Musiquarium | Jun 6 2010 |
Above is a rare flyer from today in 1949 advertising an appearance by Spike Jones and his band The City Slickers at San Francisco’s Curran Theatre. The art isn’t pulp so much as it is simply vintage, but we sure like it. We can’t quite say the same about Jones’s music, which is mostly intended to be comical. He performed wacky versions of current hits, which we guess makes him Weird Al Yankovich but several decades earlier. Even if Jones’s music doesn’t inspire us, we give him credit for dressing like a rodeo clown, which you can see for yourself at right. We don't think he got that suit on Saville Row. He deserves credits for boldness. He also deserves props for recording possibly the most famous musical slapdown of all time, 1942’s “Der Fuhrer’s Face”, which mocks Adolf Hitler's propaganda about racial superiority and his claims that the Third Reich would last a thousand years. Jones's unserious little ditty turned out to be his most enduring hit. You can hear it here.