Fady
Joined: Mar 07, 2010
Posts: 2254
North Carolina
Posted on Jan 15 2013 10:50 AM
Looks like in the last year or so Marcel Kruup has uploaded a nice archive collection from the Treble Spankers, including -4- 5 songs indicating they were unreleased album tracks from 1997. Those are the first -4- 5 below. edit: The Bangles / Walk Like An Egyptian cover also appears to be from the "unreleased album track" set too.
I'm not 100% on their discography to know if this ever got out anywhere else, but who cares. Pretty cool stuff!
He's also loaded up some live footage and a 1995 Dutch TV interview. No worries if you don't speak Dutch - some pretty cool footage from what appears to have been their rehearsal space.
IvanP
Joined: Feb 27, 2006
Posts: 10331
southern Michigan
Posted on Jan 15 2013 12:25 PM
Wow, how incredibly cool!!! thanks, morphball! I actually HAVE this unreleased album! Back in '98 or so, Art B. of MuSick Recordings wanted to release the Treble Spankers stuff in the US, so he started talking to their manager frequently. Unfortunately, the band was imploding at that point, and since they were signed to a major label (Polydor), the label also had zero interest in working with a small company in the US. One good thing that came of it was that the Spankers manager sent a bunch of super-rare and unreleased stuff to Art, who was nice enough to make me copies of it all! (I was the one that turned him on to them, after all...)
The unreleased album was going to be called Gri Gri, and it was completely finished. I believe the major reason why it was shelved was that Phantom Frank developed some really bad tendonitis problems in one of his hands and had to basically stop playing live, at which point the band was finished. With no chance of promotion of the album, Polydor killed it. It's the Treble Spankers, so it goes without saying that it's a good album, but I gotta say that I think it wasn't nearly as good as Hasheeda or even Araban. Though you can definitely hear there the next step in Frank's evolution as a musician to the sound that he more fully developed in the Phantom Four.
Frank's next release was his solo album Dead Man Surfin', which took me a long time to fully appreciate, but now I love it. It's all electronic backgrounds with Frank mostly playing lap steel guitar, due to his injury (though there is some regular electric guitar, too). MuSick did finally work with Frank, releasing that album in the US (as just "Phantom Frank", no title). It had three bonus tracks and one of them was a rerecording of one "Gri Gri" song, here titled as "Aranda de Duero". Great song. (Edit: That's one of the songs above, here titled "Estrella.") That's the only one of "Gri Gri" songs that I believe has been reused by Frank in these past 15 years.
My copy of "Gri Gri" was originally on a cassette, which itself was dubbed from Art's original cassette (and which was probably dubbed from another cassette!). I had it transferred to CD many years ago, but the sound quality is still not so good. I never had the titles for the tracks, either, so the above videos finally fill in some of those blanks! The album did have three covers: the AMAZING version of "On Her Majesty's Secret Service," as heard above, a really cool version of "Walk Like An Egyptian", again as heard above, and the great "Enola Gay" by OMD (which was released as a single before "Gri Gri" was supposed to be released (though possibly a different version, I forget now). 15 songs in total. One was a super-cool all-acoustic flamenco-ish track, and the opening track for the album was a very sub-Saharan-Africa-sounding song, 'highlife' kinda thing. Really cool. I very much hope the whole album gets a full release one day, but until then, I'm very glad that Marcel finally decided to post some of it on YouTube!
Fady
Joined: Mar 07, 2010
Posts: 2254
North Carolina
Posted on Jan 15 2013 12:58 PM
Great context, Patrick! I'd sure love to hear Gri Gri in full some time.
Actually, there's a series of interview footage w/ Frank in 2006 out there, presumably about this period, but that's all in Dutch - except this one. The Dutch versions includes Frank playing an acoustic rendition of Mr G. Added for your viewing pleasure.
morphball
Joined: Dec 23, 2008
Posts: 3324
Pittsboro, NC
Posted on Jan 15 2013 02:04 PM
And thanks for the background info, Ivan- I was about to ask if "Gri Gri" was actually supposed to be spelled "Gris Gris" (it's an African protection amulet, which I only know about from a little time I spent in New Orleans), but it can apparently be spelled either way.
IvanP
Joined: Feb 27, 2006
Posts: 10331
southern Michigan
Posted on Jan 15 2013 02:06 PM
Fady, thanks again so much, and also for the interview clip and the Mr. G acoustic live clip - I loved that! I think I may have preferred that to the full-band album version! You can really hear the beauty of the song when it's this stripped down...
IvanP
Joined: Feb 27, 2006
Posts: 10331
southern Michigan
Posted on Jan 15 2013 02:08 PM
morphball wrote:
And thanks for the background info, Ivan- I was about to ask if "Gri Gri" was actually supposed to be spelled "Gris Gris" (it's an African protection amulet, which I only know about from a little time I spent in New Orleans), but it can apparently be spelled either way.
I honestly have no idea, Mike. That's the spelling I was given on the cassette, so who knows. I think I looked into it some years ago, and I believe there was a Dr. John album by the name of Gris Gris, and I wouldn't be surprised if there's a reference to that there. Well, maybe one day we'll find out....
Brian
Joined: Feb 25, 2006
Posts: 19283
Des Moines, Iowa, USA
Posted on Jan 16 2013 08:37 AM
To my knowledge Phantom Frank is not a member here. I had thought that perhaps there was a language barrier, but after seeing that video interview, I see he speaks English just fine, which bodes well for the future.
I do remember another member of the Phantom Four joining and posting a few times. Was it the drummer?
December Birthdays 
Back in '98 or so, Art B. of MuSick Recordings wanted to release the Treble Spankers stuff in the US, so he started talking to their manager frequently. Unfortunately, the band was imploding at that point, and since they were signed to a major label (Polydor), the label also had zero interest in working with a small company in the US. One good thing that came of it was that the Spankers manager sent a bunch of super-rare and unreleased stuff to Art, who was nice enough to make me copies of it all! (I was the one that turned him on to them, after all...) 
I'd sure love to hear Gri Gri in full some time. 
Trying to handle too much info, went into a bit of a meltdown! At least I got the right state.... 
Hey, I'd love to take credit for this great post! Thanks Fady, I'm going to really enjoy these when I get home!
