About a year and a half ago, I posted an entry entitled “KFJC Tomb of the Unknown LOUIEs, part 1.” As part of the team that attempted to properly archive the infamous 1983 Maximum LOUIE LOUIE maratahon that lasted 63 hours, we discovered there was, and still is, a lot of mystery about some of the LOUIE LOUIE recordings that were aired at this historic musical event. As I explained in the posting, there was an international team of dedicated LOUIE enthusiasts that meticulously edited the raw tape transfers into indivdual files, and then went about the task of determining which bands which recorded which versions. At the time of this blog posting, I shared the first 15 mysterious versions that we weren’t able to indentify.
Up until February of this year, we didn’t get any solid information on these 15 mysterious versions. Then, by the fluke of joining Facebook, and getting reconnected with an old friend, former-KFJC DJ Remo Perini, aka “Lou York,” I discovered that Mystery Version #445 was actually a LOUIE LOUIE recorded by him and Tommy Predovich, aka “Tommy Toonz.”
It’s actually a pretty cool version, that like the original LOUIE LOUIE, borrows some catchy riffs from another song. I won’t tell you which song, but it shouldn’t be too hard to figure out if you know where to look…
To celebrate a MYSTERY SOLVED, I’m declaring this version as “LOUIE of the Week.” You can hear this version by CLICKING RIGHT HERE.
It has been great to reconnect with old friends after all these years.
Remo Perini, who once had a very funny radio show as “Lou York” on KFJC that celebrated Bay Area laundromats, is now doing something very different, focusing on the high-tech universe in the Washington DC region.
Tommy Predovich is still the proud owner of Vinyl Solution Records of San Mateo, California, which celebrated its 23rd 25th year of business.
As luck would have it, not long after we discovered the identity of LOUIE LOUIE version #445, I found out our numbering system was slightly out of wack when I discovered that a few of the recordings from one tape were not properly archived. LOUIE LOUIE #445 was actually LOUIE LOUIE #447. YIKES!
This audio archiving stuff is not for wimps. It takes a special displine to maintain accurate archives. It’s very easy to make mistakes doing this stuff, and we’re still trying to get it right. I haven’t shared the next 15 unknown versions but that’s definitely on course for a future posting at this blog.
With any luck, we’ll get this thing completely organized, get the historic 63 hour marathon properly acknowledged by the gate-keepers of world records, and then, when the time is right…. make the case that LOUIE LOUIE is truly the most recorded musical song of all time.
In the meantime, does anyone have any thoughts on who might have recorded LOUIE LOUIE #377, aka “Louie Had a Little Lamb?”
That was one of the “lost” versions that was recently uncovered…
Hi Eric, going through a box o’ stuff recently, I came across a copy of the original playlist from Frank and Stretch. It’s from an old dot matrix printer. Ancient history. I’m sure you have a copy too but if you are interested, let me know. We’ll have to get together one of these days anyway! Alex
The photo of Tommmy came from a series of photographs taken at a 1983 KFJC fundraising event, which can be seen at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eplouie/sets/72157617934592985/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/eplouie/3524914164/in/set-72157617934592985/
is the one featuring Tommy
So, when is MY version : “Krisftofer Krass & The The thrillseekers” also listed as “Kristoerass” or something like that, going to be “Louie of the Week”” Shit! I worked really hard on that!