Q: Can anyone tell me the name of the 60s or 70s post-rock group that recorded "Japanese Sandman?" This track of their recording contained the spoken message, "Sherman, set the Wayback Machine for l957 and..."

A: 'Im afraid I've found several music groups that have a song of that title. The main one being a Swing Jazz guy named Freddy Gardner and an individual named Djargo Rhinehardt. However these musicians are all in Jazz of some kind.

Although I wonder if you mean the group The Masked Marauders who did a song called I am the Japanese Sandman.

"Sherman set the Wayback Machine" is of course a reference to Mr. Peabody and his pet human Sherman from The Rocky and Bullwinkle show. (You never know, some people may miss the reference)

In 1969 an album titled The Masked Marauders was released. Supposedly it was a collection of artists that could not record together openly due to conflicting record contracts. No artist info is given. The 4th song on side one is "I am the Japanese Sandman (Rang Tang Ding Dong)". On Green Rosetta / Joe's Garage Frank says, "and for those of you in the 4th world, Rang Tang Ding Dong, I AM the Japanese Sandman, Take 8". It sure sounds like Frank. Jagger(?) sings Can't Get No Nookie, Dylan (?) sings Cowpie, & others. The album sounds & feels like a FZ production. But, I have been unable to confirm this. Any help would be appreciated.
From: jhenley@mail.utexas.edu (John Henley)
"The Masked Marauders" was a legendary rock'n'roll fraud. It began as a fake album review in Rolling Stone in 1969 - I can't remember if it was the April 1 issue or not - which began by describing the rumors of a studio "supergroup" composed of the most famous rocksters in the world, much as you begin above; the writer then went on to say something like "The truth can now be known, for this is nothing less than a jam between John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Bob Dylan, and Eric Clapton." Or maybe it was Elvis instead of Eric.
At that point, no such album existed, but an enterprising record producer threw something together, having found some singers who sounded like these guys, and put it out. If FZ had anything whatsoever to do with it, I'd be surprised. No, shocked.

Claim: Bob Dylan, Mick Jagger, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, and George Harrison once recorded a supergroup album as 'The Masked Marauders.'
Status: False.

Origins: here

get it from rhino hand made.


- bill 11-23-2005 11:28 pm [add a comment]