Humour » Strider's Journal

Crappy Album Covers #90 — On the Domestic Front

I thought I was looking for a human when I Google’d “Maria Leonora”.

Get ready for this: Maria Leonora Theresa (I’ll just say MLT) was a 3-foot high ceramic doll with her own recording contract, television program and feature film in the Phillippines in the early 1970s. She had her own makeup, wardrobe, and jewellery.

MLT fans reportedly wrote fan letters to her, which were answered back. This may have contributed to the urban legend that she was actually a living person.

“Forsaken Doll” was likely recorded near the end of MLT’s career, when her “mommy” and “daddy” divorced (Guy and Pip [played by Nora Aunor and Tirso Cruz]). The fans turned away, then the entertainment exects wanted nothing to do with MLT. She was washed up before her fifth birthday.

She was last seen on a derilict street corner on crack, and trying to hustle herself to Ken in front of Barbie.

The British musical group The Jack Emblow Sextet played often on the BBC in the 50s and 60s. Jack Emblow himself played the accordion.

This sheds light as to why “playtime” for a housewife meant “tea time”.

Visits: 93

Crappy Album Covers #89 — Crappy Beatles

album_cover_crap_127_-_beatlesnonexistent I wish I could say this was a joke. But the 1966 American release of “Yesterday and Today”, which I don’t remember, probably because I only remember the santiized version of this record cover, really did exist. 750,000 of these were released, but most of them had the alternative cover pasted on after the controversy ensued.

So this is how The Meat Puppets got their inspiration. It goes without saying that collectors are reportedly paying at least $40,000 for this album cover, and still more if it is one of the stereo releases.

The Beatles themselves reportedly had mixed reactions. Lennon and McCartney were OK about it, while Harrisson reportely was more retrospect. Personally, I would have left the blood and gore for Ozzy Osbourne and Alice Cooper. I can’t see McCartney biting off the heads of chickens on stage. Not even Lennon.

yesterdayandtodayalbumcover Even after using this sanitized album cover, this album remains as the only money loser for The Beatles that Capitol ever released, despite the hit songs that were on it: “Yesterday”, “We Can Work It Out”, “Nowhere Man” and “Day Tripper”; and despite the fact that it hit #1 on Billboard, and became certified Gold.

This is way off the other end. Clinically sanitized. The Beatles are neither extreme, and that is their whole appeal, in my view. They established their reputation by taking artistic risks while being in full control of their craft.

Visits: 61

Crappy Album Covers #87 — Belly Dancing II

I’ve noticed that in the past copule of posts, album covers of middle eastern music/belly dancing of the ’50s and ’60s appear to prefer redheads. Here, even the blonde has to settle for being upstaged by this redhead. If the bald fella hits the gong, the performance is over and the dancer gets escorted off the stage.

“Orienta: The Marco Polo Adventures” could have been made in the late 50s and early 60s when most blockbuster movies consisted of stories of history and exploration. But no exact information exists.

album_cover_crap_108_-_mambobelmontemidnight

Mambo at Midnight, by Belmonte and his Afro-American Music. At least it’s not that other Midnight Mambo: the horizontal one.

Click here to hear a sampling of what Belmonte sounds like.

Visits: 122

Crappy Album Covers #83 — Belly Dancing I

Port Said (Bur Sa’id), an Egyptian city lying on the Mediterranean Sea, was originally built in the mid-1800s, so the story goes, to house people hired to costruct the Suez Canal. The Canal runs through Port Said and ends at the Red Sea.

I would imagine that belly dancing became popular in Western culture precisely by Europeans and Americans coming to Egypt to work on the canal.

I wonder what the deal is with the concentric circles emanating from the dancer’s left nipple. It could be a GPS transmitter. Ships entering Port Said can use her as a navigation aid.

“Belly Dance Music From Port Said” is one of at least 3 albums from Saffet’s Oriental Orchestra.

Exactly how does one convey the music of belly dancing on an album cover? If you have a beautiful wife, you can photograph her in Egyptian garb and have her do various poses and contortions. Take a bunch of polaroids, and paste it as a mini-montage on a hot pink canvas, then title it using a Arabic-style calligraphy.

Many Westerners who don’t understand Islamic culture (or who understand it only enough to know the tightly-held taboos, especially on women’s mode of dress) have trouble reconciling themselves to this apparent contradiction in their acceptance of belly dancing. But I guess it wouldn’t be a true culture if it didn’t have contradictions.

Ray Mirijanian has had at least 6 albums produced in the mid to late 1960s on Middle Eastern music.

Visits: 211

Crappy Album Covers #56 — Self-Help for the Helpless II: A Gallery

In today’s blog, I am experimenting with another method of presenting these album covers. I am finding that doing it this way prevents me from looking at the covers directly as I am discussing them. But to see an enlarged image, just click on the ones you want to see.

But from memory, I recall I have three albums on how to stop smoking, one album on avoiding probate, and one on touch typing.

The three non-smoking records appear to promise a painless way to kick the habit, proving that no one has ever lost a dollar by promising the listener that the cessation of bad habits involves some hypnotic hocus-pocus or some other easy way out.

A record about touch typing? I’m not sure how that is supposed to work, unless it comes with a booklet.

“Probate” is a service a court provides to prove the validity of a deceased person’s will, allowing all involved parties to settle the affairs of the estate of the deceased, according to Wikipedia. This can be expensive, and the real beneficiaries to the estate could be the lawyers. Wikipedia says that establishing a living trust is a way of avoiding probate, so that is probably what is being discussed.

All album covers come from thriftstoreart.com. Another side effect of having this kind of a gallery is that I can’t link the photos to the website. So just click on the aforementioned link, and you’ll get to these albums, and many others.

Visits: 273

Crappy Album Covers #55 — I don't need no STIIINKING album cover artist! — I'll just do it myself!

Good evening, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to the amateur hour, as our guest Manfred, presumably Manfred Voss sings you the love songs of song meister, Arthur E. Werlang.

We have to be fair here. These albums are definitely as low-budget as you can get, and it wouldn’t surprise me if the photo of “Manfred” was scotch-taped on the cover, and the lettering was hand drawn directly on to the cover.

As is true of all of the albums in today’s entry, this album is very likely from back in the days when cutting and pasting was an act that involved xacto blades and glue, rather than a computer and Photoshop.

I just worry that our hero Manfred is singing these love songs “with a new accent”. His old accent was too obvious, so he had to make up a new one? Is that how that works?

“Gongs: An Audio-Mystical Trip to the Orient”, by Nesta Kerin Crain claims to be “an excellent aid for meditation”. I know of few meditation aids involving gongs that I would call excellent.

This is another scissors and glue effort with more pen work than “Love Songs”.

What’s the swastika doing there in the lower right-hand corner? Creepy.

I now wonder what this album will instill in you as you are meditating while the album is playing.

I also have a certain paranoia about playing records and meditating, outside of all talk about swastikas and other nonsense: what if the record skips?

This is by a fellow named Gary Baker, who in 1982, penned an album entitled “Why?” This time, there is no cutting and pasting, just pen and pencil.

Too much is made of this existential question. Much ink has been spilled trying to pursue the meaning of the question, and then trying to formulate an answer.

One essay writer in a university-level Philosophy exam answered it best: “Why not?”

The album is supposedly Christian, but the question and the artwork seems to convey a mood of Elton John’s “If There’s a God In Heaven (then what’s he waiting for?)”, a 1976 song from his Blue Moves album. So, maybe that’s healthy.

Whenever a title is misspelled, such as “psychodelic”, (should be “psychedelic”) you get the impression that the mistake is intentional, and that Jr. and His Soulettes are merely taking artistic license.

All fine and dandy, and if that is the case then that really changes the meaning of the word. Perhaps the album is more “psycho” and less “delic”. Hard to say.

Visits: 146

Santa Claus Bailout Hearings | National Lampoon

C-SPAN coverage of Santa Claus asking Congress for a financial bailout of the North Pole – Present Giving Industry. If they dont approve his aid package request, it will be the end of Christmas as we know it … watch now

Visits: 92

Crappy Album Covers #53 — With all those Santas, Kids will start asking Questions: A gallery

	I guess I might have figured sooner or later that Santa would get sick of the North Pole and would want to go to Hawaii, get on a surfboard, and take in a few rays. Looks like Santa took a few rays too many. Also, his red suit is now going to be a little too warm. If this is his new way of travelling the globe, I think that there will be a few problems. First of all, if you live in places like Saskatchewan, Montana, Utah, or South Dakota, Santa definitely won’t come to your house, because all of those places are land-locked. Same goes for entire nations like the Czech and Slovak Republics.
	Perhaps there are humorous possibilities in Santa being played by a drunk negro. There is no indication on the album as to who the comedian is, being billed on the cover as the “Clown Prince of Comedy”. The cover, as you might notice, is rated “XXX” and “FFF” (Fabulous, Funky and Funny). lpcoverlover.com has this album listed under the category “Black Comedy”. This must be a new definition, since I always thought that this was black comedy (the audio below is by Charles Bukowski (1920-1994)): This is not the most extreme example, but it could qualify as part of a suite of tragedy skits dressed up as comedy. The folks at lpcoverlover seems to think that “Black Comedy” is comedy performed by black people. They might have to find another name for it.
	Santa is thinking to himself, “If I find out where this thing folds up, I could get it into the chimney!” A reader contributed that the shepherd’s staff is a throwback to the days of Saint Nicholas, who was a bishop somewhere within the third and fourth centuries. He used his inheritance to help the poor. But few know Saint Nick as a bishop. People mostly know Saint Nick the way Coca-Cola depicted him in the 1930s, which is the way he is seen here. The photographers put a staff (called a crosier) in his hand to make the imagery more religious. Either you’re going to emphasize the materialism of Christmas or its spirituality. There is nothing wrong with doing either one. But when you mix the two, you just confuse people.
	Another black Santa. Well, I guess no one can accuse me of having a color imbalance in this posting, since this entry now has two white Santas and two black ones. If we are to take this posting as a gauge of how blacks prefer to depict themselves, it seems as though they are seen as either drunk or womanizing. Great way to bash those racist stereotypes!

Visits: 143

Crappy Album Covers #52 — Sorry Individuals

“Cook’s Tour of High Fidelity” is really a “sound check” record, or maybe even a sound effects record for sorry individuals.

The guy in the picture is clearly more interested in that reel-to-reel tape deck he has there than the chick in the polka dot bikini. This can only create tension here, since all the lady now has for company is the puppet in her hand.

Perhaps instead of sound effects, it is a recording of pretty women cracking up as they are being ignored by their male partners who instead fall in love with their stereo systems.

Guys and their gadgets… I’ll tell you…

While we are on the topic of sick relationship guys have with their stereo systems, I don’t know what comedian Dave Ketchum thinks he is doing, but obviously, his lady has long left him, and he is getting lonely.

What is even more pathetic, however, is that the turntable is pretty dinky looking. I just hope he cleaned the tonearm. I mean, you don’t know where that tonearm has been.

Ketchum has been a character actor throughout the 60s and 70s in shows such as The Odd Couple and Happy Days. There has been no open admission of whether this is the same Dave Ketchum as the one associated with this album, but the photo sports a strange likeness … hmm.

Talk about Mission Accomplished! Now that a black dick is in the white house, attached as it is to a black body, I think that this album has achieved its object.

Most of Obama’s economic advisors who will set the scene are the ones who accelerated the long slope downward under Clinton. It looks as though the people telling him who to appoint are Obama’s version of Uncle Tom. Some things will never change.

Thaddaeus Martin’s “Black Dick for President” is basically the same joke spread out over all three of its volumes. This is a 3-record set, all spoken word, and containing a sprinking of profanity.

Very little other information on Thaddaeus Martin or the album is available.

Visits: 162

Crappy Album Covers #51 — The International Language of Bad Taste II

In this virtual tour, we go to what seems to be outer space’s Latin Quarter, then back to China.

	This album, “en el espacio”, by Los 4 Amigos, is another obvious competitor to the Devo album cover lookalike contest. We can learn a lot from pictures of aliens. As you can see, they are aliens with tiny bodies and large heads. On their planet, they seemed to have found a way of playing instruments that are merely printed on their space suits. This enables them to play while floating in deep space. “Los 4 Amigos” appears to be a common phrase that on a Google search I got everything from restaurants to art exhibits. The group also doesn’t show up on allmusic.
	Jalaito Sabroson and their album, “Los Ases del Ritmo”. I almost read that as “Jailbaito”. Where is my head? Translated, this title seems to be saying “The Pace of Aces”. No info available. Probably another Latin-inspired dance record, by that title.
	Red China Rocks was a band, that, by all accounts, attempted to play in China in the early 1970s. They succeeded in playing most of the way through one gig, then were immediately deported. The Chinese shouldn’t have been so harsh. See this cover? Doesn’t Chairman Mao-Tse Tung (in this decade, I’ve seen his name commonly spelled “Mao Zedong”) look dapper, dressed for a night on the town? It is likely Mao’s head could have been pasted, Oswald-style, on someone else’s body. But clearly, the photo retouchers of this album could have done worse.
	Here, a more conventional-looking Chairman Mao meets Richard Nixon. I have no idea what this album is about. Any Chinese translators out there? Or does someone have this album? But I just thought you needed to see these two leaders in the same picture.One supplied arms and personnel to the South Vietnamese, while the other supplied arms and personnel to the North Vietnamese. While it is true that Nixon was bombing the crap out of Vietnam and Cambodia, the war ended soon after Nixon left office.

Visits: 163

Crappy Album Covers #50 — Christmas Records

Images for this blog entry came largely from the Amy Oops blog.

The song “All I want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth” has been around as a recording since at Daryl Gardner penned it in 1946. The one I remember most was one sung by a kid I don’t know the name of, who whistled all his S’s due to lack of said front teeth.

I sometimes think of that kid. He got so famous for not having front teeth that when they did grow back, he probably paid someone to punch him in the mouth so that he could be without them for the rest of his life and stay famous. He probably grew up to be Norberto de Frietas, a crappy album cover maker from another entry.

It was probably not sung by the kid depicted in this photo. As you can see, he clearly has his front teeth. But what is more worrisome, and what he really needs are corrective lenses.

If I have to spend Christmas with Rico, I will pay him to take off the costume. And what makes him think that colouring his eyebrows blue makes him into any more of a Santa Claus?

You get the feeling he has a screw loose. Santa is supposed to be cheerful and jolly; Rico does not appear to be smiling. I think I remember seeing a guy like that lined up at a soup kitchen once.

I hope his eyebrows grew back into their proper colour.

In the last post, comedians Joe and Bill were wrestling a rifle from a cockeyed farmer. There seems to be a trend with comedian crappy album makers that they just go by their first names.

Here, we can see Swedish comedians Stan and Doug adding the comic conclusion to the saga begun by Rico.

The house looks so bare and dishevelled, that it looks like these guys are breaking into it and stealing everything in sight. They appear to have even stolen the family photos from the walls. You’re a mean one, Mr. Grinch!

Visits: 144

Crappy Album Covers #49 — I walk the line

The prison thing that the late Johnny Cash had going on was quite a cash cow for him. And so it was too for other singers like Porter Wagoner. There must have been quite a spate of prison records during that period, because so many of them have crappy album covers.

Not that the intention is necessarily to ride on their coattails. Take this album here. This was produced by Folkways, and was meant as a field recording for a folklore society in Louisiana.

It is likely that it is intended to be the social record of the work songs of prisoners in that prison in that period.

Anthropologists would be sent to Angola prison located on the Mississippi River, also near the Mississippi border. The prison was a former plantation whose slaves came from Angola, a country on the African continent.

Ronnie Neuman appears to have been (and continues to be) a popular jazz musician, since I see him prominently on many search engines. However, I have learned in my researches that this does not necessarily mean that there is actually any information about Mr. Neuman.

Little information is known about Neuman or his album “A Little Bit of Latin and a Little Bit of Jazz”, recorded at a Minneapolis night club called The Padded Cell.

A wrestler I knew from Chapionship wrestling in my childhood, Sweet Daddy Siki looked unusual to me as a child because of his black skin and what appears to be blonde hair. He hails from Texas, but came to Toronto in 1961 to tour in wrestling. Despite his name, he played the villain in some of his wrestling matches.

Here, Mr. Siki is doing something more villainous than taking a piece of wood and beating his opponent with it. Here, he goes outside of his talents in wrestling to sing you a song. And to make it worse, a country and western song (OK, I hate country music, so sue me). He is said to “square off” with Country Music. My bet is that Country Music loses.

Visits: 128

Crappy Album Covers 43 — The International Language of Bad Taste I

For this part of our tour, we go to France and across the ocean to Mexico.

So, I know a bit of French. The Brothers Jacques (a literal translation of “les freres jacques”) consists of, as the cover would suggest, four members, much like The Brothers Gibb, except that these folks are less well known.

The Brothers Gibb were better known by the name “The Bee Gees”. So, by that metric, that would make The Brothers Jacques what … the Bee Jays?

Let’s not go there. But of course to state the obvious, “Frere Jacques” is also the name of a child’s French nursery rhyme. Unlike the Brothers Gibb, none of these guys are named Jacques.

These much-mustachioed mavens of vocal music have the quality of essentially a barbershop quartet. Except, they often parody classical pieces, or offer humour and satire along with the occasional sad song.

In Mexico, even the females can be one-eyed bandits.

I suppose that some guys get turned on by a sexy female holding a gun. I think she would be a whole lot sexier without the gun. Also, it would help matters if she took a hairpin and moved her hair away so we could see both eyes.

Information on this record or on Los Bandidos was hard to pin down. It seems as if it is a popular name for some recent punk rock bands.

There is some evidence that this album might actually be either Spanish or Brazilian. I just can identify some Spanish words, and have taken the mention of bandits to be an attempt to play on a Mexican stereotype.

Visits: 74

Crappy Album Covers #42 — Sucking out loud

Thanks to some folks like Bunk Strutts, I have access to some more awful album covers to comment on. Thing is, I will have to make my postings infrequent. Say about once per week. All of my crappy album posts are still listed under the tag “Crappy Album Covers” so you can have a megadose of crappy album commentary and analysis.

First, I will do a couple of albums from my own downloaded collection from all over the ‘net.

Don Costa (1925-1983) did Jazz and pop, playing lead guitar. He produced records for Little Anthony and the Imperials and Frank Sinatra.

Let’s see… If I wanted to break a sublease, and if I didn’t like my landlord, what would I do? Hmmm… Would I possibly invite 500 of my best friends and play my music as loudly and as obnoxiously as I possibly could? I think then that my landlord would show up just as that lady in the rear of the photo is doing, be properly disgusted with us, and kick us out. Maybe even bring a cop along in the process to get us rapped for disturbing the peace.

The album consists of songs that would have made an older generation sing, out of tune, at the top of their lungs (By the Light of the Silvery Moon is an example). In this album they reportedly provide perfect models of such behaviour.

Perhaps the landlord could have fought back and played this album of a dog barking at top volume and that may have scared at least some of them.

Grr-r-records is your label of top quality barking, yelping and growling that you won’t be able to find anywhere else.

Just be careful and don’t play it at 45 or 78 RPM. You’ll get a chihuaua instead, and it won’t sound nearly so intimidating.

I get the feeling that the best this record can do is tell the burglar where you have the home theatre placed.

But you know, if you have one of those really old turntables, you could play it at 16 RPM and you can get a deep-throated grizzly bear or lion sound. Now, we’re talking scary.

Visits: 120

Crappy Album Covers #41 — Jackdaws II

And that’s all I have, folks! I have to take a break to prepare for work when September starts, and I will be taking a few days off of posting. I will likely fall back into my infrequent mode of posting as I have done in the past, since my work absorbs most of my time.

But it was enjoyable, and your response in terms of comments and hits to my site have been, in terms of my own experience, tremendous. Since I have started this series in the last week of July, I received more hits than in all of the months since February when I started my blog.

Visits: 94

Crappy Album Covers #40 — Jackdaws I

I refer to anything I could not put into any specific category as a “Jackdaw”. I am aware that jackdaws are also a species of bird (C. monedula), but I have heard them use a lot by libraries to refer to uncategorizable books, and on the other end of the spectrum, primary source documents. In modern usage I see that the word “jackdaw” is used by some libraries to describe or give a name to their search engines.

We’re only down to a few crappy album covers, which I either felt little inspiration to comment on, or were just pushed aside in the search for an album cover that suited the theme of the day. That is not to say that these are obscure. Some are, but others have remained as common fodder by crappy album cover web pages all over the net, just as was the case in previous posts.

Visits: 169

Crappy Album Covers #39 — Still More Gays

	Paddy Roberts, whom allmusic.com claims is in the Rock genre, released this album in the mid-60s, probably the last decade where “gay” only meant “happy”. Likely not an album for queers. Not even queer dogs.In 2006, this album was re-released on CD, bundled with another album, “Funny World”. No detailed information on Paddy Roberts could be found anywhere.
	Sticking to the 1960s, this was apparently one of a series of queer parody albums consisting of males singing in effeminate voices. These were released by the Camp Records label, and were advertised in a gay magazine called Vagabond in 1965. J. D. Doyle tells the whole sordid tale, at great lengt (with MP3s).You know this album will not be complimentary toward gays when you notice all of the stereotypes are in the artwork, along with the choice of color. This label had produced songs with titles like “I’d Rather Fight Than Swish”, “Florence of Arabia” and “London Derriere”. But it has variously been called a “Queer stag” album, and other things. Nearly all of the credits are pseudonyms, and one name stands out: Rodney Dangerfield. That doesn’t sound like a pseudonym.The rest, it is claimed, are famous people, but being the mid-60s, no-one would reveal their names publically. However, Doyle is doubtful that it is the same Rodney Dangerfield as that fellow Crappy Album Cover maker that got “No Respect”.
	Jose Angel’s album “Madre Soy Cristiano Homosexual” translates (I think) to “Mother, I am a Christian Homosexual.” The date of release is unknown. Here is an MP3 of the title track.By all accounts, this is a story of a man who comes out to his mother, that he is a gay Christian. Imagine this confession takes place today. Of course the mother probably flips out. Not over being gay, but over being one of them “Christians”. With all those “Christian Right” people ruining the United States, how dare he come into the house and disgrace the family that he now cavorts with a band of greed-obsessed Jesus freaks? This photo was taken after Mother disowned him from the family inheritance, and told him he is no longer welcome in their house until he kicks this Christian habit. Maybe living on his own would be good for him.
	This is another Jackdaw. I have nowhere else to place the retro Swedish group Larz Kristerz (this link is in Swedish only). So, they are in this post for lack of a better place.It would appear that all of their albums are called “Stuffparty”, their titles differing only by the sequel number. They seem to have the 70s kitsch mastered. Probably a little too well, right down to the tasteless hairdos. I tried to get Google to translate “Stuffparty”, from Swedish, but to no avail.

Visits: 92

Crappy Album Covers #38 — Sports people with something to sing about

Evel Knievel (1938 – 2007) needs no introduction. Motorcycle daredevil and religious convert, Robert Craig Knievel was also a reader of Napoleon Hill, a fellow crappy album maker, mentioned in an earlier posting. Wikipedia cites Hill’s book, Success Through a Positive Mental Attitude as one of Knievel’s influences through life.

No daredevil has suffered more broken bones than Evel. The Guiness Book of World Records says that he had suffered 433 broken bones in his lifetime. He was a man who truly suffered for his art so that we may be entertained.

So, what the f**k was he doing making records? “Oh yeah, and before I jump, I’d like to sing you a song off my new album”. That would have raised ticket prices.

Muhammad Ali, originally Cassius Marcellus Clay, also needs no introduction from me. And here is Mr. Ali fighting Mr. Tooth Decay (with two album designs).

Now I only know one way to fight Mr. Tooth Decay that involves boxing, usually involving the loss of said Mr. Teeth. And I am sure that Mr. Ali has set a good example for us all by brushing his teeth and flossing.

There are some bars that try to kick out their clients near closing time by totally annoying them. But of course it backfires when the bartender discovers that everyone seems to know the Bird Dance, and it only increases the partying atmosphere. Did you ever wonder where they got that recording?

Well, wonder no more. This 1981 recording by the Polka players extraordinaire, The Emeralds, was a common example of what was chosen. And it was on the K-Tel label, so you know you have the guarantee of cheesiness of the highest standard possible. And the public thought so too. This version of the bird dance is the one that is most popular and recognizable in bars and pubs in North America. It has sold several million copies since it was first released in ’81. There are 139 other versions of this song (according to Wikipedia) that had not fared so well. Even versions by Walt Disney Records have flopped. But not so for K-Tel. This album cover has the standard lack of thought and artlessness that we expect from K-Tel. But don’t be fooled: this album was a goldmine, and K-Tel gets the last laugh.

Visits: 96

Crappy Album Covers 37 — Self-help for the helpless

The first time I saw this album cover by Jimmy Jenson, I thought it was some kind of self-help manual on the care and maintenance of your household Swede. First and foremost, is the obvious crisis depicted on the album cover. There are nine chilren there, and I would imagine that either she is going to need her tubes tied, or he is going to need a vasectomy. The hatchet and the medical kit bag (which might just be a bottle of scotch) appear to suggest the manner by which this procedure is to be carried out.

But alas, there is no help in this album about living with your resident Swede. Jimmy Jenson is a singer who has had a number of albums in English.

Problem is, his English is apparently not very good. “Your” shouldn’t have an apostrophe. If the apostrophe were placed properly, the contracted “you’re” expands to “you are”, making the title into “Understand You Are Swede”. I think Jimbo meant to title it “Understand Your Swede.” It would appear as though he sings folk tunes, and has sung enough of them to produce three “Greatest Hits” compilations.

Napoleon Hill, this time, really was a self-help expert from way back, in the same league as Andrew Carnegie and Norman Vincent Peale.

When I was growing up, I have seen more of these little statuettes in more bathrooms of more homes than I care to mention. All variations of these statues invariably had some smart-alecky message carved into the bottom part. Such as: “Near this point is where the most important decisions are made.” or the poem that begins “Here I sit broken-hearted …”.

Nowadays we are suspcious of these kinds of records. And since no one really believes you can become anything you can conceive of, nowadays we attach it to mysticism and call it “The Secret”, and blame our bad luck on bad thoughts which bring on bad energy. And once they start bringing in String Theory and theories on atomic energy, you know it is time to find something else to read (or watch if you got the DVD).

Now how do you like this…? Stop smoking without using your willpower…? It is a misinterpretation of the concept of willpower.

We need a will to live. There must be at least that. It is records like these that have contributed to a consciousness among the public that we can overcome any obstacle without the need for concentrated effort or mental exertion. This “easy way out” mentality has ruined a lot of lives and have contributed to increasing hopelessness and despair among people who sincerely wish to stop smoking, or to just give up bad habits in general.

All bad habits require determination and effort to break. Even the modern solution of “going on the patch” is only 7% effective without an accompanying willpower after you stop using the patch.

Visits: 115

Crappy Album Covers #36 — Space, Religion, and Getting Down

Laverne Tripp is the sole proprietor of Laverne Tripp Ministries.

He preaches. He sings. Oh, does he sing! To date he has released 78 full-length albums of his singing.

Pardon the pun, but I find the cover kind of, …, well, … trippy. It plays with your mind, in a way.

It also looks like he’s falling. I hardly feel the impression of being “saved” or being “in God’s presence.” I don’t know if it was one of those ’70s attempts to bring God and religion into the Space Age.

Allmusic.com does not list a single one of his 80 or so albums, and does not mention anything about him. Surely, this is because of the work of Satan.

Tripp still goes on tour around the Southeastern US, and has his own television program on various religious networks and affiliates.

This album is closer to the 1973 listing of the personnel playing in the Jazz group The Stellar Unit. This is either their website, or a fan’s shrine page. I can’t tell.

I think the story kind of goes like this: They were playing in local pizza parlours in Houston, when some guy said, “they sure sound like a stellar unit”.

Curtis Eugene Keen is depicted here with his two marionettes — oh, no, hold on — they’re for real. They are Joe Stroud and Neil Hecht. Their latest lineup adds a female — Peggy Kaye, playing the banjo.

So, we have a trumpet, keyboard, fiddle, trombone, banjo as possible instruments, along with two vocalists (Keen also sings). They play various jazz standardsin the southern US. I am not aware of them being played elsewhere. In fact, I am not aware of any other albums by them.

This 8×10 autographed photo of The Stellar Unit was listed on E-Bay for $3.99. “Shipping and Handling” (whatever that means for an autographed photo) brings the cost up to 10 bucks. I think the seller just wants ten bucks.

I would suppose that they are not sufficiently obscure enough for their paraphanelia to garner high prices.

This next offering is from a supposed Elton John imitator named Dwayne Smith.

It is hard to get the feeling that you are going to make this album the cornerstone of your dance party with a title like “Get Directly Down”.

It is not known who he is or what he does these days. He could get confused with Jazz bassist Dwayne “Smitty” Smith, until you compare the photos.

Dwayne will play weddings and Bar Mitzvahs.

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