I Hate Men Named Sandy

Can I tell you how much I hate this Sandy Nelson album? Grab from the turntable, Frisbee at the barking dog next door hate. New art form scrimshaw-on-vinyl with a rusty nail hate. Even dare I suggest it….Billie Holliday hate. That’s some pretty strong stuff. Go ahead Sandy-lovers, tell me how wrong I am like you did last time.
I should have remembered my last experience with a Sandy Nelson album when I picked this one up for 33 1/3 cents – which was take two Advil and have a little lie-down until my head felt better. His one’s worse-- Sandy’s “All Around the World With Drums” includes a visit to a boiler room, a factory that makes broken glass, along with the predictable music from cave-man times, man. Jeez! I just remembered, I have yet another Sandy Nelson record to deal with. I think I will attempt to rip the entire album without actually listening to any of it. And I will write a review too! I think I’m looking forward to this experience.

Oh, and Sandy is a stupid name for a man.

Sandy Nelson....Drummin' Up a Storm

From Sacha With Love

Today's record is an example of everything I want from my big band vocals....swinging instrumentals, great arrangements, and a lovely Frenchman singer to provocatively rrrrroll his rrrrrrrr's. Sacha Distel's version of Ting Tung has been in my top 100 of weirdness for a while now, but he recorded lots of stuff that was pretty normal, too. I recently came across a few blogs offering several different Sacha albums, and liked most of them....but "From Paris With Love" really hits it out of the park. If Frenchmen play baseball.

Isn't Sacha hunky? especially those eyessssss. Especially the right one, the left one is a little wonky. Anyway, I just looooove Sacha. sigh.

From Paris With Love - Sacha Distel (1962)
RCA LSP-2611

Swingin' Abroad. Get It? Heh.

Today's album runs the gamut from frantic to frenetic, though I'm not sure which one means that you're more overcaffeinated than the other. In the liner notes, Mort Goode tell us that this album is "a ride that is as exciting and scenic and up-dated as the rhythm of a rocket". Wow, another writer who mangles a metaphor as badly as I do! Cool. Hey, isn't Mort Goode the cartoonist who did Beetle Bailey? I don't really know.

Mort Goode also seems to think that Frank Ortega invented the technique of strumming the strings inside a piano, and since he doesn't know what else to call it, he opts for "Piano pizzicato", which doesn't account for the glissando effect. Well, Mort, Henry Cowell used the effect in the early 1920s, and probably stole it from some rural black guy or something to begin with judging by the rest of American musical history. And here Whitey surely like to keep a brother down, Ortega uses the "string piano" thing so often on this album it kinda gets on your nerves.

Note to the regular visitor who collects versions of The Third Man Theme, here is another one you probably don't have yet!

Swingin' Abroad - Frank Ortega
Jubilee 1080 In "Superlaphonic Hi-fi", whatever the hell that is.

Each Song Has its Own Special Fragrance

It's song poem day here at Schadenfreudian Therapy, kids! And the lovely tunes are performed in the most halfassed way imaginable by song-poem hack, Ramsey Kearney!

And what songs they are! We have "A Song to Feed Chickens By", a love/hate relationship in which the chickens are lovingly named, then threatened with "How'd you like to meet Colonel S.?" when they don't lay enough eggs. Maybe it's because the chicken is named Gus?

Then there's a lovely tale of an Indian maiden named Winnescheika who elicits the jealousy of the other squaws, and they axe her right in the wigwam. Ouch.

Or the touching memories of Susie-belle, a doggie that's gone to meet Jesus. Best line: "She learned to use the bathroom on a towel and all I had to do was wash it out in a bucket". I dunno, maybe you speak white trash better than I do, I THINK that's what he was saying.

Anyway, it's thrilling to know that the song poem industry lasted until at least 1982 when this album was released.

Flowers of Love - Ramsey Kearney
or here:

Flowers of Love

Canciones Favoritas de Rafael Hernandez

Because I am but a nose-picking philistine American I did not know the name Rafael Hernandez. But when I heard some of his songs as interpreted by an instrumental combo led by Luisito Benjamin, even I recognized a few. This is an early Ansonia record so that's just icing on the cake. Nice stuff here.

Canciones Favoritas de Rafael Hernandez - Luisito Benjamin y Su Combo Pan-American

Duck Calling for Mallards and All Ducks of the Puddler Class

The "Puddler Class" makes me think of a roomful of incontinent third-graders. Anyway, my reputation as a blog that will post any damn thing continues to grow. Today we have a gift from Mr. Heywood Jablome (that's what he asked ME to call him) from one of my new favorite go-to blogs for goofy music, Junk Shop Juke Box. It is a loving and detailed demonstration of how to speak to mallard ducks in their own language, and gain their trust so you can coax them closer and blow them off the face of the planet.

The Olt Company is still in business in Pekin Illinois (seriously, click on this link for a really stupid piece of Americana), though they seem to only manufacture wooden duck calls and no longer offer the rubber model you might have gotten along with this record.


Duck Calling for Mallards and All Ducks of the Puddler Class - Philip Olt

One Stormy Night

Let me count the ways I adore this album:

1. it is schlocky music backed by a "freak thunderstorm over Los Angeles in 1961"
2. which means no audio clean-up necessary as hiss and pops can be passed off as drips and drops
3. one of the songs is a Don Ralke original called "Hot Bagel" which won't stay hot for long if you eat it in a thunderstorm
4. the song "Local Freight" is played on train whistle
5. There is about 12 minutes of actual music, the rest is thunder & rain filler that goes on and on and on and hilarity ensues
6. "Whoever you are, you hold in your heart the memory of One Stormy Night..."
7. I didn't even have to go to the effort of removing the shrinkwrap on the album cover before photographing, the album cover is already shiny and distorted looking. So I could leave the swell "ayr-way 3.67" sticker intact. Is there already a blog for record album pricetag stickers? If not, I may need to start one, I love them so.
8. It was too difficult to decide how to do the breaks for the songs, so I didn't bother. You get to listen to the entire side, except for bonus tracks of Hot Bagel and Fire Island which I need to add to my ipod stat.
9. I adore thunderstorms, the negative ions must gibe with my preternaturally negative personality. And I love having a thunderstorm song that does not include Jim Morrison whispering.

One Stormy Night - the Mystic Moods Orchestra, musical director Don Ralke
Phillips PHS-600-205

Third Man Theme for Banjo

I'm not going to do any research on who banjo player "Ira Ironstrings" might really be because 1) some of you are way more knowledgeable about strange obscure music than I and will correct me anyway 2) if I start trying to research this online, I will only run across 20 other versions already available on other blogs and I will lose the will to post the 32--yes, thirty-two--albums I bought yesterday. Grand total spent: $20.

So read the liner notes (if you are able) and learn what I did, which is practically nothing. All I really need to know is that this album includes a version of the Third Man Theme for banjo, which is a lot, in my book.

Ira Ironstrings Plays: With Matches
Warner Brothers W 1248 (1959)

Whoooooo's a Pretty Birdie?

I'm well on my way to becoming the premiere Internet source for bird-training records (current total: TWO!). Today I offer the fine entry from Blueboy Enterprises, "Blueboy the conceited Budgie: He's a Kiss-kiss-kissie Bird" backed by a very manly sounding announcer on "How to Train Your Budgie". It's only a 78, so it's short 'n' sweet--I hope those of you who (still) do mashups can put this to fine use!

Blueboy the conceited budgie 79 rpm Blueboy Enterprises D-12031

Special bonus: link to Basement of Curiosities Complete Parakeet Trainer and the second album here (thanks Doug!), and if you missed the canary training the first time around....

Bongo Bongocero

Shall we rhumba? Let's do.

Sorry, my pumpkins, for my silence of late. I will try to be more prolific in the future. And we'll start with this swell corny rhumba album by Bobby Ramos, pimping for Arthur Murray. It's the perfect soundtrack for every swanky nightclub scene from a 30s or 40s film, preferably featuring Edward Everett Horton or Mischa Auer. The best parts are: the zombie-like intro to Bongo Bongocero before the vocalist who definitely sounds like he's sporting a pencil-thin moustache; the extended Turkey in the Straw reference in the Walter Winchell rhumba; and the Arthur Murray Way product placement rhumba.

Shake it, baby!!

Score Records SLP-4009

The Arthur Murray Way Exciting Latin Rhythms - Bobby Ramos and Orchestra

Side 1

Dormillion
Bongo Bongocera
Walter Winchell
Carioca
Maxixe Lundu

Side 2

Si Timbal
The Arthur Murray Way
Noche de Amor
Tres Palabras
La Rueda