RockyMusic

For our Patricia Quinn fans out there, I recently added a large number of Pat video clips covering a significant portion of her body of work. From her early film roles (i.e. bit parts) we have: Up the Chastity Belt (1971) (as "Wife" whose husband is going off on the Crusades), Up the Front (1972) (as Mata Hari's maid), and The Alf Garnett Saga (1972) (slightly larger role as "Bird #2", one of the romantic interests for Alf Garnett's son-in-law and a friend). A later film role is as "Woman" in Hawk the Slayer (1980), which is actually a fairly significant part despite the lack of a proper name. Be sure to check out the awesome (*cough*) special effects in Part 4, including Pat taking out a guard with a silly string blowgun! I shit you not!

Patricia Quinn also has extensive British television credits, with the BBC and ITV. Chronologically: Van der Valk (1972) (as a dominatrix!), Shoulder to Shoulder (1974) (women's suffrage movement activist), A Christmas Carol (1977) (The Ghost of Christmas Past), The Professionals (1978) (political campaign worker and murder co-conspirator), Fox (1980) (unfaithful wife with a violent streak), Hammer House of Horror (1980) (terrific role as a barely clothed, and sometimes entirely unclothed, time traveling witch), Tales of the Unexpected (1980) (tart of a wife who helps push her husband over the edge), Minder (1982) (painter with a big loft and room for an old boyfriend), The Box of Delights (1984) (villainous woman in a children's novel adaptation), Fortunes of War (1987) (wife of an unfaithful man during WWII), and finally... Bergerac (1988) (hotel owner).

Added a nice video I recently came across of Richard O'Brien singing The Time Warp live with the SAS Band (present here only as unseen backup singers while Richard plays his acoustic guitar) at Shepherds Bush Empire in London on February 19th, 2000. A lot of new album pages have gradually been going up also, including a couple with newly added sound files: the 1991 Pocket Songs You Sing The Hits Cassette and the 1995 Rocky Horror 20th Anniversary Fan Tribute LP. The first was an album of karaoke arrangements for five Rocky Horror Picture Show songs released on cassette only, with guide vocals on side A and background music only on side B. The second was actually an amateur tribute album ("Of the Fans! By the Fans! For the Fans!") pressed on vinyl, put together by Gene Chiovari and the Completely Crazy cast of Chicago.

The sound files for the fan tribute album were contributed by Jochen B., who also sent in a number of other sound files recently including good quality live recordings of the Rocky Horror Picture Show songs being performed by a rock band at the 1992 Umsonst & Draußen Festival in Würzburg, Germany and a 1980s Munich, Germany school chorus. Other tracks include various Time Warp versions by Damian, the 1984 Austrian Touch Me single by Debria Brown, Planet Schmanet by ska band Easy Big Fella, Time Warp by Lou & The Hollywood Bananas, and a live 1999 Time Warp performance by punk band Darlington (who was featured on the 1998 Absolute Pleasure tribute album).

Just posted a lovely video of the 2008 Australian Rocky Horror Show cast performing a Sweet Transvestite / Time Warp medley live on Australian television. Singer/songwriter iOTA is featured as Dr. Frank-N-Furter. Another fun Aussie TV clip added recently is of 'Little' Nell Campbell on the music-themed quiz show "Spicks and Specks" in July 2008. They talk about her repeated wardrobe malfunctions in a 1975 "Do The Swim" performance on the London Weekend Show (available here in uncensored form). They then have a fellow (male) panelist re-enact what this might have looked like, in lieu of showing the actual clip. Hilarious!

I've also been adding a lot of new album pages lately, one of which was for the 1998 Absolute Pleasure (A Tribute to Rocky Horror) CD. It looks like the record label behind that album disappeared some years back, so complete sound files have also been added. That was the first published tribute album for The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It was followed in 2003 by the more popular (and higher budget) Rocky Horror Punk Rock Show CD, which is still in print and available from CDUniverse or similar.

It's back from the VHS graveyard! The Rocky Porno Video Show was a 1986 porn parody of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. It is not the only such parody, but it is by far the best known due to word of mouth among Rocky Horror cast members as well as the purity test. Unfortunately as a porno, it is just awful. Terrible. "Avoid, avoid, avoid" is how some put it. I pity anyone who is actually turned on by it. A couple of scenes in particular tend to etch themselves on people's brains, in a bad way. Much like virgin sacrifice though, many of us have already gone through it once and now want to see the appalled looks on the faces of unsuspecting people as they watch it for their first times. So I've posted a number of video clips from all the "important" scenes. WARNING: THIS IS IN FACT A HARDCORE PORNO. PLEASE DO NOT PLAY THE VIDEO CLIPS UNLESS YOU'RE CERTAIN YOU WANT TO SEE THEM.

A slew of new MP3 and FLAC sound files have been added recently, as detailed in this forum thread. Included are two highly out of print Rocky Horror Show cast albums: 1992 Australian Cast and 2001 Korean Cast. Some other complete recordings added are the 2007 Cloven Hooves Tour of Mephistopheles Smith (written by Richard O'Brien), 2005 Peruvian Cast of Hedwig and the Angry Inch, and the Shock Treatment cover album by Marc With A C (in "retro low-fi"). New live shows (all audience recordings) include the 1987 U.K. Royal Hanley Tour of The Rocky Horror Show, Horror Aid 1988 with Damian and Richard O'Brien (unfortunately not good sound quality), and Rocky over the Rainbow (a bizarre combination of The Wizard of Oz and The Rocky Horror Show with songs in English and dialogue in Dutch, contributed by Justin "Muzzle" Carpenter).

Finally, I added a very special video in two parts (Part 1 and Part 2). It's the 'Creatures of the Night' episode of Cold Case, which is centered around The Rocky Horror Picture Show from start to finish. Several clips from the film are included in the episode, numerous songs from the soundtrack are played during flashback segments, and to top it all off Barry Bostwick plays the serial killer Roy Brigham Anthony (while also appearing on-screen as Brad Majors). It's really a must-see for any Rocky Horror Picture Show fan, whether you usually enjoy police dramas or not! And unfortunately it appears that CBS is unable to release DVDs for this particular series, due to the huge numbers of songs they would have to license.

I've been adding a rather large number of new videos of late (you can see all the details on the Recent Additions page), so I just wanted to highlight what I thought were some of the more interesting segments. Recently added film clips include Little Nell scenes in Lisztomania [1975] and Summer of Secrets [1976] (since it's Little Nell, she winds up topless in both of them), the scene in Sebastiane [1976] with cameos by Rocky Horror Picture Show alumni Peter Hinwood and Patricia Quinn, the Time Warp performance by drag duo Peaches N'Cream in Connie and Carla [2004], plus Richard O'Brien scenes in Spice World [1997], Elvira's Haunted Hills [2001], and Night Train [2009] (that last one is even a cross-dressing role!). Recently added television clips include a really nice Rocky Horror Show commercial for the 2008/09 European Tour, Richard O'Brien singing The Time Warp on Australian game show Spicks and Specks in 2008, an episode of That '70s Show where Fez wears a Dr. Frank-N-Furter costume (for the entire episode), an episode of that horrible show Sabrina, the Teenage Witch where she and her aunt get ready to go see The Rocky Horror Picture Show, and a fabulous segment on the disastrous Brady Hour (The Brady Bunch had a variety show!) where Paul Williams sings "The Hell Of It" from Phantom of the Paradise. Finally a couple of videos aren't technically new but have been hugely upgraded from their previous versions: Little Nell in I Wanna Be A Beauty Queen [1980] and the famous Drew Carey Show episode where they have a dance-off between Rocky Horror Picture Show and Priscilla Queen of the Desert fans. There should be something new for just about everyone in there, I think!

Yeah, it's been awhile... my work situation is quite a bit different now so I've had more free time of late and have started working on some additions once again. However most of them are the kind of things that would be boring and/or tedious to list here. So in the side menu there is now a link to the Recent Additions. This page will show, in an automated fashion, a complete list of all new items that have been added to RockyMusic.org lately. Through some controls at the top of the page, you can optionally include thumbnails, list more items, or limit it to only showing certain types of additions (e.g. sound files or videos). Hopefully this will help a bit, as quite frequently even I'm not sure what I've added a few days after it's done!

Happy Halloween, everyone! Justin "Muzzle" Carpenter was kind enough to donate a truly fantastic Halloween gift for us all: http://www.rockymusic.org/mp3scat/rhs-belascolive/. These sound files (both MP3s and lossless FLACs) are from a live recording made on March 14th, 1975 of The Rocky Horror Show's original run at the Belasco Theatre on Broadway. It features performances by Tim Curry as Dr. Frank-N-Furter, Richard O'Brien as Riff Raff, and Meat Loaf as Eddie/Dr. Scott. The quality is excellent, and the recording is of the complete show (including all dialogue). Do yourself a favor and check it out!

John Davey was nice enough to contribute another music video to the site: Angel In Me by Richard O'Brien. It is Richard's one and only music video, produced in 1998 by Medical Records to promote the Absolute O'Brien CD. He appears in full costume as the Mephistopheles Smith character - hooves and all. If you enjoy the music, I highly recommend picking up a copy of the full CD. It should still be available in the U.S. direct from Oglio Records. It's a bargain.

Speaking of hooves, I recently added new album pages for the Mephistopheles Smith Cloven Hooves Tour 2007 CD-R as well as for Paul Pecorino's Perfectly Frank CD. The first was available only at the theater for dates on the recently concluded tour, while the second was a 2003 cover album with a limited production run of one thousand CDs in Germany.

I added a new page for the Let My People Come: A Sexual Musical original cast album LP. This doesn't actually have anything to do with Rocky Horror at all, but most Rocky Horror people that I've shared it with have enjoyed it. I first came across "Let My People Come" when I accidentally received a CD of it from John Davey, that had been intended for Sal Piro. It's a raunchy and fun musical from 1974 written by Earl Wilson, Jr. that featured lots of nudity, sex, and coarse language (one of the songs is titled The Cunnilingus Champion of Company C, and was involved in a copyright infringement lawsuit by MCA Music). MP3 and FLAC sound files are available, and I also scanned a number of cast photos that were published in the July 1974 issue of Playboy Magazine.

Several new videos have been added, including three rarities contributed by John Davey. First we have the (in)famous performance of Do The Swim by Little Nell in which her swimsuit has some serious wardrobe malfunctions (you just couldn't keep Nell's breasts covered in those days!). This uncensored video was originally aired in 1975 for an episode of "The London Weekend Show", but was later used as an outtake on "It'll Be Alright on the Night" in the U.K. and reappeared in censored form some years later on "TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes" with Dick Clark in the U.S. Also from the same show is a rare performance of Stilettos and Lipstick.

Another rarity is Meat Loaf's 1992 video of Paradise By The Dashboard Light, released to promote the film Leap of Faith in which Meat Loaf plays Hoover the bus driver. In this video, Meat Loaf parodies his role as Eddie in The Rocky Horror Picture Show by performing in an Eddie costume in front of a movie screen that is playing his original Paradise By The Dashboard Light video. Many thanks to John Davey for sharing these with us!

Seventeen new sound files are available, courtesy of an anonymous fan in Australia who discovered a live tape recording he had made over three decades ago: http://www.rockymusic.org/mp3scat/rhs-austr75live/. They're from a 1975 audience recording of the final Sydney performance of The Rocky Horror Show in its original Australian run, just before the transfer to Melbourne. The cast is completely different from the 1974 cast album, with the exception of Sal Sharah as Riff Raff. You may also recognize the Magenta/Usherette, Robyn Moase, who was later featured as Deadpan Dolores in Richard O'Brien's 1982 musical The Stripper (also produced in Sydney). The sound quality is quite decent, and it's very nice to hear audience reactions and such from a time when audience participation wasn't the institution that it is today.

Happy New Year! To ring in 2007, I decided to launch a completely new version of RockyMusic.org. The last time I updated the web site was at the end of the previous decade, so this may be a bit of a shock for some...:-) All areas have been updated with additional content, and most importantly (to me) it's all in a database to make updates vastly easier. Some entirely new sections have also been added including forums, documents (scripts, interviews, etc.), and videos. Probably the most important change is that everything uses tags to assist with organization (and let me run wild on some tangential topics that didn't really fit anywhere previously!). Not everything from the old site has been ported over yet though and furthermore some of it likely never will be, so I'm also keeping the old RockyMusic.org online as an archive. Take some time to look around, and be sure to register at the discussion forums. Enjoy!