Table of Contents

Interviews:

• The Cramps have stayed true to the ideal of rock'n'roll as rebel folk music. They've inspired numerous reissues of rare rockabilly and R&B vocal recordings and have stimulated the preservation of many incredibly strange films on videotape.
• Gil Ray is a Bay Area musician, songwriter and video artist in collaboration with Robert Toren and Shelley LaFreniere.
• Mike Wilkins is co-author of New Roadside America, the classic book on weird roadside attractions, and recently Sex and Zen and a Bullet in the Head, the essential guide to Hong Kong's mind-bending films.
• Norton Records was founded by Billy Miller and Miriam Linna (early Cramps drummer).
• Eartha Kitt's career began in the late '40s. She has played stages all over the world and chatted with Nehru, Churchill and Einstein. She has released over 50 records, written three books and appeared in more than 10 movies.
• Mary Ricci is a San Francisco computer programmer with a growing collection of records and paperbacks with lurid covers. With partners Al Ennis and Prax Gore, she started the first incredibly strange video outlet in San Francisco, Wild Wild Video.
• Gershon Kingsley, in association with Jean-Jacques Perrey, created two of the most innovative records of the 20th century: The In Sound fromWay Out and Kaleidoscopic Vibrations. Subsequently Kingsley has enjoyed a long solo career as a composer, arranger and performer.
• Jean-Jacques Perrey and Gershon Kingsley created two of the most original LPs of the '60s. Since then Perrey has produced numerous solo albums, soundtracks, commercials and "therapeutic sounds for insomniacs." He still composes and is looking for a record company.
• Mickey McGowan was among the first to collect neglected music (15,000 records) and to play the music for thousands of visitors to his Unknown Museum, possibly the world's only archive of over 100,000 American '40s-'90s pop culture artifacts.
• Lynn Peril is pursuing an advanced degree in Women's Studies at San Francisco State University, and invites correspondence from other record collectors toward the goal of eventually publishing a discography of outstanding recordings by women artists. See also: Zines!
• Phantom Surfers and Untamed Youth are two California bands faithful to the spirit of '60s garage/surf music.
• Martin Denny had a number one record with "Quiet Village" in 1957, a 45 taken from his debut album Exotica. Before he retired, Denny released 37 albums which sold over four million copies worldwide. Lately, he's had a resurgence of popularity.
• Lypsinka is John Epperson, a playwright and writer.
• Amok Books is both a bookstore and publishers, and was founded by Stuart Swezey and Brian King in Los Angeles. Besides their avant-garde publishing, they have hosted radio programs, clubs and concerts promoting music consistently acknowledged as "cutting edge."

Back to Incredibly Strange Music

Table of Contents for Incredibly Strange Music Vol. II

Body Modifications and Sexuality / Music & Films / Subversives/Alternative Acts / Writers/Fiction