TRACK #296:

Dr. Frankensteins Disco Party by Johnny Wakelin

Dashiki enthusiast and suspected racial appropriator Johnny Wakelin sang a lot of songs about boxers. Not the dogs mind you, but dudes who put on gloves and punch the shit out of each other.

Over a roughly 30 year span, Johnny released 12 different songs about boxers. Of course Muhammad Ali, Lennox Lewis, Frank Bruno and Mike Tyson each got 2 a piece, but that’s still no mean feat.

It all seemed to start in 1972, when he wrote a song called Hungarian Superman about Hungarian boxer Joe Bugner.

Apparently no one cared though.

Then Joe Bugner lost to both Muhammad Ali and Ghost Fever star Joe Frazier. 12 rounders to be sure, and by decisions, but still L’s none the less.

So, Johnny figured he’d just rework Joe’s tune to be about Muhammad Ali and call it Black Superman instead. Keen.

This time people seemed to care. Well, at least a little. The song hit number 7 in the UK. It only reached number 21 here in the states, but it stayed in the top 100 for 6 months! Not too shabby for a weird ass tune from some British guy about an American boxer.

Figuring if it ain’t broke it ain’t broke, Johnny whipped up In Zaire, a song about Ali’s famous 1974 bout dubbed “The Rumble in the Jungle” against George Foreman. That one didn’t do as well, but still had some legs.

After a few underperforming singles including Africa Man, Cream Puff and Afro Afrique, he attempt to rebottle the lightning with 1986’s Bruno, about boxer Frank Bruno.

That didn’t do so hot either.

Later down the line Johnny thought, fuck it, I’ll write songs about all kinds of boxers including Sugar Ray Leonard, Prince Nassem Hamed and even my own hometown hero Rocky Marciano.

Now, you may be thinking “Gee, that’s real swell, pal, but what the fuck does that have to do with Halloween, you blithering jackass.”

A fair question.

Well, it seems that in the middle of all this pugilist pop, and for seemingly no good reason at all, ole Johnny decided to jump on the disco train and bring some of that spooky monster party shit with him. What?

So, he grabbed up an instrumental disco tune from Harold Faltermeyer – yep Top Gun, Fletch Theme, Axel F Harold Faltermeyer – and slapped some silly Monster Mash-fashioned lyrics over the whole thing.

The result was Dr. Frankenstein’s Disco Party, a bonafide Monster Disco jammer that’s as grooving as it is bizarre.

Seriously, this song rules. And it hits all the notes you want for a monster party disco hit. You got Dracula, Mummies, Zombies, fuckin Bigfoot and even a nod to Frankenstein’s Monster himself. Hell, all the invitations to this Shindig are delivered by bat for fuck’s sake. It’s incredible! Johnny should have ditched the boxing motif and stuck with the monster parties, you ask us.

So let’s say gold riddance to this disco block with a little underground groove about a bunch of bloodaholics.