Mama Get Your Hammer

I get a little hazy about the details after all this time, but first there was darkness and then God fiat lux-ed it.  Then she created fishies, fishies got legs and became men and hedgehogs etc. Then on the 6th or 7th day it was the 1950’s, rock and roll was born* and everything got wayyy better.  The end.

True story.

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Back in 1981 a rock ‘n roll compilation called Juke Box At Eric’s: Vol 1 Rock ‘n Roll was released.  This sound tracked the joyous sounds of Eric’s, Liverpool’s famous Matthew Street punk club**.  Not necessarily those on the jukebox^ but those high-octane rockabilly cuts played by the DJ’s and favoured by the club promoter Roger Eagle – who this reissue commemorates.  The line between early punk back-to-basics energy and revved-up rock ‘n roll being an obvious one.

So one November lunch time at Probe Records I bought Juke Box At Eric’s – The Roger Eagle Commemorative Edition, a 2019 rerelease new and improved with copious liner notes on red vinyl, limited to 500 copies.  It’s a beaut.

Okay so we’re firmly on the rock ‘n roll end of the Nuggets/Pebbles rumble strip right from the off, with some minor diversions for some psycho country (‘Okie’s In the Pokie’) and too-fast doo-wop (‘Do It Bop’).   The 18 tracks here have been selected partially for their catchiness, partially for their obscurity, partially for their oddness, craziness and novelty, but mostly for their sheer energy.  This is all catnip to me.

You want catchy and odd, cue up Tommy Blake’s ‘F-Olding Money’ which the liner notes describe (with annoying perfection) as ‘a sad tale of financial incompetence told over a deranged ‘Summertime Blues’ type guitar backing’.  Darn it, I am redundant here!

Well, I went to the social just to get a little pension
I was sorely in distress, I was needing some attention
They said you don’t get a copper, you don’t get a dime
That’s why I broke his jaw, that’s why  I’m doin’ time
But it takes a lotta blue-backs to satisfy my honey
If I could get my hands on some f-oldin money

Teaming it with The Wailers, much faster, instrumental ‘Shanghaied’ just works like a charm.  Then throwing in the blistering ‘Monkey’s Uncle’ by Ray Sharpe … well, that’s just overkill.  I simply cannot stay still when Juke Box At Eric’s is on, 1537 Towers has borne witness to several outbreaks of wildly energetic, yet charmingly incompetent twisting and jiving recently.

The Ray Sharpe track was produced by Lee Hazlewood and featured none other than Duane Eddy on guitar.  It’s superb, because or despite of the fact it is almost entirely a rip-off of ‘Roll Over Beethoven’.

Parental advice incoming:

Mama get your hammer, a fly is on the baby's head!

History does not relate whether Bobby Peterson (whether in cahoots with his quintet, or not) had a long and distinguished career as an agony uncle, one suspects not on this evidence.  Regardless this is a prime slice of rock ‘n oddball, with some HOT sax action slathered all over it.

Another favourite of mine is John Zacherle ‘Hurry Bury Baby’, which deals sensitively and caringly with that eternal problem we all have of disposing of one’s kills.  We’re talking a PG-13 rated ‘Monster Mash’ here folks, with the terrifyingly corny Mr Z in wonderfully plummy form, really putting the romantic in necromantic.

I had to ... Hurry bury baby, hurry bury baby
So the fuzz wouldn't know what was, I had to hurry bury baby.

Turning away from the novelty song route Juke Box At Eric’s scores big with the amped up ‘Red Hot Rockin’ Blues’ by Jesse James and the previously mentioned ‘Shanghaied’ by the Wailers, got some serious muscle on it for a tune of its’ vintage.

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So by the time the needle hits the runout a good time was had by all, jives were jived and rockas were billied.  The fact that many of the tracks were never on the eponymous jukebox that actually was the Juke Box At Eric’s is neither here, nor there.

As the sleeve notes reminded me Allen Ginsberg described Liverpool as ‘the centre of consciousness of the human universe’*^ possibly making the jukebox the lost ark of the covenant, or something; I’ll ask God when I see her next.  That may be overegging it slightly, but regardless this is a very fine release indeed and a damnably good rocking time for all.

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In the sleeve notes the illustrator of the cover – Matthew Street in Liverpool being torn apart by a monsterpocalypse, Steve Hardstaff recounts his friendship with Roger Eagle and we learn that the master tapes for the LP were placed on top of his coffin at his burial in 1999. It’s a touching epitaph for Juke Box At Eric’s.

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Poignant that this was a lunch time buy for me.  I remember lunch times, I remember shops and easier times.  I don’t wish to seem utterly inconsequential but I miss all that, blowing all my f-olding money on red vinyl impulse buys at Probe Records.  The sooner I can do so safely again, the better.

1003 Down.

PS: The cool ghoul himself:

*I may have compressed the whole of history slightly to keep my wordcount manageable.  Please feel free to point out any historical or theological inaccuracies I might have perpetuated; all letters of complaint to be written in invisible ink and posted to the North Pole, c/o Santa.

**directly opposite the Cavern Club, before they pulled the latter down to build an office I used to work in.  File under: cultural crimes, music, heritage, global importance.

^as my LP fastidiously points out ‘juke box’ is an Anglicisation of the American term ‘jukebox’ and thus the LP should have been called Jukebox At Eric’s.  These things matter to me.

*^he was a bit prone to doing things like that.  Reign it in Al.