1. “Monk Time” – 2:42
2. “Shut Up” – 3:11
3. “Boys Are Boys and Girls Are Choice” – 1:23
4. “Higgle-Dy-Piggle-Dy” – 2:28
5. “I Hate You” – 3:32
6. “Oh, How to Do Now” – 3:14
7. “Complication” – 2:21
8. “We Do Wie Du” – 2:09
9. “Drunken Maria” – 1:44
10. “Love Came Tumblin’ Down” – 2:28
11. “Blast Off!” – 2:12
12. “That’s My Girl” – 2:24

Don’t ask me how I cam across this band, but according to iTunes some 6 months ago I imported a song ‘Love Came Tumblin’ Down‘ by The Monks. Over Christmas break I really got into 60’s instrumental/surf rock bands: The Tornados, The Shadows, etc. Ever since, I’ve been beginning to obsess with the idea of creating an entirely rhythmical, instrumental-based band you could get kids our age to dig (ie. dance to). Well, two weeks ago I came across the Monks song again for the 4th or 5th time, and was immediately overcome with this crazed vision because this was basically the sound i was imagining.

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Welcome back! It’s time to buckle down these first couple weeks and not just float like last semester, right? (nah) Hope everyone’s break was good. Sorry for the lack of updates here. Break for me was great, here’s a list of some music that was on repeat over the month hiatus.

Fleetwood Mac - Say You Love Me
The Shadows - Foot Tapper
McGuinness Flint - When I’m Dead And Gone
The Tornados - Costa Monger
The Animals - We’ve Gotta Get Out of This Place
Fleetwood Mac - Monday Morning
Roy Orbison - Pretty Woman/Ooby Dooby

In terms of upcoming music news watch here for posts on The Teenagers new album, Cut Copy’s 1 hour ‘So Cosmic’ mixtape, and updates on Franz Ferdinand’s 3rd album attempt.

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.