Various Artists "Exploiting Plastic Inevitable: Lesson II" LP international 1960s/1970s

Full title: Exploiting Plastic Inevitable: Lesson II Globular Lightning

One of the great things about the internet is how people with similar interests in different parts of the world can become connected when otherwise they would never find each other.  That's the story with this album.

Shortly after posting the rare first volume of these two compilations, my post got some comments from one of the German fellows who put them together.  One thing led to another, and before I knew it I was proud owner of an untouched copy of one of only 700 of these follow-up compilations pressed back in 1996.  A couple of months ago I didn't even know this existed.

So Vielen Dank! to my German source.  The idea was that this was going to be the first time this rarity was posted by anyone, but as luck would have it the excellent blog Paradise of Garage Comps beat me to it by a few weeks.  Seeing the effort that went into getting this LP as far as it came, I'm going to plow ahead and post it again myself.  Two sources for something this scarce can't hurt.  (And yes, this is my vinyl rip... first time the album was played!)

Once again this album is composed of some fantastic garage and psych rarities from literally all over the world, spanning the mid-'60s through the early '70s.

Side 1

1 Les Problemes - Dodecaphonie (Puteaux, France)
2 Brains Ltd. - Change Your Life (Hamburg, Germany)
3 Adam's Boys - Get Away From Me (Athens, Greece)
4 Hide and Seek - Riven Street (Austria)
5 Los Vidrios Quebrados - Que Importa El Tiempo (Chile)
6 Rob De Neys - Bye Bye Mrs. Turple (Amsterdam, Holland)
7 John Wonderling - Man Of Straw (NY, U.S.A.)
8 The Nicols - She Has A Name To Find Out (The Hague, Holland)
9 Ganim's Asia Minors - Daddy Lolo (New York, NY, U.S.A.)


Side 2

1 The Rope Sect - Dae Du Dae (Villingen, Germany)

2 Tom Dae Turned On - I Shall Walk (Hartford, CT, U.S.A.)

3 Berry Clan & The Pollution - My Crock (Belgium)

4 Revolver - I'm Down (Israel)

5 Ram & Sel - Screw You (Sheffield, U.K.)

6 Illes - Nem Erdekel, Amit Monsz (Hungary)

Take a trip!

Various Artists "Killed by Glam 2: 14 Euro Glam Rock Gems" LP international 1970s

This LP came out within the last couple of years on the MoonBoot label out of London. The first volume is all British bands and I'd love to hear that if anyone out there has it. This is all pretty killer '70s glam from continental Europe as the title suggests. Not much more I can add to that. If you like that genre, you'll love this. If you're a sucker for cheesy '70s electronic effects mixed into stomping rock tracks like I am, you'll love it even more.

Unfortunately my copy seems to have a couple of minor flaws in the pressing that cause brief skips in the first couple of tracks. (The obvious way to avoid this is for you to track down the CD or another vinyl copy like this and buy it.)

Overall this is a very nice job of presenting the music - very clean sound, and color reproductions of the 45 sleeves on the reverse with brief liner notes.

Side A

01. Rocket Men - "Rocket Man" (France 1974)
02. Sharaton - "Caught in the Act" (Netherlands 1974)
03. Mabel - "Hey, I love you!" (Denmark 1976)
04. Tiger B. Smith - "Morning Bird" (West Germany 1974)
05. Nicky Bulldog - "Chewingum Rock" (Italy? 1976)
06. House Of Lilly - "Turn Around" (Switzerland? 1973)
07. Walkers - "Fire" (Denmark 1973)

Side B

08. Funky Family - "Part of My Life" (West Germany 1973)
09. Black Fire - "Come On and Do It" (Netherlands 1975)
10. La Strana Societa - "Vento che soffi" (Italy 1973)
11. Lennart Messagie & Dagleth - "You Can Make It Better" (Belgium 1975)
12. Blue Vamp - "Jolly Dolly" (France 1974)
13. Tears - "Ooh Lah" (Sweden 1974)
14. The Killer - "Say Goodbye" (Netherlands 1975)

Rock on!

Mike Roger and His Machine Guns "Dance the Slop" 45 West Germany 1963

Part of what I'm trying to do on the blog is present vinyl rips of material that I have not seen on other blogs.  I've been visiting dozens of high quality blogs pretty regularly for more than 5 years, and I tend to have a pretty good memory for what I have and haven't seen available.

The plan for today was to post the Mike Roger and His Machine Guns song "Dance the Slop" and the similar, German-language B-side.  The accent of "Mike Roger" would tell any native speaker of English that that was not the man's birth name.  In trying to figure that out and trying to figure out if the record were from Germany or elsewhere in Europe (my copy, bought in an American record store years ago for $3, has no picture sleeve) and get a release year for it, after recording mp3s of the single I did a (very) little research.

Immediately I discovered that the 45 has already been posted on the excellent Berlin Beatet Bestes blog, which I had somehow forgotten about and has now been added to the blogroll at right.  I'll send you there to hear the music, see the pic sleeve - which is more than I can provide - and get the whole story on the so-called "Mike Roger."  Since this was my planned post for the day and I already did most of the work necessary to provide it only to discover that someone else did a better post than I could... that's going to be my updated content for today.  I'm sure that Andreas will appreciate the traffic; he does an excellent job with the records he presents.

This weekend I will be posting at least one LP that I have never seen available at any blog, so be sure to visit again in a few days for that!  From now on I search for the record first and work on the post later!

Various Artists "Exploiting Plastic Inevitable" LP international 1960s

Full title: Exploiting Plastic Inevitable: Lesson 1, World Wildlife Soundation.  This is a rare and great compilation of garage (on the "Drinking" side) and psych (on the "Smoking" side) from all over the world.  There is a second volume out there which I believe was also limited to 700 copies, and I'd love to get my hands on a copy of that or at least hear the music if anyone out there has one (hint, hint to other bloggers!).  These releases appear to have been pressed around 1995, and I likely bought this in a used record store shortly thereafter.

The claim is that this is Yahoo Records 009; I'd certainly be interested in what the 8 previous records were if they exist.  [See Comments below... Yahoo is the German guys who do the Prae-Kraut Pandemonium series .] The few photos of this I've seen online have a yellow cover, so I feel special with my blue construction paper one.  The title is obviously derived from the Andy Warhol/Velvet Underground Exploding Plastic Inevitable events, which I believe is what was satired in one scene in the movie Midnight Cowboy.

The music selections are mostly excellent and psych/garage collectors will certainly recognize some of the bigger names.  Most songs are originals, but there are a few covers (of Bo Diddley, Lothar & The Hand People, John Lee Hooker, The Easybeats) and the Los Yorks track is at least initially derived from the Kinks' instrumental "Revenge."  Some tracks have appeared on other, better-known collections, but others I've only heard on this release.  The Sir Henry & His Butlers track has appeared elsewhere, but I've heard it comped before with the piano coda missing, so this might be a different edit that was for a different format/release.

A couple of items in the tracklist below are altered from the info in the liner notes.  I believe the multinational Rhythm Checkers also had a Luxembourg connection [it turns out I am wrong about this - see Comments!] and The Cedars (a.k.a. The Sea-ders) were Lebanese but are identified on this LP and sometimes elsewhere as being Israeli, which I would imagine would bother them some, especially with the cedar tree being the national symbol of Lebanon.  It'd be like calling a band with the name The Stars of David "Jordanian."  Note also that as the name "Diaz" suggests, Danny Diaz and The Checkmates were Filipino, not Chinese, and worked in Hong Kong.  Blogger kept my Labels (below) for the post to 20, so unfortunately I had to leave out a few countries.

Also of interest: Dr. West's Medicine Show and Junk Band was a project of Norman Greenbaum a couple of years before his massive hit "Spirit in the Sky."

Smoking Side
1 "Jigsaw" - Dr. West's Medicine Show and Junk Band (USA)
2 "I'm Looking in the Universe" - The Rabbits (Greece)
3 "Hard Work" - Mogollar (Turkey)
4 "Machines" - The Cool Cats (Norway)
5 "For Your Information" - The Cedars (Lebanon)
6 "19.8" - Los Walkers (Argentina)
7 "Pretty Style" - Sir Henry & His Butlers (Denmark)
8 "Mira tu" - Los Yorks (Peru)

Drinking Side

1 "Pills" - Shorty and Them (UK)
2 "Clock on the Wall" - The Guess Who (Canada)
3 "She's So Fine" - Danny Diaz & The Checkmates (Philippines / Hong Kong)
4 "Far Away" - The Countdowns (Switzerland)
5 "Yo grito" - Los Sirex (Spain)
6 "'Cause I Need You" - The Rhythm Checkers (West Germany /France)
7 "We Are Happy" - The Seasons (Chile)
8 "You Don't Love Me at All" - The Moonjacks (Sweden)
9 "Boom Boom" - The Tempters (Japan)

Smoke and drink.

Spinach - "America-America" b/w "Rhythm of Love" - Italy / West Germany 1970

This is one of the few items I'll be posting that was purchased on eBay, in this case probably a decade ago.  I recall this not being cheap for a single - I'll bet close to $20 with postage.

Here we have one of the many projects of alpine/German-speaking Italy's producer Giorgio Moroder (his official site is down unfortunately), who began producing rock and pop in Europe in the mid-'60s, rode and popularized a number of trends including bubblegum pop, electronic pop and proto-glam, and found huge success as a disco producer (Diana Ross) in the late '70s.  He was a big proponent and composer of electronic music, which led to his composition of over 100 film and TV soundtracks.  Apparently he's living in Beverly Hills these days, penning tunes for Hollywood's crap factory.

Earlier on the soundtrack work was interesting electronic stuff (Midnight Express), but by the '80s this went pretty mainstream schlock (Top Gun), where things likely sit today.  Between 1966-1971 or so there are dozens of singles out there which are his work, mostly pretty cool crazed bubblegum/garage stuff typically with a mangled English lyric.  Often the projects are attributed to his first name or are called "Giorgio & The... [pick a band name]."  Check out this very detailed discography.

Spinach dates it appears from his Munich producing and composing days, which is a very good thing for us.  Side A is a bubblegum piece with a lyric about the stereotypical USA; it sold over 400,000 copies in Japan in the early '70s.  (There is a 1973 Japanese LP of this material which is likely not cheap.  Anyone heard it?)  The B side has more interesting percussion and some of the early synth sound that would come to dominate his work in the coming years.

Noteworthy is the naked woman covered in leaf spinach on the front cover, and a horrid enough view on the back cover of Moroder and his partner in this project, Michael Holm, dressed pretty much as the Festrunk Brothers, the wild'n'crazy guys of early Saturday Night Live fame.  It would be wrong of me not to include a photo of that as well.  You know they just want to get down and make funky with a couple of swinging American foxes.

Relive 1970 here.