Totem Pole of Losers: Jesus, I Am Loving You / My Compromise

Here’s a favorite 7-inch from college: Before he was America’s Funnyman Neil Hambuger, Gregg Turkington founded his own San Francisco-based label, Amarillo Records, and was co-conspirator in a number of bands including The Easy Goings and The Zip Code Rapists. Totem Pole of Losers was one of his projects, and the two songs on this 7-inch represent 66% of the band’s total recorded output (I only see evidence of one other TPOL song, “Look What You’ve Done”, released on a Japanese various artists comp in 2005). Like the best avant-snot-rock of 1993, it’s sludgy and drolly hilarious at the same time. The A-side, “Jesus I Am Loving You”, features vocalist Lizzy Kate Gray detailing her maybe-too-intimate relationship with her saviour. The B-side, “My Compromise”, is a real anvil-beater with vocals by Turkington sung from the point of view of a commercial composer who’s about to remove his lover’s name from a song before submitting it as the jingle for a frozen chocolate-covered waffle. Included with the artwork is the original lyric sheet plus the enclosed Amarillo / Nuf Sed mail order catalogs.

Jesus, I Am Loving You
My Compromise

7-inch audio & artwork

DISCLAIMER: To the best of my knowledge, this work is out of print and not available for purchase in any format. If you are the artist and are planning a reissue, please let me know and I’ll remove it from the blog. Also please get in touch if you’ve lost your art &/or sound masters and would like to talk with me about my restoration work.