All posts by Scooter

How To Be a Jewish Mother – Gertrude Berg & Dan Greenberg

Oy, you want I should tell you about this record? You should be so lucky!

Based on Dan Greenburg’s book of the same name, this record enacts some of the finer points of being a Jewish Mother (at least during the Nixon era). Gertrude Berg, star of radio and television, supplies the Jewish Mother part.The Jewish Mother’s Guide to Food Distribution Still pretty funny and spot-on today, it will make you alternately laugh and cringe… just like your real mother does.

Doctor Who Sound Effects

I’m a big fan of sound effects albums, and also a giant Doctor Who nerd, so this find was particularly joyous for me! It has 30 tracks, some 3 or 4 minutes, while others are mere seconds. This record will transport you to a universe where every alien has a British accent, every turn ends up in an abandoned quarry, and where each machine hums and pulsates with Moog-ish rhythms. The humming and pulsating is what is caught best on this record,

For example, The Mandragora Helix. I can’t exactly remember what it was, but this is what it sounded like.

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The Daleks’ Control Room is another exercise in pulsating electronic noises. The Daleks are salt-shaker-shaped robots who are the self-proclaimed “superior beings of the universe,” for all you non-Doctor Who fans out there. If I had to listen to this sound all day, I’d surrender my planet to them in an instant just to make it stop!

I remember this episode: the Zygons were a race of brownish creatures covered with suction cups. The inside of their ship was filled with controls that looked like dried up rubber cement globs with Christmas lights inside. Here’s what it sounded like:

The last one is a collection of sounds: the TARDIS observation screen is lowered, the TARDIS doors open, a sonic screwdriver, a fission gun from the Ark in Space, the Tesh gun from The Face of Evil, and finally a Gallifreyan staser gun:

The album’s liner notes give a helpful tip:
Time-Lord Note: A source of jelly-babies is recommended to complete the illusion of time travel.

Fantasy Land

This record is a journey back to a simpler time. The needle on the grooves transports you to a time when the word “gay” meant “frolicsome,” racism was quaint and funny, and 6-foot orange kangaroos wearing green eye shadow on ice skates were entertaining, instead of just mildly disturbing.

For your enjoyment is the story of one man who is “Little Brave Sambo” on the cover of the album, but reverts to his original name of “Little Black Sambo” once you hear the actual story.

Squaw: “This record heap big pile of buffalo dung. Maybe we save it.”
Brave: “HOW?” (har har har)

Ostriches never struck me as being very feminine or graceful. I guess I was wrong.

::shudder:: This is going to give me nightmares.

Uncle Tom’s 80 Songs and Games

I was fascinated by the fact that this one record boasts *80* musical stories, games, and songs. 80 seemed like an awful lot. Then I realized, it takes about 10 seconds to sing “London Bridge,” so it makes sense that each cut on this record contains 3-4 songs. Anyway, probably because of the short attention spans, Uncle Tom (though he always introduces himself as Uncle DON), introduces every track by saying something like “hello there, this is Uncle Don. Let’s sing a song today, shall we”? Maybe Mom played only one track for Timmy every day. Or, maybe kids forget what they’re doing over the course of 3 minutes. Who knows?

The thing that makes this entire record the aural equivalent of a giant “bad touch” to me, though, is how Uncle Tom/Don giggles semi-maniacally throughout and after each track. I can’t decide if he’s being held at gunpoint and trying really really hard to sound jovial, or if he’s just totally insane. I completely dig his use of the word “humdinger,” though. Plus, there’s a song called “I Love My Pussy,” but unfortunately, my record is way too warped to record it. This record is so warped, in fact, that I can’t play side 2 at all because the warping is so high the record doesn’t even touch the spindle on that side.

So, put yourself in the shoes of a child on a rainy day who enjoys reading books in your perfectly-styled hair and pajamas, surrounded by candelabras and sinister looking sock puppets. The scary thing is that I have the very book that the children are so intently looking at– it the ~some company you wouldn’t expect~’s (Firestone tires?) Treasury of Folk Songs. He’s on the page that’s “Joy To the World.” I know because we used to sing from that book all the time when I was a kid, and I was obsessed with “The Battle Hymn of the Republic,” probably because of its images of trampling grapes and its verse about “John Brown’s Body lies a mould’ring in the grave” (I was a morbid kid).

Look at the lower left-hand corner of the album cover. Santa Claus is embarassed by the fact that they say “cock”, “ass”, “gay” and “pussy” on this record more than on a whole season of South Park!

This track contains a fun little ditty about a man who gouged his eyes out on a thorn bush (Uncle Tom/Don explains why it’s funny at the end), a lesson in how domestic violence can be hilarious (as Punch and Judy have been demonstrating for hundreds of years), as well as a lengthy “This is the House that Jack Built”

the Queen of Hearts tells children that stealing is wrong (“I Wouldn’t do that either, would you?”), while “The Sixpence” is a lesson in the joys of consumerism, matrimony, and fiscal responsiblity. Lastly, “The Vegetable Song” celebrates our unsung heroes– vegetables.

This song is about “a funny little king” who lives on “Cannibal Isle.”

A cool thing about this record is that each cut is *exactly* the same length:

Arthur Fiedler

from 1930 to 1979, Boston’s Native son Arthur Fiedler conducted the Boston Pops orchestra. In this time, he recorded a buttload of albums, including Fiedler on the Roof

and Irish Night at the Pops:

which both boast punny names and/or silly covers.However, the granddaddy of them all is Saturday Night Fiedler. In this album, Aahthah Fiedlah conducts disco arrangements of classical music pieces. *This* is why the man has a footbridge named after him (or did until recently when they pulled it down in the name of some construction project). Think “A Fifth of Beethoven” is good? Wait until you hear:

!

Meanwhile,

contains booty-shaking interpretations of Bach’s “Toccata and Fugue in g Minor” and “Air on a G String.” Perfect for your next Bach-analia, I know this piece has turned me into a total Bachamaniac.

Recorded in 1979, when Arthur Fiedler was 84 years old, this is the last album he ever made, and the first and last disco album the Boston Pops ever recorded. He died a month later. About this album, Fiedler says (on the back cover):

From the moment I conducted the “Saturday Night Fiedler” suite on television in May, I knew the youngsters had done it again: disco–a marvelous, insistently rhythmic dance form to which all manner of music can be adapted from Bach to the Bee Gees. And this span of musical poles truly accents the universality of music.

The Generic Band – The Dr. Ruth Rap/Hot Lunch Lady Blues

Remember Dr. Ruth Westheimer? She’s the dwarf holocaust survivor who went from being an Israeli sniper in the 1950s to teaching us about “Good Sex” in the 1980s. She brought sex to the mainstream with her frankness and funny accent which everyone loved to mimic… I found this 45 at the Ithaca, NY Friends of the Library Book Sale several years ago. I was tickled, because not only was finding a rap song about Dr. Ruth too good to be true… but I went to high school with Laura Gersh, the Dr. Ruth impersonator on the record! She went from a rapping Dr. Ruth (she must have been 14 or 15 when this record was made) to playing the lead in a couple of school musicals, as I recall. Also, her mom was my guidance counsellor one year!

So, sit back and take in the Casio Tones and double entendres of this song. It’s really quite amazing. Don’t miss all the 80s references, like Madonna’s marriage to Sean Penn…

The B-side of this 7″ is The Hot Lunch Lady Blues, which was recorded live in the very same cafeteria where I ate lunch (or would be eating lunch, since I was too little for high school in 1985) every day.

Don’t forget to read the pun-tastic liner notes:

Alex Bugnon, Head over Heels

Were it not for the amazing fashion sense of our favorite be-mulleted keytarist, this record would not be on here. Mr. Bugnon plays amazingly Muzak-esque jazz lite that will guarantee you will be begging for the music you usually listen to in elevators. Complete with synthesized handclap beats, fake whipcracks, that drum machine beat that sounds like someone bouncing a basketball in a gym, Alex Bugnon delivers a full array of sounds you haven’t heard since the 80s. He even uses that little chirping sound that my Casio-imitation keyboard makes to keep time! Oh yeah, and don’t forget the gratuitous use of cowbell. Over all of this synthesized cocktail, Alex plays his fabulous keytar.

This piece is called “Dance of the Ghosts,” and is a good example of A.B.’s keytar-hero madness.

In “Human Epilogue,” there are some gospel singers which almost make up for the track’s spectacular un-funkiness. Almost.

“ladies, gaze upon my acid-washed package and I will woo you with my keytardedness”

The Melachrino Orchestra – To the Girls!

If this music ever got George Melachrino laid, I’m turning in my ovaries right this second. I want to be able to get booty by dedicating music that sounds like a bad night stuck in an elevator to random chicks!

This is a 4-track 7″ with pieces of increasing mellowness entitled “Sally,” “Marie,” “Chloe,” and “Dinah.” Each piece is a unique excursion into the world of Muzak. Judging from the swanky hand on the record sleeve holding the martini glass filled with ginger ale, I’d say that this record was supposed to evoke images of sweeping elegance, tasteful opulence, and general classy lounge-ness. When I put on this record, I am instantly transported to an airport someplace… the naugahide seat cushions have been tastefully repaired with near-matching vinyl tape… the mothers are trying to lull the screaming babies to sleep by threatening to smack them… the harried, underpaid flight crew is discussing if they have time to catch another quick smoke outside before boarding commences… and “Chloe” is gently, unobtrusively, wafting over the soundsystem.

I guess that’s the whole point of lounge music– to provide a totally non-offensive backdrop to whatever event you happen to be experiencing, but it still makes me cringe to hear the soaring string pizzacatos and occasional oboe solo in these pieces. Close your eyes and pretend you’re on hold at the DMV.

Stravinsky: Rite of Spring, conducted by Ernest Ansermet with L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande

Every now and then I have to stop and pay homage to Great Album Cover Art. After all, the point of album cover art is to suck the viewer in and make him or her buy the album. This cover is a prime example of good album art. One glance, and I was forking over the $2.00 at the Salvation Army for this masterpiece. You won’t find Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring, conducted by Ernest Ansermet with L’Orchestre de la Suisse Romande in any Rolling Stone’s 500 Zilion Greatest Album Covers of All Time list, but in my opinion, this is the greatest album cover ever made. Move over Sgt. Pepper, move over Dark Side of the Moon, Le Sacre du Printemps is in town, and it’s going to ritualistically prance all over your butts.

What makes this album cover so great, you ask? Is it merely Ming the Merciless, clad in a chain mail and blue leopard fur toga, effortlessly brandishing Rita Rudner, hastily wrapped only in my grandmother’s kitchen curtains which she neglected to remove from the clothesline that has earned this record a permanent home on my bedroom wall? Is it the pastel-hued pointy bits that reach skyward to accent the lofty concept of this album art? Is it the jaunty font of the title, in hot pink and green faux-primitive block letters of varying size that makes this album so great? Is it the gall of the record company to allow a nekkid boobie on an album cover (and a classical one, no less!)? The answer to all of these questions is a resounding “yes.”

The music itself on the record pretty standard—it’s no different from any other rendition of The Rite of Spring one would hear. Maybe that’s why the record inside is in mint condition? There isn’t a scratch or a scrape on this baby. Was it gently loved by many generations of classical music lovers? Was it revered by a hardcore fan of Ernest Ansermet’s conducting? Or did the scantilly clad maiden render it a tricky Eisenhower era deposit into the Spank Bank? We’ll never know.

Now, Stravinsky’s Rite of Spring has been controversial from the start. When it premiered in 1913, its radical departure from traditional ballet literally caused a riot in the Paris theater. Stravinsky wrote the piece to evoke primal urges, as it is the depiction of a pagan fertility ritual. So, the nudity on the cover is completely in keeping with the themes. I’m not sure where Ming’s gold lamé yarmulke fits into Stravinsky’s whole picture, but it does evoke laughter in me, which is certainly a primeval response.

Other album covers of this piece have focused on the rural nature of it, and left out the rest of the ideas completely. Of course, classical music albums seem to always feature pastoral scenes that have nothing to do with the pieces, but that’s a whole other story.

What I’m still wondering is, how many Cold-War era dads bought this album because they truly were classical music lovers? I can picture the dialogue now…

DAD (strategically covering nekkid boobie with hand): Hi honey, I’m home! Look what I got. I decided it’s high time we got some cultcha in this family.

MOM: why John, What is it?

DAD: it’s a new phonograph record. You know how Johnny Jr. is taking trombone lessons at school? Well I thought it was high time we all had some cultcha. This here is by a fellow named Stravin-sky… you know, from “Fantasia,” the little dancing unicorns?

And then, staring at the album cover, alone in his Den late at night, John can picture the scene from the liner notes:

The orchestra feverishly hammers out its maddingly incessant syncopations, as the maiden continues her dance, but suddenly ceases as she falters to the ground, lifeless from sheer exhaustion. This was indeed a Dance of Death–the Chosen One has completed her sacrifice, and the Rite of Spring is over.

Mike McConnolly’s Celticaires – What A Country

These Boston boys gratuitously misuse images of Smurfs on their album cover. This album has absolutely nothing to with Smurfs, however– it’s a folksy rendering of some traditional Irish songs and tunes, and a couple of original pieces as well.

Basically, I spent 50 cents on this album because I like the copyright-infringing artwork. So sue me! The actual music is fairly ordinary céilí band stuff that gets pretty annoying when the dudes sing. They play some tunes that I’m told will get you run out of town if you play them at Irish sessions, they’re so common and boring.

When there’s singing, I have the opposite of empathy. When they sing “Skibbereen,” a nice depressing ballad about having to leave Ireland during the potato famine, I want to groan, since it means the off-key singer smurf probably ended up here in Boston to annoy us with his annoyingly wobbly voice and cheesy arrangements.

However, whoever did the art direction is awesome. Never mind the fact that the smurfs are sailing from a land off the coast of Delaware to Boston (Ireland is way further north), the musicians have SMURF COUNTERPARTS listed on the back cover. I never associated Smurfs with Ireland, but I forever shall.

– an original song written by the Celticaires themselves.