Thursday, July 22, 2010

Family Band Vol. 1 & 2


God, I love summer. 
This heat, the unremitting shimmering heat, the great equalizer that makes everyone a sweaty, grimy, stinky mess, no matter how hard they try to evade it. The beautiful look like crap, the downtrodden look like crap, and everyone smells the same since they took coconut out of sunblock because the upcoming generations swell up and explode when coming into contact with any nut substance...

Ever been to Saskatchewan? It's hot out there. In summer. I've been to the Great Rectangle (more of a Great Rhomboid) many, many times... two, in fact - once driving there in a van, the next time a fly-in, and it was scorching. And as flat as my current bank account.

The "Family Band" - or "The Heitt Orchestra featuring Donna Boser," we're not sure which - hails from a small town in Sask called Revenue, while Donna Boser comes from Reward. It's true - Reward and Revenue. The back of the Vol.1 LP tells me so. Both towns - separated by Ear Lake - are edging towards the Alberta border right between Edmonton & Calgary.

There's not a hell of a lot to do in small-town Saskatchewan, trust me. I have relatives in a place called Anaheim that has a gross pop. of around 200 and no Disneyland. But who needs Mickey Mouse when you've got dilapidated farm-houses to explore? While there we (I'll be flipping back 'n forth here for awhile so hold on) found my mom's old house where she was raised for a couple years until they shifted to Vancouver. Lots of furniture and things still lying around, general decay, holes in the walls and ceiling, etc., diamond-sharp sunlight fading everything in sight to a dismal pastel. My various escapades while there included learning exactly how NOT to ride a dirt-bike, exploring an abandoned hockey-rink, finding obscure Iron Maiden posters in Humboldt that I couldn't find in Vancouver, and hearing Toronto's "Get It On Credit" album blasting out of a cousin's car late at night (which I later bought. The album, not the car.), and later on the Go-Go's "Vacation" album with my cousin Craig (rest in peace). I then got shit-faced drunk for the first two times in my life, one of them on homemade wine while watching a very unsettling Linda Blair prison-girl movie. 
9 PM and walking dirt roads in the moonlight while doing goofy kid-things with new-found family members in a new land, crickets performing a symphony on a soundtrack for a movie that's slowly disintegrating in my memory as I stumble forward in life.
If I dive deep enough I swear I can smell the breeze of that night.  

The Heitt's went and formed a band together: dad Frank on accordion, joined by wife Adeline since 1954 on rhythm guitar and further accompanied by sons Blane, 19, on bass, Glen, 15, on banjo and Larry, 13, hitting the pigskins. As of 1974 they needed a vocalist so they could play the bar circuit & cocktail lounges: in came Donna, and they were a hit, so much so that they would travel into AB to record Family Band Vol.1 on the Project 70 label.

Now, I've had the LP for a few years and only did some online searching lately, surprised to find the cover making a few "bad album cover" sites. Not surprised that it's there, as you can see in better detail by clicking the image below, but
surprised that such an obscure item has made a few rounds. 
While somewhat obscure, it probably isn't near as hard-to-find as their second outing, fittingly titled Family Band Vol.2. When I grabbed the album Vol.1 at an SPCA thrift, I found the vinyl for Vol.2 sitting inside. A couple years later I actually came across another copy of Vol.1, and nearly put it back before remembering the mix-up, checked inside, and went home with both volumes in my collection. 

While #1 was on an actual label, 2 was on the family's own imprint (Heitt Records, and recorded at Eagle Creek Studio in Rose Town, SK), and a Google search won't bring up any Vol.2 images. If anyone knows of a scan or image of #2, please send it on in... I'm dying to see the newer group image!) 
The label for the second album features an interesting printing error, if the info from the first LP is right: under 'featuring', they list a "Donna Heitt and Koreen Boser", so someone got the post-its screwed up, as I only hear Donna's vocals going at it, and another search reveals it is in fact "Donna Boser" - she has her own, albeit incredibly slight, entry in a Canadian music directory, listing her as residing in Unity and still singing.

And what singing. I can honestly say I've never witnessed the octavural trillery that emanates from Donna. And that's not bad. Does it mesh with the band's upbeat polka-rock? I like to think that maybe it does. Maybe.

Out of the two collections I've snatched three selections - two covers, and... another cover, as I think "...Beer" is traditional. I would call these the highlights, but if anyone wants more, I'll go ahead and get everything down & make it available.

So, get ready to add yet another file to your "Unlikely Beatles Covers" jacket and please, turn up the volume.

(EDIT: have just added the remainder of the two LP's - minus the three tracks listed - due to request. 1-16 are Vol. 1, 17+ are V2)

Track listing, sorta:
    A1 Searching
    A2 Wedding Waltz
    A3 Help Me Make it
    A4 In Heaven There is No Beer
    A5 Never Ending Love
    A6 Boogie in 'A'
    B1 Blue Skirt Waltz
    B2 Beautiful Sunday
    B3 Love, Love, Love
    B4 Just Another Polka
    B5 Did She Mention My Name
    B6 O Bla Di O Bla Da

Download here:
In Heaven There Is No Beer
When I Saw Her Standing There
Rock Around the Clock/Blue Suede Shoes

Friday, July 16, 2010

Spaghetti Western New Years Eve at the Beach!


Some mystery EP from China, circa late 60's, found at some thrift. Nothing about this leaped out at me. There wasn't one persuading factor which ignited my crate-digger-geek-sense into a frenzied, palpitating, deep throb somewhere south of where a belly-button should be. But I bought it anyway. And if it was crap, it was a quarter lost, so no big problem. 

A trebly guitar is partnered up with an organ for a voiceless rendition of "Come Back to Sorrento", a tune dating back to 1905 and covered by just about everybody and their grandma including Placido Domingo and Meat Loaf. A nice relaxing number. 
For some reason we're then ringing in the new year (1968 I believe) with reverb and one of those ratchety-things you play with your hands... as opposed to an instrument that isn't played with one's hands... um... and note the D instead of a G. 
Flip side! Clint Eastwood! No, not the Gorillaz tune, but two cuts from the soundtrack of For a Few Dollars More.

A slightly-surfy mystery disc. Until someone comes along and translates this so I can credit it all.
Enjoy!

Come Back to Sorrento
Auld Land Syne
Dollars
Titoli


Monday, July 5, 2010

Charlie Uber Alles

God how I hate work: spend the first part of the day dreaming about all the whatever you're going to do when you're set free and past the parking lot on the way home, the second part of the shift just trying to retain a hold on that slender thread of sanity that remains, and the idle time at home between getting off work and going back the next morning? 
So physically and/or mentally exhausted/extinguished that you can hardly muster the drive to even strip the wires for the homemade explosive you've got going for the company's summer party, let alone haul any numbing alcoholic beverage up to your zombified mug in order to wind down smoothly.

With all this in mind I'm going to throw my stupified carcass in the direct line of sunlight streaming into this room (I'd throw it outside but, living in an apartment, I'd be strewn over dying evergreen shrubs and gravel an inch or so from the sidewalk and probably be used as a stoop for a couple local nodders to shoot up on) right after offering up yet another quick 7" over guilty feelings of not posting in quite a while, with no steam left over from the 8-hour corporate chain-gang I mistakenly joined ten years ago to do up a full album complete with research on the brilliant mind/sad, sad freak I'd be honoring.

So here's Charlie. A perfume who's advertising campaign left no mind untrespassed-upon. Shilled by an ex-Charlie's Angel. Charlie. "Charlie's Tune with the new Charlie Beat is HERE." From 1974 (the Year of Charlie). And no, I'm not making any of this Charlie up. Performers? Sung by Charlie's Men.
And click the image to read your own very special ho.. Charliescope.