I one saw in a used record bin a copy of the New Jersey State All Accordion Orchestra album - 53 accordions - no thing else. I did not buy it. It was too strange.
Way before sampling, George Atkins and Hank Levine take soundbites of Lyndon Johnson, Nixon and Bobby Kennedy and put them into custom-made pop tunes. Seminal stuff (though I think cutting together found sounds was a radio fad for awhile). Generation gaps collapse on cuts like "Be Forthright Bobby Kennedy" - a patriotic march over which yo ung Kennedy babbles. Then there's "You Don't Have Nixon to Kick Around Anymore" and Nixon repeatedly exclaiming, "Give him the shaft!"
TONI HARPER: Candy Store Blues (Official)
Collection of 1940Õs recordings by an 8-year-old girl singing perve rse ditties like "You're Too Tall, I'm Too Small" and "Peppermint Stick". Could be that I just have a dirty mind, but don't bet on it.
Various: Beat of the Traps (Carnage Press)
Tom Ardolino of NRBQ collects some of the best of the worst songs pumped out at CaliforniaÕs MSR label. In the 60's and 70's, MSR (and other like it) ran ads in the back of magazines telling people to send in their poems or song lyrics for a chance to reap big money. What actually would happen is the people would pay MS R, which would set the words to music, press a few copies and send them back to the writers on their "label". The results are unilaterally horrid without sinking to the calculated schlock of Dr. Demento. Comparatively easy-to-find (Ajax Records carries it ).
At first, this record came as a mystery to me, but I've pieced together the facts of its origin. The b/w cover shows 19 young wome n wearing matching overalls and holding out mugs of beer. Listed on the back is each girl's name and instrument (Peaches Rankin, crazy stick; Ann Newton, hot dog; Mary Guill; cheese-grater etc.) The music is uptempo - indeed, the same tempo - throughout a s 19 off-key voices sing unattributed covers over piano.
Cold Cuts iconography suggest either a sorority or a college singing group like UNC's Loreleis. The singing, though, seems to limit the choice to a sorority. According to my source, they are a cross between the two - a singing group at St. Mary's College in Raleigh, NC, that functions like a sorority. Every year, each member replicates herself by passing on her instrument to another St. Mary's student. The selection need not be based on musical ab ility. Though this particular record documents the Cuts 1971-72, a recent trip to Goodwill uncovered A Day for a Daydream, a Cold Cuts record from 1980-81.
Anyone with information on the Cold Cuts is encouraged to contact Trixie c/o SF!, P.O. Box 702, Chapel Hill, NC 27514 jhuber@gibbs.unc.oit.edu
The strangest 45s heard this week:
Kimm Charney "Explosive Generation" (Dot, 1961)
Lame lead vocals by Kimm (a guy) with 60's surf/pop beat dominated by an out-of-tune honky-tonk piano and bimbo background singers. The lyrics defy description:
We love to swing it, wow! And ring-a-ding it, pow! We get a charge when we're beatin' on the bongo drums-o Blasting hi-fi in stereo, spiking cokes with cherry-o That's really wild, that's really wild! And when a girl and a fella talk on the telephone for hours Spash! They call it love in bloom We've got a real nervous need To move with the speed that overpowers Crash! Just like a sonic boom But if we slow up, we gotta blowup That's why we're called the explosive generation!I gues that's why we're never heard of the Explosive Generation Ñ apparently, they have all self-destructed.
Tony Lang "Widdle Whipper Whooper" (Sentry)
Presumably no relation to Duke basketball player Antonio Lang. Shag dance beat, glock enspiel, roller rink organ and (if that wasn't enough) helium-chipmunk voices. The lyrics are probably about Halloween, but could be about indoctrinating children into the dark world of witchcraft and Satanism. The kids, "with a witch's brew", are given n ames like Devil-man Dan, Pumpkinhead Sam and Evil-eyed Lou. "The elite of the selected few" go the lyrics. Sounds pretty suspicious to me.