Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Don't Tell Anyone...But I Love K-Tel

By Penny Lane

Wow, 2016. Just...wow. I think this year will go down in history as not the year the music died, or the arts died, but just the year that everyone up and left us. It seems every week since the year started the news agencies are publishing in memorandums and obituaries for a wide array of celebrities.

In case you have been living under a rock, lets have a quick run down of some celebrities whose stars faded to black in 2016:
  • Actor/Comedian Garry Shandling - March 24 at age 66
  • Hockey legend Gordie Howe - June 10 at age 88
  • Boxer Muhammad Ali - June 3 at age 74
  • Musician Prince - April 21 at age 57
  • Former First Lady Nancy Reagan - March 7 at age 94
  • Author Harper Lee - February 19 at age 89
  • Actor Alan Rickman - January 13 at age 69
  • David Bowie - January 10 at age 69

I could go on and on, really. The list is lengthy.

Warren and I joked on a recent episode of Maximum Rhythm and Booze that every time we take an unscheduled hiatus from recording (which we took a few at the start of 2016), someone seems to keel over and die on us. Now, with me being the most organized of the show hosts, it's rare for me to miss a show - mostly it was due to Jonny's crazy schedule or Warren's inability to have Siri update his calendar for him (will those two every get along?). It's a cold day in hell when we have to postpone an episode of Maximum Rhythm in Booze because of me. So when I had to postpone recording an episode of the show in late April, I wondered - who would be next? Who would Maximum Rhythm and Booze send off to the great abyss?


Turns out I killed local Winnipeg legend and K-Tel founder Philip Kives!


Now, I know a good lot of you are scratching your head, all thinking 'who the fuck is Philip Kives and what the hell is K-Tel?"


Philip Kives is the amazing man who brought you the Miracle Brush, the Veg-o-matic and, best of all, K-tel Classics.





K-Tel Classics littered the record collections of every adult I knew growing up. They were as common as snow in winter and misquotes in the summer here in Winnipeg and were often my first introduction to much of the music I enjoy today. The first record I remember listening to over and over again was the now-cringe-worthy Mini Pops album, which featured a cover of the song Morning Train that I have memories of singing while skipping down the school hallway while I was in Kindergarten:



As odd and bizarre that this song, nay the whole concept of Mini Pops is now, I do have to give credit where credit is due. K-Tel helped culture my taste in music. Mini Pops aside, I often found myself listening to one of the many K-Tel compilation albums which gave me my first introduction to groups like T-Rex, Louie Armstrong, The Kinks, Sadie Shaw, Status Quo, Crazy World of Arthur Brown, and more. Heck, the album Daffy Dances has a permanent place in my record collection and often gets pulled out at DJ nights and parties. With tracks like Dee Dee Sharps' Mashed Potato Time and Bob and Earl's Harlem Shuffle, how could I not?
Will my love of K-Tel lessen my 'credibility' as DJ? Probably. Will the fact that I've taken Daffy Dances to various clubs and have spun almost all the tracks on that album at Mod gigs put me in low standings with those who only thing you should DJ tracks off of the original 45s at Mod do's? I'm positive it will.

But you know what? I don't care. I owe a lot of my musical knowledge to Philip Kives and K-Tel records.

Go polish your Vespa or Lambretta while you debate again whether Mods wear trainers or not. I'm going to be in the kitchen making noddles out of cucumber with my Veg-o-matic while dancing around my kitchen to side two of Daffy Dances (which has a great cover of Land of 1000 Dances by Cannibal and the Headhunters).

RIP Philip Kives...



xxx PL