Tag: John Caldwell

Music throwback Saturday: Blotto

Metalhead by Blotto featured guitarist Buck Dharma.

comboakimbo.jpegFor Ask Roger Anything, Tom the Mayor, who used to work at FantaCo, the now-defunct comic book store in Albany, NY, inquired:

What is your favorite Blotto song (For you Albany people)?

For you non-Albany people, Blotto was a popular local band who performed with humor and panache. Like the Ramones, the various performers took on the S-less band name as their surname. It was vocalist Sarge, bassist Cheese, guitarist Broadway, guitar-vocalist Bowtie, and drummer Lee Harvey Blotto. Female lead singer Blanche joined the band for a while, then quit, and was replaced by Chevrolet Blotto.

As you know, Tom, FantaCo sold the band’s various EPs, their single, and the album Combo Akimbo during the 1980s. The cover was designed by the late John Caldwell. I hung out with some of the guys at a Troy diner after the funeral of FantaCo mainstay Raoul Vezina back in 1983.

Cheese died back in 1999. He was also known as Keith A. Stephenson.

I still come across a couple of the fellows now and then. Sarge, a/k/a Greg Haymes, is a music writer, and co-creator of the Nipper Town website; he reposted an interview from 1980. F. Lee Harvey, a/k/a Paul Rapp is an intellectual property lawyer.

From Wikipedia: “The band in its current incarnation (Broadway, Bowtie, Sergeant, F. Lee Harvey, Clyde, and Hammerhead Blotto) is still active, and has reunited for occasional concerts in the Albany area.”

My five favorite Blotto songs:

5. She’s Got A Big Boyfriend HERE. I especially like the call-and-response. “I’ll make him laugh.” “He’ll break you in half.”

4. I Wanna Be A Lifeguard HERE or HERE. This was the 36th video played on the first day of MTV, I read, and got played a LOT. I’m surprised that the single never charted.

3. Goodbye Mr. Bond HERE or HERE. It has every 007 cliche.

2. Metalhead HERE or HERE. This was an over-the-top parody, which eventually found its way onto a compilation album called “Metal for Breakfast.” The song DID feature guitarist Buck Dharma from Blue Oyster Cult.

1. We Are the Nowtones HERE or HERE. The part “she can sound like Linda/she can sound like Joni” floored me when I first heard it. “Play something good!”

John Caldwell

John Caldwell was also known locally for that great cover he did for the Blotto album Combo Akimbo.

mugshotsI have no idea how Tom Skulan, owner of a comic book store in Albany called FantaCo, where I worked for several years, got John Caldwell to allow us to publish one of his books. Mug Shots: A splendid collection of cartoons by John Caldwell came out in September 1980, just in time for the second FantaCon convention. The book was a 64-page trade paperback, with a wraparound cover by Caldwell.

I was surprised because I knew John’s work, if not his name, from the magazine NATIONAL LAMPOON, from which some of the strips had previously appeared, along with the SATURDAY REVIEW. Yet John was willing to let a publisher with a minimal record put out his book.

I should note that the sales were not terribly robust, but only because it didn’t appeal to the superhero-driven comic distributors we were dealing with. My personal copy is nearby the computer in our home office.

And John Caldwell not only showed up at FantaCon that year, and a few other events, he was a witty, pleasant, not at all arrogant guy. My friend Bill Anderson wrote: “I’m immeasurably saddened to learn of the death of the wonderfully funny and friendly John Caldwell. Meeting, and getting to spend time with, John was a highlight of the early FantaCons for me. Here [below, is one of] two drawings I own by John: a huge sign that he drew for his table at FantaCon (which I literally yanked from his hands as he attempted to throw it away after the convention).”

FantaCo.Calwell

He was also known locally for that great cover he did for the Blotto album Combo Akimbo. One of the Blotto folks, Sarge remembers John.

On Facebook, MAD magazine expressed its profound sadness as well at the “passing of longtime MAD writer/artist John ‘Hammerhead’ Caldwell:
“John became one of ‘The Usual Gang of Idiots’ in October 1978, MAD #202. Over the years he contributed hundreds of pages to the magazine. He received the enduring nickname ‘Hammerhead’ after mailing a piece of his original cover artwork to the MAD offices wrapped between two flimsy pieces of cheap cardboard, the kind you would expect to get when buying a dress shirt at the Dollar Store. The artwork was almost destroyed in the mail.”

The last time I saw John was an unexpected meeting at the Albany Institute of History and Art a few years back. He remembered the guy who shipped out those Mug Shots for FantaCo. One fan wrote: “I have a whole case [of Mug Shots] buried away.” We both thought that John Caldwell, with his off-center sense of humor, would have appreciated the joke.

Social media & sharing icons powered by UltimatelySocial