Roll over Tchaikovsky! Hokey, straightforward and highly effective dance number: one of a stream of jolly, uptempo, slightly goofy hits that swarmed the British charts in ’62/’63. Some were harmless, some annoying – this splicing of rock and roll drums and piano corn is one of the good ones.
Score: 6
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I used to play this on the piano, it was always really fun to do, but now I can’t remember how and I don’t have the sheet music any more. I suppose I could try to work it out from the record but it’s quite complicated if I remember rightly. Maybe one day…I’ll just buy the sheet music again.
where the bloody hell can I get it from??? Me and mi twin bro do a double act and want to put it in but we cant find it!! HELP!!!
Were can I locate the sheet music?
Please advise
Cary
http://www.sheetmusicwarehouse.co.uk/details.php?ref=1241
“Sheetmusic warehouse says it is out of print. Anyone got a “copiable” copy??
Whisper it not in Marcello’s hearing (or be prepared for the fallout*), but there’s a rather good live version of this tagged on to the end of ELP’s Pictures at an Exhibition album.
*No, I don’t mean the album by grunge band Default, several tracks of which fell into my collection when I accidentally hooked a teenager’s iPod to my computer a couple of years ago.
One of Kim Fowley’s biggest hits, which is pretty weird considering how much more interesting work he’s had his hand in over the years. “The Trip” is genius.
“Billy Bumble” (pseud for guitarist R. C. Gamble, who is the best thing i think) retired from music in 1965 and later became economics professor at Fort Hayes State College in Hayes, Kansas
facts from wikipedia so i hope not made up!
R. C. Gamble was indeed “Billy Bumble. And he did teach economics at Ft. Hays State College. He got his PhD in Economics from Oklahoma State University. I was in graduate school with him and knew him quite well. Unfortunately, I had lost track of him over the last 10 years or so, I was very sad to hear he died last year.
It’s bye bye Kim Fowley,
from what I’ve read on Wiki Kim Fowley is a fascinating character who seems to have been on the fringes or behind the scene of a great many significant moments in popular music. I first became aware of him when the NME did a feature on The Runaways in the mid 1970s which established him in my mind as a slightly sleazy svengali. Whether that is fair or not I don’t know – I suspect he would have liked that.
What does stand in his favour is that he seemed to celebrate pop music for its of-the-moment thrill power not as something that would become stiflingly canonical. ‘Nut Rocker’ is a wonderful example of this – you can’t imagine anyone claiming it as enormously significant but it is concise, energetic and giddyishly enjoyable.
Good call, Lone Pilgrim. I’ve always the Fowley legend quite problematic (I don’t think his sleazy side is in doubt), not least because – for such a massive self-promoter – he didn’t have much success beyond Nut Rocker and another r’n’r novelty Alley Oop. The Runaways only had commercial success once they’d split up, left him and gone solo. But celebrating pop “for its of-the-moment thrill power” makes more sense of his scenester aesthetic. And, besides, it works a treat on this “mondo deco cock rock future tip”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hLPKxJiopOA
Great fun in my view. An 8/10 here.