Scholastic Records “The Haunted House”

I continue to use a random system to pick records to write about, but I chose this one a few weeks ago and put it off until Halloween—why not! The full title of this Scholastic Records mini–EP is “Selections from THE HAUNTED HOUSE and Other Spooky Poems and Tales.” Read by Paul Hecht and Carole Danell. It came out in 1970. Between the two sides there are 11 tracks in just under 13 minutes. I guess this could be called “spoken word”—though, the performances are very “theatrical”—so each monologue is more of the feeling of a radio play. I wonder who came up with that term “spoken word?” Maybe the same person who came up with “non-fiction” and “outsider art” and the McDonald’s “Fry.” I guess I had this 7-inch EP as a lad, which is why I still have it—I think the cover was my favorite part—but that’s gone. I wasn’t overjoyed with this record as a 10-year-old, but it’s something you really have to listen to. It’s poetry, literature, some hifalutin’ and some fairly pedestrian. It appeals to me more now, just because it’s an oddball. I don’t remember being exactly thrilled to death with that “Chilling Thrilling Sounds of the Haunted House” LP—that you still see in thrift stores—either. The Halloween stuff has gone overboard in recent years, but I guess I still feel it’s somewhat healthy—just making some good times out of horror and death. My favorite is still “The Great Pumpkin”—it’s really tragic it’s no longer on broadcast TV—it was like a 50-year tradition for me. Shame on the greedheads who thought it would be a good idea to keep it from people who can’t afford their bullshit streaming service.

Frank Sinatra “The Voice”

I’m pretty sure my dad had this album in the form of a couple of seven-inch records in a cover that folded open, kind of like a mini EP, I guess. But am I remembering that correctly? Did that even exist? I tried to look online, for that format, and quickly gave up. Frank Sinatra released so many records, it’s kind of ridiculous. You can’t even really look at a Sinatra “discography”—well, you could, if you could find one you trust—but you might need an expert to help you interpret this and that. I’m sure they’re out there. The experts. There are experts for everything. And somewhere, an accurate and detailed Sinatra discography. But do I really care that much? At any rate, some version of this record played in the house where I was growing up—it could be among the first music I heard. This is a compilation on Columbia from 1955—so it’s all stuff that’s older, but I’m not sure when each song was recorded. Some sounds pretty early. There are a lot of really good songs, ones I’m primarily familiar with from Sinatra recordings, like: “I Don’t Know Why,” “These Foolish Things,” “She’s Funny That Way,” “Fools Rush In,” and more. There’s a nice version of “Laura.” It’s mostly slower stuff, ballads. He recorded some of these songs multiple times, in different styles, but always sounded like no one else.

The album cover, a good one, is a pretty old photo—he looks like a kid, hair a bit greasy, and his eyes look green, not blue—they match the billiard table green background. His shirt collar is all messed up and he’s wearing a really nerdy yellow sweater and the exact same jacket, I swear, as Vikki Carr, on one of her records. Well, not exactly, but it’s interesting that I thought about Vikki Carr. The uncredited liner notes are pretty good—they start out: “Next time anyone starts asking questions about what has happened to the snows of yesteryear…” The snows of yesteryear? Do people ask that question? Apparently… and this record is your answer. The previous owners have their name and address sticker on back, but I won’t publish that, or their phone number, or names. It’s one of those many suburbs north of Chicago—I looked on a map, and as is my habit, browsed the restaurants—it looks like you don’t have to go far for a decent matzo ball. Also, the price tag is still on front—$2.97—at Steinberg-Baum Co., apparently an old Illinois department store. That is about the right price for this record now, used—but that’s only because there were a lot of these out there, I’m sure. The value of the music coming through your speakers, however, is beyond any estimation, really—i.e. “priceless.”

Fuzzhead “El Saturn”

Some electronic noise, and people (women and men, not sure how many) are chanting: “It’s not the end of the world. Don’t you know that yet?” Which is an odd sentiment—it sounds like a perfectly natural thing to say, but when you think about it, it’s a little off because of the word “yet”—but maybe I’m reading too much into it. But then I see the name of the song is: “It’s after the end of the world,” and now it makes perfect sense—if that’s what they were chanting. I always was lost without a lyric sheet. The full title of the record is “El Saturn (an entirely subjective visit to the SUN RA musical omniverse)”—and never has an album title been so straightforward. The next song is “We Travel the Spaceways”—which sounds exactly like one might expect. Then “I Am the Brother of the Wind”—and again, I can see it. And those are all Sun Ra songs, though how close they are to Sun Ra versions, I don’t know. I am guessing: “Identical” and: “Light years away.”

The other side, then, is a “suite” titled “El Saturn.” I’m assuming anyone reading this is aware of the jazz legend Sun Ra—though “jazz” doesn’t come close to encompassing his music—anyway, I’m not going to write any background about Sun Ra (there’s the internet) except to say, he claimed to be from Saturn. Personally, I believed him, especially after seeing him and a version of his “Arkestra” perform in a bar in Columbus, Ohio around the mid-Eighties. I might have been transported to Saturn myself, at that time, and I’m not sure if I exactly returned.

As far as Fuzzhead goes, once again there’s the internet, and a review of another Fuzzhead LP (“LSD”) on this website. A year after I saw Sun Ra, I lived in a house in Kent, Ohio with the main instigator of Fuzzhead, Bill Weita, who didn’t claim to be from Saturn, but rather, if I remember correctly, Warren. Closer, but maybe stranger. We brewed homebrew in our basement—I believe I instigated that. Bill spent hours and hours down there next to the vats of fermenting suds, and from upstairs all you could hear was banging, and clanking, and repetitive noises that sounded like he was making a 1/24 scale model of the Death Star out of found materials. But no Death Star emerged, just cassette tapes of engaging, impressive, inspiring music. It was not yet Fuzzhead, I don’t think, but a precursor, but from the half-dozen Fuzzhead records I’ve heard over the years, I would assess that he kept exploring—not necessarily going were no man has gone before, but certainly caves and ocean floors and asteroids and whatnot.

The track information, above, as well as band lineup, is on a barely legible photocopied sheet that came in the record. The front of the album cover, itself, contains a cryptic illustration and the words “ASS RUN”—as well as the word “actuel” and on a sticker, the number “7.” I’m led to believe this is a series of records, though I’m not sure who the other artists are. On the spine it says: “Ecstatic Yod Presents Another Actuel Ass Run Around the Known End Of Sound-As-Thought.” That explains it! The cover opens up and inside is a glossy collage of b&w photos of, I assume, the Sun Ra world and his “Arkestra” and so forth. The back, then, is an enlarged photo of either a closeup of part of Sun Ra’s costume (or space suit) or maybe a dinosaur or… it’s your guess. I say, Sun Ra. And, there’s a sticker with the band and album name, and: “recorded aug-nov 1994, heliocentric worlds of sound, kent, ohio. So there you have it.

Teena Marie “Lady T”

I heard some records by Teena Marie back in the Eighties or Nineties, I think (the decades are all running together) when Frank Kogan would write about her, maybe in the “Why Music Sucks” zine—I mean, he wrote about her positively, I think, he was a fan. I kind of remember thinking, “this is not my thing,” at the time. I picked up this record fairly recently because it reminded me of those days, and I was curious—also knowing that my musical tastes, now, run more toward what I used to find too “commercial,” or “overproduced”—outside of what I considered punk rock. Also, I liked the cover—on the front she has a disco look, lots of makeup and gold, lights glimmering off her sequined top. On the back, she’s wearing an old-timey baseball uniform and floppy hat, less makeup, and her hair in pigtails. Also, the camera is looking up at her on the front, and she’s looking just over us, at abstract concepts, or the stock exchange. On back, we are at her level, and she’s looking directly in our eyes, both confrontationally and with desire. I wish I could, off the top of my head, name half a dozen other album covers that use this same concept, which is a good one, but I can’t think of any right now. On the inside sleeve, there’s another look entirely (why not), but I’m not going into it. Also, the lyrics, which I am going to guess are written by Teena Marie—most of the songs are credited to her with a variety of co-writers, including Richard Rudolph, who produced it. The album is dedicated to Minnie Riperton, who passed away in 1979. There is guest spot by Maya Rudolph on the last song—she must have been about seven at the time. She asks what the world would be like if people saw with their hearts. It’s very sweet.

This is Teena Marie’s second album, from 1980—she’s in her early twenties here. She died very young—only 54. I generally like the more mellow, soul songs, like “Now That I Have You,” more than the harder, upbeat, more overt disco songs. Maybe that’s because I’m at home—I might feel differently if I was at a nightclub, drinking and dancing—which is likely to happen, maybe, in the next lifetime. I’ve only listened to the record a few times now, but it’s starting to grow on me in that way where you realize you like some of the songs more than others, but the ones you like, you like quite a bit. “Can It Be Love,” “Why Did I Fall in Love with You,” and “Too Many Colors” are some of the standouts, at this point. “Aladdin’s Lamp” is an odd one—kind of an extensive (though short) ballad, with tempo changes—and a part (the chorus part) that gives me a weird feeling—like I can detect the date and time, like you’re examining an old car that still runs fine—but is so different. I mean this in the best of ways. I suppose it is over forty years ago—but often music is more or less timeless—and sometimes I like when you really feel the era. I think I’ll put the record in my “give it a listen every so often” stack (if only I were so organized). It’s something that might be just the thing when I’m in the mood for it. I’m thinking mostly likely Fridays after work, you know, home happy hour, right before I prepare a spaghetti dinner for two, uncork a bottle of screw-top red, and sit across the table from the empty chair until I collapse in tears. What must my neighbors think?

Hasbro “Introduction to Manned Mercury Spaceflight” / “Actual Mercury Spaceflight Communications”

This is a 45 RPM record that my brother and I got with our astronaut GI Joe, Mercury spacecraft toy (I think). It’s a no-nonsense informational record about the spacecraft, with a lot of facts and technical details, and it’s narrated by a guy who sounds like his suit jacket is hanging somewhere, and he’s wearing a short-sleeve, white shirt with a pocket protector. He’s got plastic-framed glasses and a flattop. I really like how he says, “retro rockets.” But you listen to that side maybe once, because he says stuff like the real capsule doesn’t have a window like your toy one does, and you think, “No window? Fuck that.” The other side, though, I listened to a lot, which is a recording of John Glenn in Friendship 7—and it’s as clear as a bell. The part I remember is when he says, “Roger, the clock is operating. We’re underway. A little bumpy long about here.” Etc. I grew up figuring that was how astronauts talked. Well, he does describe things as “beautiful” a lot—you can almost feel his giddiness. The dude is high (pun intended). Nowhere on this record do they mention “GI Joe”—so I am wondering if they were trying to distance themselves from the toy soldier thing—and go more the “adventurer” route. Of course, it wouldn’t be long before I thought astronauts said, “I’m floating in a most peculiar way.” So, this reminds me of some words from childhood that really stuck in my brain: “Retro Rockets,” “Roger,” and “Peculiar.” But it’s not the words—it’s how those three men say them.