Fug Me? Fug You.

After we got home from New Orleans last Friday, we were right back at it, checking out garage sales and the antique mall the next day. Mostly we just missed the kids and wanted to keep moving. We also went junking yesterday for date night, and I just couldn't get into it. I kept telling Jenny I hadn't even been back here at the apartment to see the last few things I bought, including this copy of The Fugs First Album. I finally got a chance to take a picture of it, but alas, no turntable here. I can maybe listen to it on Spotify. That's the whole update. I'm still exhausted from traveling and worrying about the book release party for The Blood Dark Sea Saturday. 

The Fugs First Album

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Queen's The Game LP With Original Hype Sticker

What I remember about Queen's "The Game" album coming out in the summer of 1980 is that "Another One Bites the Dust" was omnipresent no matter where you went that summer. WZOK played it every fifteen minutes,so if your family drove to McDonald's and went in, the last thing you heard before you went in was "Another One Bites the Dust," and the first thing you heard when you got back in the car was "Another One Bites the Dust." Then you heard it one more time before you got to grandma's house. Then you heard it two more times on the drive home. Not including the seven times your uncle John played it in between. I've never heard a song played more on the radio.

That said, if you I heard "Another One Bites the Dust" right now, I would turn it up.

Because this is flat out one of the greatest rock and roll albums of all time. My version arrived in the mail today. It's the second time I bought it. Three if you count the compact disk. The first time was in 1980. I know it destroys the value of an album, but I love to see the original price stickers still affixed to the cover. I never understood hype stickers because they often were telling you something was a hit even before it hit the radio, and I didn't understand how something could be a hit before it was released. In this case I don't think "Play the Game" did become a hit from this album. It only hit #42 on the American pop charts, and actually isn't one of my favorite songs on the album. Looking at the song list, I find it to be my least favorite song from the album.

Queen's The Game LP With original Hype Sticker

Side one

No. Title Writer(s) Length

1. "Play the Game"   Freddie Mercury 3:30

2. "Dragon Attack"   Brian May 4:18

3. "Another One Bites the Dust"   John Deacon 3:35

4. "Need Your Loving Tonight"   Deacon 2:50

5. "Crazy Little Thing Called Love"   Mercury 2:44

Side two

No. Title Writer(s) Length

6. "Rock It (Prime Jive)"   Roger Taylor 4:33

7. "Don't Try Suicide"   Mercury 3:52

8. "Sail Away Sweet Sister"   May 3:33

9. "Coming Soon"   Taylor 2:51

10. "Save Me"   May

I find it interesting that each song on the album is attributed to a single songwriter, and that every member of the band contributed at least one song. 

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I Almost Got My Genesis Abacab Album Home Undamaged

I was very happy when I found this Genesis Abacab album at a local antique mall for two dollars. Until... I tried to buy it and the lady at the counter ripped a large chunk of the album cover off when she took off the sticker. She did exactly the same thing with a Rolling Stones album then joked some guy had lost his marbles earlier in the day when she did it to a videotape. No shit, Sherlock. What does that tell you? Maybe that you work at an ANTIQUE mall and part of the reason people come there is to buy things they consider collectible without some dim bulb destroying them before they can even take them home. On the continuum of tragic things this scores a one out of ten, but since this is one of my favorite Genesis albums, and it was in rather nice condition at  cheap price, I rate at the same level as a hangnail. Annoying, but not deadly. 

Genesis Abacab album

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Men At Work Business As Usual

The Men At Work Business As Usual album isn't a huge score in terms of being a vinyl collector, but at $5.25 it's almost half what I payed for it the first time. This was really something new when it came out. It was number 1 for fifteen weeks at the end of 1982. It was a monster success. Singer Colin Hay has been in town here a couple of times and performed as a solo act. If I had a turntable I'd get this record out and play it.

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AC/DC's Dirty Deeds

My next few vinyl purchases will be Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon," Queen's "The Game," and Judas Priest "British Steel." Last weekend I bought AC/DC's "Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap" album for the first time. I say I bought it for the first time because the first time I stole it. Or rather my friend Jody stole it for my 11th birthday party, and we played it all night. This time I paid four dollars for it. A nice, solid copy. Perhaps there is an invoice in there from the Young brothers for $8.99. 

AC/DC Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap album

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Clockwork Orange Soundtrack On Vinyl

Stanley Kubrick received death threats for his movie version of novelist Anthony Burgess' book A Clockwork Orange. The threats were so serious he banned the film himself and it could not be shown in England until after his death. Kubrick had originally received the novel on the set of Dr. Strangelove from writer Terry Southern, and reportedly did not like it very much. It remains one of two movies, along with Midnight Cowboy, nominated for a Best Picture Academy Award despite having an X rating. We listen to this soundtrack exactly once a year when we are driving to the Union Railway Museum to see Thomas the Tank Engine. I bought this copy at the new antique mall on North Second street. 

The English have a phrase "Queer as a Clockwork Orange." No one knows what it means.

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Johnny Cash At San Quentin LP

     Bought this album today at Toad Hall in Rockford. Short story to demonstrate how times have changed. In 1991 I walked into Toad Hall and asked if they had this album. They hadn't heard of it. Today, twenty-five years later I heard not one, but two bands in separate locations play a Johnny Cash song, then bought this album from the very place where they hadn't heard of it all those years ago. I was living in the Park Motel the week that Johnny Cash died. I can't remember a celebrity death before or since that stirred people upso much. In those roughly fifteen years he had gone from becoming a legend to punk rockers and country music fans to a cultural icon.

     Cash was the lone exception of the Outlaw Country music gang that my grandparents allowed to be played in their home. They even banished the Eddie Rabbit song "I Love a Rainy Night" because it contained the line "It makes me high," but somehow John Denver slid through. Maybe it was the glasses. Nobody ever had the heart to tell them almost everyone in country music, even their beloved Porter Wagoner, was at the very least a pill-popping alcoholic. 

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Warren Zevon Excitable Boy Iconic Inner Sleeve

     My parents and aunts and uncles all had large record collections, but there are a few artists that for some reason none of them seemed to listen to. Warren Zevon is one of those artists. Of course I would have recognized "Werewolves of London" if it came on the radio, but most of his other music I never became a fan of until I was in my thirties. 

     Today I procured Zevon's "Excitable Boy" album at Culture Shock here in Rockford. The thing that jumps out at me is the inner sleeve is a really bold concept, whereas the cover seems really boring. The album itself is anything but boring. I'm really happy to have added it to my collection. 

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What's In the Box Friday 4/24/2015

Something from Portugal? For me? I wonder what it could be.

A letter from the Portuguese. For me? What could it be?

Music From Twin Peaks, not to be confused with Soundtrack From Twin Peaks.

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I'm Not Earl, Tom T. Hall

The day after Record Store Day I was still craving more vinyl, so Jenny and I set out to an antique mall in town we'd never been to. Each of us set a spending limit of twenty dollars for the day, so I wasn't expecting to find much. The mall was a pleasant surprise, with all the boots full, plenty of room to move, and a nice variety of items. Unfortunately, I wasn't able to find a single horror VHS tape, or any Hot Wheels, but I did find a Go Go's album early on, then a booth about midway with some Tom T hall albums, and then at the very last stall, after we were long since too hungry and tired to be looking, there was a vinyl collector. I bought Huey Lewis and the News Sports album and a Return To Forever album for the elaborate artwork. Overall, it was a fun and successful day in the vinyl mines.

It's hip to be square!

Bought this Return To Forever album for the artwork, came home, played it, and loved it. 

No, you're not seeing things, this Tom T. Hall album is signed. It's signed to Earl, and I'm not Earl, but nonetheless what a cool thing to find for five dollars. The day after Record Store Day was a good day for vinyl.

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My Vinyl Collection Is Now Doing The Stroke After Record Store Day

I wish I liked my new haircut as much as I like the records I bought at Record Store Day. Maybe if i tried combing it. I also got The Rolling Stones Hot Rocks and The Police Reggatta de blanc. I remember the Billy Squier album well because he seemed to come out of nowhere and become a star instantly. My cousin had just opened up a record store in a huge, historic resort hotel that has long since been torn down, but I bought the album there, and now over thirty years later I just bought it again. "The Stroke" was of course the monster hit from this album, and people are still ripping it off to this day, but I enjoyed several songs on the album, and my favorite is probably "Whadda You Want From Me." I was slow to accept the re-introduction of vinyl records into our culture because all I remember is the pain in the ass they were to maintain, but now that it's become such a phenomenon I'm just choosing to remember the good aspects of what these albums meant to me when I originally bought and played them as a teenager.  Pin It

Bad Company Debut Album On Swan Song records

Bad Company's Bad Company album from the band Bad Company

This arrived today. One of the better debut albums of all time. Not sure if another band since then has had a song that was also the title of the album and the band. This was played heavily in our household, and everywhere else during my entire youth and adolescence. It's a really memorable cover design, too. This was the first release from Led Zeppelin's Swan Song label, and it's hard not to think the had much better luck than the Beatles did with Apple Records, although who can fault those Badfinger albums? The album reached number 1 on Billboard's 200, and went platinum five times. 

Side one
"Can't Get Enough" (Mick Ralphs) – 4:16
"Rock Steady" (Paul Rodgers) – 3:46
"Ready for Love" (Ralphs) (Mott the Hoople cover) – 5:01
"Don't Let Me Down" (Rodgers, Ralphs) – 4:22

Side two
"Bad Company" (Rodgers, Simon Kirke) – 4:50
"The Way I Choose" (Rodgers) – 5:05
"Movin' On" (Ralphs) – 3:21
"Seagull" (Rodgers, Ralphs) – 4:06 Pin It

You're Nobody Till Dean Martin Loves You

I'm going to take a break from trying to sell our latest book, The Zen of Beard Trimming, and just write about these 40 Dean Martin 45's we found at The Salvation Army last night. To be precise, 39 Dean Martin 45's and one by Buck Owens. Apparently someone had amassed an enormous Dean Martin collection while they were alive, and someone else had decided it wasn't important enough to keep, sell, or pass on to someone who might have wanted it. They dropped it all off at The Salvation Army. Matt Helm movie posters, LP albums, framed artwork, and this box of 45's. The 45's were the only items that hadn't been priced yet, and roughly half of them were in the original picture sleeves. Since the items that already been priced were above retail, I didn't have much hope we'd be taking any of these home, but when the store manager came over frazzled and distracted, and said .35 cents each I knew we had stumbled into a little bit of good luck. So we picked out the 39 that were in picture sleeves, plus the Buck Owens "I Got a Tiger By the Tail/Crying Time" 45, and got out of there while the getting was good. 

These Dean Martin 45's are so cool I couldn't think of selling them, even though they're worth ten times what I paid for them. Many are French or German imports, and almost all of them are in near mint condition. Will I ever play them on an actual phonograph? Probably not. 

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But the Monty Hall wasn't over. We found this Bill Cosby book about the sanctity of love and marriage under some shoes. Apparently someone had either decided they wanted it and was trying to bury it for later, or was trying to hide it from other humans. Nonetheless, we found it, and this groovy Rambo 3 book to boot.

Then we went over to Valli Produce and bought cream puffs and blue cheese olives. And watched The Legend of Mick Dodge. I'm always happy when I watch that show to have modern conveniences.

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Tom T Hall and Writing For Children

I can attribute most of the reason I have written at least one children's book, The Toughskin Rhinoceros Wrangler Company, to my grandmother, Tom T Hall, and this particular album, which she used to play for me all the time, and which I just bought on Ebay this week.

Tom T Hall and Writing For Children

The question any childrens' book author gets asked  the most is how is writing for children different than writing for adults. I suspect there are many similarities, and also many differences in the answers writers give, but as someone who wrote exclusively for adults until recently, the dichotomy between what is appropriate for young readers and what is right for adult readers is rather clear. It's not much different than what is appropraite speech at the pub with your mates versus what is appropriate having brunch with your grandmother. Words have meanings, and when writing for children the meanings of words are vital. Okay, that's not much of an insight, but as someone who has written everything from zombie screenplays where the most grotesque and explicit descriptions of people being devoured, to adult novels where every perversion on the human menue was permissable, nay, essential to keeping a reader's interest, the difference between what is right for a young reader is not only important, but could keep one out of jail.

Also, there are heavy expectations about what children want. Believe me, I asked before I started writing my first childrens' book, Atrocities from A To Z. I asked librarians, I asked other childrens' writers. Just for fun, I even asked some actual children. And the reults of my questioning was you can't go wrong with the following list of topics: poop, farts, snot, cooties, belches and garbage. Alright, I thought to myself, I understand why zombies eating brains might not be a topic suitable for a young reader, but why are bodily functions, toxic substances and bad poetry so permissable? Why treat children like fools, or future customers for the drek culture they will be exposed to in modern society? I know some children, and the ones I know don't seem to be stupid, Sure, they like a fart joke, but they also have a remakable capacity to be enraptured by science, music, philosophy, and all the hard stuff we sometimes come to avoid as adults. They haven't been told yet that they don't like poetry or Mozart or can't understand quadratic equations or organic chemistry. I don't want to short-sell minds like that by writing words that are anything but a challenge and an invitation to explore words and all the places they can take us. They can learn all they need to know about bodily functions on the playground, I'd rather lead them down the path of becoming lifelong adventurers and explorers of all that the written word can lead them to.

That's a pretty high-fallutin' answer. Yes, it is. And the reason for that is when I write for children I'm writing for children I know. Then I'm extending the same credit for being intelligent human beings I give them to all children. These are future readers of Shakespeare and Voltaire and  Schopenhauer and Hawking. They may go places I could never dream of in my writing and I owe them the best I can offer. 

So, how did I start writing for children? Seems like an obvious place would be to read what other people have written for children. Sort of get a lay of the land of the modern market. I didn't do that. Because I couldn't care any less what other people are writing for children. I didn't care when i was a child. I didn't read children's books. It may be heresy to admit this, but I've never read Shel Silverstein or Richard Scary. I saw other kids reading those books, but from the first moment I entered a library I wanted nothing more than to devour every book no one else was reading. I started at the Mary Morgan Library in Byron, Illinois by reading an entire shelf of biographies in plain brown casing. Jim Bridger, Abraham Lincoln, Molly Ptcher.

I imagine all writers have this similar experience and go through this exact metamorphosis. First, they are encouraged to write by teachers who give them a silly form to fill in to complete a "poem." This literary masterpiece is intended to be taken home and given a place of prestige on the refrigerator, BUT should any child start to taking writing seriously and even be so brazen as to read books in her free time or (gasp) write poems just for the fun of it, the literary police are called in. Assessments are made. Threats are levied. The sad fact is that after being taught the basic building blocks of reading and grammar the educational system seem to do everything in its power to dissuade children from being avid readers or writers. By early adolescence anyone who persists in these proscribed activities often has to do so in solitary shame. And that is shame.

So, if my concept of children's literature wasn't formed by reading Silverstein or Scary, where did I get my ideas? Aside from real books, I'll tell you... Tom T Hall. That's right, country music artist Tom T Hall. Because both of my parents worked, I was left in the care of my grandmother, and the second that door closed we started listening to country music, and often Tom T Hall. 

Anyway, that's how I got to Memphis, and all that. Buy my books Concave Buddha, Detached Retinas, Flesh Wounds, Submerged Structure, and my first children's book, The Toughskin Rhinoceros Wrangler Company when it arrives June 1st 2012. Go to my blog Zombie Logic Press to see webcomics like Single Zombie female, Celery, and Dr. Strangedog, plus Poem Photos, zombie movie reviews, and commentary on the events of the day by me, Thomas L. Vaultonburg. 

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AC/DC Back In Black Vinyl LP

We bought Back In Black three times when I was growing up. I remember hearing it for the first time at the company summer picnic which we had every year at the Rockford Speedway. The had a go kart track there,a nd the company gave us each a few tickets, and we spent the rest of the day badgering the grown ups who didn't want to ride for theirs. Anyway, the teenagers who were working there played Highway To hell and Back and Black all day on a loop. Even at 11 the dichotomy between Bon Scott's AC/DC and the new singer Brian Johnson was apparent, even if I didn't exactly know how. People were really floored and saddened by Bon Scott's death. My father made a point of buying both the American and Australian versions of all their albums, which were played rather steadily in our house. This is the copy of AC/DC Back In Black that should be arriving at my house any day now. I like the Super Saver tag on the cover.

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The day we bough Back In Black I remember clutching the album expectantly in the car, and thinking "Rock And Roll Ain't Noise Pollution" was one of the funniest names of a song I'd ever heard.  This will be my fourth copy of Back In Black, excluding the compact disk. 

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Synchronicty: The Album That Made Sting a Superstar

The Police Synchronicity album was one of my favorites as an adolescent. 

The vinyl album collection in our household was rather impressive. So much so that I wonder if my father still has it. Maybe shoved into a corner of the basement. I was always hounding my father to join one of those record clubs, and eventually he did, and let me pick some of the albums. This was the first one I chose. Oh No, It's Devo was probably the second. 

I'm not sure how many boxes our communal record collection filled, but it was many. I haven't exactly bought a phonograph to play any of the new old records I'm collecting, and I'm not sure if I will, or if I'd play them at all. At least not the ones I am collecting that are first pressings. I don't miss the whole experience of playing vinyl records, and because I have a tin ear I can't really tell the difference between a vinyl record and a digital file all my musician friends keep explaining to me. What I love about these albums is the artifact itself. The cover, the liner notes, the various record label stickers I remember from my formative years. Mercury and Casablanca have to be two of the most evocative labels for me. For some reason I can tell you what record label released an album in 1975 from fifty feet away, but I have no idea what I ate for lunch. 

The Synchronicity album is almost marred by the huge success of the Every Breath You Take single. The songs Synchronicity I and II are the ones I listen to mostly these days. But this was the album that made The Police, especially Sting, superstars. 

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My Vinyl Collection: The J. Geils Band, "Freeze Frame."

I think the "Freeze Frame" album by The J. Geils Band is a must-add to any serious vinyl collectors collection. 

-Yes, there was actually a J. Geils. He formed the band, which started as an acoustic blues trio in the mid 60's. At that time the three members of the band were J. Geils, Dr. Funk, and Magic Dick. That's true. 

-The band went electric, and added a drummer and lead singer Peter Wolfe in 1967, then calling themselves the J. Geils Blues Band. Wolfe had been a radio disk jockey previous to this. 

-Freeze Frame, their 1981 album, was their biggest commercial success. Soon after Wolfe left the band. They played at the Metro Centre here in Rockford, and everyone went to that show.

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My Vinyl Collection Is Now "Flirting With Disaster"

My new vinyl collection is now definitely Flirting With Disaster, with the addition of not one, but two albums by swamp boogie band Molly Hatchet. One thing I'm reminded of as I re-listen to these marvelous albums is that Molly Hatchet was completely mis-categorized, and probably because of these fantastic album covers. They were not a heavy metal band in the least. Boogie rock. Swamp rock. Southern rock. Any of these are a far more accurate depiction of their music, which was played extensively in our house when I was growing up. Adding these two albums was an early priority for my vinyl collection. The self-titled Molly Hatchet is just a jam. When you laid that needle down and heard the opening riffs of "Bounty Hunter," and singer Danny Jo Brown yelling "Hell yeah," that was your ass if you like good music. Side two started with a cover of  The Allman Brother's "Dreams I'll Never See." By that time you were already a fan. 

Two classic album covers by Molly Hatchet, both designed by artist Frank Frazetta. 

"Flirting With Disaster" is the band's second best album. The titular rocker is the hit, with songs like "Whiskey Man," "Jukin' City," and the Stones' cover of a cover "It's All Over Now" making it a must-have for any serious music afficienado. Most of the other Molly Hatchet albums have cool art, too, but these are the only two albums of theirs that get it done for me. 

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My Vinyl Collection: Santana "Abraxas"

Like the demon Baphomet, Abraxas is largely an amalgamation of various myths, usually involving a god/demon creator that is neither bound to the concept of good or evil, but outside the dialectic altogether. Unlike the myth of Abraxas, Santana's "Abraxas" album is an amalgamation of some of the greatest rock jams of all time. Which is why it is the fourth album I have added to my vinyl collection. It satisfies multiple requirements, including kick-arse album art. I remember just staring at this album when I was younger. It is my uncle John's favorite album, and although it was not in our family collection, he brought it over almost every weekend. 

Santana "Abraxas

Simultaneously frightening and alluring, I spent many afternoons as an adolescent wondering just what the hell is going on in this scene. What is Abraxas? And what did it have to do with the music I was hearing?

“We stood before it and began to freeze inside from the exertion.  We questioned the painting, berated it, made love to it, prayed to it: We called it mother, called it whore and slut, called it our beloved, called it Abraxas…”*

* (Excerpt) from DEMIAN by Herman Hesse (Harper & Row)

One conception of god neither good or evil, but outside of both parameters is the Gnostic god/demon Abraxas. Just a creator being, possibly evil, but certainly nothing like the Christian conception of a loving, personal god. The Zoroastrians and even the Hebrews also had sects that believed in a similar being responsible for creating us, but largely indifferent, or possibly even evil.

None of the metaphysical mumbo jumbo seems to have anything to do with the album, which contains the classics "Black Magic Woman" and "Oye Como Va." I bought it on date night at the new pie shop/record store that used to be a Barnes and Noble and is now the Rockford Public Library. 

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My Vinyl Collection: The Moody Blues, In Search of the Lost Chord

The second acquisition in my new old vinyl collection arrived last week. It's "In Search of the Lost Chord" by The Moody Blues. There are several factors that made this my second choice to add to my new collection: I like the album, the cover art is great, and I have a lot of personal history with it. 

In Search of the Lost Chord by The Moody Blues. 

I'd heard most of the songs on this album on AOR radio long before the bus trip where it became a permanent part of my adolescent experience, but being a concept album, In Search of the Lost Chord really needs to be heard in its entirety a few times to sink in. And it's an easy experience. It can be done over any mellow-inducing substance. My favorite has always been a cup of tea. A rainy afternoon is usually best, but I suspect other weather conditions would be equally effective. 

When Jenny saw I had bought this album, she played the opening and the kids stopped what they were doing and said "That's scary." It's very unusual for anything to divert their attention from their screens. Trust me, the civil defense sirens have accidentally been sounded here, and they didn't look up, so to get their attention you know something has to be unusual. After that opening the album goes right into the most famous song on the album, and the only true single, "Ride My See Saw." Maybe "Voices In the Sky" was released as a single, not sure, but after "Ride My See Saw" the album goes into the sequence of concept songs about searching for the lost chord. I remember from my reading this is from a poem where a musician strikes the perfect note and angels sing and the heavens open, but he is never able to replicate that note and is driven mad by the experience of trying. 

My mother's musical tastes ran towards British Invasion bands and pop like Abba, and my father listened to country and roots bands like Creedence Clearwater Revival. The Moody Blues is a band that doesn't fit into any of those categories, so when I heard it on a long bus right headed towards a cross country meet in central Illinois, it was my first experience hearing most of these songs. My friend Royal had the cassette tape, and since we were senior members of the team nobody had the juice to complain that this was completely non-motivational running music. Can you imagine a school bus full of athletes in 2014 headed towards a sporting event while listening to Moody Blues "In Search of the Lost Chord." That in itself made my introduction to the album a very unique experience, but it was the music. I just dug it. And I misremembered. This event occurred two years earlier than I thought, and the reason we were allowed to play such an unusual album isn't that we were older, it was that the meet was a fresh-soph meet, and none of the older guys were there to shout it down, which no doubt they would have. Maybe even a few of us were just in the back of the bus listening softly, but no matter, this was something that didn't happen very often, if ever. 

What fifteen year old can't identify with the themes of searching for truth, meaning, and identity? 

I ran badly that day. Again. It was cold and rainy, of course, and I probably didn't even eat anything before I got on the bus. I didn't learn until nearly thirty years later the valves and vessels in my heart resembled the St. Louis cloverleaf, and I wasn't getting enough blood to vital areas to be competitive in an endurance sport. I'd like to run those competitions again with my new heart. That will never happen, but I have the keen memory of that bus trip, and the guys I was friends with then. They'd probably be surprised that moment in time had such a lasting impact on me. Maybe not. 

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