User:Shocking Blue

Me
I am a middle-aged male real estate appraiser and remain an avid rock music fan. My wiki-name is the Dutch band best known for the worldwide 1970 hit "Venus". My bichon frise, Robby van Leeuwen is named after the leader of this band. I am a native of Winston-Salem, North Carolina (born at about the same time as rock and roll, on May 3, 1951) and have been living in the Mississippi Gulf Coast region (by way of Raleigh, NC, New York, San Francisco, and Greensboro, NC) since early 1998. I am thus a survivor of Hurricane Katrina that destroyed all of our belongings, including my 2,600-album record collection. (Most of the CD's were at the office and were unaffected by the storm, although the ones at home were scattered all over the yard as well). I gathered up what I could and am in the process of cleaning them up; if I can ever figure out how to do it right, that will be a future article. For now, I am playing them on one of those department store record players made by Crosley.

Other interests include vintage science fiction and horror movies, weird fiction (H. P. Lovecraft, et al), and science. I am a recent Catholic convert, via my beloved wife Peggy of just over 3 years.

My main interest in contributing to Wikipedia is to provide information on the more obscure bands and artists that populate my collection, as well as tidbits about music and my other interests that I have picked up over the years. I have already added a couple of dozen record labels to the "list of record labels", so I guess my work is cut out for me! Initial articles include the Head Shop, Milan (the Leather Boy), the Hawkwind album Roadhawks, and the history section on bootleg recording.

Milestones

 * 1st contribution on 08/18/2006.
 * 1,000th contribution on 09/04/2007.
 * 100th original article on 03/13/2008.
 * 2,500th contribution on 09/01/2009.

2008 Update
In honor of starting my 100th new article this month, March 2008 (not counting redirect pages, categories, etc.), I am putting in some info on what I have been working on in the following section. It all started innocently enough when I was early in the process of cleaning up my LPs from the storm (that's all we have to say down here about Katrina: "the storm"). Periodically, I would wonder about what was out there on the Web about one of the obscure bands that I was in the process of enjoying (usually while doing appraisal work on the computer), and I would Google it and find out. (After a while, I just started going straight to Wikipedia). Well, there was nothing on the Head Shop, so I thought it would be a real kick to see what I could find out and put together an article. One of the reasons that I bought the LP in the first place 25 or so years ago is that the producer of the album is listed as Milan, one of my very favorite garage rock artists; so naturally, that led to an article on him. And so it goes.

After I had been doing that for several months, I read an article in Discover magazine called "You Know Too Much" that praised Wikipedia but started off with: "Despite scads of entries about virtually unknown rock bands..." I laughed out loud (and probably blushed) thinking of my own additions to those scads! But really, IMHO, there are still a lot of great 1960s artists out there that are not yet included among the 2½ million or so English articles. I remember being astounded that there was not so much as a stub on Mouse and the Traps, who'd been on the original Nuggets compilation album; and I was almost as surprised to see that the Outsiders had only a stub, when their "Time Won't Let Me" is almost universally known in the US to this day. There was a lot more on the Dutch Outsiders then – not that there is anything wrong with that (they are after all a better band but never had even a minor hit over here).

Garage Rock Artists

 * Mouse and the Traps – an Original Barnstar award winner – plus two retrospective albums, Public Execution and The Fraternity Years.
 * The Head Shop.
 * Milan (aka The Leather Boy), a mysterious garage rock musician, producer and songwriter, plus the album, I Am What I Am – probably my most extensive research effort.
 * The Human Expression, plus the retrospective album Love at Psychedelic Velocity.
 * The Outcasts (Texas band), plus the retrospective album I'm in Pittsburgh and it's Raining.
 * GONN, and their reunion album GONN with the Wind.
 * The Choir (garage band), plus the retrospective album Choir Practice.
 * The Starfires, the Cleveland band, plus the retrospective album Roots of the Outsiders.
 * The Starfires, the Los Angeles band.
 * Time Won't Let Me, Album #2, The Outsiders In and Happening Live!, all albums by the Outsiders.

Other Recording Artists

 * L.A. L.A., a Stiv Bators retrospective album.

Record Labels

 * AIP Records – associated with Bomp! Records.

Garage Rock Albums

 * List of garage rock and psychedelic rock compilation albums.
 * Pebbles series, along with articles on the individual combined LP/CD albums, Pebbles, Volume 1 through Pebbles, Volume 5, LP-only articles on Pebbles Volume 6 through Pebbles, Volume 28, CD-only articles on the ESD Records releases Pebbles Volume 1 through Pebbles, Volume 4, CD-only articles on Pebbles Volume 6 through Pebbles, Volume 12, and box sets Pebbles Box and Trash Box.
 * The Continent Lashes Back series.
 * Highs in the Mid-Sixties series, along with articles on the individual LPs, Highs in the Mid-Sixties, Volume 1 through Highs in the Mid-Sixties, Volume 23.
 * Essential Pebbles series, along with articles on the individual CDs, Essential Pebbles, Volume 1 through Essential Pebbles, Volume 3.
 * English Freakbeat series, along with articles on the individual LP/CDs: English Freakbeat, Volume 1 through English Freakbeat, Volume 6.

Other Pages

 * User:Shocking Blue.
 * The Guys Who Came up from Downstairs – started stub from info given by others.
 * I Am What I Am (disambiguation).

Categories

 * Category:garage rock, along with some discussion.
 * Category:Nederpop, along with some discussion.
 * Category:Pebbles albums.
 * Category:The Outsiders albums.
 * Category:The Choir albums.
 * Category:Milan albums.
 * Category:GONN albums.
 * Category:The Outcasts albums.
 * Category:The Human Expression albums.
 * Category:Mouse and the Traps albums.
 * Category:Epic Records albums.

Redirect Pages

 * Redirect page – Social Deviants and the Social Deviants to Deviants (band).
 * Redirect page – Elias B. McDaniel to Bo Diddley.
 * Redirect pages – Rick Rodell, Milan, the Leather Boy, World of Milan, the World of Milan, Milan (The Leather Boy), and the Unclaimed to Milan (aka The Leather Boy).
 * Redirect page – Craig Moore to GONN.
 * Redirect page – Gonn to GONN.
 * Redirect page – Gonn with the Wind to GONN with the Wind.
 * Redirect page – Mastercharge Records to Pebbles, Volume 1.
 * Redirect page – Pebbles, volume 3 to Pebbles, Volume 3.
 * Redirect page – Pebbles box to Pebbles Box.
 * Redirect pages – Mouse, Chris St. John and Positively 13 O'Clock to Mouse and the Traps.
 * Redirect page – Tom King and the Starfires to the Starfires (Cleveland band).
 * Redirect page – List of Garage Rock and Psychedelic Rock Compilation Albums and List of Nederpop compilation albums to List of garage rock and psychedelic rock compilation albums.
 * Redirect page – Pebbles, Volume 11 to Pebbles, Volume 11 (LP).
 * Redirect page – Retrospective album to compilation album.
 * Redirect page – Birds Birds to the Birds (band).
 * Redirect page – The Outsiders In! to The Outsiders In.
 * Redirect page – Happening Live to Happening Live!.
 * Redirect page – The Outsiders 2 to The Outsiders Album 2.
 * Redirect page – "Love Makes the World Go 'Round" to Deon Jackson.
 * Redirect page – Yo-Yo Man to Tom Smothers.

Greatly Expanded Articles

 * The Outsiders (American band).
 * Ear-Piercing Punk.
 * Stone Poneys, plus their three albums: The Stone Poneys, Evergreen, Volume 2, and Linda Ronstadt, Stone Poneys and Friends, Vol. III