Saturday, July 2, 2016

Al "Jazzbo" Collins: Steve Allen's Grimm Fairy Tales for Hip Kids

Dig, man - wildlife!

Little Red Riding Hood
The Three Little Pigs

Record 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.

Friday, July 1, 2016

The Second City: The Second City Writhes Again!

1969 Mercury album collecting previously-issued and never-released works by the Second City. "Football", "Interviews", and "Museum Piece" are from the 1962 Mercury LP From the Second City; "Senate Hearing" is from the Smash Records LP The Cosa Nostra Story from 1964; and "Man in the Nightclub" was previously unreleased. The cast includes Howard Alk, Alan Arkin, Jack Burns, Del Close, Severn Darden, Andrew Duncan, Ann Elder, Barbara Harris, Mina Kolb, Avery Schreiber, Omar Shapli, and Eugene Troobnick.

Football
Interviews (West Germany, Governor Sunshine)
Senate Hearing (The Commercial, The Hearing)
Museum Piece
Man in the Nightclub

Album 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.

ポリドール・オーケストラ, 豊寿、豊藤 / Polydor Orchestra, Toyohisa & Toyofuji: 邦楽三味線ム-ド(豊寿名演集) / Hōgaku Shamisen Mood (Toyohisa Great Performance Collection)

And here's record #2. Why restore & recycle these records into the great river of Internet muck? Partly because I love the idea that this piece of vinyl, which was no doubt considered a sweet example of the masterful shakuhachi skills of performers Tohoyisa and Toyofuji, and which now has no commercial value whatsoever, was sitting there waiting to die in a record bin until I shoved its digital husk back into this tiny tributary of Culture As We Know It. After all, back in the days of the old school play, didn't we ALL push the stagehands onto the stage in the middle of a scene when nobody expected to see them? I know I did! Stop looking at me like that.

(Incidentally, I don't usually included generic inner sleeves, but this one is wonderful. Although to my eyes it seems to tell a cautionary tale about how you should never inflate a dinner table and then walk into buildings and steal electronic equipment or else your house will be knocked off its foundation, really it's just a helpful notice about how the money spent on this record will help get music to prisoners, your local PTA, and people living in remote areas. So remote that they must constantly shout to be heard. I think.)

ニ上り新内 / Nijōri shin’nai
春雨 / Harusame
娘道成寺 / Musumedōjōji
梅は咲いたか / Ume wa saita ka
木遣りくずし / Kiyarikuzushi
新内流し / Shin'nainagashi
潮来出島 / Itako dejima
越後獅子 / Echigojishi
元禄花見踊り / Genrokuhanamiodoriri
びんのほつれ / Bin no hotsure

Record 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.

ポリドール・オーケストラ / Polydor Orchestra: 山は夕焼 / Yama wa yuya





The first of two 10" records I picked up recently from Record Recycler in Torrance, both from a Japanese easy-listening series on Polydor, probably circa 1964. Basic Japanese orchestral arrangements of the mid-sixties, and guaranteed to be the perfect backing track if you need to evoke that period for some reason. Warning: we're seriously getting into the "I bought it therefore I had to restore it, I couldn't stop myself" phase of my record-collecting OCD. You're going to love it when I get to my easy-listening LPs from Thailand a month from now.

山は夕焼 / Yama wa yuya
徳利の別れ / Tokkuri no wakare
道頓堀行進曲 / Dōtonbori kōshinkyoku
潮来夜船 / Itako yofune
鴛鴦道中 / Oshidoridōchū   
大江戸出世小唄 / Ōedo shusse kouta
サムライニッポン / Samurainippon
名月赤域山 / Meigetsu aka-iki yama
お駒恋姿 / O koma koisugata
湖底の故郷 / Kotei no furusato

Record 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.