TGIF! Let's have some DEATH: The Grave - Tony Casanova

Splatter Platters! Death discs! Teenage Tragedy! Today we have the reverb soaked surfing drone-abilly of Tony Casanova (about whom I can find remarkably little- I found a picture of a smarmy guy playing accordion! But that's probably not him...). The Grave is yet another example of the death preoccupied pop of the fifties and early sixties.

The song has a wonderful swooning swing, straddling a divide between 50's soul ballads, surf rock, and drone. The vocals (to my ears) are pitched somewhere between Mick Jones and Nico, an odd combo but it works wonders. Anyhow, remember you are mortal and all that. Happy Friday!

Death Of An Angel - Donald Woods and the Vel-Aires

I've spoken before of my fascination with Splatter Platter records; a pop evolution of the murder ballad that grew in prominence during the 1950s. These 'death discs' focused upon dangerous adolescence: teenagers caught up in a frenzy of rock'n'roll, drugs, hair, and (very often) cars. These songs would lament the death of a young person taken before their time- usually involving some sort of grizzly vehicular death.

The Splatter Platter du jour, and today's Best Song Ever, is 'Death Of An Angel' by Donald Woods and the Vel-Aires. Woods got his start as a doowop singer in Vernon Greene's group the Medallions (chiefly famous for their sexed up automobile hit 'Buick 59'). Woods then absconded with a few of the members of The Medallions to form Donald Woods and the Vel-Aires (sometimes also known as the Bel-Aires). If 'Buick 59' was doowop with a cheeky sleaze, 'Death Of An Angel' is doowop gone goth.

It opens like a beaten and broken 'I Put a Spell on You' before settling into it's jazzy funeral march rhythm. You can hear dust and cobwebs coating the sax lines, spare heartbeat drums pushing along a chorus of gently crooning pall-bearers. Donald Woods voice is the essence of late night smoke and mourning distilled into a soulful performance that never crosses to far into either histrionics or understatement.

As was common with teenage tragedy numbers, the song also contains a fair amount of theatre and drama. The background tears and wailing are both unnerving and funny. However it was this same gallows humor that so frightened audiences at the time of it's release. The song, with it's implicit overtones of death, broken hearts an suicide, was immediately banned from wider airplay. This was compounded by a conspiracy theory blossoming out of the record's B-Side, 'The Man From Utopia,' involving an alien that killed the protagonists girlfriend in the A-Side. The truth of the matter is debatable, but the vinyl was already soaked with too much blood once the rumor started and the record was immediately destined for obscurity.

Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots - The Cheers

Motorcycle gangs were on the rise in the early 1950's. With the founding of the Hells Angels in 1948 (though this date is hotly debated) a new terror was gripping millions of God-Fearing-Nuclear-Families across America. It came riding on asphalt burning wheels while spinning chains and wearing leather jackets, Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots.

Black Denim Trousers was written by Mike Stoller and Jerry Leiber, famous for penning an enormous string of hits for artists such as Elvis including Jailhouse Rock, King Creole and Hound Dog. In 1954 the duo had their first American chart success with '(Bazoom) I Need Your Lovin' as performed by The Cheers. They continued this partnership in 1955 with their next hit 'Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots.' It shot to number six and while Stoller and Leiber would go on to futher glory, it proved to be the last Billboard single for The Cheers- but what a way to go out.

Atop snares sputtering like engine backfires and wild horns rollicking you down the highway, singers Bert Convy, Sue Allen and Gil Garfield spin the grim ballad of an anonymous motorcycle rider known as The Terror of Highway 101 who loves his cycle over all else- including his neglected girlfriend Mary-Lou. It's an incredibly theatrical piece of music, complete with stings and motifs recurring over the course of its two minutes and ten seconds. There's also a great economy to the lyrics, managing to pack an enormous amount of both melody and narrative into a breathlessly paced performance.

The song is an example of what came to be known as a Teenage Tragedy song or (as I vastly prefer) a Splatter Platter. These songs all focused on the premature deaths of teenagers, and warned against the hard n' fast life style that was fast becoming a required part of the adolescent experience. This particular number was the first pop song to look at the rise of motorcycle culture and it's seduction of teenagers looking for a thrill. The number would prove to be so popular that it was covered by a wide breadth of artists (including a French version translated for Edith Piaf) and gained the ultimate 50s Seal-of-Success by having a parody song written about it titled Pink Shoe Laces.

So the next time you hop onto your motorcycle (like you usually do) remember the warning of The Cheers, and the twisted wreckage that marks the resting place of The Terror of Highway 101.