Dave Brubeck Quartet: Anything Goes!

Les Paul: Now!

Ian & Sylvia: Play One More

Paul Mauriat: Rhythm & Blues

American soul interpreted by the master of French easy listening – with a gratuitously psychedelic cover.

comfy

The Linha Singers: Voices in Rhythm

Swingle Singers style rococo-jazz from Czechoslovakia (1970).

Fabio After Dark

I bought Fabio’s 1993 CD on ebay for 1¢. Totally worth it.

Jo Basile, Accordion and Orchestra: Mexico With Love

There’s a beautiful vintage Lambretta (Italian scooter) hidden under all those peppers and tequila. Part of a series that includes Rome, Berlin, Paris, Rio, Madrid, and Moscow.

Britain’s Royal Mail has issued a series of 10 stamps of iconic record covers by British artists. Included are Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells, The Rolling Stones’ Let It Bleed, Bowie’s Ziggy Stardust, and Led Zeppelin IV, among others.

According to this BBC article, the selection criterion was the artwork and not necessarily the music on the album. Seems odd to me that no Beatles covers were selected – I’d opt for Revolver (or maybe the white album – how cheeky would that be?).

And somehow this one was also missed.

Lalo Schifrin: The Fox

Very groovy 60’s graphic. Schifrin’s music is also excellent.

Zero Mostel Sings Harry Ruby’s Songs My Mother Never Sang

Oscar Peterson: The Silent Partner

Those are Christopher Plummer’s sparkling, malevolent eyes on the cover of this LP. He played a nasty bank robber opposite bank clerk Elliot Gould. Quebec actress Céline Lomez played Plummer’s girlfriend and met with a memorably gruesome end involving a fish tank. The film was one of the more notable products of Canadian cinema’s tax shelter years. Oscar Peterson wrote some themes for the characters that were orchestrated by composer/arranger Ken Wannberg. This LP (never released on CD) features Peterson with an all-star septet including Benny Carter (alto sax), Zoot Sims (tenor sax) and Milt Jackson (vibes).

Little Fauss and Big Halsy

This week’s record is actually an 8-track tape. It’s the original soundtrack from a 1970 movie starring Michael J. Pollard and Robert Redford (guess which one is which) as motorcycle racers. Apparently Redford’s least favourite of his own films, possibly because he plays an unsympathetic character. The excellent score was written and performed by Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins (Cash also sings Bob Dylan’s Wanted Man).

Yes, I do have an 8-track player. It’s kind of crappy – some budget brand called Wynford Hall – but it plays standard and quad 8-tracks (it has 4 speakers). I have maybe a dozen quad 8-tracks (this is not one) and they sound fantastic.

The handwriting on the label says “Do not Erros”.

It’s been a while, hasn’t it? A fistfull of soundtracks:

Various: Brewster McCloud

Early 70’s weirdness from director Robert Altman.

Piero Piccioni: More Than A Miracle

Sophia Loren & Omar Sharif in a fairy tale for grown-ups.

Henry Mancini: Oklahoma Crude

Faye Dunaway as a proto-feminist in Stanley Kramer’s 70’s western.

A trio of Canuck soundtracks.

Music of the N.F.B.

Brilliant 2 LP set of electroacoustic-ish music from National Film Board of Canada films. Cover drawing by Norman McLaren.

Michael Conway Baker, The Chieftans: The Grey Fox

François Dompierre: Les portes tournantes

Hugo Montenegro (conductor/arranger): Original Music From The Man From U.N.C.L.E.

Music by Lalo Schifrin, Jerry Goldsmith, Morton Stevens and Walter Scharf.

George Blondheim (original score): Bye Bye Blues

Shopping with Jessica on Saturday. Interesting selection of vinyl at a yard sale near my house – coloured vinyl, picture discs, hand-screened covers, etc.

Yard sale guy had the cutest polydactyl cat ever.

I bought:

A 7″ 45 rpm picture disk from Hong Kong of a children’s choir singing Christmas songs: Ding Dong Merrily On High, It Came Upon A Midnight Clear, Adeste Fideles, Joy To The World, Silent Night, Deck The Halls.

Side 1

Side 2

and:

Label, side B

François Cousineau: L’initiation

I’m just not finding the records I want at the thrifts (right now I’m a little obsessed with collecting soundtracks from Canadian movies), so I’ve been forced to go to ebay. I’ve bought several CDs off the ‘bay in the last 6 months but this is my first vinyl purchase. The shipping charges are killer – in this case as much as the record. The film is a 1969 sexploitation flick from Quebec (a genre that has come to be known as “maple syrup porn”) with an excellent score by François Cousineau and vocals by Diane Dufresne and Canadian disco queen Patsy Gallant.

Links:

Radio interview (from CBC 1’s Definitely Not The Opera) with Dan Zacks about music from maple syrup porn (it runs about 11 minutes).

Canuxploitation.com article on the “maple syrup porn” genre.

Film Threat review of L’initiation

Les Baxter: Tamboo!

An exotica classic. 50¢ at my neighbourhood record store.

Diagnostic Fast: Fail Forward To Success

My Album From A Parallel Universe.

Make a yet-unheard band’s album cover:

1 – Go to Wikipedia. Hit “random” or click
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
The first random Wikipedia article you get is the name of your band. (You may ignore any parenthetical words if your random article title contains them, at your discretion.)

2 – Go to Quotations Page and select “random quotations” or click http://www.quotationspage.com/random.php3
The last four or five words of the very last quote on the page is the title of your first album. Or however many make a good title. (It might be nice to include the whole quote, and who said it, in the notes for your posted photo, too.)

3 – Go to Flickr and click on “explore the last seven days” or click http://www.flickr.com/explore/interesting/7days
Third picture, no matter what it is, will be your album cover. Alternately, if you’d prefer to only use Creative Commons images, this link will grab a random photo for your cover for you: http://mikelietz.org/code/flickr-ccgettr.php
We recommend noting the resulting URL when you click on that third picture (or get the random CC picure) to give the photographer credit.

4 – Use Photoshop or similar to put it all together. Feel free to crop it square (or make it “gatefold”!) or whatever you have to do to make it ‘cover-esque’.

5 – Post it to FB (in a note) with this text in the “caption” or “comment” and TAG the friends you want to join in. We recommend also posting the URL you got in 3 above as a photo credit, so the artists can get credit for their work.

6 – Join the group Albums From a Parallel Universe and upload your masterwork and “discography” blurb! http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=52158212905&ref=mf

I’m not signing up for facebook, but I will tag Gary B. to make a cover.

More record covers.

Gary’s reply:

Stary Cis: It Just Unfolds Us

Paul Horn & The Concert Ensemble

From the cover of this record I thought it might be one of those “genre benders” where pop tunes are played baroque style or classical pieces are jazzed up. But no, the classical pieces (such as Bach’s Siciliano from Flute Sonata No. II) are done classical style without electric guitars, and everything else (Light My Fire, Look of Love, The Gentle Rain, etc.) is given a jazz reading sans harpsichord. A fine record nonetheless. In QS quadraphonic stereo.

Run For The Money (7″ 33 1/3 rpm in cardboard sleeve)

An industrial musical soundtrack hosted by Wayne and Shuster for Gulf Oil Canada’s 1969 Dealer Show. “Industrials” were stage musicals, often with lavish production values, produced by companies usually to motivate their employees.  This one was used to get gas station owners enthused about Gulf’s “We hurry” ad campaign. Featuring members of the Billy Van Singers, Mutual Understanding, and Laurie Bower Singers. Some of it really swings in a groovy, 1960s sunshine pop way.

Wayne & Shuster were pioneers of Canadian TV comedy and appeared on the Ed Sullivan show more than any other guest (67 times). Loved by many, I never liked them much – I thought their sketches were plodding and the jokes predictable.

Various: Strictly for Snobs Volume 1

Now Sound instrumentals by Kai Winding, Johnny Hodges, Cal Tjader, Vinnie Bell, Stan Getz and others. A 1964 release from MGM Germany. There was also a volume 2 & volume 3 with equally charming covers (scroll down a bit).

Evaporators: United Empire Loyalists

Now out-of-print debut album (1996) of the Vancouver punk band fronted by legendary musician/radio host/celebrity interviewer Nardwuar The Human Serviette (he once asked Mikhail Gorbachev which world leader had the biggest pants)

Evaporators: I Gotta Rash

Thee Goblins: We Are Thee Goblins From Canada

This is the flipside of the “I Gotta Rash” album (1998). Same band, different name.

Stella Parton: Stella Parton

“good singing”

Outrageous!

Soundtrack from the 1977 cult movie hit starring Craig Russel as hairdresser/female impersonator Robin Turner and Hollis McLaren as schizophrenic (is that an occupation?) Liza Connors. The music is by Paul Hoffert who was one of the founders of the great 70s band Lighthouse. Lyrics are by Hoffert’s then wife Brenda. The soundtrack consists of incidental music, original songs with vocals by Brenda Hoffert or Cecile Frenette (including a song that is either a deadpan parody of a Christmas standard or else is genuinely trying to be one), and Craig Russell’s brilliant impressions of the singing of Mae West, Judy Garland, Carol Channing, Marlene Dietrich, Pearl Bailey, Ella Fitzgerald, and other legendary ladies from his stage act.

A couple of instrumental tracks from Paul Hoffert’s score are avialable on the it came from canada website.

Biggest week in a long time – nine records. Here are the most visually appealing.

Arthur Lyman: Ilikai

Arthur Lyman: Bwana à

Arthur Lyman: Cotton Fields

Arthur Lyman: The Legend of Pele

John Williams: Earthquake

Soundtrack from the disaster movie that introduced the cinematic marvel Sensurround.

All star cast.

The Sinatra Family Wish You A Merry Christmas

Frank and his brood: Tina, Frank Jr. and Nancy Jr.

Face Off

Ultra-rare original soundtrack recording from the 1971 Canadian hockey movie starring Art Hindle as Toronto Maple Leafs rookie Billy Duke and Trudy Young as hippy folk singer Sherrie Lee Nelson. The score was by composer/arranger Ron Collier, with five songs written by actor Frank Moore, who played Sherrie’s sidekick Barney. Moore and Young did their own singing in the movie. The film was a hit in Canada, because, well… you know… hockey. I’m not sure if the soundtrack album was ever released commercially – I think it may only have been issued to radio stations to promote the movie.

Art Hindle went on to have a long acting career that included starring roles in David Cronenberg’s The Brood and the tv series ENG.  Trudy Young began on tv as the teenage co-host of the CBC afterschool program Razzle Dazzle (replacing Michelle Finney). She seems to have dropped out of show business after her role in the 1982 film Melanie (co-starring Burton Cummings in his only movie role). Frank Moore, a stalwart of Toronto theatre, is still acting in movies and tv in character roles.

Click on image above to enlarge back cover. Spoiler alert: The liner notes give away the movie’s ending.

Face Off was one of the few Canadian movies to be parodied by SCTV (Goin’ Down The Road was another). Their version was a movie-of-the-week called Power Play.

Dave Thomas as William Shatner as Coach Kirk of the Toronto Bay Leaves, with John Candy as Darryl Sittler as Billy Stempovolitchky.

…with Rick Moranis as Al Waxman as “The Chief.”

The SCTV parody even pokes fun at the movie’s doggedly earnest title song “Billy Boy,” reprising it with different lyrics several times throughout the sketch to comment on the action:

Billy, my Billy boy
You’re gonna be a man someday
Oh oh oh
Billy, my Billy boy
Where you goin’ with your life?
(your life, your life)
Did ya try the big city?
Don’t you know it’s so pretty?

Over the end credits:

Billy, what does it mean?
Did you really hurt someone?
Billy, was it just a symbol
Of the violence in our society?
Will we ever know
What happened to you
Billy boy

Another “improved” Elvis cover.

Kenyon Hopkins: Lilith

Riz Ortolani: The 7th Dawn

Two fine movie soundtracks from 1964.