The Spotnicks - The Rocket Man (1962)
In his post about rocket inspired pop culture, Martin Klasch posted this nutty video of a Swedish band called The Spotnicks playing a surfy instrumental number, "The Rocket Man" from 1962. Kraftwerk probably studied their fancy moves.
Here's one of their mind-bending album covers.
The Spotnicks - The Rocket Man (1962) (via Martin Klasch)
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Good lord, its the progenitors of Man or Astro-man!
Looks like proto-DEVO. "Are we not men? We are Spotnicks!"
Anyone have any clue how surf music and sci-fi became intertwined? There's alot of stuff like this Joe Meek, Man or Astroman. It's one of those that just always been around and I never thought about. Seems like there is some missing cultural link somewhere.
Sure, RYDER,
It's because Brian Wilson is an alien. Ask anybody.
Ooh, that's a cover of polyushko pole (dig it up on youtube), and a nice one at that.
Plus, the drummer, Jimmy Nicol, was a short term drummer for the Beatles before Ringo took the spot.
Sweet, I was looking that clip since the one on youtube was taken down. Here's The Leningrad Cowboys doing the same song.
http://www.dailymotion.com/video/x2fuv4_leningrad-cowboys-cossack-song-poly_music
Rider: most of it's just gimmick stuff, feeding off pop culture of the time which naturally included sf movies. The Spotnicks' name is derived from Sputnik, of course, Joe Meek (not really a surfer since central London lacks a beach) had a hit with an instrumental entitled "Telstar" (after the satellite) then did his (IMO) rather dubious Blue Men concept album. The Ventures churned out loads of generic surf albums before doing The Ventures in Space, which is actually one of their better efforts.
Science fiction plus rock'n'roll has a long history, there's lots of earlier novelty hits from rockabilly bands such as "Flyin' Saucers Rock 'n' Roll" by Billy Lee Riley and His Little Green Men in 1957. And there's a parallel history of horror rock'n'roll which groups like The Cramps have mined, Bobby "Boris" Pickett's "Monster Mash" being the classic example.
This clip reminds me of the Monks' german TV performances in ~65/66. If you like experimental garage that was about 20 years ahead of its time, you should check those out too.
I recognized this right away from a flash video I enjoyed from rathergood.com many years ago...
http://www.rathergood.com/vid/
I'm not sure which one came first but at one point there was a (german?) opera version.
The groovy melody is a Russian folk tune, Meadowlands, covered by the great Pete Seeger on banjo many years ago.
Took about three seconds to recognize it as Polyushke Polye. Very cool version though.
My favorite is this version:
http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=v_102h9-GW8
Heard it years ago in Russia and finally tracked it down.
I recognized it too (called "O Field, My Field"), from a Red Army Choir recording I have.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CfBeeVKhPHE
Reminded me of the fantastic film 'American Astronaut, the best sci-fi/western/musical ever.
version of a similarly named song, from another russian-surf-alien-elvis hybrid : http://redelvises.net/video/DivX/Rocketman.avi
Holy flying cosmonaut choreography! It's The Shadows in silver! Sadly, I believe, the closest The Shadows ever got to sci-fi was appearing as puppets in the film Thunderbirds Are Go. There aren't many films that have bands playing on rocket guitars!!!
That Polish version is particularly sweet and well sung.
We need more uniformed soldiers armed with accordions.
awesome tune. the hats look a little fishy though...
man, you always post old music videos mark
I always end up liking them too
The precision choreography of an Eastern Bloc military parade.
Speaking of the intersection of Pop Culture and Rockets...I'm sure that this little Ron Paul Rocket Stunt will be forever saved in the internet archives under the FAIL category.