Since 2004 Plastic Crimewave (aka Steve Krakow) has used the Secret History of Chicago Music to shine a light on worthy artists with Chicago ties who’ve been forgotten, underrated, or never noticed in the first place.

As a 16-year-old ninth grader in Brookfield, Haydock started his band the Boppers, modelled after Vincent’s backup group, the Blue Caps. Eventually known as Ron Haydock & the Boppers, they became one of Chicago’s first proper rock ‘n’ roll groups, back when the sound was still rooted in rockabilly (Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, et cetera). The Boppers cut two 45s for Cha Cha Records, a tiny label based in South Holland, Illinois: the 1959 song “99 Chicks,” though largely ignored at the time, is now hailed as a classic, loaded with propulsive Little Richard-style piano pounding, a guitar solo that uses literally three notes, and urgent, hiccupy vocals that sometimes recall a hopped-up Buddy Holly. The B side, “Be-Bop-A Jean,” is a tribute to Vincent’s hit, and like “99” it has a ramshackle exuberance and a primitive, trebly ax solo.

Haydock made his film debut playing state trooper Officer Tracy in the unsettling 1964 proto-slasher film The Thrill Killers. His most beloved role is that of rock star Lonnie Lord, aka Rat Pfink, in Steckler’s 1966 oddity Rat Pfink a Boo Boo, which switches gears halfway through from crime drama to superhero parody. Haydock also cowrote the script and contributed songs to the score, including the ridiculously catchy and absurd “You Is a Rat Fink” and the juiced-up Boppers outtakes “Running Wild” and “I Stand Alone.” (To help promote the movie, Cha Cha subsidiary Cap released “Rat Fink” and “I Stand Alone” as a 45 under the name “Lonnie Lord.”)

Though he achieved no widespread fame in life, today Haydock is celebrated by underground weirdos and outsider historians from all over. His work with the Boppers was compiled for a Swedish LP two years after his death, and in 1996 Norton Records released a more thorough retrospective titled 99 Chicks (reissued on LP in 2005). Norton label head Miriam Linna has championed Haydock as a fringe-culture hero in articles, liner notes, and books—so here’s hoping he’ll one day get mentioned in the same breath as Ed Wood Jr., Hasil Adkins, and Michael J. Weldon.  v