The Jimmy C - Just A Fool. A Film by Stu Thomas

The T.V. Set Live @ The Townie October 2010

Here's a rare and shambolic glimpse of The Jimmy C in action singing and playing drums with The T.V. Set - a retro covers band - not playing songs that are popular favorites but playing songs we like. Small afternoon gig with a small P.A and very little foldback (We couldn't hear what we was singing so I was slightly horrified when I heard them for the first time in this video). It sounds like there were lots of people there though...

This 12 min video features T-Rex's Children of The Revolution, Wing's Jet and The MC5/Jerry Lee Lewis' Ramblin Rose.

Link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LsZCbXCriBU

The Jimmy C Interviewed by Ben Rock City!

Visit the link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kz8kynKom20 to see the interview with The Jimmy C. A revealingly casual chat during the Adelaide leg of The Devilrock Four/Hell City Glamours tour 2010. Thanks to Ben & Rock City Networks.

60's The Jimmy C Go-Go Party!

*Click to embiggen - saucy version after the break.

Photographic Studies.

Click to embiggen, saucy version after the break.

Popular With The Ladies...

Click to embiggen, saucy version after the break.

It's a little known fact that in the 60's The Jimmy C's manager, Denis Monkstein, worked as a freelance photographer and frequently sold photos to Playboy, Gent, Swank and many other "Gentleman's Comfort" magazines of the era. Monkstein - always a fan of blatant cross promotion - had his models pose with records to create a "this could easily happen in your home" atmosphere, using records by his artists. Instead of reaching a wider audience, the effect of this was that The Jimmy C played mostly to perverts and horny teenage boys.

1972 Tour Photo.

A rare snapshot taken on tour between Paris and Brussels. LEFT: The Jimmy C (Vocals + Guitar) and RIGHT: The Jimmy C (Lead Guitar + Theremin) enjoy a spot of lunch in the first class dining car en route to Paris as part of the 1972 "The Jimmy C and the Combustible Psychedelicatessen" European tour. This tour is often credited with pioneering the glam rock movement simultaneously with Bowie's "Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars" tour. PHOTO BY THE JIMMY C.

Sexy Sells...

Take my word for it...

The Jimmy C - Hyde & Seek (OST) Free Download!

During the recording of the 30 something songs that would become "Glamour & Fame" I wrote a tune that to me, sounded like a lost 60's John Barry soundtrack. The Idea of "Hyde & Seek" grew from there. I expanded on the main theme and like most spy movie soundtracks of the 60's did several versions of the same theme in different styles. I decided to spice up the collection of tracks by writing and performing a few scenes of dialogue & sound effects from this never-made movie - possibly making the whole thing a little cheesy and detracting from the feel of the music... I am however happy with the result as a whole. I love soundtracks so I think I was destined to record this - now I just need someone to make the movie...

Here's a review:

"Hyde & Seek is the "original motion picture soundtrack" of the fictional 1960's spy thriller of the same name. The album (using instrumental songs, dialogue & sound effects) pieces together the story of special agent Roland Hyde - smug over-achiever turned double-O-agent. The main theme takes on various styles, from dreamy/psychedellic lullaby to beat club rave-up to jazzy walking bass spy-blues. Hyde & Seek, as a soundtrack album, suffers little from the lack of an actual motion picture, the music conjures the drama and the B-Movie style dialogue acts as an interesting segue to the variations on the main theme. Hyde & Seek is for fans of John Barry, Roy Budd, Henry Mancini's Peter Gunn and 60's spy movie soundtracks in general."

1. Hyde & Seek (Opening Titles)/Dialogue
2. Twisting With Roland (Discotheque)3. Theme From Hyde & Seek (Love Theme)/Dialogue
4. Roland Hyde 1: Hyde on The Beat/Dialogue
5. The Latin Quarter
6. Roland Hyde 2: Follow Me
7. Powder & Silk (Night Club)/Dialogue
8. Regression
9. Overdose/Dialogue
10. Count To 99 (Main Theme)
11. Roland Hyde 3: Street Beat/Dialogue
12. Chase Through The Carnival
13. Roland Hyde 4: Return To Base/Dialogue
14. Hyde & Seek (Closing Titles)

Total run time: 26:53

Count To 99 (Main Theme) by The Jimmy C

Twisting With Roland (Discotheque) by The Jimmy C

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD "HYDE & SEEK" - with artwork in the zip!

The Jimmy C - The Jimmy C (self titled) Free Download!

Download link at the bottom of the post!

My second album is much more garage rock oriented record with only 1 proper instrumental track. Another very limited run of 50-80 hand made copies given to friends & colleagues. I think I learned to write proper songs with this album, it's a more "Songy" set of tracks compared to anything I'd done previously. It was recorded with less borrowed gear and has a nice low-fi hard edge to it. I've had less comments about this album than the first album but I like it better than Project E.G.O.

Here's a review:
"The self-titled second album from The Jimmy C presents the listener a more rock sound with breakthrough innovations in Low-Fi recording - still using only 4-Track cassette and stereo digital polishing. The Jimmy C are even more "songy" this time around, yet still very eclectic with only 2 full instrumental tracks. The Ennio Morricone tinged "El Deserto..." paints a broad desolate vista and make a perfect soundtrack to a never-realised spaghetti western. The vicious stumbling "Your Corpse Is A Whore" (brutal title!) falls off the back of a drunk & beaten horse and walks straight into the poppy "I Want Her", but as if to make sure we don't think The Jimmy C are taking themselves too seriously, they've thrown in "The Ballad Of Myron Bunt" & "The Ballad Of Byron Munt" both roughly 20 sec long and showcasing the sillier side of country music. The song "Hi-Fi In Low-Fi" was pieced together from "Optigan" rhythm loops (see:
www.optigan.com) with guitar and percussion added on to the loop track. As a bonus at the end of the album they've put the all 16 tracks of the previous album ("Project E.G.O") playing simultaneously. "The Jimmy C" is another difficult album to nail to a genre. If you liked "Project E.G.O" you'll certainly like this one or, if you like the music of Ennio Morricone, Crazy Horse, The Zombies, The Supersuckers and Ween you may be mildly offended by this album."

1. The Boy In The Suitcase
2. Your Corpse Is A Whore
3. I Want Her
4. Tie One On
5. El Deserto De Los Muertos
(from the film - "Il Deserto Dei Morti" (The Desert of The Dead)
6. The Ballad Of Byron Munt
7. Start All Over
8. All Nite Ride
9. Sending Home The Dead (Acoustic Version)
10. Sending Home The Dead
11. The Ballad Of Myron Bunt
12. I Want Her (Short Version)
13. Inside Wrongside
14. Hi-Fi In Low Fi (Featuring The Optigan)
15. Ten Second Funk
(16. Bonus Track: The Project E.G.O. album)

Total run time: 32:20

The Boy In The Suitcase by The Jimmy C

Your Corpse Is A Whore by The Jimmy C

I Want Her by The Jimmy C

El Deserto De Los Muertos (from the film Il Deserto Dei Morti ) by The Jimmy C

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD "THE JIMMY C" (self titled album 2006) - art is in the zip file.

The Jimmy C - Project E.G.O. (2005) Free Download!

Download link at the bottom of the post.

This is my first proper album. By proper I mean good enough to share with people. I played some of these songs to some friends and they liked it! It's not as complete, competent or accomplished as "Glamour & Fame" but it's still very well liked (though only 50-80 copies were made & given to friends). I was young, not the most accomplished multi-instrumentalist (I'm still not) but for a drummer this is a surprisingly good album of real songs (not just 45 mins of drumming...), sometimes you listen back to stuff you recorded when you were starting out & grimace at the naivety and childish crappiness of it. I can listen to this and actually enjoy it - it's not my best work but it was a good start. Some friends say it's their favorite of all my albums... thanks a bunch! I mean, have you even listened to "Glamour & Fame"????!

Here's a review:
"The Debut album from The Jimmy C. Recorded in 2005 on 4-Track Cassette (using primitive computer software to make "reduction mixes" then back onto the 4-Track), this collection of Guitar Instrumentals with Blusey-Rock/funk/folk/punk/soundtrack tunes presents an eclectic sound of a Band still deciding weather they want to be instrumental or not. It's a few tentative steps forward in song writing for The Jimmy C, breaking away from the safe (mostly instrumental) music of early recordings and heading towards a much more "songy" sound. With 6 instrumentals and 7 and a half vocal tracks (track 12 is only half a song) the emphasis is still firmly on the instrumental side of The Jimmy C. Notable tracks are: "Deep Holy Love" with it's Prince meets Beck in a car accident Jesus-love funk, "Black Suits On The Beach" sounds like 1965 fuzzy Mosrite Ventures and "Gone Are The Days" is a Calexico(ish) look at slightly depressing American Folk music. This experimental debut surprised The Jimmy C more than anyone else and gave them the confidence to finally show other people (and the world) what they could do."

1. Black Suits On The Beach
2. Deep Holy Love
3. Freakout A-Go-Go
4. Sad Instrumental
5. Spooky Blues
6. You're Too Old
7. Movie Theme
8. Hey Hoe Wah
9. Five Days To Live
10. The Man From Devilrock
11. Gone Are The Days
12. Sucks To Be You
13. Footlong
(14. Bonus Track)

Total run time: 41:11

Black Suits On The Beach by The Jimmy C



Deep Holy Love by The Jimmy C


Secret Bonus Track (All Night Ride) by The Jimmy C


Sad Instrumental by The Jimmy C


Spooky Blues by The Jimmy C

CLICK HERE TO DOWNLOAD PROJECT E.G.O. - Artwork is included in the zip file.

Recommended Listening... (links to downloads)

I built this blog to promote & share The Jimmy C, but I think it's time I shared some of the music that made The Jimmy C. The links in the following go to other people's blogs who are sharing someone else's music. I take no responsibility for the quality of the mp3's or the various breaches of copyright. If you like the music in the links below, buy a real copy - it sounds and feels much better!

The Left Banke - Out of print genius.

The Turtles - Hard to find and awesome. Also look for the impossible to find "Turtle Soup" expanded CD.

The Move - I love The Move. Roy Wood is a genius madman and the introduction of Jeff Lynne only made their music a different kind of genius... all the way through to ELO's 3rd album.

Tomorrow (Featuring Keith West) - This is just plain AWESOME!!! Holy shit balls this is good.

The Dukes Of Stratosphear - Double holy shit balls I love this album so much. It's XTC being totally inspired by all things nuggets and british psychedelia (see Tomorrow above) in the mid 80's! Only The Dukes & Tom Waits were immune to the 80's - making amazing music that sounds like it was recorded yesterday or 40 years ago... Follow this link to XTC's Skylarking - sounds a little more 80's but one of the best albums ever. EVER!

Harry Nilsson - What a dude. Harry is cool. He broke up John & Yoko with him & John's drinking sessions. Aerial Pandemonium Ballet (1971) is an awesome reworking of his first 2 albums. He manages to make "Over-produced" a positive thing.

I haven't followed all these links to see if they result in a decent quality download. I own all these albums in various formats and I recommend you do too.

Advertising...

Lost Playboy Centrefold Out-take.

Click to embiggen, saucy version after the break.

Suitable For Framing!

Write to The Jimmy C and receive your very own signed 8x10" glossy photograph.

Suitable for framing!

Mostly Concerned With Boobs.

Anyone notice she has the entire Jimmy C record collection? Oh, and records on her boobies!

More Photographic Evidence of 60's Glamour & Fame Vinyl.

Another fan of The Jimmy C!

"Glamour & Fame" Review, Inpress 21/7/10.

Thanks to the Boomeister for the kind words!

The Jimmy C Studio Photo 1972.

The Jimmy C Publicity Photo 1965.

The Jimmy C On Stage 1967.

The Jimmy C at Abbey Road Studios 1964.

The Jimmy C Publicity Photo 1967.

"New" 1973 Live Promo Photo.

Joan Collins Once Had Good Taste (in records).

Only For The Hardcore.

Here's a small, hastily recorded collection of demos of new songs I'm considering for the follow up to Glamour & Fame. They're mostly rough 4-Track cassette demos recorded in lunch breaks or when I have 5 mins to put an idea on tape. My 1 year old son Harvey can be heard in the background on some tracks - on "As The Night" there's a bit where he climbed up my leg & burped at me during the lead vocal track.

Leather & Bone (Demo) by The Jimmy C

Pardon Me Jesus (Demo) by The Jimmy C

The Road To Fortune (Troubled Days) by The Jimmy C

As The Night (Demo) by The Jimmy C

Hey Esmarelda! (Demo) by The Jimmy C

Lets Spend Time Outside (Demo) by The Jimmy C

Don't Mention The War!

Does anyone speak German? From the amount of stars I'd say it's quite a favorable review. See here:

http://www.ox-fanzine.de/web/rev/70523/reviews.207.html

This blog is amazing!

Exploitation movie poster art! Nice large images & an amazing collection.

Visit Wrong Side Of The Art.

Click below for full size poster:

Art? Or The Jimmy C Desktop theme...

Genius pin-up artists Gil Elvgren, Al Buell, Mike Ludlow (and many more) inspire the design side of The Jimmy C. Make 'em bigger by clicking them!

If You Like The Jimmy C...

You'll love this blog.

http://allmusic-wingsofdream.blogspot.com

Lots of amazing and rare (out of print) 60's albums that have inspired me over the years.

Holiday Goddess endorses The Jimmy C.

Read it here:

holidaygoddess.com

Ancient History: Just - Let It Go (Unreleased 1998)

We played a few gigs with Viloetine at the Punters club and were noticed by frontman/bass player Glen. He got us into Hothouse, Kiss and Sing Sing to do 4 tracks engineered by him & Matt Voigt, mastered by Ross Cockle. To me these recordings still sound really good, it's a pity we didn't go any further than the Arthouse. Not too long after I left Just to be full-time in Luxedo (bad move in a way...). Same line up of Joel, Shannon, Adam & Me.

1. Let It Go

2. Jason

3. But

4. Don't Sharpen Your Teeth On Me

Click here to download "Let It Go" 320kbps Mp3.

(Joel, Shannon, Adam, let me know if you want this removed)

Just - Jason by The Jimmy C
Just - Don't Sharpen Your Teeth On Me by The Jimmy C

Ancient History: Just - Ask Me Later (MDS 1997)

Formed to enter the NAD Campus Band Competition and representing RMIT in 1996, Just surprised themselves by winning both heats, regional final (playing to a packed Espy Gershwin Room) and failing to win the national final in Canberra - for which RMIT had flown the band and put up for accommodation. With their winnings they made an EP, the only official release from Just.

Featuring me on drums (my first Melbourne band), Joel Sprake on rhythm guitar & lead vocals on "A Stroll In The Park", Shannon Smiley on lead guitar and lead vocals and Adam Green on bass.

We were young and it was the 90's.. what else could this sound like? We almost only ever played at the Arthouse.

1. Ask Me Later

2. A Stroll In The Park

3. I Choose To Run

4. The Serpent

5. (secret track "Nine")

Click here to download "Ask Me Later" 320kbps Mp3.

(Joel, Shannon, Adam, let me know if you want this removed)

Ancient History: Fez Perez - Show Me Who's Boss

"Show Me Who's Boss" was my first time in the Studio with Fez. Recorded by Matt Gearing-Thomas at Farnsy's Gotham Studio in 2000 (I think). This is fun good-time party punk. We proved that music didn't have to be taken seriously and could still be good.

Mick Beard - bass lead vox

Screamin Stu Banko - rhythm guit & lead vox on "Six Pack Girl" & "Fifteen Years"

Matt Black - lead guit & lead vox on "Keep Your Clothes On"

Jamie "James Jr" Coghill - Drums

1. Mountain Of Snow

2. King Of The Lanes

3. She's So Cruel

4. Keep Your Clothes On

5. Six Pack Girl

6. Monkey Suit

7. Fifteen Years

Click here to download "Show Me Who's Boss" 320kbps Mp3.

(Matt, Stu, Mick, let me know if you want this removed)

Fez Perez - She's So Cruel by The Jimmy C

Ancient History: Starring... Fez Perez

Fez Perez rocked the east coast of Australia (and one quick trip to Perth) in the early 2000's leaving a trail of sweat & blood (usually our own).

Back then I was known as "James Jr" & was their longest standing permanent drummer joining in 1999 and leaving in 2002 (I think).

"Starring... Fez Perez" was our 2nd EP recorded with Matt Gearing-Thomas at Gotham in 2001 and released through Smokin' Taco Records and MGM Distribution. It features "Beef" which was one of the first songs I wrote and the blisteringly awesome "Gamma Wray" surf instrumental.

Starring... Mick Beard (Sons Of Lee Marvin) - Bass & Lead Vox, Screamin' Stu Banko (Sons Of Lee Marvin) - Rhythm Guit & Lead Vox on "Roulette", Matt Black (Fireballs) - Guitar & BVs and me on Drums.

Fez had some hype and a pretty good following (better interstate than Melbourne) we played some international supports - El Vez, Royal Crown Review, Supersuckers, The Reverend Horton Heat and maybe even Southern Culture On The Skids (my memory is foggy) - and some major festivals - Falls, Offshore, Big Day Out.

Mick & Stu's current band "Sons Of Lee Marvin" is however musically better than anything Fez ever did.

Starring... Fez Perez (2001 Smokin' Taco)

1. Class Act

2. Want Her Back

3. Gamma Wray

4. Beef

5. Roulette

Free Mp3s with cover art below. (Mick, Stu, Matt, let me know if you have a problem with this & I'll take it down).

Click here to download "Starring Fez Perez 320kbps Mp3.

Fez Perez - Beef by The Jimmy C
Fez Perez - Gamma Wray by The Jimmy C