Kim Fowley - C or D?

I may indeed seek him out, but perhaps a little cautiously...

Kim was/is...special. He had these interesting catch-phrases. "Ready to do the dog?" could mean, well, anything, as long as it was somewhat demeaning to you and amusing to him.

Preferred women were celebrated as "urine-stained teen pussy" in his unique lexicon.

When I quit the group, he called me and said, "Ten dollars to rejoin or, I predict licking urine-stained gutter for you."

The thing was, you always cracked up laughing.

He had terrific pop instincts, but had to rely on musicians, urine-stained, one assumes, for particulars. The Runaways were his creation entirely, until Joan learned her third chord.

He truly was/is the real deal, although I'm to this date unclear what that actually means in his case.

he's ... legendary rock producer Kim Fowley!!

duane, tell the fucking anecdote man. I don't want to have to seek out that fuckin magazine.

There's a film about Rodney playing at the LFF next week, called "Mayor Of Sunset Strip". Anyone know anything about it?

http://www.wfmu.org/listen.ram?show=4522

Definitely someone you'd either love or hate. I love him.

There's a big article on our website about the time we spent together at 2003's In The City and the Dirty Water Club gig...

http://www.themightystars.com/fowley.htm

I'd recommend "Impossible But True" the Ace comp, it's a cracking set and a great introduction to the man.

(Those who know, will know.)

As long as this is up, my long-time Kim Fowley question is: who is/was Kerry Scott, who wrote the music for much of International Heroes (including the title track) (which ended up getting covered, badly, by post-Mott band British Lions). I've never been able to find a thing about him. For my money, it's just about the best Fowley album, though maybe not in the way that a lot of his fans would want it to be (i.e. much of it is actually good).

Ok, I just noticed that the best (in my opinion, of course) Kim Fowley album is actually available via MP3 on Amazon. His glam rock album, International Heroes, including the title track later covered by the dregs of Mott The Hoople. It's listenable throughout if you can learn to love his skeevy voice (I have). It's not as interesting as Sunset Boulevard, but it's more solid song by song. Only one track where he overdoes things (and in his case, overdoing things isn't always exactly a problem).

This is honestly one of my favorite albums of all time, and has appeal way beyond "wow, Kim Fowley is weird." Yes, he still comes off like a cynical piece of shit, but whoever wrote/played the songs deserves some sort of medal.

http://www.amazon.com/International-Heroes/dp/B00184JZFI/ref=dm_ap_alb2?ie=UTF8&qid=1217035936&sr=101-1

Should add that it's never been on CD, and I'm assuming this is a vinyl rip.

ia that the period "motorboat" came from? that song is awesome.

It's a little before, I think, though the album that Motorboat is on is also on Amazon/Itunes (I'm never sure when exactly a lot of Fowley songs were actually recorded, as opposed to released). I'm not sure when this happened, but basically almost all of the Fowley stuff that I like has snuck out in mp3 only. Would be great if Mojo or someone would do a feature on this period.

I was digging in the thread to find out what issue of Ugly Things that interview was in and DANGNABBIT it's #19. I've got 18 and 20, but not 19.

Anyone??

duane, tell anecdote

<a href="http://s307.photobucket.com/albums/nn306/Floridian_20/?action=view¤t=Runaways.jpg"; target="_blank"><img src="http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn306/Floridian_20/Runaways.jpg"; border="0" alt="Runaways"></a>

http://i307.photobucket.com/albums/nn306/Floridian_20/Runaways.jpg?t=1217226450

I had a dream last night that I asked Kim Fowley to sign an autograph. There were a bunch of really cool 8X10 color glossies of various Fowley record covers splayed out in front of us. But every time he signed one, either he switched it out at the last minute with an unsigned one or the ink disappeared!

Anyhoo, duane, tell anecdote!

still workin' that shovel going at 70:

I have 15 identities on MySpace. They start here and they go all the way to here. Then I have 5 on YouTube and I’m also on Facebook and I’m on Twitter. Anybody who would bother being my friend or talk to me on those sites, they’re all there. So I have all the people who jack off to me.

http://larecord.com/interviews/2010/03/15/kim-fowley-you-got-off-easy-knowing-me-now/

Dude started following me on Twitter yesterday. Bemusing.

I have never heard a good thing about this guy.

Outrageous is a good album tho

Wow! Steve looks amazing in that clip!

Urine and yeast at the fetish feast

Dude LOOKS like Kim Fowley, and a little like Conan O'Brien.

Yeah but an adorable, non-vampiric Fowley with no O'Brien smarm (well, maybe a little).

Haha, oh shit, I didn't realize that was the Redd Kross guy. Uhhhh.

Just heard Outrageous for the first time. Yeah, it's pretty rad. I'm not OMGWTF blown away by it at the moment but I keep wanting to listen to it, so i bet one of these times it will click and I'll rave about it to all my friends for a few weeks. Dude was definitely way ahead of his time, to say the least.

The interview Dr. M posted way above is brilliant, tho!

Found "I'M BAD" at the radio station during my shift last night.
Man of God.

Dude was definitely way ahead of his time

That's an interesting question. Has his time ever come? Is there anyone remotely like him? I guess a lot of outsider artist types count...

Finally got that Quick album mentioned up above and wow...kind of sits alongside Hilly Michaels as Sparks-y power pop, though punker than Hilly. Looking forward to the CD reissue. Didn't realize that Redd Kross' "Pretty Please Me" was a cover of them.

Also kind of funny to learn that Fowley--->The Quick--->Theme to "Friends"

Oh, hey, he also produced Scorpion, from Sweden. The 1st side has some really awesome heavy/psychish tunes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tMH7Il9jADQ

Duane, tell anecdote!

Now Sounds is reporting on FB that Kim has passed on.

Confirmed by Harvey Kubernik.

http://m.billboard.com/articles/news/6443499/kim-fowley-legendary-record-producer-dead-at-75

RIP

saw thread revival, expected the worst, hoped for less.

r.i.p. kim, you lived it.

First volume of his autobiography available via links here:

http://kicksbooks.blogspot.com/2013/06/kicks-books-presents-kim-fowley.html?m=1

Second one, Planet Pain, was due but hasn't quite emerged yet. Hopefully (?) it and the planned final volume will.

RIP insane man

RIP

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_LWBqRFT7U0

Dang, whatta guy.

It's time to take a trip, to take a trip.

I can't say I gave a shit about him or his proteges. But he seemed like an entertaining guest.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ru4-O3erRk

RIP you crazy motherfucker

in enter naomi by joe carducci he starts with a bunch of quotes about los angeles, there's a story about andrew loog oldham going around looking for music landmarks, he tries to find some old studio where (i believe) the doors recorded their first album....he of course finds a parking lot, he's very upset and later is talking to kim fowley and says "what you you guys do, just tear down all your history?" to which fowley replies, "yes."

RIP. What a life

Ha ha, that story of Duane's was GREAT.

Gerard Cosloy just alluded to the anecdote on FB:

Get a copy of the Fowley interview from Ugly Things #19 and make sure you're not eating food or drinking anything while reading it. Especially the stuff about PJ Proby.

Credit for inventing holding up cig lighters at concerts. Only witnessed this for ' Floyd in 86, TBH.

Duane come back

And tell anecdote.

I took part in a bar quiz tonight. My team name was "Kim Fowley's Bubblegum".

Get a copy of the Fowley interview from Ugly Things #19

Ysi?

Rip. Loved a lot of his early tunes / productions.

Great piece from Queens of Noise author Evelyn McConnell:

http://flavorwire.com/499496/remembering-kim-fowley-genius-asshole-and-his-own-worst-enemy

RIP, a true character

five archived interviews on the WFMU homepage right now

http://wfmu.org/

OKAY WORLD YOU DON'T HAVE TO WAIT ON DUANE ANYMORE

Mike Stax has made his interview with Fowley that has been endlessly referred to available via the Ugly Things website:

http://ugly-things.com/kim-fowley-sins-secrets-of-the-silver-sixties/

Go nuts. But don't say Duane (and Gerard Cosloy via that quote above) didn't warn you.

I’ve heard a lot of stories about Maurice King and gangsters and stuff.

Well, yeah. He was a very nice guy but he was the Polish Mafia in England: “Don’t fuck with me.” But he was very charming. Is he still alive?

He’s dead. A suicide but under mysterious circumstances. (King was found dead in June 1977 in the flat above his office. Barbiturates and empty whisky bottles were scattered around him, but the coroner recorded an open verdict – MS)

Great. Well, I’ll see him in the next 100 years when I go to hell, which I’m sure I will.

xp I'm gonna c&p this part b/c it seems appropriate:

In ’67 I ran into Robert Wyatt again, and he said Jimi Hendrix had covered “Fluffy Turkeys” by Kim Fowley, ‘cos I’d sent it to Robert and Robert had played it to Jimi. Jimi had sang it and played guitar and bass and Robert played drums, and it’s in one of those mountains of unlocated tapes. You know Jimi left behind 1,200 boxes of tape with Eddie Kramer of unreleased stuff, and it’s sitting there in the family house up in Seattle. Nobody knows what’s on there, but on one of those tapes may be this song. Robert Wyatt has a book out, and in the book he has a page on it, but he has me as producer. I wasn’t there, I think that he forgot, but at least he says it was cut.
And someday, if they can get that fucking thing out, you’ll hear Jimi Hendrix doing my fucking song, and thank you, Jimi Hendrix. And maybe I’ll be long dead and somebody will find it and they can have a good cry when they read this article, which will be on the Internet by then, and they’ll read about the song and they’ll think of the maggots and they’ll know who Kim Fowley is.

;_;

damn

Do you really wanna talk about your death? (laughs)

Yeah, come on, you’re talking to a man who’s 61 years old.

Well, you could live another 30 or 40 years!

I’ve been dead for a long time. Hopefully Kim Fowley’s death will be after a nice dinner, in a room with clean sheets, and I’ll see all of you within the next 100 years. I’ll probably end up in Hell because I like dirty women and I think Heaven will be the Osmonds and Pat Boone, and I don’t think I’d like it because the music won’t be any good and I probably couldn’t get up there. So I think Hell will have better music and I think I’m doomed to be there. If so, all you people who loved the devil’s music all these years, I’m sure we’ll see you there. What else can you say about that?

As far as what regrets do I have? I should’ve been meaner. (laughs)

And what do I like best about my life? Because I could extend that great summer after high school, when you graduate from high school and you’re the cool guy in your neighborhood, ad you buy everybody beer – you’re too young to buy beer, but because you look older. And then you have a great time at night because you’re a graduating senior, and then the following September you have to go work in a factory or to a college or the Army or something, or a shitty job, and you’re never the golden guy or girl ever again. That’s the last time you’re young and beautiful. And of course I never graduated in my class from high school. I was in the Army, where I was thrown for stealing liquor and selling it to the people that were younger than me in my neighborhood. So I never got that last summer, I was busy doing that Army shit, so instead it’s something I’ve been doing for 41 or 42 years since.

Am I rich or poor? Oh, I’m rich. Am I a nice guy? I’m the nicest guy in the world. Am I an asshole? I’m the biggest asshole in the world. Am I a piece of shit? The best, yeah. But what do I have that nobody else has? I’ve sold 102 million records, ladies and gentleman and those who are unsure: 56 gold, 26 platinum. I have over 227,000 websites, if you have enough time and search engines to find them. And I’ve outlasted all my fuckin’ piece of shit, I know every one of you by name, enemies. And when am I going to get my revenge on all of you? When you’ve forgotten my name and what I look like. On the happiest day of your life I’ll show up and rain on your parade. Why? Because rock’n’roll never forgets. End of interview.

I've heard two stories about him from some of his times in Glasgow (I think he came here fairly often). I can't confirm they definitely happened but they're hardly far-fetched sounding.

- He was in a studio that included a female artist he fancied and he started pointing at her and singing while circling around her as if he was trying to serenade her. She walked out appalled.

- He asked for blown up photos of a girl band he was working with. When he was asked if it was to promote the band in some way, he said plainly that it was just for masturbation purposes.

Also, when I read an interview with one of the main members of Fanny (contained in Angry Women Of Rock) she said at a party he asked everyone to come watch a blow job he was going to get.

“So, John, what was the secret of the Beatles?”

He said, “Very easy. May I illustrate it with a song? You ever hear ‘Why Don’t We Do It In the Road’ by the Beatles?”

“Yeah, I’ve heard it.”

“That was our message to Canned Heat, because we didn’t think they had enough humor, so it was basically taking the idea of a Canned Heat song and doing it with more humor.” And he said, “The Beatles stopped being a group when we stopped trying to upgrade and rewrite and reinterpret and reinvent our favorite records of the moment.”

What a great answer! That answer was never given in any of all the books I’ve heard about. The wives are blamed, the death of Brian Epstein is blamed, but no one ever says, “All we were ever doing was listening to records and taking them to the next level, and when we stopped listening to music and making it better we stopped being a group.” In so many words, that is what he said.

wonder if a 24 Hour Party People-style film w/ Michael Shannon playing him again would work? obv with a better script than The Runaways.

Thanks for posting that interview, Ned, totally amazing. Makes me pine for an epic 3 part biography

The Time Kim Fowley Financed a Daniel Johnston Cassette
http://blogs.riverfronttimes.com/rftmusic/2015/01/the_time_kim_fowley_executive_produced_a_daniel_johnston_cassette.php

I would even go a crappy rock-doc. If anyone was appropriate for a "I was there/he said she said"...

I agree that if there's ever a Fowley-centric movie Shannon should just reprise the role

^^Cosign.

Tribute show yesterday on WFMU with Billy Miller of Norton Records

http://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/59096

"heavy metal producer" !?

http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/heavy-metal-producers-corpse-to-be-mutilated-by-models-as-per-his-dying-wish-9992548.html