May 31, 2009 Earworm

Since a morning coffee date on Friday lasted until it was time for another date for dinner, and with a wish to get these two records that I've had running around in my head for weeks now posted, it's time for a special Sunday edition of the earworm. This works out just fine since one of the records, "You Won't Even Know Her Name", is by a girl/woman calling herself Josephine Sunday. Little is known of Ms. Sunday beyond the fact that she hailed from Washington D.C., her real last name was Visaya, and that her father was born in the Phillipines. All that information, and that she performed the song on American Bandstand in 1965 looking like a lost Ronette, are culled from the liner notes of RPM's excellent compilation, "Girls Go Zonk".

The Ronettes look is quite appropriate in that "You Won't Even Know Her Name" is one of the better Spector homages. It's short and sweet, catchy as hell, and as a cute as a button. It's also an early Mike Curb production, well before he unleashed the likes of "You Light Up My Life" and Debbie Boone upon us, so we'll considerate it as antidote to that horror. Josephine's known discography contains only two other singles while Mike Curb's goes on for years and years proving that life is not always kind.

"The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun" by Julie Brown is a pastiche of a homage and hysterical in a way that would never fly in these post-Columbine days. Pulled from her 1984 Rhino e.p., "Goddess In Progress", and showcased in a cheap and cheesy video, it found in a home in the gay clubs where Julie had first found an audience and eventually made its way to MTV. References to this silliness are still quoted in certain circles, many that still surprise me, long after Ms. Brown's shtick wore out its welcome.

Julie followed up the success of "The Homecoming Queen's Got A Gun" with a full length LP called "Trapped In The Body Of A White Gilrl" which only proved that brevity served her well. To her credit, her 1992 satire of Madonna's "Truth Or Dare", called "Medusa: Dare To Be Truthful", is one of the funniest things I've ever seen.

Okay, I've shaken May out of the way. Now we can move on to new old things and the many many new new things that have blowing my mind. And, in case you wondering, I did it for Johnny...