Goodwill: The Final Resting Place of '90s Rock

Not pictured: An almost complete discography from alt-rock poster boys Everclear. Remarkably, nary a copy of R.E.M.'s Monster -- a thrift store mainstay -- was unearthed in this week's rummage through the stacks.

Songs of Drugs and Devotion 2: The Addicts Choir

With the Addicts Sing (see entry below) shooting up the record charts and intoxicating fans with the invigorating power of a speedball chased with angel dust, Word Records was eager to get the coveted teen market hooked on the nascent addiction craze, birthing a crack baby of an album called Teen Challenge, the debut from the all-teen Addicts Choir. Unlike the original Addicts Sing record, Teen Challenge doesn’t conceal the money shot—an illustration of a dude mainlining—on the back cover. This time, the label puts it right there on the front, right next to co-ed Addicts Choir, in all its graphic glory for all to enjoy: a darkened full-color action shot of a young man, presumably a teen, shooting up in the shadows. The album cover and record contained within became the hit of 1965, outselling all Beatles and Rolling Stones albums combined. After a long stint in rehab, the Addicts Choir took their show on the road and earned a coveted spot opening for the Mormon Tabernacle Choir at the Joseph Smith Coliseum presented by Alpo in Provo, Utah. Sadly, the sold-out crowd never got to experience the Addicts Choir. En route to the show, on a perilous stretch of highway near Moab, the group’s bus driver nodded off at the wheel (he had more heroin in him than an Afghani poppy field), and the bus careened off the highway, plunging some 2,000 feet to the canyon floor below, so ending the Addicts Choir and the whole addiction fad. In 1997, more than three decades after this leading light was forever snuffed out, a feisty punk rock band from Spokane, Washington, called the Flies emerged with an EP called Teen Challenge (Empty Records)—a worthy tribute to the Addicts Choir and their great album.

Songs of Drugs and Devotion

It’s a tragedy that some of the most brilliant and inspired music of the 20^th century languishes in the limbo of America’s junk stores, awaiting resurrection in the digital age. One such album that’s yet to transition to the almighty digital format is The Addicts Sing by the Addicts (a.k.a. Nine Former Addicts—formerly recovering addicts, that is). Issued on the Christian music imprint Word Records in 1963, just months before the arrival of the Fab Four, The Addicts Sing was a God-send, a true revelation. For this album marked the first time American audiences could delight in the sublime exploits of authentic drug addicts without feeling exploitative, shameful, or guilty. Sure, drug abuse and addiction was common in music—from smack in jazz to booze in blues—but it wasn’t part of the show: musicians kept their habits concealed—confined to the backstage, the shooting gallery, the back alley, public toilets, mom’s basement. The Addicts changed all that; they embraced and celebrated their addictions and the drugs that fueled them. No longer were fans left to wonder whether their favorite band were a bunch of strung-out junkies, speed freaks, pill poppers, hash heads, etc. The Addicts proclaimed with defiance, “So what if we are.” And just look at the album cover. Notice the not-so-subtle sky scraper puncturing the pink type? Might that be a hypodermic needle in disguise? And just what of big, bold, bright hot pink lettering: The Addicts Sing. You couldn’t dream of a flashier billboard. Flip jacket over and what do you see, but a graphic illustration of a dude shooting up—and he ain’t mainlining insulin. If that weren’t enough, take a look at the Addicts Dodge tour van, the original Mystery Machine. Imagine seeing that bombing down the highway. Smoke ’em if you got ’em! Indeed, the Addicts had declared war on the undeclared war on drugs. Still, they knew their progressive message might meet resistance, so to allay the fears of worried parents, the Addicts chose not pitch their circus tent in the country’s juke joints, roadhouses, or after-hours clubs. Instead, they went to America’s churches and sang about Jesus. How could a parent not feel good about that? “Well, gosh, Mabel; these drug-addled dirtbags are going on about the Lord! I guess they ain’t so bad. I mean the Lord did say to love your fellow man—even if they smell bad and have hepatitis C.” By the time the Beatles, Stones and their merry prankster contemporaries got around to dreaming up their own acid-laced, smack-tastic fever dreams later in the decade—and to worldwide acclaim—they had Addicts to thank.

Magic Mustache Ride

Their name is Bastard, although Orphan seems more apt a handle—for why would any sensible parent lay claim to this mustachioed sausage party? Thankfully, Bastard’s story is a short one. Conceived backstage at Toto concert in Brussels in the spring of 1975, Bastard was the product of a rather strange tryst involving the roadies of opening bands, Bulge and Fanny, a men’s room handicap stall, Robert Plant’s prosthetic, and a female centaur AWOL from a trashy sci-fi paperback. Nine months after the curtain fell, Bastard, propelled by a drummer named Toto (told you!), slithered and oozed onto the pages of Kerrang! (three full years before the magazine began publishing) and into the back-alley cabarets of Hamburg, where, in a moment of true serendipity, they successfully propositioned the very man who awarded them a record deal. The resultant album is the only one emblazoned with the Bastard name and the band’s four-headed dog logo (so many heads, so few balls). The record is notable but for one thing, and that thing has nothing to do with the music on it (no one will actually admit to dropping the needle on this plastic turd, myself included). See the sleazoid second from the left with the porn ’stache and the patches on his jeans? Yeah, that’s right; he tore those swatches from the AIDS quilt and stitched ’em to his crotch. Fuckin' bastard!

Germany's Last Polka

It’s not an everyday occurrence that a truly remarkable album is exhumed from the dusty heaps of discarded vinyl at the thrift store. It’s an even rarer occurrence that an LP of true historical import is rediscovered. Let alone two. Two that are related. Two that tell the long-forgotten tale of the Great Rock ’n’ Roll Wars of the 1950s and ’60s.

So it was one sunny Saturday morning at the local Goodwill as I rummaged the dusty stacks of wax (the platters that seemingly no longer matter) that my dirty fingers flipped to these two LPs: Walt Groller and His Orchestra’s Auf Wiedersehen and the Little German Band’s Auf Geht’s! On the surface, they appear to be your typical oompah party music albums that crossed the ocean from the Fatherland a generation ago, begging for one last polka on the turntable. Yet it takes an astute collector with master’s degree in ethnomusicology (thank you, University of Phoenix®!) such as me to recognize these recordings for what they actually are: crucial documents containing German folk songs, battle hymns, and field recordings inspired by and captured during the Great Rock ’n’ Roll Wars.

What were the Great Rock ’n’ Roll Wars? You might recall that in the 1950s a new strain of popular music sprouted up like pustules on a pubescent face. It was called rock ’n’ roll, a crude, most unwholesome marriage of hillbilly music and rhythm and blues, and it swept through the United States faster than diarrhea in a hot tub. The music was savage, loud and obnoxious and featured prominent use of the electric guitar and drums. It soon inspired mass hysteria among millions of horny degenerates (teenagers) and led to rebellion, chaos and societal collapse. Churches and schools were torched. Planned Parenthoods, liquor stores, massage parlors and marijuana dispensaries sprang up at every corner strip mall. Morals fled north to Alaska. And communists moved into the White House. It was a scary scene to be sure: a once peaceful, verdant, prosperous, Christ-loving nation had been raped and pillaged into a dystopian wasteland.

With flies buzzing America the Carcass, rock ’n’ roll turned its voracious appetite east toward Europe and went swimming.

Across the pond in the old country, Germany, still nursing the self-inflicted wounds and humiliation it sustained both during and after World War II, braced for the onslaught. It was 1957 when American rock ’n’ roll, led by Elvis Presley (a.k.a. Private Pelvis), stormed the western shores of Europe and began its high-decibel charge eastward toward Das Fatherland. Having been crushed and then occupied by the U.S. and its allies, Germany thought that by making a triumphant stand against this nascent musical enemy it might rekindle national pride among the citizenry and reclaim its place as a major player on the world stage. Or any stage for that matter. Even a stage at some local festival involving wiener dogs, warm lager, toten hosen and luft balloons. Indeed, Germany wasn’t about to let such filthy, impure music impregnate its kartoffelpuffer (that’s German for potato pancake, thank you very much).

So the country dispatched its warriors to the Black Forest, the strategy being that the thick vegetation would provide sufficient cover for national forces to surprise and pounce on the unsuspecting invaders. But because the country’s elite soldiers were either dead or still imprisoned (something about crimes against humanity committed during WWII), Germany’s leaders were forced to draft its accordion-wielding yodelers, all 249,000 of them, to do battle. It was a decision that wrought disastrous consequences, but at the time, the entire country rallied behind its leaders as they held out hope that their unconventional militia would triumph.

This brings us to the records this post serves to highlight. The first record shown above, Auf Wiedersehen by Walt Groller and His Orchestra, depicts an actual scene of an oompah band sending Germany’s heroes off to war on the wings of a high-tempo waltz and bright, soaring notes, a most fitting Auf Wiedersehen for sure. Meanwhile, the second album, Auf Geht’s! by the Little German Band, meanwhile, shows members of an elite accordion battalion hiking into the Black Forest (and toward their certain deaths).

What transpired on the battlefield was gruesome. Germany fought, and fought valiantly. For 20 minutes. Emerging from the cover of the Black Forest for pre-battle polka pep rally, the accordionists were ambushed by the sound of a million guitars roaring from a mountain of Marshall stacks. They were overwhelmed, blown back, unable to match the amplified barrage with their feeble squeezeboxes, whose cumbersome shape and heavy weight impeded and ultimately prohibited a hasty retreat back into forest. When the cliché dust settled, the smoke parted, and the last yodels and accordion farts echoed into the past, a quarter million men lay in a bloody, smoking heap, their lederhosen in tatters, accordions destroyed. I won’t go into detail about how rock ’n’ roll celebrated their victory, except to say that they made sandwiches of their adversaries, hence the name of Black Forest Ham. 

With Germany out of the way, rock conquered Europe, and the rest of the globe soon surrendered, as billions of people from all nations raised their horned hands in unison to salute to their new leader. I can only imagine what the world might have been had polka successfully stood up to the rock ’n’ roll aggressors. Suffice it to say it would have been a better place. Just because.

Should you happen across these records in your archaeological digs in the vinyl mines of Goodwill, know that you’re holding a piece of important history, about a war everyone else has either forgotten or never known about.

A Guy with Kaleidescope Pipes

I bought this album for its cover. Look at it: It comes in colors, everywhere. It’s like a rainbow. In fact, it’s a bright psychedelic lovefest of colors, a cross between the Kinks’ Face to Face and the Chocolate Watch Band’s No Way Out. And check out Virgil Fox: He has pipes sprouting from his head. And that bow tie, might it have belonged to the Electric Prunes? While Into the Classics: Meditations and Sonic Spectaculars may have psychedelic connotations in the title, this is no psychedelic record. It wasn’t even released in the ’60s, during the psychedelic era, but the early ’70s. Virgil Fox plays the Aeolian-Skinner Organ—without accompaniment. And he’s not guiding you on a wild magic carpet ride into new sonic and sensory realms; he's taking you to church. Yep, Virgil was letting the flowers of his imagination sprout not in some incense-clouded harem, but in some incense-clouded cathedral. On this album, he sticks to the classics, working his dizzy fingers through Tchaikovsky, Grieg and Bohm. Psychedelic or not, his choice of material is inspired, his performance superlative. Just imagine yourself seated alone one lazy summer afternoon in the cool comfort of a gothic cathedral, the sun gleaming through stained-glass windows, letting dusty rays of beautiful colors shower down on you as you take in Virgil’s virtuosity. This record may venture down some well-trodden paths, but with a little imagination, you can set your sights for the center of the sun.

I wrote this piece a few years back. I pulled it out of mothballs (and gave it an editorial bath) after listening to Fox’s record on my hi-fi last week.

Wretched Records and Crappy Covers

This record goes to show that you can stuff a schlock-slinging goober into a leather jacket and put him on a motorcycle and he’ll still be a schlock-slinging goober. When kids tore the wrapping paper from this record on Christmas Day, where their parents saw good, clean, rockin’ fun, they saw a literal and figurative square.

This was released hot on the heels of Ruth Welcome's worldwide smash hit, Lo-Fi Lute.

Sadly, ol’ Dizzy Fingers never made another record. While promoting his LP in Africa, Cope was gunned down by ivory poachers who wanted his teeth.

“Hey, boys, before tonight’s gig, why don’t you say we all head down to the Sears Portrait Studio for our album close-up? We can shop for Toughskins afterward.” This so-called auspicious debut is so good that the LP’s original owner didn’t crack the seal—no doubt to keep it “mint.”

For every new album being stamped on wax these days there seems to be several more being reissued. Somehow I don’t think this record will ever get its 180-gram colored vinyl deluxe redux. Call it a hunch.

California Raisins: Still Ripe After All These Years

We’ve all been hearing about the existential and aesthetical crises besieging the music industry these days. It’s scary out there. Rampant illegal downloading, collapsing CD sales, shuttering retail stores, Lana Del Ray, that mystery substance seen running down Christina Aguilera’s leg at Etta James’s funeral, and now Whitney Houston’s death on the eve of the perhaps the most impotent, I mean important, music event of the year, the Grammys. Oh, the Grammys. Admit it, you watch it. Remember how you cheered when Natalie Cole beat out Nirvana for album of the year in 1992 by duetting with her dead dad? Unforgettable!

Today’s apocalyptic collapse reminds me of a time, not long ago, when the music industry last found itself teetering on the brink. It was the late 1980s. Michael Jackson was busy erecting Neverland. Madonna was making great films. Bono was brainstorming ways to exploit the AIDS crisis in Africa. Phil Collins was opening tanning salons across the U.K. Unsure their leading lights would ever return to the spotlight, label heads, industry insiders and that vampiric U.S. lobbying organization, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), met secretly in a White House bunker brainstorming a plan to save their jobs and restore their six-figure bonuses. Their solutions: Kip Winger and Milli Vanilli. Strokes of genius to be sure, but those short-term fixes would prove to be long-term headaches the beleaguered industry had not anticipated. Milli Vanilli were outed as fakes, and the popularity of Winger’s “She’s Only 17” had the unintended effect of causing an increase in statutory rape cases through middle America.

Meanwhile, Ahmet Ertegun, who had co-founded Atlantic Records and who, along with his brother, Nesuhi, had presided over some of the greatest recordings of all time from John Coltrane, Charles Mingus, Ray Charles, Buffalo Springfield, Led Zeppelin and John Astley, was quietly nurturing a new act behind the scenes, a young yet wrinkled group of musicians bent on launching a back-to-basics revival of pop music. That act was the California Raisins.

Having successfully reintroduced America to the poop-stimulating wonders of rotten grapes via one of the most unforgettable advertising campaigns in history, the California Raisins, composed of Stretch, Beebop, A.C. and Red, sought to capitalize on their meteoric rise to fame. Now that they were in the spotlight—they weren’t about to wither; they’re raisins after all! They entertained sitcom offers, clothing deals, merchandising agreements, attaching their image to line of best-selling colon-cleansing products, including Super Colon Blow cereal. Alas, none of those things held much appeal. The California Raisins wanted to perform; they wanted to make music; they wanted to be onstage. The desire for rotted grapes, whether boxed in snack-sized portions or harvested in various states of decay from dumpsters, was surpassed only by the demand for a legitimate vinyl release of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” the song heard in all the TV and radio ads.

The interest was not surprising. “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” was a song that represented so much promise when Marvin Gaye first recorded it 20 years earlier. But his version fell well short of the upper reaches of the pop charts. The problem was that Gaye wasn’t a grape, or a raisin. He lacked the emotional intuition, conviction, not to mention street cred, needed to transform the song into transcendental masterpiece.

Atlantic Records boss Ertegun recognized this and seized the opportunity of packaging the California Raisins into a pop music snack that would not only flush the bowels of a constipated music industry, but also delight and nourish music fans for decades to come. He invited the Raisins to his Los Angeles home studio under the auspices of having them record some low-key demos. He simply instructed them to have fun, play around with their favorite tunes, explore the space, etc. Later, if all went well, he’d sign them and bankroll the production of a proper studio album.

The California Raisins didn’t need to test the waters; their chemistry was undeniable, their musicianship unbelievable, their deliciousness unbeatable. They were ready. Nevertheless, they indulged Ertegun, and went about recording a dozen or so songs, including a stripped-down take on “I Heard It Through the Grapevine.” In the small basement studio, the Raisins worked fast, faster than the raisin’s effect on the human digestive system. Within an hour, they delivered an album’s worth of songs with a working titled of Led Zeppelin 1. Ertegun was stunned by what he heard. The Raisins’ recordings of “Green Onions,” “Signed, Sealed, Delivered,” “Tutti Frutti,” “Cool Jerk” could no longer be claimed by the forgettable artists who originally “popularized” them. No, these songs, especially the searing reworking of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine,” now belonged to the California Raisins.

Released in 1988, the Raisins’ debut LP, now titled Meet the Raisins, bowed at No. 1 and stayed there for three years. Every song on the album, including the studio outtakes, rehearsals, false starts and abandoned demos, topped the singles’ charts. In fact, for three straight weeks in 1989, all 40 songs in America’s Top 40 belonged to the California Raisins. The Raisins won a record 78 Grammys in three years. And their debut album was so good that it won Best Album three-straight years.

Everywhere they went, the Raisins were mobbed by fans—the likes of which hadn’t been seen since the Beatles. But the Raisins soon grew spoiled, figuratively speaking of course. Legend has it that they required that all raisins be removed from the trail mix and raisin bran they ate backstage. While the Raisins weren’t about to eat their own, raisin consumption throughout the world was such that grapes were no longer used for wine, juice, jelly or even grapes. To keep up with demand all harvested grapes were dehydrated and rotted into raisins. Naturally, greenhouse gasses quadrupled, setting off some pretty catastrophic environmental catastrophes across the globe. Oceans, rivers and lakes all turned brown. Cloud formations now consisted mostly of methane. Humans now had to submit to monthly emissions checks. And the smell, oh the smell.

Finally, the backlash came in 1992. We won’t get into all the details, scandals and betrayals here—not today at least. Suffice it to say, the sweet sun-ripened treat turned foul, its shelf life expired. And that was that. The California Raisins were no more—and were never to be seen in public, together or separately, again.

Now, some 20 years later, with the music industry again spiraling down the toilet bowl, who better than the California Raisins to flush out the toxins and bring about a renaissance? Sadly, the Grammys blew a huge opportunity last Sunday. Following Whitney Houston’s death, the Grammy people should have asked the Raisins to perform in her place so that, just as pioneering Natalie Cole did with her deceased Nat King Cole, the California Raisins could have duetted with a jumbo-tron animation of Whitney Houston. They could have sung a medley of Houston favorites, including “I’m Every Raisin,” “I Wanna Dance with Some Raisin” and her signature signature “I Will Always Love Raisins.” It would have been a poignant tribute—as well as an effective passing of the torch. There wouldn’t have been a dry eye (or nose—ah, cocaine) in the audience. And it would have been the most watched, instead of the second-most watched, Grammys ever.

And so the question remains: when can we expect the second coming of the California Raisins? Only Stretch, Beebop, A.C. and Red know for sure.

Chilling, Racist Sounds of Halloween?

You’ve probably seen this album over the years. Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House is the cornerstone of the horror soundtrack/sound effects genre; from what I can tell it’s been in print the longest and is perhaps the only horror LP relic to live on—undead—in the digital age. If you’re as old as me, or older, you probably had a scratched-up, dog-eared copy of the LP that Dad would dust off every year and blast from an open window to unsuccessfully frighten trick-or-treaters from your front porch.

Released in 1964, Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House contains all the requisite audio chills, thrills and spills of a Halloween record. There are dragging chains, howling winds, baying hell hounds, groaning monsters, creaking doors, blood-curdling screams and more. On side one, a narrator sets up each scary scenario before letting the sound effects take over to illustrate the protagonist’s imminent demise. It’s all pretty hokey and predictable—and low-budget.

But how is Chilling, Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House racist? Glad you asked. At the end of side one is a track titled “Chinese Water Torture.” The narrator opens the track with an explanation of the torture method’s origins and then shuts up to let the water droplets do their trick of undoing the protagonist’s mind. With ten seconds remaining, the narrator returns one last time and, under the spell of bad taste, speaks in stereotypical, monosyllabic fake Chinese, rather exaggeratedly, too. “Ming, my, ywai hoi….” She goes on like this for a few moments before catching herself and feigning surprise, “What am I saying? I’m not even Chinese.”

Indeed, Chilling, Thrilling Sounds… was a product of 1964, a time when perhaps few considered such xenophobia to be, well, xenophobic. In the ensuing 50 years, attitudes have changed. We’re hypersensitive about race and culture—as we should be. We even go out of our way to out-PC one another. There’s no chance in Disneyland that anyone would let something of this ilk into today’s marketplace. (South Park’s another story.) Remember Song of the South? Disney pretends not to. So one might think that Disney would keep "Chinese Water Torture" forever buried in its storied haunted vaults (along with the bones of Walt). Song of the South it ain’t, but it’s still racist.

Curious, I decided to see if Chilling, Thrilling Sounds… has made the leap to digital. It has. It’s currently out of print on CD (though not hard to find), but it’s readily available for download on iTunes. Spotting “Chinese Water Torture” in the album’s sequence, I paid a buck to download it and see if the original piece remains intact, fake Chinese and all. I skipped to the track’s final seconds and to my surprise, “Chinese Water Torture” hadn’t been edited. Everything’s still there just as it was in 1964, a stupid, undead relic of Cold War xenophobia. Chilling, indeed.

Burning Man

If you’re a record collector, particularly one who haunts thrift stores, garage sales and swap meets seeking out the bizarre and obscure, you’re probably familiar with the pair of Incredibly Strange Music books by RE/Search Publications from the 1990s (out of print). These books feature long Q&As with numerous record collectors—including Jello Biafra, Lux Interior and Poison Ivy of the Cramps and Billy and Miriam Linna of Norton Records—who show off their records while sharing interesting stories and anecdotes about the artists who made them. Both volumes are invaluable repositories of music from the fringes, particularly between the 1950s and 1970s. And by fringes we’re talkin’ about private press records, ill-conceived novelties, assorted kitsch, Jesus-freak music, third-tier rockabilly, outsiders—anything meeting the incredibly strange description.

Among the thousands of records and/or musicians covered in the two ISM volumes, one artist in particular stoked my curiosity. His name’s Merrill Womach, a gospel singer and former undertaker from Spokane.

Besides possessing an extraordinary voice, Womach also owns an extraordinary face, the result of third-degree burns sustained in a plane crash in 1961. What might have snuffed out the lives of others served to energize Womach’s. Legend has it that Merrill sang all the way to the hospital after being pulled from the flaming wreckage. Naturally (or supernaturally), Merrill credited his survival to Divine Intervention. Following a long spell in the hospital where he endured painful skin grafts and facial reconstruction, Merrill emerged a new man, more determined than ever to share his God-given gift—not to mention his man-made face—with the world.

And so it would be that for the nearly 20 albums he recorded between 1967 and 1985, Merrill would never shy away from making his miraculous face the focal point of their covers. On one album, In Quartet (shown below), four Merrill Womachs appear, striking poses in their polyester lounge-lizard disco suits—one Merrill for each of the four octaves of his glorious tenor.

Judging by his Wikipedia page, Womach is alive today and resides in Spokane. He’s 84 and still making music—albeit canned Muzak for funeral homes. He was an undertaker after all. (Surely, there’s a joke in there somewhere.) What follows are some of the Merrill Womach records I’ve acquired over the years, including one I picked up just last week from St. Vincent DePaul in Lynnwood, Wash. As you’ll see, one of the records, My Song, depicts Merrill before the plane crash. (Actually, it shows 42 Merrills—a full chorus!) Merrill Womach records aren’t all that hard to come by; you can always find a dozen or so listed on eBay—at pretty reasonable prices, too. But if you hunt around, you’ll likely find some at the junk shop for a $1 or less.

Also, for your enjoyment, you can watch a video here, taken from a documentary about Merrill’s accident and recovery called He Restoreth My Soul. In this scene, Merrill sings one of his signature songs, “Happy Again,” to a roomful of hospital patients. Is it just me or would this song make a decent flipside of a Scott Walker single? Maybe not.

My Song (1960) -- Acquired from Value Village in Ballard. This is Merrill Womach one year before his face went up in flames.

I Believe in Miracles (1967) -- Purchased at St. Vincent DePaul in Lynnwood. This is Merrill Womach's triumphant comeback album. The illustration does not show Womach inside plane. You'll just have to take him at his word that he was singing the Lord's praises. Believe it or not this is the second pressing of this album -- I also own the first, which was issued by a different label.

A Time for Us (1969) -- I don't remember where I got this one. On this album, Merrill gives the gospel a rest to bring us the good news of show tunes and weepy love ballads.

Surely Goodness and Mercy (1970) -- I think this came from a Texas thrift store where it was acquired by my friend DH.

I Stood at Calvary (1973) -- Purchased from eBay. Little-known fact, but Merrill was there at Jesus's crucifixion. This 2000-year-old painting proves it. Merrill was also believed to have introduced polyester and pleather to the nascent Christian movement.

Happy Again (1974) -- Found at the Goodwill in Lynnwood. This is the soundtrack to the aforementioned He Restoreth My Soul and is probably the most famous Womach record cover.

Mine Eyes Have Seen the Glory... (1976) -- I don't remember where I found this one. I love the way Merrill's purple fly-away collar matches the scenery.

In Concert (1977) -- Picked this up at St. Vincent DePaul in Seattle. Merrill doesn't make his face the focal point of this cover, but it's there.

In Quartet (1977) -- Found at a Texas thrift store by my friend DH. Notice how Merrill mixes and matches two suits to make four. Genius.

I'm a Miracle Lord (1981) -- Found at a record store in Montreal, Quebec, of all places.

Thar She Blows

Thirty one years ago (yesterday), Mount St. Helens blew its top. One year later, with volcanic ash still blanketing large swaths of the Pacific Northwest, the not-so-legendary Seattle trad-jazz combo the Uptown Lowdown Jazz Band issued the hardy-har titled Hauling Ash. That the LP failed to blow up on the national (or even local) scene can be attributed to multiple factors, including the man-made disaster of its horrendous cover. Which as you can see simply blows.

Tales from the Thrift Store

For 2010, I resolved to do my record shopping at the thrift store. It wasn’t so much a financial decision—though I saved a few bucks in doing so—but a fun experiment to see what I could unearth or be turned on to. In this age of instant gratification, music can be had with a simple click or tap, and elusive records are within easy grasp on eBay. But for me, and I’m sure most every other record collector, the hunt is just as thrilling as getting your grubby hands on that desired LP.

Ever since I started shopping at thrift stores in college, I would always thumb through the records. Occasionally, I’d find something worth spending 50 cents or a dollar on. But never had I considered the second-hand store to be my main source of music. And for good reason: If you’ve shopped for music at Goodwill, Salvation Army, Value Village, et al., you know that most of what they have is the pop culture waste of previous generations. The Al Hirts. The Andy Williames. The Art Garfunkels. That and much worse: Grandma’s crappy classical collection? Check. Ten copies of Firestone Christmas? Check. Ferrante and Teicher? Check. Mitch Miller? Check. All that crap, no matter which day or what store—the thrift store is where the bad records go to die. So I knew that getting some decent LPs was going to be a hell of a task.

You're likely familiar with the smell of thrift store. It’s not a good smell. Yet, every time the musty-dusty scent of the second-hand shop greeted me at the door, anticipation would pulse through my arteries, so excited I was by the prospect of finding some forgotten castoff or maybe a decent copy of a well-known favorite. Mostly, though, after rummaging through the usual detritus of moldy oldies, that feeling would soon yield to disappointment, and I’d inevitably leave empty-handed. But undaunted. If it’s treasure you’re hunting in the junk store, well, you have to be patient and persistent. Even then, you’ve got to be lucky, and on several occasions over the last year, I got lucky.

For these next several posts I am sharing some of the highlights of my 2010 vinyl thrifting. Have a look.

Today’s entry is Dark of Light (Buddah) by Norman Connors.

I won’t lie to you, I had no idea who Norman Connors was prior to seeing his face look back at me from the dusty stacks at a Value Village (location classified). Upon close examination of the LP’s cover, though, I saw that the record features a who’s who of jazz luminaries, including Herbie Hancock, saxophonist Gary Bartz, bassist Cecil McBee, trumpeter Eddie Henderson, et al. (a good sign) and was recorded in 1973 (an even better sign—I’ll get to that in a moment). Seeing that the actual vinyl was far better shape than its well-worn (or well-loved) only made me happier. Indeed, I had high expectations for this record, expectations which were easily surmounted once I dropped the needle on it.

Dark of Light comes from an era when jazzbos, be they avant-gardists, hard boppers or free jazzniks, explored the outer limits of electric funk, drifted off into mystical meditations, freaked out in the cosmos or improvised deep into the unknown. It was an interesting period for jazz—at least to my ears. A time before all that sonic exploration was synthesized and diluted into the catch-all commercial ghetto of fusion (bad fusion, Weather Report/Return to Forever-style fusion). Accordingly, what flooded from my speakers were sounds both exciting and expected (not a bad thing): cosmic, mystical jazz, a head trip of mood- and mind-altering mellow gorgeousness and ecstatic fire, tugging grooves that bubble up to the surface, and some truly inspired improvisations.

Dark of Light was Norman Connors’ first album as a leader, but he was hardly a newcomer. Connors, a drummer, most notably created percussive thunder behind two jazz legends, Archie Shepp and Pharaoh Sanders. As his solo career progressed, though, he changed his tune from jazz to more commercial-friendly R&B, creating super-smooth soundtracks for singers such as Michael Henderson and Phyllis Hyman, scoring several hits late into the ’70s. However, if I come across any of those records in my future thrifting, I’ll leave them well enough alone.

Case of the Half-Written Blues

I've got a bunch of new posts in the hopper for the new year. Sadly, this is not one of them. No, the new stuff just isn't quite there yet. So while I agonize over the nascent posts, I thought I'd tide you over with the covers of two uncommonly awful recent thrift store acquisitions. Dig in.

James Lockridge Sings Joy in My Heart (1974)

James' love interest on this record is ... Jesus. But of course.

The Wheeler Family City of Gold (197?)

Looks like a perfectly innocent album of Christian gospel hymns sung by a pleasantly homely and inept quartet of siblings, until ...


... you take a gander at the back cover. This is the Wheeler Family's "Dad" as he appears on the back cover. Kind of makes Murry Wilson or that puppeteer father of the sisters Shagg seem almost rational, reasonable, loving even.

In Death Gerry Rafferty Gets Last Laugh

Gerry Rafferty's pickled liver finally walked off the job this week, so denying any further comeback attempt or call for one last round by its owner. While this might be seen as tragic (how can death deny a very thirsty man a final drink ... or two dozen?), few of us are shedding tears about Gerry's slightly premature checkout. Some of us are even laughing -- because the accidental prankster hit the road toward the great gig in the sky and left us with the master tapes to "Baker Street," whose distinctive porno sax solo, with its stained sheets of sound, is sure to ooze into the sleazy motels of our minds for many years to come. Damn you, Gerry! What a kidder.

Thrift Store Scores

Ninety percent of all music I've purchased this year has come from thrift stores. It was one of my New Year's resolutions -- to acquire any and all music from the junk store. Had it not been for Record Store Day or new albums from Refused, Melvins and Sun City Girls, I might have kept my resolution. But nine out of ten ain't bad.

In my quest for new, moldy tunes and the discovery of vinyl gold, I haunted thrift stores like a hunter stalks his prey. My searches were often frustrating and fruitless, but in eleven months I managed to acquire almost 200 records -- some good, some rare, most mildewy and awful, and all cheap. As for what I'll buy, sometimes it just comes down to the cover. So for this post, I give you some of the best/worst album covers I temporarily spared from their inevitable date with the dumpster.


Hmm ... why is Brother looking at Sister that way?


I love Jesus people. Their records never disappoint.


I know what it looks like, but the guy on this record is not Will Ferrell. As far as I can tell, this was the only Peters and Lee album. At least these lounge losers had the good sense to make their first album their last. Or maybe there are other Peters and Lee recordings. I'll keep looking.


More like Bobbin' for Crapples. Who thought a photo of this goober would sell records? Presumably the goober himself.


A reflective "Frankie Chop" looks back on his career. Despite his violent-sounding handle, Frankie was not a hit man but a polka twat. By the way, there's something so masculine about posing with your hands under your chin.