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The only thing remarkable I found about this 1978 album cover is that Jim Hearn was probably one of the first guys in his native Northern California to wear Nike sneakers.
Back in the day, you can see that you can still dial a telephone, and for most televisions, changing the channel meant that you needed to go up to the television and flick through the stations manually. I have seen this album sell on eBay in foreign countries for around AUS$42 with shipping (that’s approx. CDN$38). |
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This 1980 offering by Jack Miller is not remembered by too many people, and some real digging had to be done even to find out the year of publication. I also know that he had been working as late as 2004 on various efforts. Don’t know what they are.
Rockers are rising, and guess what? They’re smokers! So, it’s OK, they’ll fall down pretty soon too. |
Tag: album covers
Crappy Album Covers #282 – Mugs don’t work if that’s all you have
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You are now witness to the reason why that just because a photo looks OK on a mantlepiece, it is not necessarily useful on an album cover. Especially if it is also void of a title. But I am keen to guess. If I am not mistaken, this is Germany-born Jazz pianist John Berger. And since the name of the album is not on the photo, I will hazard a guess that it is the first album he recorded in 1966 when emigrating to New York on the ESP label. It is apparently not among his exemplary work. Berger had a Ph. D in musicology, and had taught music alongside colleagues Jack DeJohnette, Sam Rivers, and Anthony Braxton. Lately, he has lent his talents to studio work with The Cardigans, Natalie Marchant, and Jeff Buckley. |
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Don Ho sidekick Iva Kinimaka sings with his self-titled (and apparently self-drawn) 1972 album full of Hawaiian standards and a couple of stand-outs, such as “Country Feeling” and “Mockingbird Hill” (a 1951 song popularized by Patti Page). He is a frequent guest on the local Hawaiian talk show Nighttime with Andy Bumatai. A video appears below. |
Here is Iva Kinimaka, featured on the Hawaiian talk show Nighttime with Andy Bumatai (March 3, 2008):
Crappy Album Covers #281 – Sergant Pepper Ripoffs
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Top of the list is this copycat album “Their Satanic Majesty’s Request”, released in 1967, the same year as Sgt. Pepper.The “everything but the kitchen sink” album design concept only works once, folks, then it wears off. I don’t mean once in a musician’s career, I mean once in the history of music. The music inside Satanic required The Rolling Stones to deviate from their R&B roots just this once, then to never travel down this path again in subsequent albums.
The Stones know what their artistic strengths are, and they do it better than anybody, and haven’t lost a dollar doing it, either. It is best that they stick to what they know. |
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Peter Knight (1917-1985) was an English composer and conductor. His performances appeared on ITV’s “Spot The Tune”, and his was the orchestra that performed on The Carpenter’s “Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft.” He and his orchestra also lent their talents to backing up The Moody Blues on some of their albums. |
Crappy Album Covers #280 – A Sampling of Redd Foxx Covers
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Redd Foxx’s real name is John Elroy Sanford (1922-1991), closer to his stage name he used in the 70s sitcom Sanford & Son, co-starring Demond Wilson. He was teenage friends with Malcolm Little (you may know Malcolm Little as Malcolm X) while growing up in St. Louis, Missouri and after dropping out of high school in the early 1940s.
Malcolm X referred to Redd in his autobiography as “Chicago Red, the funniest dishwasher on Earth.” “Red” was in reference to his reddish hair and complexion, and the rest in reference to the fact that he held a number of odd jobs, including a plumber, while auditioning for a career in acting. He found his way into stand-up comedy, and was likely to be the first black comic to play the Las Vegas Sunset Strip, and many of these stand-up acts made their way into albums such as these shown in this post. |
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By the standards of the 1950s to 1970s, his brand of humor was considered racy, but nothing on the scale of comedians in the decades since.
The “Foxx” part of his stage name came from baseball player Jimmie Foxx. Redd Foxx has released 54 albums of his comedy, according to Wikipedia. |
Crappy Album Covers #272 — Lone Ranger References
Here is Metal RAPsody by Lone Rager:
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Ta da!!! Here is Russell Oliver, the Lone Arranger:
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And here is an Air Farce satire on Russell Oliver:
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Crappy Album Covers #266 — My Hero!
King Obstinate:
Crappy Album Covers #265 — Marketeers of Unknown Elpees
Crappy Album Covers #264 — Album covers depicting filthy sex
Crappy Album Covers #263 — Answered and Un-answered questions
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Timmie Rogers (? – 2007) had more class than Thaddaeus Monk. He wore a suit in his comedy performances, and also composed music for the likes of Nat King Cole and Sarah Vaughan. He had written for television’s Sanford and Son.The dream that was a comedy routine for black comedians in the 60s and 70s is now a reality. I would imagine that the irony would be lost on today’s generation. |
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Now for an un-answered question: “Should lesbians be allowed to play pro football?”, a 1973 LP comedy by New Yorker Joseph Roszawikz (1914-1982). He was a talented comedian whose career extended to Vaudeville, whose resume includes movies include Love Bug, Hong Kong Phooey, and the series Love American Style. WFMU’s Ralph Nesteroff seems to know more about the darker side of Ross than the general population. Discussed there are his 10-plus marriages, his abrasive demeanour, and his misogynistic treatment of the opposite sex. To hear his brand of comedy, he appears to come about his jokes honestly. He also has the ability to laugh at himself. While the title is stated at the start of the routine, he never expands on it to my knowledge. |
Crappy Album Covers #262 — My Babe Magnet
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How to pick up chicks: Lesson 1: Tell her about your “wheels”, your “dream machine”, your “love bug”. The ladies often are attracted to a guy with a nice car, since it is a symbol of financial stability and a well-maintained car is a sign that you are conscientious, mature, and tend to take care of your belongings.This is the cover of the 1977 single, “A Real Mother For Ya” by Johnny “Guitar” Watson (1935-1996). It’s a great funk album. E-Music calls it hip-hop (must have been a youngster that called it that). The title track can be heard below. Excellent tune. Click on the album cover to get the album from emusic.com. He won a grammy in 1996, just before his death, and has left behind a musical style that had influenced the likes of Jimi Hendrix and Stevie Ray Vaughan. He died while performing a concert in Japan in May 1996, collapsing in the middle of a guitar solo. “A Real Mother For Ya”:
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Surfer dudes The Lively Ones even have their own website. Jim Masoner, Tim Fitzpatrick, and Joel Willenbring still play the odd gig together in the SoCal area. The Lively Ones have been a 5-piece band since 1963, with two of the band members changing over the years. The link above tells all. |

Crappy Album Covers #261 — Metal Annoyances
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It’s one thing to steal a model of a skull from your high school biology lab, but it is quite another to go to auto shop at the other end of your high school, take a photo of a grinder, and then place the two images together in MS Paint. It has been discovered that the image is a fake album cover, and the mea culpas have come out.
Did you get it? Skull grind? Maybe Eric was being too subtle. Blogger Eric Meyer actually did this one in MS Paint while a student at the Universtiy of Minnesota when he should have been studying. Welcome to the CAC Blogosphere, Eric, where the other time wasters have been lurking! |
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No pertinent information exists on Wolf, or the artist (some guy named Arnold), except from blogs such as this one, who have already pointed out that the so-called “wolf” looks like a pointy-eared baboon with a trench coat, with vultures’ heads for fingers.
I cannot even speculate on the genre, year or country of origin. |
Crappy Album Covers #260 — The End of the World
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Get ready for the Armageddon Experience! Are you experienced?Notice how tastefully they depict an impression of the end of the world. Notice the lettering, the flaming something-or-other that could just as well be oil soaked up on The Redneck Riviera, set in flame. |
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The United Nations Press?! You couldn’t possibly be talking about this press?If you have an “endgame” scenario worth discussing, is it really necessary to disguise your message in the cloak of another publication? |
Crappy Album Covers #259 — Recordings of Enigmatic Individuals
The 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago was held in what has been described as a Potemkin-style setting, in a building with bulletproofed walls, and chain-linked fences topped by concertina wire surrounding the perimeter. Demonstrators, ranging from moderate to radical, who had a myriad of special causes, but with Tet and Martin Luther King fresh in their minds, had what was intended as a peaceful demonstration, but which ended up as being violent. It has been widely accepted that the Chicago Police and the Illinois National guard were the instigators, and even journalists were getting beaten up. Among the roughed-up journalists were Dan Rather, and Mike Wallace.
Among the arrested, tried and jailed were members of what became known as The Chicago Eight, a loosely-connected bunch whose most prominent members included Bobby Seale, Abbie Hoffman, and Jerry Rubin. The latter two were founders of the “Yippie” (YIP=Youth International Party) movement. Bobby Seale was not charged, although he was sentenced to 5 years for contempt of court, due to an outburst he had toward the presiding judge Julius Hoffman. The outburst was due to Seale being denied the attorney he wanted, and being denied the opportunity to represent himself. Seale was ordered bound, gagged, and chained to a chair for the remainder of the proceedings. Hence, the record cover. Because of the contempt of court charge, his trial was never heard, and the Chicago Eight became the Chicago Seven. The four-year sentence for contempt of court was one of the longest in the history of American jurisprudence for that charge.
Crappy Album Covers #258 — Georgy Porgy Puddn’ ‘n’ Pie
Here are The In-Men, with their only top-40 hit.
Crappy Album Covers #257 — The Gay Life
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Playwright and church minister Al Carmine’s (1936-2005) 1973 “Off-off-Broadway” play “Faggot”, was a play which managed to encompass all facets of gay life. The play was likely a celebration of the declassification of homosexuallity as a mental illness, being the first-ever gay musical, and likely the first-ever gay musical, period. Homosexuality was declassified as a mental illness by fiat, by the APA in 1973, the same where can i buy viagra online? year as the play.
Historical gay characters featured in the play were Oscar Wilde, Gertrude Stein, Alice B. Toklas, and Catherine the Great. |
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George Kennedy’s 1967 spoken-word album “Homosexuality in The American Male” struggles with the “mental illness” paradigm of what we seem to accept today merely as a lifestyle choice.
A track can be heard here, courtesy of April Winchell: [media id=13 width=320 height=25] |
Crappy Album Covers #256 — Why some marketing efforts fail
Crappy Album Covers #255 — Fascism’s Greatest Hits
Crappy Album Covers #254 — More Chix as Marketeers
Crappy Album Covers #253 — Exploit me! Exploit me!
Crappy Album Covers #252 — The Overthrow of the Proletariat
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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”. |