Life Magazine: Sing Along with Millard Fillmore

From 1964, Life magazine's excellent album of band + vocal covers of vintage Presidential campaign songs going back 160 years. Life issued this version as a freebie to attract advertisers, and the same year Columbia Records sold it commercially in slightly different packaging. You'll tap your toe, you'll sap a tree, you'll wonder "Are ALL these lyrics stupid, or is it just me?" (Spoiler: the lyrics to campaign songs are always VERY, VERY STUPID.) Hat tip to Jason Klamm for loaning me this record from his collection - thanks again Jason!

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.

Pacific Northwest Bell: Holiday in Washington

In this controversial scorcher, Bing Crosby asserts that you should move to Washington. It's a miracle his assassination didn't soon follow. Bing and others recommended in a similar record that you should also move to Oregon, so thanks a lot for the double-bind scenario Bing, no wonder the world completely stopped trusting you. Pacific Northwest Bell really wanted people to come to the fabulous Northwest, and so did the Young Fresh Fellows, and that's all I got on this one, people. (Hat tip to Richard Lindsay for the find - thanks Rich!)

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.

Bluejackets On Parade

I honestly can think of no reason why any living person would wish to listen to this, a sort-of documentary report on conditions at the U.S. Naval Training Center in San Diego in the mid-1960s. I mean, only the young sailor's mother bought it (or pocketed it as a freebie), and she's dead now. And the sailor doesn't want to re-live that training bullshit. That leaves just you, the obscure-record-hungry public, who must now of course listen to the WHOLE THING to prove there's no flexidisc in the world, not even an obvious piece of propaganda such as this, that you won't find a place for in your brain, because FLEXIDISCS! (Hat tip to Jason Klamm for providing the record - thanks Jason!)

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.

Ken Noyle: Sounds of Tokyo After Dark

Audio verite from producer Ken Noyle: four flexi-discs in a 7 1/2" square booklet with red comb binding. Apparently number seven in a series, which included "Sounds of Hong Kong" and "Sounds of Hawaii", although the persistent focus on female breastages marks this edition as being targeted to overseas American servicemen. No date, but probably circa 1961-1962. (Hat tip to Jason Klamm for providing the record - thanks Jason!)

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.

Norma Pursley-Dasher & Arthur Garner: Haven of Rest

Organ + vibraharp + Jesus = yet more awesomely lugubrious instrumental music perfect for the background of your radio show backannouncing, your first/last date, or just about any life experience really.

Haven of Rest
Beyond the Sunset
In Times Like These
Raise Me, Jesus
Tell Jesus
Brightly Beams Our Father's Mercy
Far Beyond the Sun (Más Allá del Sol)
This Is the Master's Way
My Jesus, I Love Thee
I Am Not Worthy
Have You Counted the Cost?

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.

Del Huff: It's a Big Wide Wonderful World

Christian missionary Del Huff plays a slew of secular tunes on this LP from Hollywood’s Mark Records (undated, released perhaps in 1978, but it feels more like circa 1967-1969 to me). In anticipation of your question…the Cordovox was an organ first unleashed on the American public by the Chicago Musical Instrument Co. in 1960. There were a variety of stand-up models reminiscent of the Farfisas that dominated stage and screen in the 1960s, but as this 1977 Huff album cover demonstrates, he probably wasn’t playing one of those, but instead a Super V: a hefty electric model small enough to be carried like an accordion but which could also be mounted on a stand.

It’s a Big Wide Wonderful World
Edelweiss
You, You, You Are the One
Somewhere My Love
Whispering
Blue Tango
Midnight in Paris
Spanish Eyes
Michelle
Dominique
A Man and a Woman
The River Seine

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.

Neskowin Valley School Singers: You Don't Knock!

The Neskowin Valley School is a private elementary/middle school founded in 1972 in a former dairy barn just a couple of ragged miles from the Oregon coast. According to their Website, “All the children come together at least twice a week for Gather Round, singing folk songs and American ballads from the traditional NVS Songbook”. Here’s a private-press LP produced by the school to give you an idea what that sounds like. (There’s no year listed, but based on my memories of these hairstyles I'd have to guess 1983.)

You Don’t Knock
Lord Kitchener’s Lament
Doc Holladay
John Henry
Ocean Waves
Gypsy Rover
Queer Bungo Rye
Katy Cruel
Whiskey in the Jar


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.

Father Guido Sarducci: Breakfast in Heaven

If you’ve read Don Novello’s series of Lazlo Letters books, which compile all the sweetly deranged letters he wrote under the pen name Lazlo Toth to a variety of celebrities covering them in softball praise that’s only subtly pimientoed with satirical digs, you’ll understand why his two LPs recorded under another character’s guise, the hip and quietly insane Father Guido Sarducci, haven’t been reissued since they came out in the 1980s; Don’s humor, and that of his characters, is too understated ever to set the world on fire. There’s still a lot to enjoy here, though, so if you’re in the mood for an hour of laid-back fun I recommend you give this a taste.

Father Sarducci is welcomed to the University of Notre Dame and recalls the early years of the institution
Doo Dah - History, Folklore and Myth
The pros and cons of singing about beer on buses are examined
How singing the short version of "Happy Birthday" can add six to seven minutes to your life, the candles on the cake and a look at Reagan's neck
Central American Policy is discussed and arguments are made to bomb Canada
Father Sarducci looks forward to the 90's and unveils plans for the upcoming Columbus Cinquecentennial in 1992
Divorced lookalikes, emergency umbrellas and the missing commandments are highlighted in a preview of The Vatican Enquirer
Breakfast in Heaven
Father Sarducci answers questions from the audience about wearing black, the confessional and birth control for dogs
A medley of Beatles' tunes

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.

Paul Dallas: Dallas in Wonderland

"Peter [Bergman] shuffled even when seated. When walking, he kept his head down as if looking for a tiny hole in the ground which might lead him to Mu."

As far as I know, no one's ever scanned Paul Dallas' hilarious & incendiary history of the Summer of Love at KPFK-FM in Los Angeles, Dallas in Wonderland, which contains chapters dedicated to the history of Peter Bergman's seminal hip radio show "Radio Free Oz". Happily Firesign Theatre's dear friend Edgar Bullington donated a consumable copy to our archive, so I used it to create a searchable PDF. Thanks Edgar! Here it is for your reading pleasure.

Alexei Sayle: Cak!

Really aggressive and really surreal...here's the first full-length album of standup material by Alexei Sayle, from 1982.

Sausalito
Happy Days Part I
Dr. Marten's Boots
Stoke Newington Calling
The Ballad of Chris and Judith
Some Stuff
Hello, How Are You?
Some More Stuff
The Wine Bars of Old Hampstead Town
Happy Days Part II
Cak!
Song for Len
Commercial Break
Radical Posture
Long Distance Information
Das Kap Rap
Say Hello Mr. Sweary
'Ullo John! Gotta New Motor?

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.

Alexei Sayle: 'Ullo John! Gotta New Motor? (Parts III & IV)

Here's the second single version of this song, a 12" to follow the 7", now with profanity! Seriously, nothing this dirty had made it to British vinyl since Derek and Clive recorded "The Critics". This 12" and the previous 7" were released in 1982 but didn't chart; by the following year Sayle had increased his public profile thanks to appearing in "The Young Ones" and "Gorky Park" so Springtime reissued the song, which peaked at #15 in the UK singles chart in March 1984.

'Ullo John! Gotta New Motor? (Part III)
'Ullo John! Gotta New Motor? (Part IV)

12" single 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.

Alexei Sayle: 'Ullo John! Gotta New Motor? (Parts I & II)

Oi that Cortina's a sweet ride innit?

'Ullo John! Gotta New Motor? (Part I)
'Ullo John! Gotta New Motor? (Part II)

7" single 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.