It’s always a hoot when I stumble upon nice musical recordings from an unlikely musicians. I fully expect to find different versions of LOUIE LOUIE by both “up-and-coming” rock bands and “drunken-guys-in-the-garage” doing their interpretations of this iconic melody. A lot of times, it’s a combination of the two.
A couple of weeks ago, I found a great jazz band consisting of the New York Police Department. They didn’t do LOUIE, but they did a killer version of “Theme from Shaft” that I posted to YouTube.
This week, I’m sharing a musical recording of LOUIE LOUIE by an artist whose work I’ve been collecting for years. Pat Moriarity has illustrated quite a few comic strips over the years, including his own Big Mouth comic books, which I’ve really enjoyed reading. A few years ago, Rolling Stone magazine put him on a “Hot List,” and he’s certainly been busy, doing all sorts of illustrations for a variety of clients. While he doesn’t focus on comic strips as much as he used to, he just finished collaborating on a graphic novel adaptation of the Studs Terkel classic, “Working.”
It was a fun surprise to discover that Pat sang lead vocals on a version of LOUIE LOUIE with his band the BLASTED BOYZ. Here’s how he described the recording of this song:
The Blasted boyZ were, among other drunks, Tim Gazaway, Mitch Newman, Scott Newbury, and the three Moriarity brothers, Pat, Mike and Kelly.
Recorded in a Greenfield Iowa basement in 1985. Recently, both Hog Wild Recordings and Ear Illusion Records have separate plans to release some of the Blasted BoyZ material.
We were all pretty drunk, non musicians, minus the drunk guitarist….and the drummer, often at large..
You can hear this version at Pat’s MySpace page at:
http://www.myspace.com/rockstarart
One of the other real cool projects that Pat also worked on was creation of some wild animation for DerailRoaded, a documentary on musician Larry “Wild Man” Fischer, a wacky musician that shared some interesting history with Frank Zappa, Rhino Records, Barnes & Barnes, Dr Demento, and Billy Mumy.
Here’s a little outtake from that film. This is the original uncut version of the animation sequence, shared for the masses on YouTube:
Congratulations, Pat! You truly are a renaissance man, and I am happy to award you with this week’s LOUIE OF THE WEEK award! Keep up the fine work!