I love vinyl records, especially when I get them cheap as free at thrift stores. Heh heh. This blog will showcase some of the funny and bizarre stuff I've found. (and the occasional just plain cool ones) It also highlights the fashions of the time. Hope you get a kick out of them!
Featured at Retrospace! :)
She looks so happy. How could you not buy this? Also available on video cassette!
She got lot of fellow celebs to join in the craze. Good for her. ;) Dunno if there's anything that sets it apart from other exercise programs of the time (1983) other than the big band music. That would be a draw for me, to be honest, rather than Muzak version of whatever bubblegum pop is out at the time, like most would use.
Good one, Rip. :p
Rare to have the instruction sheets in albums nowadays, as they're usually long lost.
I'm sure some of you reading this have seen the ad, possibly remembering the order in which they played the songs...as I can for some of the ones played in the 80s. :p I spy what appears to be a simplified representation of a Triumph TR6! Niiiiice!
Nice selection!
Couldn't find a video of the actual ad, but someone made a YouTube playlist for the whole album for some reason. :)
Shockingly, this is not an official movie tie-in. Absolutely no info given anywhere on the back as to who played on this, either, just a repetition of the songs listed on the front and a list of other albums from the label.
Until the last couple of years, those big, classic oblong watermelons were nowhere to be seen around here. It was nothing but those little (or medium) round ones. But we've finally been getting the classic ones back gradually.
There were two of these in the thrift store at the same time. Kinda surprising. I took the one that was in better shape, though neither looked to be heavily used. ;)
ARGH! Inconsistent periods added over random upper and lower case Is! :p
On a lighter note, I loved the days of giant tongues on sneakers! I'm guessing those are Reeboks, but could be Cons. (a.k.a. Converse) I had a pair of white and red Cons with a pretty big tongue, but Reebok always seemed to be the king in that area.
Fun cover. :) I don't buy a whole lot of country, as the cover material is usually not too interesting, but I just had to grab this one!
The back is a terrible water-damaged mess, but whatever, it's dry. This is one of those rare covers where you can actually see the record through the sleeve! :p
I haven't come across this disclaimer too often. It's usually on those old stag-type albums, not on albums featuring traditional songs like "Dueling Banjos" and a cover of "The Devil Went Down to Georgia".
Here's a ridiculous writeup on the band, including a look into why "The Rodeo Song" wasn't—and still isn't—suitable for airplay.
Do you think her eyes are natural, or that they edited the photo a bit? Either way, pretty stunning! I know a little girl who had eyes like that for years, but as she has gotten older, they've grown darker blue and the effect is pretty much gone.
Tiny picture of Raymond. Definitely makes it a cheesecake cover when they do that. Heh.
Nothing too unusual here. The boys looking bored, UK sticker, blah blah.
Inside, though...
Blank! On both sides!
I played it and it's just an instrumental mish-mash of musical styles, all perfectly decent, I must say. I was hoping for something a little more mysterious, of course. Ruddy mysterious* would've been even better!
*The IT Crowd reference there.
P.S. I used Chrome for this post. It works, obviously.
Anyone else having problems uploading pictures to their Blogger...blogs? :p I keep trying, but it stopped working a couple of days ago. Basically, it shows the pictures are ready in the dialogue box, but after that, I can't do anything.
I might try it with another browser on this computer (I'm currently on Firefox), but I have another computer I plan to set up and hopefully it'll work there, even on Firefox. Either way, I have a post all ready to go...
P.S. I did file a report to Google yesterday, sorta. When I got to the part where I can take a screenshot to show them, it wouldn't do that either! Maybe it's a problem at their end and has nothing to do with my setup. *shrug*
Simple, catchy cover. (it's pronounced LAY-he, by the by)
I like how they use colons after fiddling and step-dancing. In the top picture, you'll see the parents of this brood, Frank and Julie, and their slacker son Angus. I wonder if there was any confusion when calling Angus or Agnes. I also wonder why they did flash photography at what appears to be dusk. I guess it was light out when they started, but with that many kids...
It's funny, now that I'm seeing the site and that they simply call themselves Leahy, I thought 'oh yeah, I've heard that name before!' All I could think of is that guy from Trailer Park Boys, and I don't even watch it. :p (spelled Lahey in that case, but pronounced the same)
According to their wiki page, Donnell Leahy is married to fellow fiddler Natalie MacMaster. I have a connection to her! My mother catered a party for her! Haha. :p
The annoying part is they've raised the price again; they are now $1 each. You may be thinking 'that's dirt cheap!', and it generally is, but when you've been buying them there 3 for $1 for so long, that's just...*sigh*
Here's the BAD part: when I asked how they expect to get rid of the albums by raising the price, the cashier said they are now putting out only the albums they feel are the best ones! Obviously, that is highly subjective selection. And since you all know I love the goofy albums, which they will no doubt deem as the undesirable ones, my usual record purcahses will be going in the garbage bin.
I am going to be speaking to a friend of mine in there (who probably has nothing to do with the pricing, but has more sway than anyone) and seeing if something can be done about it. I've bought hundreds, if not thousands, of records there over the years and to hear this is massively disappointing. I'm going to see if I'll somehow be able to look through the ones they deem as not fit to put on the shelves. (of their super ritzy establishment)
I'm hoping if I can look through them, I'll find a copy of Joyce (yeah, I know, supremely unlikely), and either get it for free or buy it for $1, then say 'have you any idea how much this "garbage" album is worth?!'
I saw this and thought 'whoa, I hope it's prog!' Well, it's not (mostly funk/disco), but it certainly has proggy elements. He plays a mean bass, as one might be able to discern in this video presentation:
More on Miroslav, founding member of Weather Report (!), here.
The only other Hellwig I know of was Jim "The Ultimate Warrior" Hellwig, who later legally changed his name to just plain ol' Warrior.
Nice gatefold pic of the ladies. Didn't realize I'd taken it at lower resolution. Oh well. That's Margot on the left and her mother Maria on the right. Maria died in 2010, but Margot still performs.
I love covers like this, where seriously talented artists don't feel the need to be serious all the time. ;) I'm not sure that those suits are space-worthy.
Not into modern country, but I love their name and man, them clothes! I'm especially digging the skinny tie. I had a black leather one. That super skinny studded belt is also cool.
The back cover pic is even better! It's so strange, though. The lighting on them is harsh to the point of making the background look almost fake. Seems to be high up as well. Why do three of them look like they're walking away? (actually, I think Wide Mustache Guy's feet are glued to the ground)
There are maybe 3 people on this planet that may get the title reference, but bear with me and that number will expand by several, I hope.
Nice colorful cover courtesy of Gordon! I like the name of the record company, too. Fred Penner is a legendary Canadian children's entertainer, but this was well before he really hit it big by getting his own long-running TV show.
More nice drawrings by Lori-Anne (featuring a literal ghost rider and a retractable[?] lasso) and Dale, who went with a Patrick Star sort of motif years before Patrick Star even existed! Oh, I should point out that Al Simmons, who played banjo on this, is kind of a big deal himself!
The Sneeder Sneeze I mentioned is a reference to the jaw/mouth/Jew's/etc... harp, that funny little instrument that kinda goes 'sneeder sneeze' if you play it a certain way, such as in the intro to Fred's TV show. (right around 1:07 in the video below) Behold...
He had ditched the only-steampunk-weirdos-and-just-plain-weirdos-wear-them-nowadays mustache at that point and grown himself a normal-man-not-a-guy-trying-to-prove-he's-a-man-nowadays beard...at that point. (yeah, I'm no fan of hipster beards...or their haircuts, fashion sense and even 'look at me!' attitude in general)
My brother met Fred a few years ago and we were all annoyed that he didn't get a picture with him! He gets pictures with lots of people I couldn't care less about, but no Fred?! Come on! :p
P.S. I know this is adding to an already wordy post, but you may have noticed the pics are a little bigger. Well, I finally got a bigger monitor and since everyone else had bigger monitors than me already, well, now we can all enjoy bigger pictures. And whatnot.
I saw this and thought 'Psychedelic rock? Psychedelic PROG rock, I hope?'...
...but no, Brian Browne does standard jazz. Played very well, mind you, but I got more excited about that cover than I would've under normal jazz circumstances. *shrug*
Well, well... I've been trying to find this original cover, but no dice so far. I'm guessing it's less spacy!
At first glance, I figured this was just another el cheapo K-tel-like compilation album, but no. (not that that makes it any better, mind you...) I got it cuz I like the airbrushy art style.
Heh heh, "Moon Boots". I had a pair of those way back when, much like the ones you've seen Napoleon Dynamite wearing. Oh, and I'm guessing "Disc Mussorgsky" should be Disco.
