Crappy Album Covers #63 — The Search for Inner Peace

Announcement: This series of Crappy Album Covers will be sent out every Monday, Wednesday, and Saturday from now on, and it will be roughly at 6 PM, EDT/EST. Just so everyone knows what is going on. For reference, I left a permanent note on the “About” page.

album-cover-crap-79_ppot_com1 Yes. Nothing says “I love my life” more than being dunked in a pool of water and looking like a drowned rat. Jim Post’s 1978 folk recording appears to be his third album from a recording career that began in 1973. Jim has played Mark Twain a number of times for various plays, recordings, and videos, and has done children’s albums. He has also been written up in The Smithsonian.
album-cover-crap-82_vinylcoversfreefr_00237 I’m OK, You’re OK; I’m alright; you’re alright. We are at one with the world. This 1982 British single from Young Steve and The Afternoon Boys is the only single I know of whose flip side is music from a different artist: “Oh Damien” by a group called Damien And The Social Workers.The Single Covers Archive (UK) lists this record as “novelty”. In ’82, this single reached as high as #40 on the singles chart.
album-cover-crap-80_normal_vinylcoversfreefr_00251 If you think Gary Wilson looks like a dork with those dark glasses, then it is because you don’t really know him. For awhile during the early disco era, Wilson led a band called “Gary Wilson and the Blind Dates”.

“You Think You Really Know Me” is a 2002 re-release recorded in Wilson’s basement on a TEAC 2340 4-track 7″ reel-to-reel prior to its initial release in 1977. There was some effort trying to find him to give the go-ahead to re-release the LP throughout the ’90s and into the early part of the 00’s. This is because there is indeed a cult following of fans that are quite fascinated by Wilson’s music. He also was once written up in the New York Times.

For those interested in Gary Wilson and want to have some idea of the cult following he had, below is a video, with links to a variety of others:

Visits: 93

Crappy Album Covers #62 — The Dance

album-cover-crap-76_lpcoverlover_com This one is from Michelino and his Cha Cha Band. The color scheme of the album obfuscates the black lettering near the bottom. Something about “Cha Cha Cha” and secretaries. This whole thing gives me an understanding as to why lpcoverlover.com headlined this as “Banging The Secretary“. There is the secretary there with her typewriter. Either he is playing bad music and she wants Michelino to stop, or he wants to dictate a letter to her using drum signals, and she can’t keep up.
album-cover-crap-77_lpcoverlover_com I have discovered that the “Cha Cha” has within it a nearly endless goldmine of crappy album covers. Look at “Dracula Cha Cha Cha”. Well, of course one problem I have, and it goes without saying, that the cover looks like it was done in pastel by a 14-year-old.But even the mere idea of doing the “Dracula Cha Cha Cha” is quite another topic. Gone are the images of warm Spanish climes, where engage in the dance such as the Cha-Cha or the tango, or to any of the many other Latin rhythms that make travelling to Spain or Latin America a treat. Instead, you the Cha Cha, done with an element of fear. Fear that you might get caught, I’d say. Some things can never be forgiven.I guess, then, I would consider this Cha-Cha album where the themes are non-standard, a kind of “alternative Cha-Cha” album to please, say, the punks and the skinheads. Imagine punks and skinheads doing the Cha-Cha. Just imagine.
album-cover-crap-63_badhair2 It seems that everyone had tried their hand at disco during the seventies. Here, the late Danish pop-rocker keyboardist and heavy metallist Tommy Seebach (1949-2003) wants you to believe that he can do disco, with his album “Disco Tango”.It is rather surprising that in the seventies, a person like Seebach could wear his mustache and hair like that and probably still get laid. It sure was a different decade. Those who lived through those decades must admit: in the 70s, we all thought we were something. We all thought that up to that point in modern history, we had the coolest clothes, and the coolest hairstyles. I mean having a blowdryer was a cool thing, as was having one of those hair brushes with the bristles that go all the way around, so that blowdrying your hair could get you that puffy head of hair that made your head look bigger than it really was. And you felt so cool when you wore it! Now, you guys have to admit that if that was the deal with you and your immediate clique, then you didn’t look too different from Seebach over here. If you were on a date, you wore a sports jacket and one of those shirts with pointy collars, and you made sure that you left the top button undone so that the girl can see your necklace and possibly some chest hair. And since ties weren’t cool, you never wore one. Therefore, we must conclude that this album is only crappy in retrospect.This blogger seems to have dicovered in those multiple heavy metal videos he did, that they all seemed to be the same shots of the same riffs of totally different music. Even the images of the drummer hitting the cymbals were in different time with the music. The same girls were dancing the same dance out of the same forest, regardless of the music. On different songs, I saw the same shots of the same guitar riffs; the same shots of the same bass riffs, not even bothering to change the camera angle.
album-cover-crap-73_coverbrowser_com While we’re on the topic of clothing styles, I’m afraid that these guys, The Drifters, have a clothing style that is like nothing in the history of the universe.Tracking information on these folks was next to impossible. There is a polka tune called “Drifters Polka”, which seemingly everyone covered — even Roy Clark. But A band called “Drifters” and an album called “Polka ‘n’ Fun” only led to other crappy album blogs, short on straight info.

Visits: 124

Crappy Album Covers #61 — Cool Religion

album-cover-crap-68_karate_preacherNow this is real cool. Wouldn’t you just like to go to church, and instead of those boring sermons and homilies, you instead get a preacher that knows karate, and uses it to show the power of God?

Well, Mike Crain the “Karatist Preacher” must have been packing them in, by striking down the devil every chance he gets, going by his 1975 album “God’s Power”. HIIIYYYA! He’s gonna wup some Satanic ass!

False prophets, idolators, usurers, prostitutes, dittoheads, and propagandists haven’t got a chance, as he cracks their skulls for JAY-sus! Crain looks like Mike Myers with a bowl cut.

album-cover-crap-78_zonicweb_netIt gets better. In between Crain’s homilies, David Ingles would come in and sing songs which paralyze Satan. This has the benefit of holding Satan still while Crain gives them a Karate chop, you see.

Trust me, with these two on the same bill, you would never miss a Church service again. David Ingles has his own website, and claims that God speaks to him.

He now has a daily radio program on a radio network which he owns, called the Oasis Network, and still gives regular church services in his local church Broken Arrow, Oklahoma, a suburb of Tulsa.

album-cover-crap-61_bad_santatAnd during Christmas Season, Swedish singer Eilerts Jul can fill in for Ingles as he returns to his loved ones for a break from sermons.

During the rest of the year, when he is not relieving Ingles of his duties, Jul is a furniture salesman for The Lord with television ads that play every 10 minutes, featuring talking dogs, jugglers, and magicians. After grabbing your attention with the circus performers, he gets on-screen yelling the store slogan and telling you at 300 words per minute where his store is located, and that he will not be undersold.

As part of his publicity, and to keep the local churchgoers from falling asleep (how is that possible?), he buys some of the furniture of his competitors, brings them into Church, while Mike Crain whacks them into splinters, calling them the work of Beelzebub. If you’re going to buy furniture, it must be blessed by Crain and identified by Jul as the work of the holy hands of his furniture suppliers.

You will not get Jul and his ads out of your head. He will be in your dreams. This is all good, since what is good for Jul is good for The Lord.

Visits: 170

Crappy Album Covers #60 — Creepy Similarities III

album-cover-crap-74_coverbrowser_comBruce A. Tweten was once known as “Mr. Bat”. This is his 1981 album, called “Mr. Bat Sings”. What else does he do in his spare time? He probably also scares the hell out of small children. If you play the album backwards, you may hear the sound of children screaming in horror as he pummels them with his fist he is now waving in the air. While you are keeping an anxious eye on your loved ones and holding your children a little closer tonight, let Mr. Bat teach you the meaning of coulrophobia, firsthand.

Much rumors and speculation abound as to what he does these days. This blogger speculates that he might be playing “Mr. Moth”, while his wife plays accompaniment on something called a fart horn (I thought this was a made up slang, but such horns really exist, and one such horn is being auctioned off for 20 bucks on E-Bay as I write this) every time he hits a high-C. I have also now learned that there is such a thing as a butt-horn fart, defined as a fart that sounds like a horn. So, he should forget about playing high-C and start playing flautulent duets. They would have to play in tune, of course, and if Bruce can still fart in high-C, that would be worth the price of admission.

buttholesurferslocustabortiontechnicianWell, I do recall around that same decade, a 1987 punk rock album from The Butthole Surfers, called Locust Abortion Technician. But this time, the clowns had smiles on their faces.

Like Mr. Bat, having clowns showing up on an album with a name like that does not generally give a positive portrayal of clowns.

Like much of this blog, this all has a precedent. One example of a clown with issues was mass murderer John Wayne Gacy, who also went by the name “Pogo the Clown”.

gacy2Gacy was known as “the Killer Clown”, and here he is, standing in front of his house. 30 bodies were found in his basement by 1974. He is depicted here in this black-and-white photo.

It would seem that once the Gacy murder trials started in the Early 80s, that left a void in the evil clown market, which is about the same time that Mr. Bat took over to fill in the clown shoes left behind by Gacy. Gacy, beset by legal problems (arrests, trials, convictions and jailtime can cramp your style, you know), was finally put down by lethal injection in 1994. What makes Gacy particularly repugnant is, that unlike Charles Manson, he did not produce any crappy albums, nor crappy album covers. Society will never forgive him for this heinous crime.

Enter Mr. Bat, who obviously wants to restore dignity to the good name of evil clowns everywhere. Bat has a big job to do, and big clown shoes to fill. He now must perform evil and terror-filled acts, but in a law-abiding way. We still await the outcome.

Visits: 138

Crappy Album Covers #59 — Stick Figure Neighbourhood

Welcome to the world of stick figures. In today’s blog, our crappy album cover collection will focus on the world of stick figures.

album-cover-crap-72_spoonsThis blog entry was named after a 1981 album from a band from Burlington, Ontario called The Spoons. I spent a while deciding whether this album cover met my standards of crappiness for inclusion into this collection of album covers. Well, here it is.

The Spoons had no hits from this record. The hits came later. The band members have changed names, and have broken up and reunited, and performed as late as 2007, but two personnel that have remained in their lineup from the beginning was Sandy Horne and Gordon Deppe. The two knew each other since since attending Aldershot High School in Burlington. The album was recorded in Hamilton. I can relate to the title. Parts of Burlington, and come to think of it, Oakville and Mississauga (these places are all close to where I live), can be thought of as stick figure neighbourhoods. Nothing like songs from the heart.

Little did The Spoons know, that their allusion to stick figures carries forward a tradition of stick figure albums that came before. To wit:

album-cover-crap-69_thriftstoreart_com

There’s nothing like stick figures to get you in the dancing mood (yeah, right). While the late Lester Lanin (1907-2004) played the proverbial “weddings, debutante balls, and bar mitzvahs” routine, he was no ordinary contract band leader. He had also played for Queen Elizabeth II, he palyed at the wedding of Prince Chuck and Lady Di, and more than one or two sitting U. S. Presidents.

So, how is it that a person with such impeccable connections couldn’t get decent album art? It could be that the album artist the company had, quit and the manager had to step in.

But I think the truth is far worse. There was a time I remember, looking at books published in the late ’60s and early ’70s, which had stick figure drawings, and usually it was found on self-help books or books with a sociology/anthropology bent. In other words, this was part of an aesthetic trend at one time.

album-cover-crap-71_thriftstoreart_com… like this one. Paul Harvey was a radio announcer for KVOO in Tulsa, Oklahoma, his place of birth, and another fellow who had impeccable credentials, winning many honorary degrees and medals, up until 2000.  He has also been given numerous awards and continues to broadcast to this day.

Once again, a legendary talent with an artless album cover. In the context of the title and some samples I have heard, at least it gets the point across.

If you look closely, these are very special stick men. They are the ones found on Male restroom doors.

album-cover-crap-70_thriftstoreart_com… and these are the ones found on the female restroom doors. Well, not quite. These are more like paper doll cutouts. Maybe as a pastime, you can count the figures to see if there are really 60 of them in the illustration.

Can 60 French girls be wrong, if they all agree on the same thing?

No information was found on The Djinns Singers, although there are many albums out there, some of them being sold on E-Bay. So, while links to this and other of their records are plentiful, it is difficult to know if there are 60 of them or 6 of them. Oh well…

Below is a stick figure animation for your amusement. These days, all kinds of people are doing stick figure animations. Don’t know if they are really popular, but they seem to have comic potential. See below, courtesy of YouTube:

Visits: 289

Charles Manson covers Beach Boys’ “Cease to Exist”

Charles Manson covers the Beach Boy’s tune “Cease to Exist”, accompanied by talent from The Manson Family. Not great, but I have heard worse from ’60s music. Is it too bad of a pun to say that this song is likely a “cult favrourite”? The video is all imagery, and not badly done. I hear that the Beach Boys later changed the song title and first line of the lyric to “Cease to resist”.

Visits: 150

Crappy Album Covers #58 — Family Bands

album-cover-crap-67_familyI was going to name this blog entry “family style”, but then I remembered that was the name of a 1990 duet album by brothers Jimmy and Stevie Ray Vaughan. It would have been an insult to SRV’s memory, I thought. So, I changed it to a straight title.

Now they say that the way to raise a family is to run a tight ship. Now if you can have your family live on a real ship on the high seas and in shark-infested waters, then you have it made. You can rule the roost and threaten to make the kids walk the plank if they misbehave.

According to my reliable secret sources, this “vanity press” album hearkens back to around 1974, and Captain Hook, whose name does not appear to be revealed as otherwise, really does have a hook for a left hand. He lost a leg and an arm in a motorcycle accident and was “born again” while in hospital. Hook became a tele-evangelist in Indiana for over 20 years after he “became Christian”. He also performs ventriloquism as part of his act.

album-cover-crap-66_family_the_macksI was going to place The McKeithens in the Bad Hair entry, but it was only the hair of one person, the mother in the foreground, that I was concerned about.

The McKeithens’ self-titled LP, likely from 1976, likely marks the start of a ministry of singing and fellowship that began in 1976, and lasted until 1991. I can’t say for sure where they hail from. There is a Myspace blog about them, but it is unlikely that the family had anything to do with the blog. I mean, would a family like this make virtual friends with people with usernames such as “Lady Stinky Puss”, “Chris Crocker”, or “Phat Gurl”? Don’t think so. Clearly, the blog is set up to make fun of this record cover. However, there is almost no original content in the blog, and it appears to have been abandoned.

This would have been a plain album that would have been ignored, but for the Winebago-sized hairdo the mother has.  I think it’s a wig. A wig that large could serve a purpose, you know. You could use it to store food, prescription medication, house and car keys, a change of clothes, photo ID, passports, train tickets, the King James Bible, sheet music … all the things you need to go on an evangelical singing tour.

album-cover-crap-62_family_st_heitt

The Heitt family are a study in obscure, small Saskatchewan villages that are little known even inside Saskatchewan. If you blink as you drive past these places, you might not see them, so be careful.

Most of the family belonging to the Heitt Orchestra are natives of Revenue, Saskatchewan, consisting of not much more than two crossing roads, about 200 km west of Saskatoon, as the crow flies (more like 230 km by highway, going by Google Earth). If you look for it on Google Maps, Revenue is where the low resolution area begins.

The Heitt family consist of Brothers Larry (drums), Blaine (electric bass), and Glen (banjo); their father Frank (accordion) and mother Adeline (guitar).

The only non-family member is vocalist is Donna Boser (holding the tambourine), who lives one hour’s drive deeper into Google’s low-resolution area, and closer to the Alberta border, in Fells, Saskatchewan. Although if you ask Donna, she’ll probably tell you she comes from Reward, Saskatchewan, which is a larger community close by. The “Where the Hell is Fells, Saskatchewan?” T-shirts must be selling like hot cakes over there. Boser still sings in the same part of the province.

Donna now lives in nearby Unity. At least they paved the main highways over there. Unity is still a small town where someone spent an idle afternoon counting the houses, and Unity has 960 of them (population is about 2500). And the deal is that Fells and Revenue are much smaller than Unity. Unity boasts its own website. And here is a virtual tour of Unity, where you can see how flat it is (should take about a minute).

Visits: 158

Crappy Album Covers #57 — Bad Hair

album-cover-crap-65_manson_char_lieCharles Manson. Psychopathic homicidal maniac. Cult leader. Singer of Beach Boys tunes. Bad hairdo.

Ok, so I guess that Manson had more than bad hair wrong with him. But nonetheless, Guns ‘n’ Roses and Marilyn Manson have either sampled or covered songs from this record, called “Lie: The Love and Terror Cult”, released in 1970.

There really is a Beach Boys cover on there called “Cease to Exist”. It is probably a nod to a one-time chance meeting which Manson had with Brian Wilson. This song was later covered by The Lemonheads and Redd Kross. As a further asside, the album is being sold on Amazon for about 16 bucks. It is not being placed on discount. They even allow you to sample the tracks and download MP3s for 99 cents a pop (there are 14 tracks, so you save two bucks). album-cover-crap-65_manson_char_lie2

Okay. I’m throwing down the gauntlet. I have decided to be the first to modify this cover for humorous effect, and I call upon other ‘netizens out there in cyberspace to get people to make humorous modifications to this cover.

Even simple modifications like this one, and I am leaning more toward  simple modifications to the album cover, not so much toward “Charles Manson’s Head Pasted On Other People’s Bodies”. For me, that would be too much work (hey, I have a busy life). But anything goes. Is Manson’s look one of paranoid delusion or indigestion? You decide. BTW, for those who can’t read the fine print below “What are you looking at?”, it reads, “Manson’s Hairstylists have messed with his coiff’ for the last time”.

album-cover-crap-61_badhair1The hair of Larz Kristerz is so bad, I thought of adding another one of their record covers to this blog entry.

“Stuffparty 1”. Can’t say too much about them, but they do grace themselves by making this their second appearance on my blog site.

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album-cover-crap-64_badhair1This is Eddie “ET” Townes, and his 1986 album “Best Friends”.

Townes was in retrospect a one-hit wonder, although the title track might have only been big on the dance charts, since it doesn’t appear that the song “Best Friends” charted in North America, either going by Billboard or by RPM (Canada).

I will have nightmares about this guy’s hair. But he deserves special mention also for choices of clothing. What we really need is something like a “Velvet Jones” award (recalling Eddie Murphy’s character when he played on Saturday Night Live) for people who dress like they slapped together whatever they found in a dumpster and hoped it would amount to something.

Visits: 244

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!

album-cover-crap-45_zonicweb_netGood 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?

album-cover-crap-46_zonicweb_net“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?

album-cover-crap-57_showandtellmusic_comThis 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.

album-cover-crap-47_zonicweb_netWhenever 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: 143

Crappy Album Covers #54 — Scary Stuff, Kids!

album-cover-crap-9_lp-cover-lover1Some of my readers, in particluar the members of the LoudFans mailing list listened to WFMU, at least once, since The Loud Family appeared on there in 2000 or so to be interviewed. They had performed there to promote tracks from their album which had just been released, called Attractive Nuisance.

WFMU also seems to be pretty heavy on this guy: Robbie The Werewolf. Except that this is not a current album. “At The Waleback” was recorded way back in 1964, according to WFMU.

I dispute the claim that this was done in 1964, mostly because of this song: Tiptoe Through the Wolfbane, an obvious send-up to “Tiptoe Through the Tulips”, a folk song made famous by Tiny Tim. Except that Tiny Tim didn’t release his single for another 4 years. But he is ahead of his time in other ways. Back then, the themes he covered were considered sexually explicit, and would not be considered kosher until at least the mid 1970s.

“Tiptoe” is an obvious parody, but if it were released after 1968, it would have had way more impact. The album is considered rare, commanding between $200 and $500.

album-cover-crap-12_lp-cover-loverOnce again, here is a foreign-language record, whose album cover speaks “scary” in all languages.

Columbian musician Calixto Ochoa released “El Dentista”, a 1962 album that presumably drills down into the heart of Latin music.

I have not heard too much about the author, or, regarding the listenability of the album: “is it safe” to listen to most of the tracks?

This is probably what the dentist is asking the patient in this photo.

I hear that, on the whole, some parts of the album will only hurt a little bit.

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farragoelvisK-Tel International, I have been reminded, is a Canadian company run from its headquarters in Winnipeg, who can be credited for almost single-handedly rescuing Western Canada from its stereotype of rednecks, farmers, and bald, flat prairie.

This is a 1977 K-Tel release, “For Elvis Amateurs Vol. 2, By Popular Demand”, containing songs sung by Quebec singer and Elvis tribute artist Johhny Farago. Could Johnny just shave off his beard so that he looks at least a little more like Elvis? And maybe grow some sideburns or something?

Visits: 178

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

album-cover-crap-38_lp-cover-lover 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.

album-cover-crap-34_lp-cover-lover 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.

album-cover-crap-37_lp-cover-lover 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.

album-cover-crap-35_lp-cover-lover 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

album-cover-crap-41_lp-cover-lover“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…

album-cover-crap-21_lp-cover-loverWhile 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.

album-cover-crap-33_lp-cover-loverTalk 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.

album-cover-crap-42_lp-cover-lover 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.

album-cover-crap-43_lp-cover-lover 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.

album-cover-crap-39_lp-cover-lover
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.

album-cover-crap-40_lp-cover-lover 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

album-cover-crap-27_xmas_bizarrerecords_comImages 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.

album-cover-crap-26_xmas_amyoops_com1If 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.

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album-cover-crap-28_xmas_bizarrerecords_com1In 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 #48 — Couldn't hit the broad side of a barn …

album-cover-crap-25_lp-cover-loverNot clear on this idea of double-barreled handguns.  Especially guns that use actual wooden barrels to guide the bullet.

Some guns are not made for actual shooting, I suppose.

Dave and Ansel Collins put this reggae album out in 1971. The title track of this album peaked at #22 on Billboard back then. It was a bigger hit in the UK, where it topped the singles chart.

If that’s double-barrel, then it’s a trigger and a hammer short.

album-cover-crap-2_lp-cover-loverThere’s farmer John with a rifle. And there’s the broad side of a barn. I think he missed.

After farmer John’s 10th attempt at seeing if he could hit the broad side of a barn with his shotgun, Joe and Bill come on the scene, trying to take the gun away, because he is getting dangerous with it.

And, during the ensuing struggle, the damned thing goes off again.

Visits: 136

Crappy Album Covers #47 — I don't get this

album-cover-crap-6_lp-cover-loverDonnie and Joe Emerson’s 1979 offering, Dreamin’ Wild, is classed in some blogs in the psychedelic rock genre.

So, then I if I look at this picture and think that I see two heads growing out of one body, then I suppose that it’s because I am on acid?

If this is not the case, then, is it Donnie fretting the strings on the guitar or is that the hand of Joe? Am I still tripping on acid?

Also, the background of this photo looks like it was rented from the same outfit that shot their high school photos. Soul-Sides.com has found some actual digitized tracks from this album for your listening pleasure.

album-cover-crap-4_lp-cover-lover“Sterling Blythe Sings” is one of those crappy record album covers with crossover appeal. I don’t know whether to say that it fits in as a “crappy cliche checklist” album, or as a “crappy-by-ambiguousness” album. The background for this album cover could also have come from some kind of background used in high school photos.

On the empty cliche checklist:

  • Cowboy hat? Check.
  • Tight pants with rhinestones? Check
  • Cowboy boots with fancy stitching and dye work? Check.
  • Sitting on a … uh….

… and that’s where the ambiguousness comes in. What the heck is he sitting on? A long branch with his legs dangling in the sky? Or a fence (with his legs still having nothing to rest on)? Looks like he could easily topple over and fall down, and that could be the end of his career.  What we do know, and what the artwork appears to show, is that his right heel is off-camera.  So, if that is the case, then he is sitting on a fence with his feet on the ground. With his legs allowed to rest at that angle, the fence can’t be more than 2 feet off the ground, and so the fence can’t be of the type to keep animals (horses, cows, sheep) out, if this were a real farm. In fact for all we know he could be sitting on a fence in a suburban part of Los Angeles or Boston, the only purpose of the fence being to keep the neighbours off his lawn.

Visits: 214

Crappy Album Covers #46 — Fugly people

album-cover-crap-1_lurch_lp-cover-loverOK. I’m being unfair. Lurch was already ugly. We expect him to be ugly, and he plays the part. We watched the Addams Family series when we were kids because of all the ugly characters, and all of the strange ways that were totally unlike a normal family.

Ted Cassidy played a Frankenstein-like character called Lurch in the series the Addams Family, back in the days when color television was just starting. But we were lucky in our family. We still had a black-and-white TV, which is really the only proper way to watch the Addams Family.

In black-and-white, Morticia had cigarette-white skin and looked like death warmed over, for example. Color invites the danger of adding flesh tones, which ruins the “undead” effect, which I think lies at the heart of the whole Addams Family atmosphere they were trying to get across.

A Morticia that is more lifelike? A Fester that doesn’t look like he was carved out of soapstone? A Lurch that is not gray-faced, and that doesn’t look like he forgot to take his meds? What’s the point?

album-cover-crap-23_lp-cover-lover

It’s perfectly OK to love your mother, I suppose. Heino has taken this to its ultimate futility, it seems, with this offering, called “Liebe Mutter”, or “Dear Mother”, as I believe it is translated.

Heino has, like many albums I have here, have been a staple of crappy album cover blogs. But this time, rather than have widespread photoshopping of Heino or the rest of the album (which may well have really happened), a website called “faceinhole.com” has a concept where they provide a photo with the face already covered in “transparent” pixels so that you can plop any face you like  in place of folks like Heino.

So, my choice of face was that of George W. Bush. He has had his issues, but they may not have been principally maternal in nature. But what the hell…

gbush_liebemutter
Create your own FACEinHOLE

Yeah, I admit it’s a hack job. But that is kind of like Bush’s presidency.

The glasses weren’t pixeled out, so I had some time trying to fit Bush’s eyes inside the glasses.

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album-cover-crap-7_lp-cover-lover1Fred Emney (1900-1980) just wants you to buy his record then f**k off.

He was a British comedian, playing a gruff, fat bloke wearing a monacle, just as he is depicted here for his fans. As part of his act, he often played his own piano compositions.

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album-cover-crap-24_lp-cover-loverSome people you would rather see fully clothed.  Liz Lyons is a comedian, whom I would guess was into a bawdier kind of humour than normal. For 1975.

LPcoverlover.com reports that this 1975 album had reviews on the back cover which said things like: “When this kitten lays one on you, you know you’ve been laid…on” and “I laughed so hard I fell off my wife and broke my arm.”

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album-cover-crap-22_lp-cover-loverThis single by The Hendersons has been traced back to 1981.

Now, photoshop wasn’t created until the early 1990s. So, this cover came about due to good old-fashioned photo retouching of the kind that framed Oswald in the Kennedy assassination.

Visits: 101

Crappy Album Covers #45 — Teenagers

Teenagers are a difficult demographic to reach, unless you don’t know anything about them. If you know nothing about the demographic, then it does’t pose a difficulty for you. I know that’s kind of like saying that if you don’t know anything about painting a portrait, then slashing the brush in any direction or color at random poses no problem to the painter. It seems that way, with the covers below. If your album overtly suggests that “This album is for teenagers”, I will guarantee you teens won’t buy them. On the other hand, if you say this is “R-rated”, and contains cuss words and sexual suggestions that would put a blush on a two-dollar hooker (you know, like Rap), and that young people shouldn’t buy them at all, then they will fly off the shelves and teens would be the biggest part of the market.

album-cover-crap-19_bizarrerecords_comCase in point, this realistic portrait of teenagers having a good time. I bet you already knew they were listening to this very record, recorded by Bobby Krane and His Orchestra, and distributed by Bravo! Records.

Look! The young lady in the foreground is saying it too! — Bravo! Bravo! At least that looks like what she could be saying.

Look at the photo and indulge in the fantasy that there is still a world where young teen girls don’t dress like sluts; the guys stay straight and sober (by “straight” I meant drug-free, but I guess it could also be taken the other way) and don’t dress like plumber-butt pimps. And the guys even ask the girls “may I have this dance with you?”

And then there’s Tex Ritter. Tex Ritter? And that’s when I woke up.

album-cover-crap-20_bizarrerecords_comThe TOPS record label, which previously warned us about the world ending, are shown here producing records of “12 Top Hits” so you can party like it’s 1999, or more to the point, like it’s 1959.

You have to admit that the one thing that stands out most about this cover is that the lady who is dancing is wearing argyle socks. I thought there was a law passed by Joe McCarthy’s HUAC banning women from wearing argyle socks. It was supposed to be a guy thing. It totally clashes with the pink blouse.  If this is a fashion statement, then she should be arrested by the fashion police for bad fashion grammar.

Once again, the cover consists of the tamest teenagers you’ve never seen. And I don’t think they existed in 1959 either. Even in 1959, teens got drunk, and they had sex. Perhaps the only worthwhile thing that the photo realistically illustrates, is that in 1959, the guys didn’t have the bad taste to wear plumber-butt pants or hoodies, which would have made the chick in argyle look like Elizabeth Taylor (I mean Liz Taylor in 1959, not in 2008).

To anyone born after the 1960s: HUAC = “House Un-American Activities Committee“. It’s sort of like Homeland Security against commies and hippies.

album-cover-crap-18_lp-cover-loverThese seemingly adult-age folks may as well be adolescent, since they are depicted in the way their parents would approve. “I Love Music” was a sampler sent to radio stations across North America from Capitol Records back in 1958. The album cover gives every indication that the HUAC would have approved of this album. Going by the cover, for instance, it is obvious that these two folks are not planning the overthrow of the proletariat, and of taking over the means of production.

The artlessness of these depictions are a sure symptom of the McCarthy era. I recall when I began collecting old issues of Mad Magazine (digested in paperback form) going back to the 1950s, the most boring and least funny issues were during the period of 1958-1963. It couldn’t have been a good time to be a satirist.

And there was one more I forgot to add:
tammy_casual-slack-080726Yes, this 12″ LP of hits, which by the cover seems to treat teenagers as younger than they really are, may not have been headed for any kind of landmark success.

A toy doll with a toy record goes to a toy jukebox to pretend to play music on it. And, what’s left? You can only sing along to the music you are pretending to play.

I must say that much of the advertising I see today parallels the kind of mentality depicted on all of these albums in today’s blog. There is a certain advertising these days that points to a certain clientele, or a certain lifestyle as we would like to see it. But it is made to look artsy, so that you can’t accuse advertisers of appealing to people that don’t really exist. Instead, it can look naive, even idealistically so.  Sticking to album covers, the Putumayo Collection, discussed earlier, is an example of album covers that are like this.

Visits: 137