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ARCH HALL JR . AND THE ARCHERS
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But you know, I ended up with new respect for Arch after spinning all
48 tracks on Wild Guitar. Yeah, the tunes from his movies are pretty grim,
like “Monkey in My Handband” (“Monkey in my hatband/I can do a handstand”)
or “Konga Joe,” but Arch and his band also handled the incidental music
for Wild Guitar and Eegah, and it’s all totally competent garage instros –
check out the gritty swing of “Daisy’s Dance” or the twangy “Dune Buggy”
if you don’t believe me. And further sealing the deal is a tight
eleven-song live Archers set from a performance promoting Wild Guitar at
the Twin Drive-in in Pensacola, Florida. The band works through a totally
competent set of covers (Bobby “Blue” Bland’s “Further On Up the Road,”
“Good Golly Miss Molly”) and Archers originals, all set to cooking by
keyboardist and band utility player Alan O’Day (later the guy who made a
mint writing “Undercover Angel,” among others) and Junior himself, who
seems like a pretty hip guy and not at all like the goofy dude in the
movies. I dunno – maybe it was the scripts. At any rate, it’s clear that
there’s more to Arch Hall Jr. (who is not only still alive, but still
rocking, from what I understand) than his movie legacy, and this CD, which
fills out its running time with choice audio clips and trailers from the
pictures, is the proof. |
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-Konga Paul Gaita |
I’ve gotta admit that while I loved the fact that
Norton had released a
compilation of ‘60s teen idol also-ran Arch Hall Jr.’s music, I wasn’t
exactly dying to hear it. As cult movie fans know, Arch Jr. was the star
of several drive-in movies produced by his dad, including The Choppers,
Wild Guitar, Eegah! (all three made with the assistance of exploitation
legend Ray Dennis Steckler), and The Sadist, an incredible revision of the
Charles Starkweather story. Arch invariably cranked out a few pop tunes in
his pictures, but like his performances, they were earnest but hopelessly
square – no one was gonna mistake Junior for Bobby Fuller, no matter how
much his dad wanted people to think so.