Visits: 87
Category: Popular Culture
Crappy Album Covers #255 — Fascism’s Greatest Hits
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Crappy Album Covers #254 — More Chix as Marketeers
Visits: 103
Crappy Album Covers #253 — Exploit me! Exploit me!
Visits: 113
Things to blame for my miserable life
Today, I have made a discovery. If you want to bring Windows 7 Home Edition to its knees, all you need to do on your laptop is plug in a 2 GB SD card into the SD slot. Every time I have done this, I have either gotten the well-known “green bar of death”, or the shutdown process would take forever. In many cases, the Windows Explorer window would freeze, or Cygwin (for W7) would not take system commands such as “cd” or “ls” on any directory. Then I could not exit Cygwin. In this case, I was merely running the shell.
Another time, I opened Windows Explorer to view the contents of the SD drive, and this time, I got a green bar once more. But it was cancellable. It said it was “computing items”. While I could close the window, the computer would not shut down.
Tell me, why does any operating system need to do anything more than just show me my files when I ask it to?
Visits: 103
Crappy Album Covers #252 — The Overthrow of the Proletariat
The Key record label, during the Red Scare, released a series of anti-Communist screeds such as this spoken-word LP. The Office Naps blog tells of other Key releases.
In really good condition, I have seen this LP listed for $78.00 |
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And as for pro-Communist screeds, this one is in the form of song. This is an American release, but I know little else about it.
Trade unions closed the gap between rich and poor to a great extent. Today, this would be called “extreme left”. In its day, it was just “the left”. |
Visits: 96
Crappy Album Covers #251 — More Phallic Symbols
This is the 1981 LP from the L.A. Boppers called “Bop Time!”. Great concept except for the use of the second hand. Speaking of time, the LP consists of 8 tracks, and is just over a half hour.
This LP now sells in Europe for the equivalent of $39.00 in “VG++” condition. It appears to be a listed on this site as a promotional LP. |
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If I am correct, this is a 3-record set various artists compilation released in 1970. Hard to tell, since the cover art is missing in the site I was searching at.
But a web site that has this cover suggests that this is only a 1-record compilation, featuring artists such as T. Rex, Ike&Tina Turner, and other signatories to the Blue Thumb Record label during the late-60s/early 70s period. |
Visits: 99
Crappy Album Covers #250 — Triple Love
Today, we have a triple bill, kiddies! That is, instead of the usual two albums, this post will show three albums.
Designers for the album “Rome With Love” put in all the things that would be cliche these days (and was likely cliche then also): a Vespa Lambretta scooter, and cargo in the form of shopping things and an attractive lady wearing capri pants. |
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Same scooter, different guy and girl. “Berlin With Love” gives the impression to people who have never been there that Berlin is nothing more than Rome in disguise. Except that there are one or two visual cues that give a sense of Deutschland. The lady holding a beer stein, for one; an open advocacy of drinking and driving.
Hey, to heck with German engineering! Everyone knows that Italian Vespas are better! Capri pants too! |
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Hey… do you notice that each time Jo Basile makes another album “with Love”, there is a different guy and girl, and the Vespa seems more crowded than before? This time, there is more of a sense of formula. The Vespa, the national garb, the shopping things which are more noticeably culture-specific, but no capri pants this time.
There are others, many others… Here is another cover “From Rio with Love”, for example. Joss Baselli (1926-1982) was born to Italian parents who emigrated to France. He is a virtuoso accordionist who plays under the pseudonym Jo Basile. This formulaic approach lasted for 24 of his 40 or so albums. He has worked in TV and movies, and has recorded with the likes of Dick Hyman, Bobby Rosengarden, and Phil Kraus. |
Visits: 127
Crappy Album Covers #249 — Head-Scratchingly Crappy
Out of Abbfinoosty comes this crappy album cover from 1996, called “Comes the Storm.” It’s supposed to look spooky, but it just looks like someone got a little too happy with Photoshop. This album was not listed on the official website, so I had to go to Amazon to find info on it.
I don’t list metal albums on this blog for many reasons. One big one is that you expect them to be over the top and that is what metalheads are looking for.
This looked like a metal album, and whenever I make an exception and discuss it, it is usually for good reason. See the guy on the right?
That’s Billy Joel.
A young Billy Joel, posing with drummer Jon Small, for their 1970 album, Atilla. It was reviewed on Allmusic.com as like making a musical impression of “having a hole drilled through your head.”
Great. I’ll put it on my list of things not to buy.
Visits: 86
Crappy Album Covers #248 — De Agony of de Feet
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Crappy Album Covers #247 — Arguing over the death of God
J. C. Crabtree questions Nietsche’s assertion that God is dead. It is likely that Crabtree didn’t read Frederich Nietsche when he made this record, but who knows?
There is no information I could find on this person, although a search turned up this J. C. Crabtree, but makes no mention of a ministry or of making records. |
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Here is Gertrude Behanna for the second time, here to just show up J. C. Crabtree with her assertion that God is in fact not dead. Heck, with her it’s not even a question.
This album was already discussed here. |
To finally settle Nietsche’s question, well, I was talking to God the other day, and He told me Nietsche was dead. That final assertion is much more provable.
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Crappy Album Covers #246 — CAC Enigmas
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Crappy Album Covers #245 — Man’s Inhumanity to Man
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Crappy Album Covers #244 — Progressive Crock
Allmusic.com lists at least 100 albums under the name King Crimson. There are their main releases, countless live albums, and a raft of LPs under the label “King Crimson Collector’s Club” released as recently as 2004. And don’t forget the fact that Robert Fripp re-mastered the entire KC catalogue in the late 90s. And then there are all of those compilation LPs, released as recently as 2009.
This 1969 album, “In the Court of the Crimson King” is the LP that started it all. A prog rock heavyweight at a time that Led Zeppelin were just starting out, it expanded on the then-new idea of “The Concept Album”, started by The Beatles’ Sergeant Pepper in 1967. “Crimson”, like “Sgt Pepper”, had no singles, but the LP peaked in 1970 at #28. A view of someone having fun with this cover is found here. Musicstack.com lists this vinyl LP as a collector’s item, commanding prices as high as $172.00. |
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This is Yes’s 1978 offering, Tomato. This album has most of the original Yes members, sans Bill Bruford. There were musical disagreements as to the direction of the music, divided into classical and pop-oriented camps, which hampered the quality of the album. So, not a single song on this LP is over 8 minutes long. By Yes standards, the songs are so short, you might as well be listening to K-Tel.
Then there was the album cover. Hoooly moly…. Rumor has it that the artist had this black-and-white photo of some dude with drumsticks which he thought would go nicely if a bright red tomato were thrown at it. Ohhhh… the contrast in colours! The juxtapositions! Whatever… A copy of this LP in “excellent” condition currently sells on musicstack.com for as much as $54.95 (US). |
Visits: 112
Mucho Problemos with NimbleX
Bogdan Radulescu of Oralndo, Florida is the creator of Nimble X. I thought this version of Linux was a neat idea, but in my eagerness to try new things, I didn’t read the fine print: that the do-it-yourself boot CD I wanted to make and burn to CD was from a 2007 version (kernel 2.6.16). My laptop was made in 2009, and thus every boot option I chose on the boot CD led to a kernel panic.
Then I tried it on a slightly older dual-core PC where Linux is already working. Rebooting into the CD resulted in a proper start, and I had a full X display with KDE and its attendant programs. I wanted to finish the blog in that environment, however, Nimble 2007 lacked a ‘net connection, and an app to add an ethernet connection was hard to find. However, there was plenty of ways I could have added a ppp connection or a wireless one, and I lack a dialup and wireless.
Pretty good environment to do some local work, so long as lacking internet was not an issue. This time, it was an issue.
Visits: 34
Crappy Album Covers #243 — Seventies’ Blockbusters
Gunning for the first weinie roast in zero gravity, Crosby, Stills and Nash’s 1990 LP “Livin’ It Up” took four years to record, and flopped in the record stores. Disappointing, since this was their first LP recorded as a group since 1977’s “CSN”.
Notable appearances on the album which peaked on Billboard at #57 were: Peter Frampton, Bruce Hornsby, Micheal Landau, Branford Marasalis, and JD Souther. |
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The seventies happened (note tense). This cover of this 1983 album is so seventies (prog style), it almost hurts.
This is Marillion’s first album, and many would also say their finest, which bore comparisons with early Genesis. Allmusic says this LP only peaked as high as 175 on Billboard. However, it yielded a top-40 hit, entitled “He knows, you know”, which peaked the same year at #21. Does anybody know “He knows, you know”? I don’t know “He knows, you know”. And you probably know I don’t know “He knows, you know”. And I know you don’t know I don’t know “He knows, you know”. And I figure you know I know you don’t know I don’t know “He knows, you know”. Y’know? |
Visits: 88
Crappy Album Covers #242 — Down and Funky
Why have album covers of the disembodied heads of women? According to Swamp Dogg (Jerry Williams Jr), all that really matters is their lips. And tongues as well. After that, ol’ Swampie just gets happy with the cut-and-paste tool on Photoshop, and pretty soon, he has himself the album cover he had been salivating over. | |
Roger is a complex guy. Sometimes happy, sometimes sad. Sometimes troubled, sometimes glad. Roger Troutman, with freres Lester, Zapp and Larry and a couple of other musicians give their R&B best to many of the 70s classics in this 1981 LP. Roger is known for being a virtuoso with a vocorder, and it is said that this LP has a lot of other electronic instruments and effects that won mild accolades from reviewers.
This album has been re-released on CD (Rhino) as recently as 2002, with bonus tracks. |
Visits: 118
Crappy Album Covers #241 — Party People
Pink Martini is a class act, in every sense of the word. While they do jazz and “international” music, their musicians are classically trained, and there are enough band members using traditional orchestral instruments to call them an “orchestra”.
I had to include band Pink Martini’s 2007 album “Hey Eugene” into the CAC blog, since it looks tacky. But of course, it is consistent with the hit song which makes the title of the album. Lead singer China Forbes is depicted here sitting on the edge of the tub of the bathroom where presumably Eugene’s skinhead friend passed out for several hours, according to the narrative of the song. In the following year, China released a solo album called ’78, which has a more relaxed, folksy version of Eugene. |
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Moscow Nights is, according to Wikipedia, one of the best known Russian songs outside of Russia. This record is something like the old K-Tel/TeeVee International compilations, containing 20 hit songs.
This record possibly comes from the 1970s, and had at one time been released on the American Smithsonian-Folkways label. There was a re-release in CD format in 1993, and mp3s are for sale on eMusic. |
Here is Pink Martini’s 2007 atypical cult hit “Hey Eugene”, as aired on PBS, with lead vocalist China Forbes and bandleader and composer/arranger Thomas Lauderdale being interviewed at the start of the song:
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Visits: 348
Crappy Album Covers #240 — Overdone
The Funk/R&B/Disco group Parliament has built thier image on over-the-top costumes and stage settings. Parliament’s 1976 LP “The Clones of Dr Funkenstein” is no exception.
George Clinton seems to be saying “Hey! Who put boobs on this clone?!?” |
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Manowar, if you have read my last entry on them, were noted for their independent business practices, a more than overt homosexual slant in their depictions of themselves, and really loud concerts (139 dB, it is rumored … the pain threshhold is 120 dB). Their concerts are slightly quieter than planes taking off from an aircraft carrier, but louder than a jet engine. Just remember, that to put this in perspective, a jackhammer is a mere 120 dB. That’s 1/80th the sound energy of a Manowar concert. |
Visits: 88
Ottawa Students Rally for Ann Coulter
Ann Coulter, worried about her career prospects as a right-wing pundit since Obama’s victory, got new optimism in the short term since the student rally in Ottawa this past Tuesday.
Coulter thanked the students of the University of Ottawa today, saying “those 200 darling students who rallied in front of Marion Hall for me at the University of Ottawa provided me with the kind of publicity that could not have been bought at any price.” In turn, relying on a right-wing press to inflate the number to 2000 and to provide close-up images of her loving supporters to hide the actual size of the crowd, she could say that she had a sizeable following in Ottawa, and that her well-wishers were egging her on. “Thank you, Ottawa!”
This ensured a packed auditorium when speaking later at the University of Calgary, where hundreds of students who didn’t know who she was the day before suddenly clamoured to be part of the listening audience.
Here is a revealing look at the situation.
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