Victor Banana: Split

Tim Hensley (aka Neil Smythe, aka Vic Hazelnut) is kind of a genius. Now best known as a cartoonist, Tim recorded two albums with his band Victor Banana; this was the first, released on DJ Splat Winger’s San Pedro imprint SplatCo in 1989, and featuring cover art by Dan Clowes. The band’s second and last album was the record/CD Like a Velvet Glove Cast in Iron in 1993. There’s lots of great bloggage elsewhere about Tim’s musical adventures as himself and other personae (see links below). I’ve asked Tim several times over the years whether he’s got any more music in him and he’s always said no, so until such time as the muse Euterpe picks up her flute and whacks Tim with it, we’ve just got these tunes to hum along to.

Convoke
Strange Things Are Happening
Surfin' Is the Most Easy Sport
Here Comes Santa
Shiver Me Timbers
Vitrified
Do the Jalopy
The Cash Cow
The World's Most Gruesome Monster
Planet Xylak
Teen Anthem
Aggravation
If I Was Elected President
Partly Cloudy
Let's Go for a Ride on a Dinosaur
Paul Bunyan
Iamatology Walking Through Lineal Theanthropism
What I Did Last Summer
Dr. Goodbeard
Parker
How Far Away Are the Stars?

LP audio & artwork

mrowster’s “Pig State Recon” blog
Steve Zdanio’s “Domino Rally” blog
Tim Hensley’s “Blog Flume” blog
The Jenkins-Peabody home page (not sure whether this has been updated in the last eight years)

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.

Various Artists: Beatlesongs! The Best of the Beatles Novelty Records

Rhino Records flexed their novelty muscles with this 1982 collection of songs inspired by The Beatles, including tunes by the Neil Innes / Eric Idle collaboration The Rutles and Peter Cook & Dudley Moore’s uptempo psychedelic ditty “L.S. Bumble Bee”. Meanwhile the packaging is basically very cute, very innocuous, move along, nothing to see here. (The infamous cover art includes a caricature of Mark David Chapman, the first Beatles superfan who, as illustrator William Stout points out, collected a Beatle.) Please note: "Beatle Rap" is a stone classic.

Buchanan and Greenfield: The Invasion
The Rutles: Hold My Hand
The Carefrees: We Love You Beatles
Donna Lynn: My Boyfriend Got a Beatle Haircut
Casey Kasem: Letter from Elaina
Jack Nitzsche: Beatlemania
The Qworymen: Beatle Rap
Peter Cook & Dudley Moore: L.S. Bumble Bee
Wild Man Fischer: I’m the Meany
Allan Sherman: Pop Hates the Beatles
The Four Preps: Letter to the Beatles
Gary Usher: The Beetle

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.

Irving Taylor: The Whimsical World of Irving Taylor

I bought this while looking for a version of “Pachalafaka” that Firesign Theatre played on one of their old radio shows. It turns out that Irving Taylor plays demolition derby with a dozen deathless pop trends on this LP, smashing together sing-along folk songs and hillbilly teenybopper tunes, crooners and car salesmen. The roster of guest vocalists is pretty impressive, including Mel Blanc, Key Howard, Robie Lester, and Bea Benaderet, and the record has production values so fine you might just mistake the songs for rejects from an Eisenhower-era hit parade. Almost rises to the level of Tom Lehrer, but without Tom's penchant for the sick-sick-sick. Hightlights for me are “Zeekie, Zeekie, Lend Me Your Comb” and the simply breathtaking “Domestic Wine”.

Hawaiian Worm Raiser
In a Cafeteria With You
Honest John Henry
Domestic Wine
Pachalafaka
Garbage Collector in Beverly Hills
Prison Interior Decorator
Make It a Chocolate Soda
When the Crab Grass Blooms Again
Zeekie, Zeekie, Lend Me Your Comb
Separate Bar Stools
I'll Never Forget Those Unforgettable Never To Be Forgotten Memories

LP 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.

Henry Gibson: ...by Henry Gibson

Between 1957 and 1962, a short, nebbishy white dude started appearing on Jack Paar’s Tonight Show, doing poetry readings that all started with the name of the poem followed by a declaratory “…by Henry Gibson”. The poems, which featured the accent and cornpone subject matter of the author’s Alabama hometown, had the carefully enunciated prose cadence of a sixth-grade school report, were structured like laundry lists, and often had a closing summary line that he’d repeat. And all of America heard this man describe counting alligators on a Saturday night and asked: Is this man really a fucking idiot? There was, of course, no Wikipedia to tell people instantly that, no, this guy was not for real: this was actor James Bateman of Philadelphia, and Henry Gibson was a character he’d been putting on for fun for years (say “A Doll’s House” and the name of this album, and you’ll get the drama-school joke behind the alias). It’s all very wholesome, friendly, and sprinkled with a lurking surrealism like an unexplained whiffle bat on the wall at the dentist’s office. What could be more fun for an actor than telling a supper club audience how to skin a polecat? Originally recorded and released in 1962 under the title The Alligator, this reissue dates from 1968 when Henry was enjoying renewed popularity thanks to his recurring walk-on appearances on Laugh-In.

How To Write A Poem
The Alligator
Why I Like Soap
The Newspaper
How To Skin A Polecat
How Now, Calpurnia
The Feather
Here Today—Gone Tomorrow
A Little Bit About Myself
How To Take Care Of The Plum Tree
Happiness Can Be Yours For Little Or No Money
Reflections Of New York
The Coyote
Two Functional Poems
Education Is Important
What Freedom Means To Me In 25 Words Or Less
Why I Like Poetry

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.

Woody Allen: The Third Woody Allen Album

Woody Allen’s third and last album of stand-up comedy, from 1968 (now buy this CD!).

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.

Woody Allen: Woody Allen Volume 2

Woody Allen’s second stand-up album from 1965 (again, you need to buy this ASAP).

The Moose
The Kidnapping
Superman
Science Fiction Movie
Eggs Benedict
Footnote
What's New Pussycat?
Reminiscences
Swedish Movie
Taking a Shower (A Pantomime)
Lost Generation

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.

Woody Allen: Woody Allen

Here’s the first of Woody Allen’s albums of stand-up comedy from 1964. Honestly, this one’s for reference only. Now buy the Rhino Stand-Up Comic CD (which contains all the same material as the Stand-Up Comic double LP from Casablanca in 1979, which in turn contained the same material as the United Artists Stand-Up Comic: 1964-1968 double LP from United Artists in 1978, which in turn contained the same material as United Artists’ The Night Club Years 1964-1968 from 1972. If you ever see used copies of those collections, leave 'em in the bins and get the CD instead). The collected material is brilliant, just genius. The original LPs contain that material plus some stuff that didn’t date very well, or was about a film he was making at the time, or was kinda skeevy and misogynist. But if you’re an Allen fan, you should get a chance to make that characterization for yourself, and the original albums are pretty scarce, so here you go.

Album audio & art

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.