Vito And The Hands
Román García
http://www.borderlinebooks.com/us6070s/fuzz.html about this item:
Vito And The Hands: "Where It's At"/"Vito And The Hands" (Living Legend #69,
1966)
"On this Kim Fowley produced 45, a long hippie rap turns into an acid garage
freakout. It featured Vito backed by the Mothers Of Invention..."
Does anybody know if FZ was involved in this single?
Patrick Neve
I just got the Kim Fowley CD "Underground Animal" which contains "Vito
and the Hands". There does not appear to be any direct FZ involvment,
although there are several ancillary contributions by other FZ related
people. (Vito Paulekas and Nick Venet, for instance.) Fowley
provides comments to each song, which read like a "who's who" of the
L.A. rock scene from the early to mid 60's. Fowley is quite the
name-dropper, and deservedly so.. it seems he's worked with just about
everyone. In fact, he mentions his involvement with Freak Out in a
descriptive to a song that has nothing to do with him or the Mothers,
so I think if there had been a direct FZ contribution (to Vito and the
Hands) Fowley would have been quick to mention it. Besides all that,
it's a very interesting CD for fans of garage rock or obscure would-be
hits from LA in the 60's. This would make a good companion album to
FZ's "Cucamonga" singles comps, it's definitely in that vein.. some
good, some bad, novelty, doo wop, surf and r&b singles of various
influence, origin, and quality. I've listened to the whole thing and
it's a real mixed bag.
The song list seems to be incorrect at some point, it lists 21 songs
and there are only 20.. for this reason I think "Vito and the Hands"
is a different track than what's listed.. when I first played what I
thought was the track I thought it was pretty crappy and a waste of
time. However after figuring out (I think) which track it's actually
supposed to be, it's a rather entertaining psychedelic rocker vaguely
in the style of The Fraternity of Man, with some pretty good guitar
playing apparantly by Ingber, but with tribal, howling choruses, and
Fowley's inimitable ranting, reminiscent of his appearance on Wild Man
Fischer's "The Madness and the Ecstacy".
Here are Fowley's notes to "Vito And The Hands":
(Living Legend LL69)
This crew was The Byrds' dancers and also appeared on the "Freak Out"
album. The band was under the leadership of Elliot Ingber. Elliot
was a member of the Mothers Of Invention, Captain Beefheart and his
Magic Band, and The Fraternity Of man. Produced by me at LWG studios
in 1966. Engineered by Michael Lloyd.
Here are Fowley's notes to "Vaquero Beat":
(Vaquero VA101-A Jan '66)
In 1965 I took these East L.A. guys into H&L Studios to try and get
the KRLA type sound. I succeeded. All this stuff cut at H&L Studios
proves that I was as Cruiser sensitive as Frank Zappa who was doing
similar productions at the Paul Buff Studio in Cucamonga. Frank and I
later sang together on the first Mothers of Invention Album, "Frank
Out." The song: "Help I'm A Rock."
So, Roman, there's another credit for your Freak Out page.. Fowley
sings on Help I'm A Rock. Too bad it doesn't explain what a Hypophone
was.
-Patrick
Charles Ulrich
sp...@darkwing.uoregon.edu (Patrick Neve) wrote:
> So, Roman, there's another credit for your Freak Out page.. Fowley
> sings on Help I'm A Rock. Too bad it doesn't explain what a Hypophone
> was.
You weren't paying attention.
From Project/Object: The Recorded Works Of Frank Zappa:
"In a 1976 interview, FZ explained, 'when youąre hyping something for
the record business, you know, you run your mouth. Well, he was always
hyping something. He was making some noises on there with his mouth, so
I called his mouth a hypophone.'"