Apparently There Were 12

It must have been 1983 when I found this LP in one of Sydney's 2nd hand record stores. I was playing in my psuedo-cabaret-electro act "No Night Sweats" at the time and was always on the lookout for songs that we might be able to add to the show somehow. Ofcourse it had to have some ironic edge else we'd die of the seriousness of it all. We'd already covered Slapp Happy's "Who's Gonna Help Me Now" and Noosha Fox's "S-S-S-Single Bed" and, later, would do a version of an old gospel tune "When Was Jesus Born". I thought that some mid 60s German pop music might be so bad that we'd actually love it and this turned out to be very true indeed. At least on my part. I'm fairly sure that Patrick never cared for it much at all and I played the best tracks to anyone that would stand still for a few minutes to a mostly puzzled response.

Geschwister Jacob - So ist ein Boy is probably the best track on the whole thing. Some clumsy, robotic drumming and bad soul music brass overlayed with a catchy melody sung in a very twee, "oh, isn't life great" fashion. They must have been quite well known in some sort of German drinking club scene as this page can testify. It ends, as it should, with the righteous phrase "so ist ein boy... yeah!" Great stuff, dear ladies of the Rhine.

Lill Lindfors - Es konnte Liebe sein is a close runner up in the popularity stakes. Once again it's vaguely like soul music except there's no swing at all. In fact, the oompah really starts to take over. At least it has a terrific chorus - and don't they know it as it's repeated ad-infinitum. Amazingly, Lill Lindfors seems to be still on the scene.

Margret Furer und die Penny Pipers - Gammel Shake starts off all semi-smoky ambiance like an pasty version of "Cabaret" then jumps into the chorus a few times where the descending chords are almost like glam. But don't worry, the oompah isn't far away, though, with the rough vowel sounds and bad drumming just driving it along. I know nothing at all about sweet lost Margs.