I got home last night and stayed up watching Time Life’s ‘Soul Story’ on tv and I always get the urge to write down the names of artists I like from those 8 second clips they show you of what’s on the CD, and last night I did it. haha. I wrote down names such as, Barbara Lynn, The Miracles, J. J. Jackson, etc. And then I went on a crazed downloading fit and found this index from some teacher’s school files where she had uploaded tons of good ol’ oldies.

Anyway this track by The Tornados stuck out, and I did some research on them, meaning I went to Wikipedia and this is what is says:

The Tornados (in the U.S. they were credited as The Tornadoes) were an English instrumental group of the 1960s, who acted as the in-house back-up group for many of Joe Meek’s productions.

The Tornados also enjoyed several chart hits in their own right, including the Number One “Telstar” (named after the satellite and composed by Meek). It was the first U.S. Number One by a British group. The song was featured a clavioline, a keyboard instrument with a distinctive electronic sound.

This novelty record was intended to evoke the dawn of the space age, complete with sound effects that were meant to sound “space-like”. A popular story at the time of the record’s release was that the weird distortions and background noise came from sending the signal up to the Telstar satellite and re-recording it back on Earth. However, is more likely that the effects were created in Meek’s recording studio, which was a small flat above a shop in London. It has been claimed that the sounds intended to symbolize radio signals were produced by Meek running a pen around the rim of an ashtray, and that the “rocket blastoff” at the start of the record was actually a flushing toilet, with the recordings made to sound exotic by playing the tape in reverse at various speeds.

Warning: This is an instrumental song.

Listen: The Tornados - Telestar (1962)
(give it some time to load, hypem was being difficult. if you have trouble with it playing, click ‘read more’ and click the actual music link inside the blog post)

Yea? yeah? yeah????!! yes. You know its great.

Do you dig the name? I do. And you will definitely dig it after you hear some of their music. The Donkeys herald from San Diego and remind me of a more folk sounding and less-produced Ambulance Ltd. My friend recently picked up their new 7″ release with Casiotone for the Painfully alone when Casiotone played a few weeks back at Pygmalion Festival in Urbana. He brought the record down to my room because my roommate has a pretty nice turntable. After switching to the other side, we were both instantly impressed.

The Donkey’s side holds two gems: “Be My Girl” and “Seventh Heaven”. The first track, “Be My Girl”, is honestly one of my new favorite songs. It’s getting up there in the iTunes most played songs. If you guys are looking for something new besides electronic stuff, give these songs a listen. Use it to swoon that new love interest (no, do it. It’ll work). “Seventh Heaven” is more upbeat.

Go here to purchase the 7″ vinyl split between The Donkeys and Casiotone for the Painfully Alone. Both sides are exceptional, and it’s a good chance to get into Casiotone. They have yet to upload these tracks to their myspace, but hypemachine is a good site to search and listen to music. So go search, now.