When Great Artists Do Album Covers #2.

Here's another one from Mort Drucker of  MAD Magazine fame.

Bob Booker and George Foster Present The New First Family 1968 (Verve 1966)

Booker and Foster in a transition between The First Family and their 'Jewish' albums.

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Record Store Day 2018

Every year I say there's nothing on the list worth waiting in line for.  Every year I change my mind when the day approaches.  This year was no exception.  I arrived at my local emporium at 8:30 AM.  The store opens at 11:00. 

There already was a line.  Those at the front didn't seem like record people to me.  Yes, I know we come in all shapes and sizes, but a middle aged Filipino women waiting to get a copy of Grateful Dead at the Fillmore, ALL the Bowie offerings and Hillbillies from Hell didn't seem quite right.  They were either hired by flippers or sent by the rich folk up on the hill who couldn't be bothered waiting in line with us regular folk who might wear tennis shoes or the occasional python boot.

At one point someone in an Audi stopped right in traffic lanes to ask why we were in line.  Someone said 'Neil Diamond!'    Businesses adjoining the store include a doggie daycare center, a pilates studio, a light bulb store and a face peeling joint. 

My local store, who shall remain nameless,  is the best place for Record Store Day in SoCal.   Totally organized.  Lists filled while you snake through the racks.   No fuss. No Muss.  Not the tourist circus that Amoeba has become.

I came away with the items below.    

The only things I struck out on were the two singles by the MC5.  Bob, the proprietor of my local emporium, told me they'd be getting some more soon.

John Cale 1980

In 1980, John Cale re-emerged on the scene a few years after his Helen of Troy album with a live album of new material recorded at the iconic punk venue CBGB's.


John Cale - Sabotage!/Live (Spy/IRS 1980)

Recorded on the cheap, it captured the intensity of Cale's shows at the time.   He had returned to live performance about a year earlier and played in my neck of the woods quite a bit.  The sets consisted of primarily new material.   Despite his storied past of being a founding member of the Velvet Underground, the shows were small affairs and the ticket stubs I've saved credit the evening's entertainment to John Cole or John Kale.  The new record was imminent, but kept getting delayed.

Yes, it's an awesome live album, but I really wanted to talk about the single.


John Cale - Mercenaries (Ready for War)/The Rosegarden Funeral of Sores (Spy/IRS 1980)

The A Side is a STUDIO version of the lead off track on the album.  Not sure if the original intent was to record a studio album and it just got sidetracked.   Supposedly, the master tapes have been lost or destroyed which has prevented this from being available in any form other than this 45.

The B Side is a real gem.  Cale's distorted voice cuts through heavy bass and a drum machine. 

'vocal distortion intended' warns the label.

Move's Last Stand

By 1972, The Move had morphed into Electric Light Orchestra.   The final Move album, Message From the Country, was recorded at the same sessions as the first ELO album.

At the time, The Move was a trio.  Jeff Lynne and Roy Wood shared frontman duties.   Bev Bevan drummed.

They went out with a bang! The last Move release was this double A sided single - with a bonus track from the last album thrown in.

The Move  - California Man/Do Ya/Ella James  (Harvest 1972)

California Man - one of the best rock and roll songs by anyone.   Rock and roll lyric cliches abound.  Wood and Lynne trade off vocal - with Lynne throwing in an Elvis impersonation.  The instrumental breaks are traded as well.  Lynne does a Jerry Lee Lewis style piano solo.  When it comes to Wood's turn, he plays the same solo on a baritone sax that turns the whole thing on it's ear.  A lot happens in three minutes.   Years later, Cheap Trick covered it and made it sound a little more normal.

The other side contains the first version of Do Ya.   This was remade several years later under the ELO moniker to great success.  This version is a little rawer.  The remake doesn't have the ending 'Look out baby, there's a planet comin'' line.

After this release, The Move ceased to exist.  Roy Wood soon left ELO and took his rock and roll sensibilities to his new endeavor, Wizzard.   Jeff Lynne took ELO to great success eventually getting to work with Olivia Newton John on the classic Xanadu film.

One of Those Albums that Launched a Thousand Bands

Iggy and The Stooges had just been dropped from Elektra after two albums that tanked - but became classics many years later.   The Stooges and Fun House are awesome records.   Two of the best ever by anyone.

After they got dropped in 1971, MainMan signed them on to a management deal.  MainMan got them signed to Columbia.   The result is the classic Raw Power LP

Iggy and the Stooges - Raw Power (Columbia 1973)

A great record that could have been so much better if the band was given the resources they deserved.    At the time, MainMan was focusing their attention to David Bowie who had just released his Ziggy Stardust album.   The Stooges, left to their own devices, put an album together on their own with no producer or decent engineer.    The result was a mess.   The first mix was rejected by Columbia.   David Bowie stepped in to attempt another mix.  He tweaked a bit, but basically concluded there was nothing to mix.   The album was further delayed and didn't come out until 1973.

Raw Power 'in action' as I type.

So how did this launch a thousand bands?    The energy on these songs shows through regardless of the recording.  Search & Destroy and Raw Power are still in Iggy's setlist 40 years later. 

The recording was also an influence.  When punk started later in the decade, the major labels were not interested.  This forced many bands to resort to a DIY aesthetic.  Low Fi and poorly recorded records were OK!  Thank Raw Power.

Oh  - and as usual - Iggy's wildman charisma shows through every second.

Counterfeits for G.I.'s!

With thousands of G.I.'s stationed in southeast Asia from about 1965 to 1974, there was a big market for American rock and roll.  Copyright law and enforcement was a little lax in Taiwan.  They had no issue of looking the other way when Liming Records decided to just pirate existing titles and sell them on the cheap.

A few of these have made their way back to the US with the servicemen.   Here's a sample of one.

It's a copy of the double live Grateful Dead album commonly referred to as Skull and Roses.

This label released a ton of them.  There was no attempt to pass it off as something other than a counterfeit - If you pass over the mis spellings and such - although this was common even with big labels translated into Asian language. 

Runout Groove Etchings #1

Grateful Dead - Terrapin Station (Arista 1977)

The Dead only made a few stellar studio albums.  This particular one was a stab by their new label at mass success.  They hired Fleetwood Mac producer Keith Olsen to 'modernize' their sound.   The band was holed up  in a studio in Van Nuys, California for months.   Once done, Olsen ran off an had his way with the tapes - adding orchestrations, wiping percussion tracks, etc to arrive at a finished product.  The songs are classics and remained in repertoire until the very end.  The record is not so classic.

But - this post is to not talk about the music on the record.  I'm here to talk about the 'secret messages' sometimes included on the dead wax.

Here are the examples from Terrapin Station.

Side 1:  'Where Do You Keep Your Stereo Jer?"

Side 2:  "If it Rolls, Sink It"

And I don't mind saying these things are a bitch to photograph.

I Love Record Covers With Pictures of Records on Them #6 - Les and Larry Elgart

Les and Larry Elgart - Sound Ideas (Columbia 1958)

One of those high end hi-fi's from the '50's.   Probably a high bit of rumble due to speakers right under the turntable.  I cringe at the records on the floor.   This one is sort of meta as it has a picture of their previous album.