Darwin is the way

I forget exactly where I first witnessed the painted nature scene cover with its sideways exclamation of "IT JUST IS!" and the little tiny duck, at first glance seemingly holding up a sign with its wing, but I'm certain it was on one of the then-few "bad album cover art" sites which introduced many of us to the wonderful world of weird listening pleasures.

And like everyone else, I was hopelessly baffled not only by WHAT just was, but what the hell was an "eck"? 

A first assumption based on the little sign and familiarity with belief-system terminology directs one to think it's a religious album (some spirit-guide is always "the way"), but wtf is "eck"?! Most would dismiss the connection since eck is more of a gutteral sound of disapproval than anything offering comfort from within.

But religious is exactly what it is, as I discovered one fine day in the local Value Village, already somewhat out of spirits from flapping past a few too many dusty Manilow, Roger Wittiker (sp?) and Baby Beluga jackets. 

Then I suddenly froze, eyes popping, iris' expanding, senses alerted immediately with my mind tallying up noises and peripheral movements so as to detect any human presence about me ready to leap over my shoulder, grab the disc and flee to the cashier before I could snap out of it and give chase.  
I should point out that my cratedigger-ninja skills have since been honed to the point where an intrusive hand would be disabled and broken in sixteen places before reaching my pick, so beware.

There it was. THAT cover. Like right in front of me. A 'famed obscurity'. 
Still in partial shrinkwrap and otherwise in mint condition - previous owners not sufficiently moved for repeat listenings I guess. 
I feverishly kept it clasped to my chest as I rummaged through the rest of the swill in hopes more manna was left by maybe the same donator. Nothing else, but I was happy enough anyways, giggling and skipping to the checkout, flippantly knocking over old ladies with armfuls of ceramic owls and officious-looking argyle-nerds and their Power Rangers retro-fetish accumulations. (no offense to either parties, but ceramic owls suck and there's this one local argyle-nerd who just...  I won't get started.)

As for what Eck is... well, it stands for Eckankar, and after that, please Google it. I did, and trying to give a synopsis here would be like giving a two-sentence overview of the Roman Empire. 

I recommend several of the links you'll find on the first page of searching, though: plenty of history from both the Eck believers as well as former members with their own anti-Eck pages with bizarre tales of cult behavior as well as news reports on recent rather large gatherings of Eckists in Nigeria, supposedly converting thousands of people as they move around. You'll also read of how this 'lost' religion was re-found and the conflicting tales about Darwin Gross' emergence as the Eck movement's leader, and how some of the more vocal ex-ecks have purportedly been harassed by group members who want things kept on the QT. 

So I guess it's like Scientology, but with fewer billions of dollars. And like Scientology, that paragraph above sounds like something I totally made up, but it's all so weirdly true.

And hey! Vancouver has or had its own eck-centre (albeit very tiny) on Kingsway in Burnaby: 

Abandoned for several years, it seems. About a block away from an abandoned taxidermy shop whose fluorescent lights still burn away behind locked doors. Very creepy. Is there a connection!? Perhaps not.

Okay, what does the record sound like?

The first side (or 1-4, here) is Darwin singing the sacred love songs of eck. Lush orchestra, female group-vocal back-up... like easy listening of the '50s, but with Darwin Gross' soft words of enlightenment wafting through the lilting melodies.

Darwin (972nd Living Master of Eck btw) has a not-unpleasant voice that is fine on the higher end but tends to flatten on the lower notes. Mebbe comparable to an Andy Williams who got strep-throat as a kid & the pipes got damaged, or Vince Neill crossed with a young Bing Crosby after one of those tours you take through a helium factory. 

So where was Gross' head during all of this? Was he just some guy who wanted to sing, a little spiritually towards the 'E' in the gas tank of the soul, just wanting a little assurance at the pump, maybe getting a little bag of those pink-colored 'Jolly Time' pistachios while he's there? Off-handedly mentioning to the grease-smeared attendant that he thinks he'd make an alright balladeer and the guy says to him he says, "Sure, why not? I always thought I could do it myself, but, y'know - who's gonna man the pumps all day 'way out here? Folks gotta have their gas, right? Hey - I say go for it!". Gross - one elbow leaning on the dirty Formica counter-top - slowly smiles, strokes his chin thoughtfully while throwing his tweed sports-jacket over his shoulder, shakes the attendant's hand with a "Thanks, brother!" as he makes ready to leave and they agree to meet up later for a few games of canasta, but you just know it never happens.

Eckists are s**t at canasta.

Track list:
A1     It Just Is    
A2     With Eckankar    
A3     At The Grass Roots    
A4     Oh, How I Love The Bless Sugmad    
B1     The Law Of The Self    
B2     Purity


Download here:

IT JUST IS!

And if you just want a sample track and not all of them, I would suggest "At the Grass Roots", mainly for the female chorus lyrics. 

(EDIT: Since posting this, the aforementioned taxidermy shop burnt nearly to the ground - possibly from the lights being turned on for ten years straight - and the Eck office has been leased! I think to a high-speed internet company)

Japanese kiddies show!

Probably.

Resurrecting myself from the fog of blogitus (where immediately after procuring a blog, one suffers from an intense and sudden indifference for what the person envisioned as a happy daily ritual of sharing one's thoughts, opinions, exciting news, corporate vandalism, and/or sufficiently weird enough stuff for an unknown reason), I've returned with meagre offerings!

Here I have a 7" seemingly from the late 60's, most likely from Japan, featuring a scene which can be observed by looking at this picture:

On it we have a cheerful tune about something entitled Pin Pon Pan, with enough whistles and boings planted everywhere to keep just about anyone happy. The flip is (I think) the same song but a different version, slowed down somewhat.

The best thing about the disc, however, is the hand-written note I found inside after getting it home. 

Apparently written to a grade-school teacher by someone able to translate the singing, they were kind enough to include the Anglicized lyrics. Oh and what lyrics:

"Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom - pin pon pan pon 
Zoom, zoom, zoom, zoom - pin pon pan pon 
Tiger pro-wrestler in stripe pants 
Keep putting it in over and over again, 
but never fails, off it comes 
Gonbaranakucha (meaning "preserve", but in this instance, a way of cheering on a competitor) 
One hand whipping and the other holding up the slippery pants 
Win, win, tiger's pro-wrestler 

Hippo-person is so stupid 
He disguises to look like someone else 
But is always easily identified 
Gonbaranakucha 
Blowing out smoke 
Blowing out smoke 
Go go hippo-person 
Do a somersault (or roll over) and you're a mole 
Do a somersault (or roll over) and you're a (?) 
Do a somersault (or roll over) and you're a King Champion 
Do a somersault (or roll over) and you're a bride 

Run, run Kintaro 
Jump over dishes and newspaper 
Run, run Kintaro 
The restroom is just nearby 
Endure, hurry hurry! 
Hanako-san, Hanako-san 
Mama's name is Hanako-san 
Welcome Hanako-san 
Please do join us all 

The crocodile's bride has terrible athlete's foot 
No matter how much she scratches, it's itchy, itchy 
Gonbaranakucha 
Swish, swash goes your skirt, athlete's foot, itchy itchy 
Swish, swash goes your skirt, athlete's foot, itchy itchy 
Scratch, scratch, scratch, crocodile's bride 

Let us be a frog - pin pon pan pon pin 
Let us be a huge snake - pin pon pan pon pin 
Let us be a caterpillar - pin pon pan pon pin 
Let us be a crow - pin pon pan pon pin 

Thank you, thank you 
Thank you for the exercise 
Let us all say together 
Thank you very much!" 

Ah..... whipping, slippery pants, athlete's foot... It's like a song about the surprise party given for me after I moved into my first apartment.

Someday soon I'm going to plead Rod McKuen to cover this in English.

Download here:

JKS!

A Spooktacular in Screaming Sound!

Spike Jones was a bandleader and musician specializing in satirizing contemporary & popular music in the time-period of 1940's-1950's, much of the time utilizing odd, purposely-juxtaposed or even non-musical instruments resulting in hugely popular de-compositions. Just in time for Halloween.

Download here:
Spike

Drop Dead!

Arch Oboler, born in 1907 (d.1987), was a nuclear blast of energy & ideas involving himself in movies, plays, television, directing, producing, screenwriting, writing novels, and had a long-running horror radio show by the name of "Lights Out" - one cut from the album being one of the episodes - and apparently made film history with his use of effects in two of his 3-D movies from the early fifties, and during the war years made anti-Nazi films that stars of the era (Joan Crawford one of them) lined up to be a part of, some taking pay-cuts for the chance.
Unfortunately, horror was to touch his life literally when his six year old son drowned in a ditch used for excavation that filled with rainwater on the site where Oboler's new house was being built in 1958.

Drop Dead!, with it's iconic cover, was released in 1962, and features in it's cast Mercedes McCambridge, a minor star of movies and TV of the era and who would later be cast as the wife in TV's long-running series The Coach in the 90's.


Track listing:
    A1 Introduction to Horror   
    A2 I'm Hungry (Movie-Type Horror)   
    A3 Taking Papa Home (Suspense-Type Horror)   
    A4 The Dark (Radio-Type Horror) 
    B1 A Day at the Dentist's (Comedy-Type Horror)   
    B2 The Posse (T.V.-Type Horror)   
    B3 Chicken Heart (Science Fiction-Type Horror)   
    B4 The Laughing Man (The Ultimate in Horror)

Download here:
 Obler

Lone Rager

Dunno why, but I pulled my entire Metal section from the shelves, all 300+ LP's I've held onto with a sick grasp since my early teens, and flipped through all of them, reminiscing on each individual cover art. 

Maybe it's that time of year, when things are getting all dark and spooky: a lot of metal falls into that bleak arena, if not for the music than certainly for many of the covers holding in the vinyl. Picked out some Venom and Danzig for the wall for the next few weeks, spun a few discs to make sure I hadn't grown up and actually still liked it all and then shuffled everything away again, with one extra exception.

Lone Rager's "Metal Rap" EP out of 1984 on Megaforce Records. 

Megaforce is a record label run by Jon & Marsha Zazula, formed early after Jon opened a record shop in New Jersey called Rock 'N Roll Heaven (legend has it that he was originally going to name it "Metallica Records", but a certain Lars Ulrich convinced him otherwise, calling it stupid, and then copped the title for his recently-formed band) after getting Metallica's demo in the mail & deciding he wanted to release their first album.

And this here Metal Rap release is Jon's loving ode to the genre he still promotes to this day. Now, there's no official evidence that the "Lone Rager" IS Jon Z, but as the back cover states: music & lyrics - Jon Zazula, Producer - Jon Zazula. So I think it's safe to say that the hefty boy on the front sweating through the pillowcase is Jon Zazula.

The music? Aheh. Um, well, it's exactly what it says it is. Doesn't get much more earnest than this. This is love, baby, love for metal. And if you hear tiny voices in the chorus it's not your ears ringing from the banging of the head, it's The Children of Steel Singers - a chorus of 15 kids aged 3 months (!) to 10 years old, including a Rikki Zazula.

The first side is the rap, the second side is the same tune minus the vocals which are replaced by a blistering (?) mass of guitar-soloing by Andy "Duck" MacDonald and they both clock in at 5:26. 

And, in case you're too busy swingin' that hair around (or laughing) to listen properly, here's the lyrics from the rear cover, clickable for readability -

Download here:
Metal RAPsody
Special Air-Guitar Head-Banging Dub

Etobicoke Accordion Youth Orchestra

Many kids feel the need to rush into adulthood, while many of us adults want to run screaming back into the carefree days of childhood, usually once we realize that that door has closed and locked solidly behind us. I mean, it doesn't have a handle or even a keyhole on the other side.

Hey! No one told me this grown-up world was gonna be so ugly, and now I can't go back?! Get up on your tiptoes, rub frantically on the grimy windowpane with your coat-sleeve and gaze back in before heaving a sigh, turning around, and waking up to an alarm-clock. 

Reason being for bringing this up is that I could get more than 3-4 posts up a month if I were a kid again and wasn't collecting responsibilities like so many unwanted hockey-card doubles. 

Sure, I could quit my job, but this crap doesn't buy itself, kids. 

But while on the subject, one can sort of revisit kidhood in various ways, some ways being going through old school artifacts like yearbooks or report cards. 

One rather rare artifact of one's academic years is the school record album, most of the time a recording of the school band and/or choir. Personally, none of the schools I ever went to put out an album that I'm aware of, but that could just be an indicator of the quality of the students' abilities. And judging from the others in my guitar class (that we all took just for an easy grade), uh yeah, we sucked. 

Rarer than the albums themselves are the nuts who actually seek out and collect these things (me being one), which range in quality from "utterly tragic", to "so good it sounds like a normal band, which equals crap" - because who wants normal, anyhow? You wanna find something that stands out, screams incongruity, spells out "remember this" on a chalkboard with fingernails instead of chalk. "Adequate" is never memorable. 

Then there are the good school bands that stick in your head out of the left turn they took, something like the rather famous Langley Schools Music Project, and something like this. 

Found somewhat recently in the basement of a local Sally Ann, this was originally a product out of Etobicoke (k is silent) - once a municipality, but now a part of, Toronto (which if you'll check any map, is actually quite far from Vancouver) - and happily I more recently made contact with someone who actually played on this album, so now I can relate a little info attached.

Seems the album was conceived out of a need to raise money to fund a trip to Los Angeles for a battle of the bands competition in 1980, but after all the recording and studio costs were covered, they still had to fund the trip anyways. "Limited Edition", the title of the album, comes from the fact that only 1500 copies were pressed, maybe because that was the most the school could afford, but more likely it's from the fact that in 1980 accordian-based music wasn't setting fire to the Billboard (or any?) charts and expectations of shifting as many units as The Knack weren't really high or considered sane.

And the LP cover itself is unique: most if not all of the time on these things we either get a xeroxed copy of a photo of the kids in the band or some abstract art piece that was requested from what the art teacher thought of as the most gifted student in his/her class, but here we're given a shiny black cover depicting quite the classy hottie perched at a candle-lit Steinway knockoff, smoking a hell of a long cigarillo, holding a single red rose with a bottle of champagne at the ready (I was going to guess Baby Duck, but it's Martini Spumonte), waiting for someone. Probably the drummer. 

I was thinking it was just a stock photo being used, but as my informant tells me, her name is Yolanda and she's actually the older sister of the (then) head music teacher who made the suggestion of making the album. Sad to say, guys, but last we heard, Yolanda married and moved to England in the 90's.

And while most of the performers here have most likely gone on in life to be accountants, firefighters, or won huge lottery wins straight after University, a few have stuck to music: lead guitarist Silvio Simone is currently in a musical called Rock of Ages (as well as being a regular session musician) and a Maureen Bynoe is a smooth-jazz singer with her own band.

Okay, now music-wise, I'd give this a boost up over many recordings I've heard, partially from musicality but also from inventiveness. Some standards on here sandwiched between a few 70's/80's modern tunes, definitely check out the cover of Peter Gunn, the effects-spattered Star Wars theme and the Saturday Night Fever medley - which starts out with seagull-sounds that were apparently manufactured in the studio.

And an extra big thanks to Maria for making contact and giving me some background!

Track list:
A1 Theme From "Peter Gunn"
A2 Liberty Bell
A3 Moon River
A4 Pennsylvania Polka
A5 Instant Concert
B1 Gonna Fly Now - Theme From "Rocky"
B2 At the Hofbrau House
B3 Star Wars "Title Track"
B4 Saturday Night Fever (Medley)
B5 Bandstand Boogie

Download here:

Etobicoke

The Sounds of Love, A to Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

It's 1985. 

You and your date have hidden in the mall til they shut the lights & locked the doors. You've creeped over to the arcade, dodging the security guards. Making out in the Sinistar booth-console is pretty cool but uncomfortable and the constant "Run, human, run!" screamed from the screen is way too jarring, so you both roll to the low-pile carpeted floor that smells of sneakers and orange soda. 

Suddenly one of the games comes on. Scares the crap out of the both of you so you haul up the pants and get out as more and more games fire themselves up. 

Ducking around a corner, you watch as the machines seemingly jabber at each other, one of which has somehow recorded your prelude to lust and is playing it back as several arcade-game themes play; a fight breaks out between consoles, lasts about ten minutes, and eventually classical music pops out of nowhere as the playback continues.

That kind of sums up this very odd LP, a 1972 offering from Yorkshire Records out of Pennsylvania.

The first three cuts are originals, whereas the originality cut out after the first two. 

That's not me being snarky, that's you downloading these and agreeing with me. 

STILL, wow, who put this out? The insane genius on the cover with a synthesizer and a willing female accomplice? Were they one and the same? No information given anywhere, except that a Liza Condon took the photos - three more black & white pics much like the cover on the reverse - and Warp Productions took the project on. 

I have a feeling that if one scoured the '72-'73 issues of Playboy or Penthouse, one would find small advertisements for this hidden in the back.

I gave a slightly harsher approval of this LP some time ago in another forum, but after a second listen I found that there is some sense of musicality to the original tracks, so I'd have to guess that the first time out I was under the influence of maybe a chemical or two or something.

Both Scented Wind and Black and Blues are rather simple tunes, the 'love' part of the equation coming from the sounds emanating from we're led to believe the woman on the record jacket. Whether or not she's actually with someone with a tape recorder right beside the bed or she's alone in a studio giving crazy lip service to the back of her hand I'll let you guys try to figure out.

I could be a complete bastard and tell everyone to crank the volume for Midnight Waterfalls, but I just don't have the heart. Maybe do it later for your unruly neighbors after a cautious listen. Imagine Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music on 78 rpm using a swatch of sandpaper instead of a stylus cartridge and I'd say it's getting close. 

The rest of the album is classical music, taken from somewhere but not actually played by whomever released this flawed gem, three tracks fed through the synth for some extremely mild tampering (I guess nuanced would be the term, but I couldn't swallow using it here) and the oozin' ahs laid over top once more.
Enjoy, but please listen to in an altered state.

Track listing:

Fred Miller - Scented Wind 5:20

A2 Fred Miller - Black & Blues 4:36

A3 Fred Miller - Midnight Waterfalls 9:30

A4 Maurice Ravel - Pavane 5:30

B1 Maurice Ravel - Bolero 14:00

B2 Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart - Piano Concerto No. 21 7:30 

Download here:
Lovezzzzzz...

Isn't that near Spuzzum?

If those two words and a couple initials there on the label don't mean anything to you but a piece of weird syntax, you're far from alone. 

Is it a song about a nice hiking area? No! Trail is a small town in British Columbia, hidden deep in a valley and home to approximately 7500 people, and that's about all I know. 

Here's a map:

This promotional 7'' was put out at one point in time, but there's not a breath of it mentioned on the web. But judging from the style of jingle involved I'd wager c.1963. 

Radio station CJAT (around since 1931 and today is home to "adult contemporary" music, whatever that is) produced it to help boost tourism and business ventures, and must have helped the town a bit as the tune won't come out of your head without the aid of micro-lobotomy. 

The flip - Your Invitation to Trail, B.C. - has a narrative piece expounding the features and other neat stuff the place has on hand, basically reiterating with a little more flourish what the singy jingle-side already covered. And if the song at all sounds familiar, you may just own the Smash the State Canadian punk compilation released in 1994 by a Frank Manley, which features part of the song side of this 45 at the close of the LP's first side.

Download here:
Wonderful Trail

Your Invitation