IT'S TUESDAY, KOGAR BECKONS.

Kogar the Swinging Ape is up to his ol' game again. I blinked and all of a sudden there are six new Tassel Twirlers, so named because there what you'd hear in jiggle clubs of yore. I can't get enough of these. Despite the fact that I don't go to strip clubs. Who wants to go see someone bump and grind to "Cherry Pie"? They probably play something else these days. Something with Auto-Tune. Blech.

Kogar is about the old school Pall Mall scented, Hamms swilling, wing tip attired flat tops. These are the soundtrack to your grandpa's night out, back when he wasn't your grandpa. Hell, you may have been conceived after one of his nights out.

Kogar seems to have an endless supply of these because he's put together several compilations over the years, all with non-hit wonders. Here's a few from 2012 and link to all of the Tassel Twirler Tuesdays, starting with the new ones and going back to 2012.

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Listen:
The Knight Beats - Naughty Rooster mp3 at Boss Radio 66
Eddie Atwood and his Goodies - Hot Saki mp3 at Boss Radio 66
Woody & Dave - Shut-Ups mp3 at Boss Radio 66
The whole shootin' match:
Tassel Twirler Tuesdays at Boss Radio 66 Dozens of bumper and grinders.

KOGAR DONE DID IT AGAIN

I'm not even going to mess around with this one. Kogar the Swing Ape put together a collection of Instrumental 45 of the Week songs he's posted at Rock 'n' Soul Ichiban, over thirty of them. If you dig greasy instrumentals from the fifties and sixties, the heavy mix of honking sax and twangy guitar, with surface noise, the patina of ash and beer, you'll be chompin' up on this stuff. There's a couple teasers below. That's it. Scram.

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Listen:

The Premiers - Shawnee mp3 at Rock 'n'Soul ichiban
The Stantones - Sheba mp3 at Rock 'n'Soul ichiban
The Rumblers - It's a Gas mp3 at Rock 'n'Soul ichiban
Instrumental 45 of the Week at Rock 'n'Soul ichiban The individual posts
The Mix:
Switchblade Panic!! - Kogar's Instro-mental 45s at Rock 'n'Soul ichiban

FLEX YOUR CLICKER CREEP

If you've been lurking around here a while, you know all about the Lux and Ivy's Favorites series of mixes put together by Kogar the Swinging Ape. For the uninitiated, each one is roughly 25-30 songs that Lux and Ivy, from the Cramps, mentioned in interviews, or covered at one time or another. They were avid record collectors even before the Cramps, and that was roughly thirty five years ago, so there's a lot of music to draw from. With seventeen volumes that adds up to conservatively about four hundred songs. And they aren't just any songs, they've all got at least a bit of Cramps-like oddballness.

Kogar is the host of Kogar's Jungle Juice, a great blog in and of itself, and he also contributes to Rock 'n' Soul Ichiban. In other words, he's part of that whole WFMU and Ichiban mob that includes plenty of other East coast diehards. Not satisfied with compiling seventeen volumes of rockin', crazy, and weird records that you and I will probably never run across, he's going back and redoing them, one by one, with new rips, or rips of 45s in better condition. He's just remastered Volume Five, and it, like the others, is a no brainer. That is, if you're into rockin', crazy, and weird.

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Listen:
Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume 5 (Remastered) at Kogar's Jungle Juice 29 songs in a zip
The others:
Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume 1 (Remastered) at Kogar's Jungle Juice
Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume 2 (Remastered) at Kogar's Jungle Juice
Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume 3 (Remastered) at Kogar's Jungle Juice
Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume 6 (Remastered) at Kogar's Jungle Juice
Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume 12 (Remastered) at Kogar's Jungle Juice
Lux and Ivy's Favorites, Volumes 1-11 (pre-remastering) at Beware of the Blog
Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume 13 (pre-remastering) at Kogar's Jungle Juice
Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume 14 (pre-remastering) at Kogar's Jungle Juice
Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume 15 (pre-remastering) at Kogar's Jungle Juice
Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume 16 (pre-remastering) at Kogar's Jungle Juice
Lux and Ivy's Favorites Volume 17 (pre-remastering) at Kogar's Jungle Juice
Related:
Past Cramps posts with assorted songs, videos and whatnot

FOR THE GOOD TIMES

It had to happen at some point. Kogar the Swinging Ape is hanging up his Lux and Ivy's Favorites series of mixes, ending it with volume 17, a thirty two song set of old rock 'n' roll, rockabilly, doo-wop and such. For the uninitiated, the series included songs the Cramps covered, songs Lux and Ivy mentioned at one time or another as favorites, and songs they included on mixes for friends. If you're at all familiar with the Cramps (and you had better be), you know the type of stuff.

Too his credit, Kogar has made these available for free and has encouraged the sharing of them. Considering the amount of effort tracking down seventeen volumes of songs referenced, and then sharing all of his hard work without any compensation whatsoever, it's pretty remarkable that he stuck to it as long as he has.

This last mix comes without a song list, to thwart bootleggers that have been selling the mixes as their own compilations. (Mixes 1-16 do have song lists.) Regardless, it's all good stuff. There's a few Cramps things down there too, for the lazy bones who don't hassle with mixes.

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The mix:
Lux and Ivy's Favorites, Vol 17 at Kogar's Jungle Juice 32 songs in a zip. You'll want this.
More of Lux and Ivy's Favorites - A lot more of Kogar's hard work
Cramps what-not:
The Cramps - Let's Get Fucked Up mp3 at 8106 
The Cramps - Goo Goo Muck mp3 at Soundbites 
The Cramps - Confessions of a Psycho-Cat mp3 at Review Stalker
The Cramps - Human Fly mp3 at Review Stalker

MORE OF LUX & IVY'S FAVORITES

Good ol' Kogar, proprietor of Kogar's Jungle Juice has posted more volumes of Lux & Ivy's favorites. If you're not familiar with the series, it consists of songs that Lux Interior and Poison Ivy (of the Cramps) had, at one time or another, either included on their own mix tapes, mentioned as favorites in interviews, or covered. The fact that the series is now up to sixteen volumes says something about their passion for music, both in collecting and turning others onto their scores.


California State Mental Hospital, Napa, CA, 1978

The compilations are painstakingly put together by Kogar, not the band, through exhaustive searches, and he's not content with considering them finished. He's continually hunting down cleaner versions of the songs, and has begun the painstaking process of remastering compilations that have have long been "completed." A hat must be tipped in his general direction, because his intent is for these compilations to be free, and remain free, to be spread amongst other crackpot enthusiasts. Dig in folks, there's a lot of good stuff on these suckers.

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First, a few from the tour guides:
The Cramps - Cofessions of a Psycho-Cat mp3 at Review Stalker
The Cramps - Let's Get Fucked Up mp3 at 8106
The Cramps - I Was a Teenage Werewolf mp3 at The Mad Makerel
The Cramps - Surfin' Dead mp3 at Indie Shuffle
The Cramps - Goo Goo Muck mp3 at Review Stalker
The Cramps - Human Fly mp3 at Review Stalker
TD,
The mixes:NOTE: Linking to Kogar's posts so you don't miss the essential annotations:
Lux & Ivy's Favorites, Volume 6 (Remastered)
Lux & Ivy's Favorites, Volume 12 (Remastered) NOTE: The original download link Kogar posted for this Vol 12 is broken, and he later posted a new download link here
Lux & Ivy's Favorites, Volume 13
Lux & Ivy's Favorites, Volume 14
Lux & Ivy's Favorites, Volume 15
Lux & Ivy's Favorites, Volume 16
Previously posted:
Lux & Ivy's Favorites Volume 1 (Remastered) and link to Volumes 1-12
Video:The Cramps - Drug Train at YouTube Filmed in 1978 Californial State Mental Hospital, Napa, CA
The Cramps - Hang Up (Live, Oslo, 2006) at YouTube
The Cramps - Hot Pearl Snatch at YouTube
The Cramps - on Beverly Hills 90210 (1996) at YouTube Dancing with the devil here. 
Visit:
Interview with Kogar at Kogar's Jungle Juice (Translated interview, originally appeared in Dig magazine.
Kogar's Jungle Juice - The blog
The Cramps Official site
The Cramps at Wikipedia

LUX & IVY'S FAVORITES, REMASTERED!

Yowza! Kogar the Swinging Ape has begun the arduous process of remastering his "Lux & Ivy's Favorites" mixes. There's eleven of them in all, and while most people who dig these mixes probably don't care a whole lot about remastering, I just listened to the first spit shine and there is a marked improvement. Here's a link to his post with the first batch, along with the song list so you know what you're getting into. (His download includes artwork and a pre-made CD insert with track listing.) Way down at the bottom is a link to all eleven mixes (pre-remastering) on Beware of the Blog, along with Kogar's explanation of what his intent was with this whole mess.

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Lux & Ivy's Favorites (Remastered) at Kogar's Jungle Juice
1. Sheriff and the Revels — Shombolar
2. Sid King and the Five Strings — Let ‘Er Roll
3. Ersel Hickey — Bluebirds Over The Mountain
4. Ersel Hickey — Hangin’ Around
5. Ronnie Dawson — Action Packed
6. Ronnie Self — Date Bait
7. Vern Pullens — Bop Crazy Baby
8. Donald Woods & Velairs — Death Of An Angel
9. Gene Maltais — Crazy Baby
10. Billy Ward & The Dominoes — The Bells
11. Bob Mcfadden — The Mummy
12. Forbidden Five — RFD Rangoon
13. Forbidden Five — Enchanted Farm
14. Medallions — Behind The Door
15. Nervous Norvus — Transfusion
16. The Clovers — Crawlin
17. The Pengiuns — Earth Angel
18. The Blenders — Don’t Fuck Around With Love
19. Sparkle Moore — Skull and Crossbones
20. Versatones — Bila
21. Versatones — Tight Skirt Tight Sweater
22. The Tornnados — Telstar
23. The Treniers — Poontang
24. The Clovers — Rotten Cocksuckers’ Ball
25. Collins Kids — Whistle Bait
26. The Chips — Rubber Biscuit
27. Jan and Arnie — Jennie Lee
Here's more!
Lux & Ivy's Favorites, Volumes 1-11 (pre-remastering) at Beware of the Blog
Long interview with Lux & Ivy, mp3 at Beware of the Blog