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A special treat . . .an extra cut from the Burnzy’s Last Call soundtrack. As the filmīs composer, Crispin Cioe created a full playlist of imaginary hits by fictional one-hit wonders. In doing so, Crispin convinced some very famous singers and musicians to write songs and perform -- not as themselves, but as artists from the a parallel universe. There wasn't room on the album for every song that Crispin recorded for the film. The following song we're offering up to you for the listening -- in the true spirit of the Internet. Of course, should you wish to buy the soundtrack described as “cooler than cool” by the critics, all you have to do is click.
(DOUBLECLICK ON THE LIGHTENING BOLT TO DOWNLOAD AND PLAY THE MP3 FILES. IF YOU DON’T HAVE THE SOFTWARE TO LISTEN TO THE FILES, CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD THE NETSCAPE WINAMP, WHICH COMES WITH A NEAT MINI BROWSER. )
’Dont Run and Hide by Leaves of Grass
(written by J. Babjak, BMI/Tex Remy Music)
Leaves of Grass was formed in the late 60s by members of the Eden's Offspring farm commune in the lush corn-growing region just outside Lower Bardo Plains, Indiana. Folks in the area never saw much of the commune's produce show up at local farmer's markets, but the band's women-folk and children always came to gigs dressed resplendently in flowing tie-die, and sold trinkets and small bags of dried herbs from the back of the group's flat-bed. This song was a local midwestern hit, partly because the band promoted it to radio stations personally, leaving behind those colorful sackets of dried herbs as promotional items for disc jockeys and program directors. Ultimately, the group migrated to the deep woods of upper Wisconsin, where members decided to concentrate exclusively on their burgeoning trade in aromatics.
A track listing of Burnzy’s Last Call soundtrack follows:
1. INTO THE MIRROR
Performed by Nik Gentry (Smithereens)
(Diken/DiBelia), Donnaelaine Music, BMI
Nik Gentry blasted out of Melvindale, Michigan in 1962. But after being indicted in a bootleg Vernor's Ginger Ale scheme with a former Tiger pitching ace, neither he nor his solipsism has been seen or heard from again.
2. SPACE MONKEY
Performed by Little John Nancy (David Johansen)
(Cioe/Gilmore/Johansen), Buster Poindexter Inc., Crispin Music, BMI
As Little John's mother once revealed to Melody Maker, she knew her son was destined for show biz greatness when he toddled straight from his baby pram to the mirror and sang Johnny Ray tunes into a hairbrush before he said "Mama." This debut single from the seminal concept album AstroNaughty was released shortly before the last sequins fell on glitter rock in his hometown London and Mr. Nancy metamorphosed from a sexually ambiguous British pop star into a garden variety drag queen (see track 3).
3. SO WE DANCED AGAIN
Performed by Nancy John (Deborah Harry)
(Cioe /Gilmore/ Harry), Crispin Music BMI, TriTone Tunes, ASCAP
Now it can be told: after an August 1976 visit to a famous Swiss clinic Little John Nancy emerged with a new voice, name and aesthetic. Sadly, this tune was Nancy John's lone pop charting, but the chorus's stiff martial cadence has made it a perennial Oktoberfest favorite the world over.
4. WHAT WILL I DO WITH MY HEART
Performed by the Boleros (Dennis Diken & Pete DiBella)
(Diken/DiBelia), Donnaelaine Music, BMI
Generally acknowledged throughout Ohio for introducing Gaucho foot fashion to Cleveland, the Boleros stomped out of the music scene in righteous protest when, on the eve of this stunning track's pop ascent, the Fab Four trotted off the plane and onto American tarmac in their so-called "Beatle Boots."
5. CHILDHOOD SWEETHEART
Performed by Wally & the Wankers (Graham Parker)
(Graham Parker), Ellisclan Ltd, Adm. by Bug Music
Wally and the Wankers, from Kimber in the north of' England, hit in July 1964 with this quintessential paean, the subject of which, Wally later confided, was "the town bike everyone 'ad a ride . . ." "Sweetheart" was actually the group's second single, having first dented the charts with "Trampoline Girl." The followup, "Crushed by a Tractor," spotlighting Wally's new grasp of Islamic yodeling, was a wee extreme for the Wankers' public and the group broke up. Wally still resides in Kimber, where he has distinguished himself at the rubber grommet factory.
Wally and the Wankers: 19641964.
6. BABY YOU'RE A DRAG
Performed by the Spirochaetes (Evan Dando & Adam Roth.)
(Adam Roth), (Mustang Louie Music/BMI)
If you were young and lived on Long Island in 1967, chances are you went to see this local band burn it up at the Snortatoriurn every Friday night. This single barely registered west of Syosset, but it did land the hot shots their first (and only) club tour, on a triple bill between Topo Gigio and Mrs. Miller. The rest, of course, was history.
7. WAITING FOR THE PAIN
Performed by Melvyn Straight (Dennis Ray & the Uptown Horns), (Cioe/Gilmore), Crispin Music, BMI
Melvyn could once make women cry when he sang. However, after his celebrated marriage to Flo Ballard's distant cousin, they not only stopped crying, but listening. Today he runs a successful psychic suicide hot line in upstate New York.
8. GIBLETS
Performed by Duke Duckworth & the Mallards (Crispin Cioe), (Cioe/Gilmore), Crispin Music/BMI
Duke had a tasty string of' soulful instrumental hits based on food names. As fate would have it, the only decent cooking he ever did was on record. On an ill-starred road trip to promote "Giblets," the tainted egg salad he whipped up in the back of the bus just outside Big Johnson Bend, Missouri, blew the Mallards out of' the sky forever.
9. SMALL TALK
Performed by, Judy Paris (Soozie Tyrell)
(Cioe/Gilmore), Crispin Music, BMI
Nobody could wear a cocktail dress on an album cover like Judy Paris. Unfortunately, that was the only place she could be persuaded to wear anything. After running naked through her native Chicago one freezing winter night too many, she has been confined to a warm padded cell for her own safety.
10. I CAN'T STOP THE RAIN
Performed by Frankie Modesto (Lou Christie)
(Lou Christie), Lightning Strikes Music, BMI
One of the great-unsolved mysteries of pop, Modesto was a sensitive kid on the tough streets of Connecticut who recorded his entire angst ridden oeuvre just after hitting puberty. Alas, Frankie disappeared while on an Eagle Scout camping trip in the White Mountains, where backpackers still claim, if the mosquitoes aren't biting too bad, to hear the faint echo of his falsetto.
11. I'VE GROWN USED TO LOSIN'
Performed by Skinny Blackmon (George Gilmore)
(Cioe/Gilmore), Crispin Music, BMI
Skinny first ambled out of West Virginia in the late '50s, singing his mournful odes to the bottle for a small, pickled cadre. After this song smashed throughout the South and South Boston, Blackmon achieved national, if brief, fame as the spokesman for Old Stepdad Bourbon. As further testament to that brand's virtues as an embalming fluid, if not a drinkable beverage, Skinny is miraculously propped up today in Branson, MO where he chairs the County Liquor and Pocketknife Commission.
12. I WANT TO BE AT MY OWN FUNERAL
Performed by Louie "Segundo" Due (David Johansen)
(Gilmore/Johansen), Buster Poindexter Inc., Crispin Music, BMI
Louie liked his music like he liked his cigars: rum soaked, wine-dipped and stinky. And the ladies all agreed on one thing when it came to this Sicilian born, Mobile-bred warbler: that man could really extend a metaphor!
13. LAST CALL
Performed by Steve Gourmand (Hank Bones)
(Cioe/ Brad ford), Crispin Music, BMI
Any swinger worth his sharkskin can recall this equation: Frank Sinatra is to Matt Monro as Nick Apollo Forte is to Steve Gourmand. Although Gourmand never really graduated from the mob toilets where he dutifully crooned away so many South Jersey nights, decades later this number even made it to Manhattan, where it was the unofficial theme song of many a joint like the one in which Steve Gourmand perished tragically in a Keno-related dispute.
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