Welcome to Mulberry Panda 96, your one-stop shop for music-producer sleaze.

Thanks to Blogger's behind-the-scenes "Stats" feature (it hasn't always been there, has it?), I can find out which search-engine queries bring people here. My favorite so far is "'david gates' and 'producer' and 'sleaze.'"

Hey, the man from Bread ain't no sleaze. Or maybe you know something I don't about his business ethics and/or personal life, searcher. I'll allow you that Gates put a particularly innuendo-licious line in "If," but it took Telly Savalas's 1975 cover of the song to coax the sleaze out of its soft-rock shell.

If you're not sure what line I'm talking about, read this excerpt from Lester Bangs's review of The Best of Bread for Rolling Stone (May 24, 1973):

But the real payoff is side one, all those mellow yellow David Gates love ballads. "Make It With You" is the Seventies strawsippin' successor to "I Want to Hold Your Hand." It still melts my heart into a puddle of treacle. And that's because I'm treacle, not Bread; they're honchos!

... And they got plenty of sex in their songs too, don't let nobody tell you they're puds when they hit ya with lines like: "And when my [love for] life is running dry / You come and pour yourself on me." Ahhhhhhhhhhhh!

Now read these posts from last year that I recently rescued from their "draft" prisons (Lester Bangs shows up again, as does a much more juvenile sexual reference):

12/17: authors and other fools
10/10: I like your style, CyborgQX38.
9/24: My face is an open book.
8/2: Before Columbine, there was RoboCop 2.
8/1: Lisa Simpson's (imaginary) wedding day
6/11: Help us, Roger Ebert. You're our only hope.