Crappy Album Covers #283 – OMG! Rockers!

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.

Visits: 130

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

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):

Visits: 133

Worst Lyrics: A review of a review

There was an article that appeared on Friday on MSN.COM, which tried to poke fun at some of “the worst lyrics of all time” by artists who presumably should have known better. I had a problem with the article, just like the lyrics, the smart-aleck comments from the author of the MSN article were not well-thought-out and thus almost as poorly written as the song lyrics the author criticizes.

Whether I do a better job with my smart-aleck comments is anyone’s opinion, but then I’m not working for MSN.

“Swingin’ in there
Cause she wanted me to feed her,
So I mixed up the batter
And she licked the beater”
–Warrant, “Cherry Pie”		 I agree that this is a food metaphor gone wrong. It works better if you see the video. But I think the lyrics were never meant for adult minds who naturally would be bothered by the overdone food metaphors, but for adolescents with raging hormones who probably don’t care if this is from an overrated 90s metal band as long as the video has lots of jiggle.
“It’s a black fly in your Chardonnay,
It’s a death row pardon two minutes late;
And isn’t it ironic… don’t you think?”
–Alanis Morrisette, “Ironic”		 It is obvious that Alanis Morrisette never bothered to look up ‘Ironic’ in a dictionary, and as much has been said since the song came out in 1996. It wasn’t just the quoted lyrics that were bad, the whole song suffered from the same problem. Most abuses of the word seemed to suggest that she really meant  ‘bad luck’ or something similar. Proof that famous musicians never lost a dollar by being inarticulate.
“I drew a line,
I drew a line for you.
Oh, what a thing to do.
And it was all yellow.”
–Coldplay, “Yellow”		 This was picked out as being the worst lyric snippet from Coldplay’s first American hit, ‘Yellow’, released in 2000. It’s the kind of thing that means more to the writer than the listener. The song went gold for some other reason than the lyrics. The song seems to end up being about not much at all, but purportedly is about devotion.
“If the light is off
Then it isn’t on.”
–Hilary Duff, “So Yesterday”		 I can’t argue with these lyrics. Reminds me of Me and Bobby McGee. Remember? “Nothin’ ain’t worth nothin’, but it’s free”. Nobody can say the obvious better than Kris Kristofferson. But Duff, even with all of her overly-marketed million-selling albums, can’t come close to this. She just comes off like an under-aged bimbo with nothing useful to say. (Yeah, I know she’s not underage anymore).
“These other guys, they wanna take me for a ride,
But when I walk their talk is suicide”
–Paris Hilton, “Stars Are Blind”		 Lots of 60s musicians sang the obvious. But it’s not what you say, it’s how you say it. Kristofferson said it in a way that it became a rallying cry for those who rejected materialism, and embraced simplicity. You were convinced that Kristofferson had “been there”, and knew your pain. You would easily forget that he was a Rhodes Scholar at Merton in Oxford, with a Bachelor’s in English Lit. Being able to achieve that is not the mark of phoniness, it is the mark of a true artist, deserving of our respect and admiration.

Sorry, I can’t find any information on Paris Hilton except for a bunch of videos of what appears to be her performing fellatio on a record company exec in a fleabag hotel with the curtains drawn. Maybe next time.
“You know you love me, I know you care,
Just shout whenever, And I’ll be there.
You are my love, You are my heart,
And we will never ever-ever be apart.”
–Justin Bieber, “Baby”		 News flash!!!!! 16 year-old Stratford, Ontario native Justin Bieber has the writing talent of a 16 year-old.

The only reason this kind of drek sells is that there is nothing better for the buying public, that they are aware of. The market is flooded with under-aged, under-talented kids, surrounded by marketers who want to bring back the days of The Jackson 5, and Donny Osmond. The video stations and other media organs are flooded with this stuff, while really good music is out there, waiting to be listened to.
“Lucky that my breasts
Are small and humble
So you don’t confuse
Them with mountains”
–Shakira, ‘Whenever, Wherever’		 It’s like saying we’ll get along fine as long as you don’t stare at my boobs. It NEVER works, ladies. It just makes the problem worse.
“I ain’t never seen
An a**like that
The way you move it
You make my pee-pee go
‘Doing-doing-doing'”
–Eminem, “A** Like That”		 News Flash!!!!! 38 year-old Marshall Bruce Mathers III, known by his stage name Eminem, has the writing talents of an 8 year-old. Sometimes his mother helps him.
“I’m as serious as cancer
When I say rhythm is a dancer”
–Snap, “Rhythm is a Dancer”		 Besides a German-to-English dictionary, the German dance group Snap! should have also used a rhyming dictionary to see what else might rhyme with “dancer” that might work better than “cancer”.
“You’re beautiful
You’re beautiful
You’re beautiful
It’s true”
–James Blunt, “You’re Beautiful”		 I have always seen this song as “just another love song”. One that is not very inspired with tired lyrics and a new musical sound behind it to make it palatable.
“We built this city on rock and roll.”

–Starship, “We Built This City”

 I have to go beyond what the MSN author has said and further state that these are also the most phony lyrics in rock history. The particular lineup of Starship which sang that hit had none of the founding members of Jefferson Airplane in it. Grace Slick doesn’t count, since she was not a founding member. So, no, they don’t earn the bragging rights they seem to claim.
“Against the grain should be a way of life
What’s worth the price is always worth the fight
Every second counts ’cause there’s no second try
So live like you’re never living twice
Don’t take the free ride in your own life”
— Nickelback, “If Today Was Your Last Day”		 Another winner for the most cliches per square inch. A close contender could be Harlan Howard’s 1958 song “Pick Me Up On Your Way Down” (played by every imaginible country musician — the one I heard was from Buck Owens). At least Harlan was just trying to be clever, but Nickleback just looks like they’ve been reading too many motivational posters.
“I would do anything for love
But I won’t do that.”
–Meat Loaf, “I’d Do Anything for Love”		 Mr. Loaf has been with us for three decades or more, bringing us lyrics ranging from mundane to just plain sucking out loud. I would call this one mundane. At least it’s vague, and that means he left something up to my imagination for once.

There were more in the article, but I have had little more time to explore them. Just thought I would cover the worst cases.

Visits: 181

Crappy Album Covers #281 – Sergant Pepper Ripoffs

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.

Visits: 138

OK, So I am trying to build a home theatre with a quad-core system box …

And part of such a home theatre would consist of a way to hook up the Bravia I bought on sale to the mainboard, which has HDMI on it. My strategy was to enjoy both cable and “free” internet television through either the keyboard or the remote device. So, then there was the TV Tuner card I had to configure. Windows Media Center said that my card “could not be configured in Canada”. I phone the retailer who sold me the card, and indeed they too found to their horror that it could not be configured with Windows Media. I was instructed to send it back and get a replacement.

I think I am an unfortunate victim of “trade barriers”. Perhaps some CRTC regulation is preventing Windows from allowing this card to work, so by law, Windows is telling me that it is a criminal offense to configure my card.

I check out the card, and it is from AverMedia, a comapny based in Taipei, Taiwan. Well, what competition is left in Canada if Chinese-made TV tuner cards are left out? There are a host of brands provided by Happauge (based in Long Island last I heard), but I think that is it for any major brands. Yes, if you’re Canadian, you buy either American or Chinese. Since you can’t buy Chinese, it’s American or nothing. Not that I expect there to be any Canadian brands, but, I am suprised to see a lack of any European brands at the stores I visited.

Maybe it’s nice to hear once in a while that the Chinese are not given too much of an easy ride in our economy. But this time, I got burned by that idea.

Visits: 96

Crappy Album Covers #280 – A Sampling of Redd Foxx Covers

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.

Visits: 126

Crappy Album Covers #279 — Disco Lotion

1977 was the height of the disco invasion. And I say “invasion” rather than “revolution”, because at least revolutions are welcome in some homes.

Rod McKuen’s Disco parody “Slide Easy In … Disco” has been described as a “gay porn version of Grease”. The hit single “Amor” never made it in North America, but it was quite prominent in many European countries.
These days, if anyone looked like this at a border crossing, they would be subject to a cavity search on the spot.

That being said, many blogs remember Instant Funk’s brand of Philadelphia Soul quite fondly, in spite of their having changed record labels from TSOP to New York’s Salsoul Records prior to the release of this 1979 LP. Disco and its sub-genres had been on life support after its mega-overexposure by the Bee Gees by that time, and even the best albums of the genre were being abandoned by all but the most hard-core fans by that time.

The TSOP label was home to artists such as Lou Rawls, The Three Degrees, McFadden and Whitehead, and The O’Jays. I like these artists, and have never really associated them in my mind with Disco, except in the loosest sense of the term. They sound closer to R&B, and were grouped together with Instant Funk as part of the “Philly Soul” sound.

Visits: 123

Crappy Album Covers #278 — Ellis Dee (LSD)

This is a 1966 reocrding produced by Alan Livingston and Lawrence Schiller. Dick Clark is uncredited for the narration, and Dr. Sidney Cohen gives some medical background on various aspects of LSD.

I wish they would have taken the record sleeve designer’s stash of LSD and flushed it down the toilet.
This is the infamous Timothy Leary (1920-1996), with his recording, also from 1966, called “LSD”. This popularizer of the hippie catch phrase “Tune in, turn on, drop out” and graduate of the University of California at Berkeley in 1950 was a Harvard lecturer but was fired amidst allegations of involvement with various psychoactive drugs.

The lecture on this record came after police raids on his Milbrook esteate, looking for drugs. Hence, it is said this recording has a bitter tone to it, compared to his other recordings.

Visits: 163

Review of the album “Graprefruit Moon” (2008) sung by Southside Johnny with LaBamba’s Big Band

I envisioned that Tom Waits would be right up Southside’s alley, and I was optimistic about the combination of Southside Johnny’s vocal talents and a jazz section. One can justify that jazz is not a terribly distant departure from Southside Johnny’s decades-long tenure performing with The Asbury Jukes.

The first track, Yesterday is Here, sounds somewhat promising, and conveys the message to the listener that this is not going to be a Jukes album. Some people may have trouble get used to his singing over woodwind instruments and to a less bluesy, more jazzy stying. The experiment sometimes succeeds, and sometimes fails. And when it fails, it sounds like they were trying too hard. Yesterday succeeds in not crossing that line. It sounds like everyone is comfortable with the material, and the result is quite listenable.

The title track, Grapefruit Moon, sounded strained in contrast, as though Southside and the Jazz ensemble backing him up were competing for attention. I would have appreciated it if the band would get out of the foreground, out of Southside’s way, and support his singing. Too many flourishes of horns, too much background which seem to jump into the foreground. And there were too many changes in texture and tempo. It made it too confusing, leaving the listener not knowing what to make of the song. There wasn’t a feeling that the musicians and the vocalist were agreeing on what mood the song should convey, a feeling that they were playing as a band.

Visits: 86

Crappy Album Covers #277 — Pink

After your first bottle, you say “Here come the Elephants”, after about 4 or 5, you say “Here comes the twister” (see below), and the room begins to spin. The album looks at least old enough to have Johnny Bond participate in The Iraq War Drinking Game (the first one), but in reality he was never alive for it, having died of a heart attack in 1978.

Cyrus Bond (1915-1978) had a string of top-10 hits in the 1940s up until the late 50s. In 1999, he was inducted into the Country Music Hall of Fame.
I had agony researching this group. I ran into a freaking domain-parked website offering info on “Po Boy”, “The Boy” and “The Po”. It is painfully obvious that someone didn’t attend their RESL classes (that’s Redneck English as a Second Language).

Then there was this site. Our boyz don’t look like post-punk/hip-hop dudz, yo’. But if they were those Po’ Boys, they would have a killer logo.

I am new to Po’ Boysology, but according to my observations, any band calling themselves The Po’ Boys seems to consist of

  1. 5 or 6 guys;
  2. members who only want to be addressed by their first names.
  3. The punkers call themselves:
    • James, Micheal, Mark
    • Dave, Robert, Dom
  4. The guys in the pink suits call themselves:
    • Jimmy Sonny, Snuffy,
    • Terry, and Jim

Just what we need  … two guys in the band whose names are Jimmy and Jim. Look, guys, they don’t have to be your real names. I’m sure one of you wasn’t christened Snuffy!?! Could one of you have picked a different name?

After a couple of pages of bizarre stuff having nothing to do with this band except the name, I gave up. But there is indeed a genre out there.

There is a brass band called “The Po’ Boys” which does a killer cover of Led Zep’s 1971 hit Black Dog:

(moved or deleted by YouTube)

And as for the Twister, here are the Talking Heads, same as they ever were…

(moved or deleted by YouTube)

Visits: 129

[Video] Rednecks and Rappers

I deleted a post from a couple of years ago regarding the creepy similarities between rednecks and rappers. They both wear their baseball caps backwards, they both sport plumber-butt pants, both have a taste for garish vehicles, they both carry guns, and they are both suspicious and fearful of authority and of outsiders.

It is also true that white people most commonly identify themselves as redneck (most with considerable pride), while rappers are predominantly black and also identify themselves as part of that “Hip-Hop” movement with considerable pride.

And they totally hate each other:

Now, isn’t it amazing that two groups of people that are so much alike but for their skin color and their connection to trailer parks, should feel so alienated and apart that they get suspicious and hateful of the mere mention of one or the other group.

It is time to stop this madness. Now is the time to shake hands and make up. End the silly rivalry between you, and come together to celebrate your similarities, your sameness. You breathe the same air, drink the same water, live on the same small planet, and live in similar levels of poverty.

Here are videos of some rednecks who are willing to bridge the gap between them and their darker-skinned brethren by singing rap tunes:

Ralph the Redneck Rapper advertises his talents on YouTube:

I think this next redneck rapper should only be encountered in broad daylight, and then only after he has had his meds:

And now for the finale, “Free” by Mikel Knight, complete with hoes and cowboy hats:

Visits: 163

Crappy Album Covers #276 — My Babe Magnet II

The Calvary Boys were a traditional Southern gospel group that formed around 1970, touring around in their babe magnet, depicted on your left. They hail from the Piney Woods region of Texas, often called “East Texas” or “Deep East Texas”. “Gettin’ Ready to Leave” might bave been their first album, although it is not mentioned on their website, as far as I could tell.

They call themselves a quartet. That might be because the other 3 folks in the picture are the mechanics. In Deep East Texas, you repair your own damn touring vehicle!
Chicks dig motorcycles. Dr. Dave had a novelty hit with “Vanna, Pick Me A Letter“, sung to the  tune “The Letter” (a #1 hit in 1967 by a group from Memphis Tennessee, calling themselves The Box Tops). “Vanna” was a staple on the Dr. Demento show, having been played on 38 episodes between 1986 and 2008.

Dr. Dave (David Kolin) channels his best Cheech Marin imitation (at least that’s what it sounds like), making it a matter of debate in the song that phone is spelled F-O-N-E, and trying to convince Vanna to come to his place to play The Home Edition.

What you are looking at is the cover of their 12″EP released in 1986.

Visits: 117

Crappy Album Covers #275 — What’s that in your pipe?

Pipes, as shown here, can be fun for both boys and girls. You can slide down the mouthpiece; stand on top of a flame coming out of the pipe and not get burnt. Just as you can smoke a pipe and not get lung cancer, or walk between the raindrops in a storm and not get wet.

Los Melodicos is the brainchild of Renato Capriles, way back in 1958, and made its debut as one of Venezuela’s foremost Latin-oriented orchestras, and have made over 100 albums.
The anthropologists knew about ‘shrooms all along. They had the jump on the hippie generation, who tried to use it under the ruse of “artistic inspiration”.

Yeah, mushroom ceremony, my arse. They were passing aruond the pipe because they couldn’t get enough of that buzz.

The Mazatec (meaning “Lords of the Deer”, which is often something you see when you are stoned) were an “Indian” (aboriginal) tribe in the south of Mexico in the state of Oaxaca to the south. Their recorded history was made up of either defensive war against the Aztecs or defensive war against the Spanish Conquistadores.

Visits: 118

Amusement park ride gone wrong

There is commentary in this vid, but it’s in Japanese. Probably Japanese for “OW! That’s gotta hurt!”

Maybe someone who understands Japanese can tell me whether the two passengers I saw fall several stories from the top of  the ride were actually OK.

 

Visits: 71

Crappy Album Covers #274 — Psychedelia

Psychedelic art is supposedly the kind of art induced by drugs such as LSD. The thinking being, that the kind of mental state induced by psychedelic drugs are a kind of artistic inspiration. Psychedelia had long died out as a fad in 1977 when Dragon released their third album, Sunshine. I have a painting below which is popular in psych textbooks. It was a painting of a cat owned by Louis Wain back in the early 20th century in the later stages of the onset of schizophrenia. He needed no drugs to turn his ordinary still life into works of psychedelia.
I wish these guys chose a better color scheme. But these are Austin Texas denizens who call themselves The 13th Floor Elevators, late 60s cult favourites.  They have been covered by bands like REM, Jesus and Mary Chain, ZZ Top, and Primal Scream.13th Floor Elevators had, among their more normal instruments, the use of a jug — an electric one, no less.

Here is a Lous Wain’s cat, after having late onset schizophrenia:

And here are the 13th Floor Elevators with one of their bigger hits “You Gonna Miss Me”

Visits: 122

Crappy Album Covers #273 — The SJ Blind Dating Service

Jerry Hitt is a do-it-yourselfer (album cover wise) from way back, and it is difficult to pick out the year of this recording.
Joyce Drake’s stunt double, Joyce Landorf meets Jerry Hitt and they now are cozy together thanks to the SJ Blind Dating service.

Visits: 101

Crappy Album Covers #272 — Lone Ranger References

I’ve heard it all since my childhood… The Lone Drycleaner, and others. But here is “Metal Rap” from a group called Lone Rager, released no later than 1984.

This is metal, so while it goes against my no-metal policy, it is not a shocking cover as you can see … Just stupid.

A Lone Rager vid appears below.
And here is the Lone Arranger. This 1980 LP by Ernest Gusella must have been where Russell Oliver got his ideas from (see video below).

The 10 tracks of experimental/Jazz music have titles such as “Body Art Disco”, and “Pissin’ in the Snow”. You might want to play this on your second date at the very earliest.

Here is Metal RAPsody by Lone Rager:

Ta da!!! Here is Russell Oliver, the Loan Arranger:

And here is an Air Farce satire on Russell Oliver:

Visits: 112

Crappy Album Covers #271 — Smoking Tie-Ins

I have mentioned tie-ins before. Remeber Squirt? Now we have records by cigarette manufacturers. This brand was popular in Germany.For this posting, we have two records which tie in with tobacco. Now you can die in two languages.
… And Chesterfield Club cigarettes were popular in the States. I am not sure how I am supposed to associate cigarettes with baseball. The famous repetitive quotation by Russ Hodges (1910-1971) that makes this album title was from an historic 1951 game when player for the New York Giants Bobby Thompson hit the ball into the grandstands, known as the “shot heard around the world.” The earned the Giants 3 runs to win against the Brooklyn Dodgers 5-4 that year. I suspect that the 1951 game, now part of World Series history, is probably what the recording is about. Along with endorsing cigarettes.
What is unique about this LP is that it had to be played at 78 RPM, but was a 12-inch record. If you are familiar with 78s, they were usually all 10 inches. So, the format was exceptionally rare. Kind of like Cocteau Twin’s Victorialand, which was a full-length 12″ LP from the mid-80s which had to be played at 45 RPM.

Visits: 111