Via Roger Ebert's twitpic page, which is also the source of the previous 2 posts.
I remember when most girls tried to get their hair to do that. It's not easy, and it takes nerve — or possibly help from Jesus — to tease your hair that big. Funny... it was considered wrong back then — in the early 60s — to tease your hair. There were all sorts of warnings, notably that your hair would fall out, but also that insects would grow in it.
I remember one particularly harrowing — hair-rowing — story about a girl who kept teasing her hair, day after day, teasing and spraying, without washing it. One day, at school, blood suddenly began streaming down her face. Then, she died! Her hair detached from her head in one big clump. Somebody picked it up and then, in horror, threw it against the wall. Thousands of roaches ran out of it!
Think about that when you're teasing your hair. This was back in the days before the coining of the term "urban legend." It would give you pause. Most of us went for a relatively subtle "bump"...
... and denied that we achieved it through teasing.
Anyway, The Faith Tones... What I don't get is... Christian music, but they don't look wholesome. Maybe I'm still scarred from the adolescent lessons about hair-teasing. It would make boys think you were a bad girl. Is this the way to present yourself to Jesus? Sincerely? I couldn't find any Faith Tones music on Amazon or iTunes. They seem to exist entirely as an internet meme, based on mocking this album cover.
Are The Faith Tones themselves an urban legend? Or — alternate theory — is this album cover the work of the devil, who is tempting you to laugh at religion?
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40 comments:
It seems the Faith Tones may have been a real group. Obscure, to be sure, and definitely teased.
http://news.google.com/newspapers?id=czweAAAAIBAJ&sjid=IL8EAAAAIBAJ&pg=6756,4435138&dq=faith-tones&hl=en/
I am unable to see the album cover.
AllenS,
Click on the Twitpic link.
ddh,
I now regret that I followed your instructions.
My sister ironed her hair. I think that is worse than teasing.
Sharon Tate was a beautiful young woman, whose Satan tags include (1) Roman Polanski (2) Charles Manson and (3) the cult movie 'Eye of the Devil'.
The Faith Tones with evil hair? Nah; likely a regional thing. Southern girls weren't like yankees in their practices back then, I'd bet.
If you want girls doing real music evil, listen to The Shaggs.
My Pal Foot Foot
I graduated from high school in 1964. A couple of months ago, I had lunch with a girl that I graduated with. Her hair was teased like it was in high school, but shorter. She had so much hair spray in it, that a 30 mph wind wouldn't have moved a thing. Her face was heavily powdered and after a cup of coffee, the powder above her mouth was gone and only the coffee stain remained. I think I'm going to cry.
Regarding the girl with the roaches:
The Blonde has a number of similar stories about women with corn rows.
There's some bad vibes this morning.
They're for real, all right. About half of the "worst LP covers" tend to be self-pressed or tiny label religious albums. Straights from the sixties are so funny...
Why would they have sixties hair teased so aggressively and no sixties make up. No fake eyelashes; no eyeliner on the upper lids.
I'm not buying it. Their faces are too generic to belong with the hair.
Eye makeup, huh? Perhaps that would have been a more overt sign of bad girls than teasing their hair (and denying it)? Not my area of expertise, perhaps the Professor could weigh in on that.
wv: nolambin
Does anyone else think that they look like men?
Me, Kirstin. My first impression.
I grew up with 4 older sisters and I'm 54 now. I think I inhaled enough hairspray (White Rain?) in the 60's to get several dozen dread diseases any day now.
If you search "Angelus Records" (listed on the album cover), you find rateyourmusic.com, where the album is listed in the musical parody and comedy genres.
The one on the far right looks like Alec Guinness, and the one on the left looks a bit like Mike Myers. But the one in the center, ooh, looks like Andy Robinson playing the Zodiac Killer.
I think it's pretty obvious that they are all wearing wigs. I think that few women or girls teased their own hair up that high -- but they were perfectly OK with wearing a wig that was.
Oh, I don't know. I graduated high school in 1968. You should see some of my classmates' senior pictures.
I graduated high school in 1993. You should see some of my classmates' senior pictures! Hell, you should see my senior picture!
The comments on the twitpic page are very funny. Ugly Christian women and the sexual violation of powerful men really inspires the funny bone of the witty types. I smell a rat. This picture is probably a fabrication meant to smear all God fearing Gospel singers.
Not that women didn't do their hair like that but I'm a bit dubious of the reality of the cover and its relation to a group known as the "Faith Tones". A quick google search continually refers back to the cover. It looks like the cover first got internet traction in 2008.
The article linked by ddh is from a North Carolina paper in 1971. These are definitely hairstyles pre-dating the '70's. Maybe their NC gig was after their "prime" but it just feels too easy, meaning:
-unattractive
-clueless
-poorly named
-and therefore consistent with "Christian" (or "conservative Christian"
And the game can be played in the opposite direction.
If you want to see Sarah Palin through a liberal's eyes, gaze upon this picture.
I wouldn't be making so much fun of the Faithtones album cover. After all, this is evidently how Jay Leno got his start (on right).
I'm calling BS on this -- not real. "Jesus Use Me". I don't think so! "Angelus Records" for a southern Protestant group? Sounds way too papist. Speak English, boy, not that Latin crap!
There are also not other google hits for Angelus records except this one. How likely is that?
Now if you want a great freaky gospel album cover you can't beat this. .
This album, like Satan, is indeed very real.
Does anyone else think that they look like men?
Yeah, my initial impression was that perhaps only the one in the center was an actual woman, while the two on both sides looked very much like guys wearing wigs.
While we're on the subject of Southern religiosity, a southern religious joke:
(Q) Why doesn't the Church of Christ believe in sex standing up?
(A) Because it might lead to dancing!
...left to right...Brendan Fraser, Jimmy Kimmel, Stephen Fry...
Althouse,
"... and denied that we achieved it through teasing."
lol. I was born in '58 and wasn't aware that teasing was considered naughty. I never quite understood how teasing worked. Do you flip a portion of hair forward, tease the hair behind it, and then flip the smooth hair back, to cover it?
My mom told the tale of the girl who wore a beehive, and when her scalp kept itching she'd stick a pencil down in it to scratch it, and it turned out she had a black widow down there!!!
Could this be three girls suggesting a foursome with a friendly Puerto Rican stud named Jesus Gonzales? Then the 1960s makes more sense.
Satan (sometimes I spell it Satin) Is Real is a bona fide album. I should know. My father owned it.
wv: pattyp. She was the fourth Faith Tone
No wonder sin seems to be winning.
On the other hand, if you were a teenage boy who wanted to be pure, this was the kind of company to keep.
And I have to ask all the guys:
In the second picture just below "Most of us went for a relatively subtle 'bump'...
How many of you were looking at the hairdo and how many were looking elsewhere?
Those bumps weren't subtle! Although, I can see how they were teasing.
Cannot confirm validity of the Faith Tones lp, but I can point to songs from The Braillettes - Our Hearts Keep Singing
"Christian music, but they don't look wholesome."
I think it's because they're actually men.
Anyone who has a scintilla of doubt that this is a joke/parody needs an IQ transplant, fast. "They look like men". DUUUHHHH!!!!
Thanks for your article. However, The Faith Tones were a real group. I did a lot of research on them and posted it here. http://jbw53191.blogspot.com/2012/09/the-faith-tones.html
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