{"id":18497,"date":"2020-04-09T05:30:03","date_gmt":"2020-04-09T09:30:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=18497"},"modified":"2020-04-10T08:53:12","modified_gmt":"2020-04-10T12:53:12","slug":"new-yorkers-in-sheeps-clothing-the-strangeloves-story-part-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2020\/04\/09\/new-yorkers-in-sheeps-clothing-the-strangeloves-story-part-two\/","title":{"rendered":"New Yorkers in Sheep’s Clothing: The Strangeloves Story (Part Two)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n

\"\"When it’s suggested that the story sounds like a scene straight out of a motion picture, Feldman agrees. \u201cListen, our whole career has been something out of a movie,\u201d he says. A whirlwind of songwriting followed in the wake of those episodes. \u201cWe wrote songs on order for Chubby Checker, Dee Dee Sharp and others,\u201d Gottehrer says. Snuff Garrett at Liberty Records was their next client. Feldman recalls, \u201cHe flew us out to California, put us in a hotel on Sunset Boulevard and said, ‘You don\u2019t leave here until you got me at least two songs.’\u201d They delivered.<\/p>\n

Back in New York City, FGG scored their biggest hit to date with a girl-group classic, \u201cMy Boyfriend’s Back.\u201d Feldman recalls how the song (#1 U.S., #50 UK) came about. \u201cI was in a corner sweet shop having an egg cream, and there was a girl standing in the back, screaming. ‘My boyfriend\u2019s back! You’re going to be in trouble. You\u2019ve been saying things about me that aren\u2019t true, and when my boyfriend gets a hold of you, he\u2019s going to beat the shit out of you, asshole!’\u201d<\/p>\n

Feldman grabbed a napkin and a pencil and took notes. \u201cI borrowed a phone, and called Richard and Jerry. I said, ‘Do me a favor. Do not leave the office tonight. I won\u2019t even wait for the subway. I will take a cab to the city. I heard a number one song today.\u201d When he got to the office, he and his partners got right to work. \u201cThe whole song was written that night,\u201d he says. \u201cTwo weeks later, Richard came up with the key line, ‘If I were you, I\u2019d take a permanent vacation.’\u201d<\/p>\n

Gottehrer says that the success of the Angels’ \u201cMy Boyfriend’s Back\u201d meant that the FGG team started focusing on producing. The songs \u2013 many of them hits \u2013 kept coming at breakneck pace. \u201cWe learned to be producers by making demos,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

But things changed quickly after the Beatles made their debut on The Ed Sullivan Show<\/i> in February 1964; seemingly overnight, the market for the early ’60s style of pop dried up. \u201cNobody wanted our product,\u201d Feldman says. We were talking about closing down.\u201d<\/p>\n

The songwriters realized they needed a new approach, a different angle. \u201cThe three of us were sitting around a table, smoking,\u201d Feldman recalls. \u201cWe did a lot of cannabis in those days. So we decided we\u2019d make one more record.\u201d For this new disc, they’d adopt an exotic collective persona. \u201cWe couldn\u2019t claim to be from Liverpool, because everybody would call us out in a heartbeat. So, I invented Armstrong, Australia. We were big fans of the movie Dr. Strangelove.<\/i> So we were Miles, Niles and Giles Strange.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/p>\n

The \u201cAustralian\u201d band’s first single, \u201cLove, Love,\u201d featured a mid-song spoken part from Goldman. \u201cI did this half-assed recitation in an awful accent,\u201d he says with a laugh. \u201cI mean, awful<\/i>.\u201d The song \u2013 released on Swan Records \u2013 only reached #122 on the U.S. singles charts.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut then we got a phone call from somebody called Gene Loving,\u201d Gotteher says. \u201cHe was a disc jockey in Virginia Beach, Virginia, and he said, ‘If you guys come here and perform, I think I could make this number.\u201d Gottehrer was interested; he and his songwriting teammates hadn’t planned on performing in public, but their skills were suitable enough.<\/p>\n

Loving told Gottehrer that there was one small detail. \u201cThe only thing is, you told everybody you\u2019re from Australia, and so you have to be Australian.\u201d So with zebra-striped vests and rented African drums, the trio showed up in Virginia to play their songs. \u201cAnd sure enough, he made the record [a local] number one,\u201d Gottehrer says.<\/p>\n

Back in New York, the group approached Atlantic Records in hope of landing a deal, but were angrily shown the door by the label’s talent development head, Jerry Schoenbaum. \u201cHe was screaming that we were just white dudes bastardizing rhythm and blues,\u201d Feldman says.<\/p>\n

\"\"But on their way out, the trio encountered Ahmet Ertegun. \u201cListen,\u201d he told them. \u201cWe\u2019re starting a brand new company with Bert Berns, called Bang Records.\u201d They headed over to Bang and met Bert Berns. He immediately invited the trio to collaborate with him on writing a new song.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was a big X-rated book by Terry Southern called Candy<\/i>,\u201d Feldman says. \u201cSo Bert came up with a song title, ‘I Want Candy.’\u201d After providing a few lines of rhyme, Berns took his leave. \u201cListen, guys, my wife just gave birth to my first child,\u201d he told them. \u201cUse the office, and stay as long as you want. We\u2019ll finish the song tomorrow.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cHe left,\u201d Feldman says. \u201cAnd we finished the song.\u201d<\/p>\n

Gottehrer says that when he, Feldman and Goldstein recorded the song, they sought to make it unique. \u201cThe record is layered on four track machine,\u201d he explains. \u201cIt\u2019s layered and layered with multi track vocals. There\u2019s two full sets of drums, plus we were pounding on the African drums. And there\u2019s that great guitar lead. The record was designed to be powerful, which I think we accomplished.\u201d<\/p>\n

Click here to continue<\/a>…<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Continued from Part One… When it’s suggested that the story sounds like a scene straight out of a motion picture, Feldman agrees. \u201cListen, our whole career has been something out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18504,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[33,41,51,62],"tags":[1305,4155,4154],"class_list":["post-18497","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-garage","category-interview","category-pop","category-rawk","tag-lenny-kaye","tag-richard-gottehrer","tag-the-strangeloves","cat-33-id","cat-41-id","cat-51-id","cat-62-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18497","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18497"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18497\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18607,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18497\/revisions\/18607"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/18504"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18497"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18497"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18497"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}