Monthly Archives: January 2012

WTF Records: Bobby Walker is Yodeling For Jesus

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I’d like to thank/curse BizarreRecords.com for this truly bizarre sonic oddity which might just be my favorite weirdo record discovery of the week (aside from the Traveling Torture Show record mentioned here earlier.)

OK, I’ll admit it–a lot of times when I find WTF records, I feel what I consider to be an appropriate rising contempt–sexist, racist, clueless and just plain crass album covers give me a big ol’ dose of bile. But when I found THIS and listened to the accompanying MP3, I could not help falling in love with this insane, misguided-but-fun record.

It doesn’t hurt that the track was recorded well, actually performed with skill and a sense of humor about itself that’s quite lacking on a lot of southern-friend gospel albums. You could EASILY hear this playing in the background of your favorite 70s drive-in exploitation car chase movie.

And that’s the part that I curse BizarreRecords.com for–once this gets heard, it will be stuck in your damn head for several hours, a brainworm that refuses to die. You WILL hear this guy yodeling for Jesus in your head tonight. I PROMISE you.

And now you get to SHARE MY PAIN. Just listen once and you’re infected.

Vinyl Records, Home Taping, SOPA and PIPA

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Warning: rants ahead.

In the 80s, “Home taping is killing the record industry!” was the battle cry of many suit-and-tie candyassed record company execs who felt threatened by a bunch of teenage kids trading cassettes of their favorite vinyl records.

Sound familiar?

Today’s version of that whiny nonsense has culminated in the Stop Online Piracy Act or SOPA for short, plus its evil cousin, the Protect IP Act or PIPA.

The biggest pro-SOPA/pro-PIPA crybabies include the MPAA and RIAA, who have caused plenty of grief for musicians in the past with their blinkered, pee-pants fears of piracy, file sharing and the like. They basically seem to hate any activity that doesn’t result in the cash registers chiming.

That sounds a bit extreme, a bit knee-jerk reactionary, to be sure. But it’s an impression that can’t be avoided in an age where six-figure lawsuits are brought against college kids for file sharing in their dorm rooms.

Here in Chicago in a measure totally unrelated to piracy, SOPA, or the alphabet soup agencies, rumor has it that one elected genius tried to introduce legislation that would make the sale of used CDs illegal.

Why?

With news like this, plus reports of the MPAA crying over the blackout of websites in protest of SOPA/PIPA as an “abuse of power”, it gives me great pleasure to see a resurgence of attitude against legislated censorship (which SOPA and PIPA clearly would bring).

The sad thing about all this is that the hue and cry that brought SOPA and PIPA legislation into being has more to do with the fact that these record industry dinosaurs (who are so afraid of the 21st century verision of home taping) are basically making their final bleating cries as they sink into the music business La Brea tar pits.

The dinos are going down, but they keep on bellowing for dear life.

Once upon a time, Steve Albini wrote, “The future belongs to analog loyalists. Fuck digital.” And now, after MP3s, file sharing and all the rest, damn if he didn’t turn out to be exactly right, albeit in a sort of collector-y way. MP3s and the collapse of the CD market have driven people back to vinyl. Which proves a point.

File sharing, piracy, and the rest of the yellow underwear issues the MPAA, RIAA and the corporate giants are afraid of? They all drive people back to buying music. Actual purchases. Let the file sharing kiddies have their illegal Metallica and Britney Spears downloads. The rest of us–people who actually BUY music, and GOOD music to boot–are still spending money in spite of the sharing.

None of this is news, not to us. But these record industry types need to take a weekend to wring the urine out of their trousers and re-think. Not that they will. They NEVER will. In fact, they’re just going to keep sitting there in their own piss, shivering in fear that another 99 cents won’t be spent on the brain-dead utterances of 50 Cent or Adele.

And they are right–crap music will be pirated forever and ever, because somewhere deep down inside, even the most vacant, uncritical fan of what I call Hollywood-core knows they shouldn’t spend money on that shit. Piracy? No, friends, let’s call it what it is–EVOLVED PURCHASING HABITS. People spend money on Radiohead records offered for “whatever you wanna pay”, they shelled out for Nine Inch Nails four CD sets after getting a full album of the stuff for nothing.

Those stunts–which WORKED–coupled with the piracy of USELESS, STUPID MUSIC should tell us something, shouldn’t it?

WTF: Vinyl Vulgarity and 8-Track Smut?

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by Joe Wallace

This post is perhaps not terribly safe for work. You have been warned.

I am a follower of author William Gibson on Twitter, and recently he mentioned finding 8-track tape erotica at southern truck stops. The very idea of this was mind-numbing. Could such weirdness actually exist?

Apparently it’s not enough to get naughty videos and vinyl records. Somebody decided there was DEFINITELY a market for dirty goings on delivered via eight-track tape.

The concept seems so odd that I became obsessed with seeing them for myself. What do these things look like? Who buys them? What on earth do they get out of them? Well, that’s a totally stupid, harebrained question as we all know what you get out of them.

But looking at the packaging for 8-track tape pronorama makes me think that the very last thing on earth these would do is turn somebody on. Thinking of somebody producing smut for an 8-track audience doesn’t make me envision high production values…it makes me visualize a corrugated tin shack somewhere with a Radio Shack microphone dangling from the ceiling while a couple of 19-year old high school dropouts force out grunts and wheezes between shifts at the local In-N-Out Burger.

No pun intended.

I mention all that to say that after being turned on (heh) to the concept of 8-track tape erotica, I actually found some images of these no doubt classics of the recording industry:

And according to William Gibson’s Twitter posts, if I read him correctly you can STILL PURCHASE THESE DAMN THINGS as under-the-counter, on-the-sly finds in the deep south.

Let me repeat, I am certainly no prude–you should be able to listen to any damn thing in any old format you want as long as your eyes are on the road and BOTH HANDS are on the wheel. But these can’t POSSIBLY raise so much as an eyebrow, can they? Not having heard them, I’m guessing they’re as erotic as a reading of De Sade’s 101 Nights Of Sodom by Ted “Lurch” Cassidy.

Vinyl Blogs We Love: Waxidermy

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In a never-ending quest to find bizarre, out-of-print, and rare vinyl, the journey takes strange and wonderful turns.

One of the most enjoyable as of late? Waxidermy, a vinyl blog dedicated to out-of-print rarities and oddities that has an outstanding section called Incredibly Strange that will not only change your life, but might actually ALTER it substantially. It’s MIND BENDING.

Proof? The too-short-by-a-mile post on the vinyl record titled “Fist” Goodbody’s Traveling Torture Show, which has sent Turntabling on a torched-earth bughunt for this WTF record. It cannot be said that it must be owned, “whatever the cost” but there is a definite interest in procuring this vinyl freakshow for permanent installation in the Turntabling Collection. If you own a copy of “Fist” Goodbody’s Traveling Torture Show you want to sell, by all means get in touch.

Waxidermy is a massive, massive site and there is so much to explore that you might just fall over dead before getting through it all, which is never a bad thing. Waxidermy must go on and on forever, because it’s simply too awesome not to. Done gushing now…just get over there and have a look. You won’t be sorry. Your brain may be damaged forever by the Incredibly Strange section, but that just means Turntabling will have plenty of company.

–Joe Wallace