HOT PANTS ZONE
The 6-track EP CD that I have by the Lovemasters is called Hot Pants Zone and came out on Total Energy Records in 1995. As with “Pusherman of Love” (which is not on the EP), the Lovemasters manage to perform several songs with sexually charged music that is playful and tongue-in-cheek, without being smarmy or misogynist or sleazy or embarrassing – that is not unheard of, but it is a hard pose to pull off. The opening cut, “(Annie Got) Hot Pants Power” and their famous song “Genius from the Waist Down” fall squarely into that category.
The Lovemasters also have a cover version of “I’m a Ramrod” that is every bit as tough as “I’m a Ramrod” by the Ramrods. In their version, there was at least one key lyric change; in place of a tacky sexual reference – surely the double double entendre of “ramrod” is enough after all (in both the song name and the band name) – they substitute a clause that even a lot of my Christian friends should be able to get behind: “. . . ’cause everybody knows that the world’s a cheat / Yeah the world’s a cheat”.
These three songs plus “Beat Girl” list Bobby Beyond as lead vocalist (that’s Robert Mulrooney in yet another guise) plus Gerald Shohan (guitars, backing vocals), Ricky Rat (rhythm guitar), Mike Marshall and Steve King (bass on two songs apiece), Jimmy Paluzzi (drums), and Sophie & Irene (backing vocals on “(Annie Got) Hot Pants Power” – mostly minimalist moans, ooh’s and aah’s).
For “Pony Down”, perhaps the slowest song on the EP (but just barely), the Lovemasters has a different line-up of musicians that is more like those who played on “Pusherman of Love”: Bootsey X (lead vocals, backing vocals, drums), Mark Kern (bass), Craig Peters (guitar), Gary Adams (guitar), Don Jones (guitar), and Mike Murphy (backing vocals).
The black guy in the cover shot leaning on the classic Detroit car (complete with fins) next to the gorgeous model flipping the bird turns out to be a drug dealer who happened to be watching the photo shoot in a rough part of town.
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The final and probably best song on the album Hot Pants Zone, having the curious title of “(Santa’s Got a) Bomb for Whitey” is actually by Dark Carnival and is taken from their album Greatest Show in Detroit (1991). Bootsey X dominates the proceedings, and it sure sounds like the Lovemasters to me.
Dark Carnival was sort of a Detroit punk supergroup that was assembled by Detroit music promoter Colonel Galaxy, whose name was a nod to Elvis Presley’s longtime manager, Colonel Tom Parker. Bootsey X was the first bandmember to be recruited; others included his bandmate in the Ramrods, Mark Norton, plus (as listed in Wikipedia): “Gary Adams from the Cubes [who was also a sometime bandmember in the Lovemasters], Mike McFeaters from What Jane Shared, Jerry Vile from the Boners, Sarana VerLin from Natasha, Greasy Carlisi from Motor City Bad Boys, Robert Gordon and Art Lyzak from the Mutants, Joe Hayden from Bugs Bedow, Pete Bankert from Weapons, [and] Larry Steel from the Cult Heroes.
“Later, Dark Carnival saw some turnover, with the ‘big’ names signing on: Niagara from Destroy All Monsters, Ron [Asheton] and Scott Asheton from the Stooges, Cheetah Chrome from the Dead Boys, Jim Carroll even came in from New York.”
Credits for “(Santa’s Got a) Bomb for Whitey” are Bootsey X (lead vocals), Ron Asheton (lead guitar and backing vocals), Gary Adams (guitar), Joe Hayden (bass), and Ron Cumbo (drums). I have no idea what the song is about, but the infectious repetition of “got a bomb for whitey” that recurs throughout the song typically runs through my head for weeks every time I play this CD.
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At the beginning of “(Santa’s Got a) Bomb for Whitey” by the Lovemasters is a bit of wacky but intriguing dialogue. I found precisely one reference to it on the Internet, a blog post by A. Templeton Goff answering a question about a different skit. He says: “[It is by] the Credibility Gap, the first group that featured Harry Shearer, Michael McKean, and David Lander (McKean’s partner from Laverne & Shirley). It’s from their album A Great Gift Idea. . . . Pretty hard to come by these days (it’s never been released on tape or CD), but it’s well worth the effort to find. IMHO, it ranks with National Lampoon’s Radio Dinner, Firesign Theatre’s Don’t Crush That Dwarf, Hand Me The Pliers, and Stan Freberg’s United States of America as one of the all-time great comedy albums.”
As laid out by A. Templeton Goff, the dialogue is taken from a sketch by the Credibility Gap called “Kingpin”, the story of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. if told in a “blaxploitation” film. (Only the first two lines plus the fistfight are actually on the Lovemasters album):
BUS DRIVER: Sorry, fella, you’ll have to get to the back of this bus.
KINGPIN: Listen, you honky-donkey! No one tells Kingpin to get back!
(Sounds of a fistfight)
BUS DRIVER: I . . . I thought you were nonviolent, Kingpin!
KINGPIN: Sure, man. Only when I’m . . . dreamin’!
(March 2016)
