Spaceboy

I did not have the honor to see this epic film but when I first recorded Space Boy with Frank Zappa and Florence Marley at my Hollywood Hills garage studio in 1966 she looked to be 98 years old.

Of course I was a young guy in my 20's playing guitar in the Hollywood studios for the famous beautiful stars of Hollywood. I was working with famous Elvis Presley in films, Mr. square Lawrence Welk on TV and the famous cowboy Gene Autry on TV. Then Frank entered my life.

When Frank came to my home studio to record, with his interesting wild hair-do he asked me to play all the guitar parts using my invention the EccoFonic. I now appreciate it was an experience of a lifetime. I'm glad Mike made something happen with Space Boy. That song got me acquainted with Frank and he invited me to play guitar in his band "The Mothers" where I really got a chance to shred on stage with my custom electric 12 string.

It was amusing to see Florence with her huge brimmed hat and Frank with his wild hair and beard as I engineered and recorded my guitars.

If someone had told me then about the historic value, I would have taken pictures, but it was the last thing anyone I thought would ever be interested in.

I loved when Frank said "Del more echo, more echo" as Florence moaned with her terrible vibrato my favorite line, "Sean Sean, sex without soul" as I turned up the oscillator. That was the wildest thing I ever did. As a nerdy guy from Indiana, my life was guitar, arranging and inventing new gadgets for music that we used on the Space Boy.

I got very busy and went on to invent the wah wah pedal and gave Frank a wah wah in 1967. We stayed in touch and were good friends to the end of his life.

I am amazed anyone would ever talk about this song,or Frank or Florence. I thought the recording was weird and died an hour after I recorded it. We had a great time recording Space Boy but my wife thought I had gone wild.

It was 1966, no cell phones, no pagers or internet or copying machines and everything plugged into the wall. Space Boy was wild.

Cheers to Mike for his brave tireless endeavors to make Space Boy stay alive!

Best, Del Casher (at the time spelled Kacher)

This will be the longest 7 minutes of your life. Do not eat anything within 24 hours of watching this short or you will be shortly without said sustenance. Lock up all silverware and sharp objects before watching this film. Even the sporks. When you find yourself trying to gouge your eyes out in horror you may curse me for this advice, but just keep repeating to yourself "It's only 7 minutes, it's only 7 minutes."

So as near as I can tell this is basically like "The Graduate". Except Mrs. Robinson, in this case, is a mid-50 year-old way-past-her-prime Farrah Fawcett wannabe named Velana who, if she ever made eye contact with you in a bar, would immediately cause you to flee into the Men's room and out the back window in horror. Space "Boy" is a dead ringer for Robert Redford if Robert, at the age of 45 or so, had enjoyed for himself a nightly cheesecake for the past 10 years or so.

The entire "movie" (and I use that term oh so loosely) seems to involve Velana, dressed in a nude-colored, skintight spandex body stocking gyrating about in some kind of null space in an apparently successful attempt to seduce Space Boy. I say apparently because Space Boy has obviously had his brain scooped out by aliens because he just kind of floats around with a stupid grin on his face, whereas any normal person would be high-tailing it into the nearest parallel dimension with a Men's room window. Lucky for him he dies or floats off or something which, all things considered, is probably the best he could have hoped for. As if this wasn't enough the ambiance is "enhanced" with psychedelic space effects which make you feel like your coming down from a bad acid trip.

Now all of this would be merely horrifying if it weren't for the sound track. Imagine, if you will, Bjork on a really bad day, chanting in a rising atonal monotone backed by some kind of odd electronica grunge that hammers into your fore brain with the precision of a screwdriver-wielding robot. Now imagine that with catchy lyrics, like:

"A young man's calling from the heights Velana, Velana, come back to me, my love, Velana, Velana, Velana, mon amour! Oh, Sean! Space Boy, Space Boy."

Now imagine that for 7 minutes.

Actually it's probably better that you don't.