Norton's
Stone Age Woo: The Zorch Sounds of Nervous Norvus is a long-overdue collection of the novelty songs and song-poem demos of
"Singing" Jimmy Drake, whose wilder moments were ascribed to
Nervous Norvus. The album features not only his best-known songs, the "Dot Six" (including the million-selling novelty classic "Transfusion"), but many, many other songs, including some that existed only as single-copy or small-pressing acetates. Most excitingly for die-hard
Nervous Norvus fans,
Stone Age Woo also includes the original demos that
Drake sent to his inspiration and eventual mentor, novelty radio DJ/performer
Red Blanchard.
Drake's admiration for
Blanchard even pops up in a few of the songs here: set to the tune of "I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus," "I Listen to Red in Bed" is an homage to
Blanchard that follows a fan who listens to
Red on a radio hidden in a teddy bear as a little boy to avoid the wrath of his parents, and switches to a shortwave radio concealed in a jug of booze as a grown man to avoid his nagging wife. "The Bully Bully Man," meanwhile, sings
Red's praises more generally, and appeared on
Drake's initial demo tapes; indeed,
Drake sent
Blanchard the tapes with the intention of becoming a songwriter for him. However,
Blanchard liked
Drake's shaky, appropriately "nervous" (which also meant cool or hip in
Blanchard's distinctive radio lingo, which he called Zorch) delivery of his own songs so much that he helped
Drake develop the
Nervous Norvus sound with the use of some well-timed sound effects, which became the trademark of virtually all of
Drake's best songs.