George Gerdes: Son of Obituary

 

On this sequel to his 1971 debut Obituary George Gerdes moves more solidly into Southern boogie rock territory, and the results are super satisfying. Standout tracks for me are "Sack of Woe" and "Roll Me Over Jehovah".

Hey Packy
Long Time, No See
Sack of Woe
Messin' with Missus Lately
Son of Obituary
Roll Me Over Jehovah
Slash Your Sole
Catechism Wednesday
Intellectual Baby
Waiting Is
S.O.B. Reprise

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.

Boise Elementary Honor Concert 1980: Salute to America

 

Yes, this record documents the infamous occasion in 1980 when a soon-to-be-fired children's choir director thought it would be fun for the fourth, fifth, and sixth grade mixed voices to sing "Nothing" from "A Chorus Line", with its famous line "...except the feeling that this bullshit was absurd", which instigated a riot among the parents whereupon a set of bleachers collapsed, killing a janitor and...no, only kidding, this is just your average Honor concert record. Lots of unison singing and talktative babies in the audience. For many listeners, this will be a short visit to hell; for the collagists, a boon. Note especially the cut "Commercials" where a group of kids sing a medley of jingles for Almond Joy / Mounds, Coke, Oscar Meyer, and Alka-Seltzer. Even though I felt I was obliged to digitize this because I've had the record since I attended the original concert, this was of course not true, and this blog post may mark the end of my capacity to make good decisions in life. Still, it was worth it to rescue the concert band's rendition of "Blowin' in the Wind".

Kiwanis Choir: My Train
Kiwanis Choir: Tomorrow
Kiwanis Choir and Training Choir: Commercials
Elementary Honor Orchestra: Turkish March
Elementary Honor Orchestra: Two Woodland Dances (part one)
Elementary Honor Orchestra: Two Woodland Dances (part two)
Elementary Honor Orchestra: Canyon Sunset
Elementary Honor Orchestra: Skip to My Lou
Elementary Honor Choir: If Tomorrow Never Comes
Elementary Honor Choir: Dream a Dream
Elementary Honor Choir: June Is Bustin' Out All Over / June
Elementary Honor Band: Aura Lee
Elementary Honor Band: Blowin' in the Wind
Elementary Honor Band: Love That Latin
Combined Honor Groups: Salute to America

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.

George Gerdes: Obituary

 

Before George Gerdes (1948-2021) became a character actor, whom you may have seen in The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo, Grey's Anatomy, and The X-Files, he had a brief and sweet career as a country/folk recording artist in the Loudon Wainwright III mode (no surprise, as he and Loudon were once in a band together). This is the first of his two albums for United Artists Records, released in 1971. His second—which in the trophy room of great album names I believe deserves a spot above the fireplace—is called Son of Obituary.

Peas Porridge Hot
Sweet Janine
Real as Rain
The Lap of Luxury
Backyard of Your Heart
Song of the Hero's Heroine
Tequila Blue
Time Will Let You In
Gardenia Lady

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.

Go Your Own Sultan

On the bike ride home tonight I realized Dire Straits' "Sultans of Swing" and Fleetwood Mac's "Go Your Own Way" are actually the same song. So here's the obvious mashup. Warning: this is SO GREAT the gods of Medium Rock will stand aghast, the vault of heaven will open, and the coveted 18-64 demographic will tap their feet briefly.

Charles Ives / Gunther Schuller, conductor: Calcium Light Night

 

Album of short pieces by Charles Ives, reconstructed & conducted by Gunther Schuller.

Set No. 1: The See'r
Set No. 1: A Lecture
Set No. 1: The New River
Set No. 1: Like a Sick Eagle
Set No. 1: Calcium Light Night
Set No. 1: Incantation (Allegretto Sombreoso)
Tone Roads No. 1
Set No. 3: At Sea (Adagio Sostenuto)
Set No. 3: Luck and Work
Set No. 3: Premonitions
From the Steeples and the Mountains
The Rainbow
Ann Street
Scherzo: Over the Pavements
From Set No. 2: The Indians
From Set No. 2: The Last Reader
Tone Roads No. 3
The Pond
All the Way Around and Back
Chromatimelodtune

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.

Jim Leonard: Super Saw

 

Musical saw-man Jim Leonard learned the musical saw at home and made multiple appearances on The Gong Show in the 1970s, losing to a baton twirler by a single point withheld by Phyllis Diller. He pressed this LP privately in 1980, claiming he spent 900 hours recording and engineering it, multitracking himself against a small pickup ensemble. Japanese label EM Records reissued it with bonus tracks in 2005.

Jim signed this copy to the cast of Real People in 1980 (and if you were born too late to watch Real People when it aired, MAD Magazine was entirely correct when they observed "This really is The Gong Show, it's just done in prime time!"). 

Please note that this record was a home production engineered by the artist, who did not take advantage of noise reduction and who did straight cuts to leader at the end of each track, and these artifacts have been preserved as I found them.

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.

The "In Search Of..." Orchestra: In Search Of... (Special 12" Disco Version)

 

From 1976, disco-centric label AVI Records presents two special 12" disco versions of the theme song to "In Search Of...", the show that separated an entire generation from their capacity for critical thinking. They're searchin'! And discoin'! At the same time!

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.

Irving Taylor: Terribly Sophisticated Songs (A Collection of Unpopular Songs for Popular People)

 

This 1958 Warner Bros. album featuring twelve songs by Irving Taylor was the precursor to the Irving Taylor LP released the following year, The Whimsical World of Irving Taylor (also on Warner Bros.), which shared four tracks from this long-player. As with the latter record, this one has a lot of subtle, absurd satire to turn your head ("I'm Filled with That Empty Feeling", "We Did the Samba in Shamokin", "The Brooklyn Beguine"). I'm happy to own a copy for the sake of owning an Irving Taylor product but equally happy to own it as a record with cover art by William Box, whose work graced the covers of six immortal jazz titles on the Mode Records label from 1957, including the record you wished you owned the most right now, the Warne Marsh Quartet's Music for Prancing.

Jimmy Joyce "When the Crab Grass Blooms Again"
Allan Davies, Earl Brown, Joe Pryor "In a Cafeteria with You"
Robie Lester "I'm Filled with That Empty Feeling"
Joe Pryor "Myrtle"
Sue Allen "All of the Time"
Gil Mershon & Ginny O'Connor "I'll Never Forget Those Unforgettable Never To Be Forgotten Memories"
Earl Brown "Pachalafaka"
Key Howard "Anywhere on Earth"
Robie Lester "Just My Sol"
Allen Davies "I'll Write a Symphony"
Ginny O'Connor, Sue Allen, Loulie Jean Norman "We Did the Samba in Shamokin"
Gil Mershon "The Brooklyn Beguine"

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.

 

Amelia Earhart: The Fun of It

 

Cardboard record included in the first edition of Amelia Earhart's autobiography For the Fun of It, published by Harcourt Brace & Co, 1932.

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.

Hub City Movers: The Chicken Song b/w I Can't Know Tomorrow

 

A deathless classic from the Hub City Movers of Austin, Texas, one-time house band at the Vulcan Gas Company club and the first act to play the Armadillo World Headquarters. After reading Gilbert Shelton's one-page comic about dropping LSD and setting chickens free in Feds 'n' Heads (1968), the band recorded their own musical version with Gil's permission and included a reprint of the cartoon.

The Chicken Song
I Can't Know Tomorrow

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.

Ville de Lourdes: Lourdes Centre Mondial de Pèlerinage

 

Carillon de La Basilique - Procession Nocturne - Ave Maria - Credo - Bénédiction Par L'Evèque - Salve Régina
Grand'Messe - Procession Du Saint-Sacrement - Prière Pour Les Malades - Fin Du Pélerinage

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.

Jack Costanzo: Learn—Play Bongos (Demonstration Record)

 

Dicky-dicky-dicky-docky! Seven-inch record promoting Jack Costanzo's "Learn—Play Bongos" LP. Note the egregiously inconsistent spelling of Jack's last name on both sides of the sleeve (at least Liberty spelled his name right on the LP, which is more than Tiara Records could manage in 1958.)

Introduction: I Got a Bongo (Excerpt)
El Diablito (Excerpt)—Instruction
El Diablito (Play Along)
Peanut Vendor (Play Along) ("El Manisero")

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.

GAF Salesmakers: Everything's Coming Up Profits

 

This single-sided record from 1969 is an industrial musical soundtrack produced by the GAF Corporation, Floor Products Division, performed by the "GAF Salesmakers". Iconic title! Music's pretty meh, though.

Everything's Coming Up Profits
Open Some New Markets
With a Little Bit of Luck
Talk to the Dealer
We Welcome You Now
Salesmaker-Salesmaker
Finale

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.

Lady Pepperell: Tailgate Rambles—Featuring The Big Blanket

 

 

 

Advertising LP from 1963 that included two ad inserts, suggested ad copy, a reply mailer, and a double-sided poster. "It's like when you push up a pillow. You like when it's fluffy."

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.