released under Danny Elfman’s name to get around the band’s contract with A&M.
Oingo Boingo’s best known song, “Weird Science” was actually written specifically for the John Hughes movie and was included on the 1985 album “Dead Man’s Party.” By the mid eighties, Danny Elfman already began working heavily on movie themes and had began his long-term work with director Tim Burton. Elfman has done almost all of the soundtracks for the Tim Burton collection of films.
1988’s “Boingo Alive” was recorded live on a soundstage, without an audience.
Oingo Boingo left MCA in 1991 and rearranged its line up, removing a lot of the influence of the group’s horns. They also decided to shorten their name even further, this time to only Boingo.
After that album, the group went back to their old name. The momentum seemed to have left the band by this point though and they opted to separate after their yearly Halloween performance in 1995. This show was recorded and while the cd is not hard to get, the DVD is rare enough to be worth over $100.
Since the group’s parting of ways, Danny Elfman has become one of the most famous composers in the movie industry. He almost exclusively hires Boingo guitarist Steve Bartek as his orchestrator. You may know some of his theme songs from such classics as The Simpsons, Batman, Spider Man and Tales From The Crypt.
John Avila and Johnny Hernandez have continued to work in a number of groups together, including Food For Feet, Tito & Tarantula, Psychotic Aztecs and Doug & The Mystics. Additionally, these two members and a few other ex-Boingo members put together an Oingo Boing tribute show in Anaheim in 2005.
Throughout the entire span of Oingo Boingo and The Mystic Knights of Oingo Boingo, over 30 people were in the group.
Danny Elfman insists that there will never be an Oingo Boingo reunion. He says he suffers from irreversible hearing loss and does not want to make it worse by touring.
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Notorious had long had a problem with the law, starting with his 1989 arrest for weapons charges. The next year, he was arrest on a probation violation and a year after that he was arrested for dealing crack. The third time, he spent nine months in jail. Much later in his career, he was arrested in 1996 outside of a New York club for threatening to kill two fans, punching one in the face and smashing the windows of their taxi cab. That same year, he was arrested again for drug and weapons charges. In 1997, he was ordered to pay $41,000 to someone who claimed to have been beaten and robbed by Biggie and his entourage in 1995, but the criminal robbery charges were dropped.
Of course, the pendulum swings both ways, and Tyruss Himes, a.k.a. Big Syke, was implicated of the murder by tv channel KTTV and XXL magazine and filed a suit against them for defamation. His case was later thrown out of court.
David Byrne was displeased with the group’s abbreviation of the name “Talking Heads” and opted to sue the group for acting on “a pretty obvious attempt to cash in on the Talking Heads name.” (Photo: David Byrne)
Image Via Kent, J [Flickr]
In 1994, the group appeared in the live-action movie of The Flintstones, acting as the BC-52’s, and they also sang the title track, “Meet The Flintstones.” The same year, they also recorded the theme for Nickelodeon’s Rocko’s Modern Life.
1988’s “Boingo Alive” was recorded live on a soundstage, without an audience.
