Tag: Pop Culture

Google Autocomplete Follies

Hits: 34

Humans are a curious species. We like to ask the questions about why things exist/happen/not happen, and so on.

When I built my search engine questions, I began with the word “WHY”, then gradually built on that, one word at a time. Now, I pass on the list of questions to you.

If the list of Google autocomplete suggestions which is to follow is taken to be the true distillation of human thought, we seem to be very preoccupied with aches and pains, bodily functions, and weather events, and not a whole lot outside of that.

WHY

⦁ him
⦁ is the sky blue
⦁ don’t we
⦁ him cast (sic)
⦁ do whales beach
⦁ am i so tired
⦁ are you running
⦁ do cats purr
⦁ am I always tired
⦁ do we yawn

WHY DOES

⦁ my cat lick me
⦁ my dog lick me
⦁ it hurt when i pee
⦁ salt melt ice
⦁ ice float
⦁ my stomach hurt
⦁ my head hurt
⦁ my jaw hurt

WHY DOES IT

⦁ snow
⦁ snow in Canada
⦁ rain
⦁ always rain on me
⦁ hurt to swallow
⦁ hurt to poop
⦁ hurt to have sex
⦁ hurt to breathe
⦁ hurt when I cough

WHY DOES IT SEEM

⦁ like everyone is rich
⦁ impossible to lose weight
⦁ impossible to get a girlfriend
⦁ hard to breathe
⦁ hard to swallow

WHY DOES IT NEVER

⦁ work out with guys
⦁ snow in London/Manchester/Swansea/England/Florida
⦁ snow on Christmas
⦁ snow
⦁ rain in California
⦁ get dark in Alaska

WHY DOES IT ALWAYS SEEM

⦁ to be (Phil Collins lyric)
⦁ to rain at night
⦁ to rain on the weekend
⦁ to rain on Good Friday
⦁ to be my fault

Crappy Album Covers #289 — The return of the SJ Blind Dating Service

Hits: 20

Hi, my name is Steve Warren, I’m in my mid-30s, my favourite food is spicy chicken wings, and my favourite pastime consists of grooming my coiff’ and staring at myself in the mirror while playing “Dancing with myself” by Billy Idol..Seeking a woman who is quiet and is appreciative of a real man.
I’m Myrnie Henderson. I’m 28 but my hairdo makes me look 36. I just finished majoring in Music a couple of years ago. I didn’t just find my voice, I found several voices. I can sing opera like Maureen Forrester, or I can sing “Celebrity Skin” like Courtney Love. Now I don’t know who I am anymore.Seeking a man who will make me whole again.

Crappy Album Covers #288 — The race to the bottom

Hits: 41

Winning second place in the race to the bottom, is the Beatle Buddies! Four somewhat attractive women, who don’t even bother to take off their clothes, have therefore let this albun stand on the strength of their musical ability alone.
A word to their favour, their hairstyles all look pretty timeless. If it weren’t for the rest of the album design, you probably think this album was new. And reportedly, they can in fact sing, but don’t expect anything earth-shattering.
And in the race for the bottom, Ignatz Topolino wins by a nose! 

Ignatz Topolino honks out his proboscis-gleaned standards in this album series of jazz legends. He has taken out a million dollar insurance policy in case someone punches him in the muzzle in a dark alley somewhere. Even viral infections causing nosebleeds could lay him up for weeks.

So, keeping a clean nose, he honks out his harmonica hits that entice women to throw him flowers in concerts (nosegays, of course), and show him their hooters.

E-How.com describes how to play the harmonica with your nose.

Crappy Album Covers #287 – Little-Known Artists Sporting Rolls-Royces

Hits: 24

This album, supposedly made in 1978, shows the precursor to rappers in garish cars: hippies with garish cars. In 1978, hippies were long since a dying breed, being mostly a year for either clean-cut looking guys in disco suits, or for filthy-looking punk rockers.

This record was released on the Cherry Records label out of Houston, Texas (not to be confused with the Cherry Red record label from England, which also existed in 1978). A copy of this 33-minute album in new condition — a delete, no less (you know, the kind with the hole punched through a corner of the record cover), sells currently on E-Bay for about 17 bucks (USD), and no bids are being considered. Just pay them the money. And that doesn’t count shipping. You can also buy a T-Shirt on E-Bay in connection with this album for $19.99 USD, gently used.

While half of the internet wants to sell me a copy of this album at wildly varying prices, and there is much euphoria among the sellers about how rare this record is, nobody seems to know anything more about this band. Just give the sellers your money.
Frank Ford and Andy Angel were a 70s lounge act playing instrumentals. Their 1977 album “You Can’t Have Everything” looks like a comedy album, but is really an album of jazz and funk standards that were current with the late seventies. This album is reputed to have a killer version of Herbie Hancock’s Chameleon.

Once again, not much else is known about these guys. As you can see, the record illustrated is autographed.

Crappy Album Covers #286 – As Crappy as We Wanna Be

Hits: 22

I have had many examples in this blog of black people in comedy getting all potty mouthed and raunchy. Now, Nova Scotian comedians  MacLean and MacLean, later based in Winnipeg, have shown us that whitey can be just as potty mouthed, and have potties to prove it. Here, they join the white lowbrow humour of folks such as George Carlin (1937-2008) and others. 

The brothers MacLean consisted of Gary (1944-2001) and Blair (1943-2008). It seems that their last album, perhaps a re-release of old material, happened around 2003, while Blair was still alive.
The people responsible for this album are a comedy troupe from Louisiana who call themselves Fudgeripple Follies. The “or” after “Follies” appears to have been misplaced, as the name of the play is just “Nobody Likes a Smart Ass”. 

This is the second of a two-volume set that was made “some time in the 1960s”. It is the sound track to a comedic live performance that played in the French Quarter of New Orleans.

The play itself began in 1960, and starred a then-unknown actor named Bill Holiday. After 8 years performing at the Bourbon Street theatre, Bill dropped out to pursue a career in film. This is not to be confused with Jazz singer Billie Holiday, who is female besides.

Crappy Album Covers #285 – Disco Lotion and Soul Lubricant

Hits: 26

Nancy Reed, otherwise known as Lady Reed, is a comedienne of the raunchy variety. Record stores often sold it “under the table” even as the so-called 70s sexual liberation was happening. Or maybe with titles like “International United Whores Union” they were afraid of offending their sistas at the Prostitutes Collective of Victoria (Australia), called PVC. The deal is, that this track sounds more like a manifesto for prostitutes, with swear words.

Clearly, she lives up to her image as “The Queen Bee”. Great album for those of us who want to hear lots of cuss words and think that’s comedy.

By internet standards, it’s actually pretty lame.

She was closely allied with another potty-mouthed 70s comedian, who goes by the name of Rudy Ray Moore, also known sometimes as Dolomite.
You are looking at the Dutch group’s TekNaloG’s first EP. It was released some time earlier this year, and you can actually both hear and download a free album from their website.

 

Crappy Album Covers #284 – Big, Mean Rockers

Hits: 23

Floridian Maurice Young, known to his adoring admirers as “Trick Daddy”, has his 1998 album right here, with the clever name “www.thug.com”. Get a load of the web browser design, and the disembodied head of Mr. Daddy, impaled on his own logo. That’s gotta hurt, Maurice.

The website still exists, along with its concomitant musician-thugs who deny they murdered somebody-or-other. All this murder is starting to get rather dull. But It looks as though MC Boosie (who hails from Louisiana) has a good lawyer, and he may stay off death row, as a visit to www.thug.com assured me.
Another staple of the CAC blogosphere, “Bass-ic Rock”, has no artist and no year. Just a goofy looking hippie with a bass guitar on the cover.

Actually, after scouring the web, I came to a Japanese site, which associates the title with a guy named Noel Edward Smith. A translation of that page tells me that this is an instructional record, complete with an accompanying book.

Crappy Album Covers #283 – OMG! Rockers!

Hits: 44

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).
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.

Crappy Album Covers #282 – Mugs don’t work if that’s all you have

Hits: 38

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.
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) (this appears to be audio-only):

Crappy Album Covers #281 – Sergant Pepper Ripoffs

Hits: 49

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.
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

Hits: 37

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.
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 #266 — My Hero!

Hits: 27

This is a 1976 LP of a two-part episode of Dr. Who, called “Doctor Who and the Pescatons”.Look! A fish with muscular arms and clawed hands! Are you scared? I’m scared. God, am I scared!

What else is in the picture? Castle with clock tower on the shoreline; fishy monster guy jumps out of the water with a swipe of its clawed hand, whilst Dr. Who (played by Tom Baker) and Sarah Jane Smith (played by Elisabeth Sladen) are running away … well, they don’t exactly look like they’re running … and the fishy monster thing is between them and dry land … and they don’t even look all that wet, … and the expression on their faces is less that of fear and terror and more like indigestion and boredom. I get it! The indigestion is from the fish sticks they ate earlier. The fishy monster thing is actually the mother of whatever fish went in those fish sticks! Now the pieces come together. It takes time, sometimes…
The next CAC contribution comes from a native of Antigua and Barbuda, whose name is Paul Richards. His stage name is King Obstinate, and the music is calypso. I now feel relieved, since he looks like he was going to give us one of them high-spirited Bible readings.You have to be pretty obstinate to belong to a Commonwealth nation while wearing a French fleur-de-lys on your costume. From 1632 until its independence in 1981, it was a British colony, with a one-year interruption in 1666 when it became French. Was it really that big a deal in history?

King Obstinate:

(Video) Miraculously Good/Bad Luck (La Chance 3)

Hits: 25

Here is the latest instalment:

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(Video) Miraculously Good Luck/Bad Luck (La Chance 2)

Hits: 36

I haven’t posted anything related to this since last year. These videos just fascinate me. I can’t get enough. More to come later.

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Crappy Album Covers #265 — Marketeers of Unknown Elpees

Hits: 11

On my blog, I think it has become obvious that when I say “marketeers”, it seems to always relate to depictions of nude or semi-nude women. I am unclear as to how having a digital chastity, uh, panty, would illustrate the cover of an album entitled “Sophisticated Funk”. But actually, isn’t this in line with how women work anyway? That you have to push the right buttons to gain access? Yes, this is the eternal problem men have to deal with in picking up chicks, I believe.

Champaign, Illinois native Jack McDuff (born Eugene McDuffy) (1926-2001) was a jazz musician who released at least 53 albums between 1960 and 2001.
Modellers of thong panties have a long history on album covers, and are only becoming relatively widespread with rap and hip-hop these days. But as you can see, this indeed does go back some decades.But I think decades ago, it was only done either by heavy metal bands or by record companies with nothing racy in their music, so in a brazen attempt to attract public attention, they make a racy record cover. The reason you passed this up in your adolescence is that the cover told you booooooor-ing!, even though there was a hard-working marketer on the cover.

Crappy Album Covers #264 — Album covers depicting filthy sex

Hits: 31

Little to no information links Johnny Houston with this LP. Allmusic.com has two listings on him; but no mention of this actual recording, “Makin Bacon” (no apostrophe).
I also have no idea about this one. I think I would have noticed a microphone that big before I started to engage in “the act”.And also, it doesn’t look like much of a matress. I guess they needed just enough of a mattress to make a “Bedspring Symphony”. Now the last piece of the puzzle: is “Erotica” the band name or the title? But then you have to work “Mash Me, Baby” into it, so … uhhh … And wouldn’t it work better if the woman said “Mash me, baby”? Just askin’.

I think I can explain the portrait: guy and his wife go at it, but since the kids are in the living room (or so they believe), they do the act on the bed of their 10 year-old daughter (which explains why the bed is so small), only to find out that their 12 year-old son has hooked up a microphone underneath the bed and ran the wire to his room, where he has his headphones on and the reel-to-reel running, sitting in wide-eyed fascination as his first exposure to classical music is in the form of a symphony of the delicate bedsprings of a child’s bed creaking underneath two adult bodies.

Crappy Album Covers #263 — Answered and Un-answered questions

Hits: 35

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.

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.

Here is a sample.

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

Hits: 37

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

Hits: 28

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!
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

Hits: 26

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.
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?
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