A Very Special Cassette Tape Sharity

Potentials Unlimited, Subliminal Persuasion Stop Smoking (Potentials Unlimited, 1978)

In case the album below doesn't do the trick, this rather worn, no-longer-stereo ex-library cassette might help you along. Bernie Konicov's Potentials Unlimited is still in business, and folk claim that his stuff works. There are two sides to the cassette: a day one for when you are conscious and a night side that you listen to as you drift off to sleep. The day side is all talk; the night presents soothing surf and new age music.

The tracks and artwork are here.

This should count as my December 2008 post. Ah, how quickly we fall behind.

Not My Vinyl Sharity

The Living Strings, Music to Help You Stop Smoking (RCA, 1964)

While I have a copy of this LP, the very busy Zip Your Rip posted a fine version of this record back in August 2008. If you didn't obtain your copy of it then, please be sure to do so. Ah, "April in Paris"--well, it is at least April. And perhaps you'll manage to keep those ashtrays empty for just a while.

This link is to the post, not the file. It seems the download is still active and available, just check the comments.

Last Month's Thrift Store CD Sharity

Various Artists, Taking Pride in Rochester (Impact Broadcast Marketing, >1990)


This CD documents the Rochester, New York, version of Impact Broadcast Marketing's "Take Pride in. . ." campaign. This advertising package simultaneously boosts both the local broadcaster and its community. Impact is headquartered in Nashville, TN, and this article notes that city's own example of this promotion.

Local station WOKR (now WHAM), Channel 13, bought into this concept. They are Rochester's number one news station, and veteran Anchorman Don Alhart appears on this disc, reading Rochester-specific introductory material before each wretched, generic "Up-With-Your-Town" tune. These songs are the bastard spawn of an Orwellian song machine programmed by an idiotic Nashville hack who dreams of--but may never enter--the Bluebird Cafe. Enjoy the tracks.

(Actually, Track 8, "Notte a Roma," is composed by Jeff Tyzik and performed by the Rochester Philharmonic Orchestra. Needless to say, it seems a little out of place here.)

The music is available here.

This Month's Thrift Store CD Sharity

Goldie Hawn, A Lotus Grows in the Mud (Penguin Audio, 2005)

I don't usually provide CD rips, for a lot of different reasons that aren't necessary to recount. But, in my bargain thrifty searches, I came across a free copy of this abridged audio version of Hawn's autobiographical book (the actual discs are a library discard). As the audiobook seems to be unavailable on Amazon (leading me to think this might be out-of-print), I'll offer the tracks this month.

So, is it any good? I dunno, really. You see, I don't like audiobooks that much. And I don’t usually like (auto)biographies, either.

But a Hollywood audiobook? Doesn't that promise narcissistic, excessive, campy fun? Well, maybe. Narcissistic this is. But it is also played pretty straight. So, while Goldie is quite deep in thought here, perhaps as introspective and thoughtful as she'll ever be, it just isn't over-the-top, wacky fun. It sometimes seems quite maudlin.

Anyway, there's a lot of Goldie here: five discs worth, in three different zip files: one, two, three.

This Month's Vinyl Sharity

W.E.B. Dubois, A Recorded Autobiography, Interview by Moses Asch (Folkways Records, 1961)

These recorded anecdotes by American man of letters and African-American activist W.E.B. Dubois (1868-1963) have a certain charm. Dubois is 93 years old by this time (and he sounds it with his whistling dentures), but it isn't a particularly nostalgic reminiscence (apart from some college memories of Fisk and William James). He makes it clear that life is full of failures as well as fears--particularly when it comes to money. But Dubois doesn't voice many regrets here, either.

Smithsonian Folkways offers these tracks via paid download, if you find this rip sonically challenged. (There were a couple unresolvable scratches on the second side: it is a library copy.) The Folkways site conveniently provides the cover art and insert, too. The tracks are here.

Folkways Records FH5511
Side 1
1. Early College Years, Fisk U.
2. Harvard U.
3. Germany
4. Atlanta U.
5. N.A.A.C.P.
6. "The Crisis"

Side 2
1. WW1, Pan-African Conference
2. Africa, & USA & Russia
3. Atlanta U.
4. NAACP and the UN
5. Peace Conference and the Trial
6. The Negro and Young People
7. The Negro and Africa Today

This Month's Thrift Store Vinyl Sharity

Little Jimmy Osmond, Killer Joe (MGM, 1972)

So, if Osmond was born in 1963, he's eight or nine when he recorded this. The issues one might have with this record have less to do with Little Jimmy himself than the very idea of giving an eight-year-old a solo project. Or, to put it another way, the adults are to blame here--and I'm looking at you, Mike Curb. Why would you have a child who might not be able to actually sing strain so hard to reach the high notes in the chorus of "My Girl"--resulting in a song so shrill you can't help but wish that Auto-Tune had been invented three decades earlier?

While I think "Long Haired Lover from Liverpool" remains in print--it was a 1972 Number One UK Single--the complete album does not seem to be. And, while you're thinking about how such a song could be that popular, remember it is Jimmy Osmond Summer in the UK right now (or at least it was in May). Turn on the radio, Gloucestershire! He's on John Rockley!

In America, the Osmonds mostly hover about in Third-Tier Casinos and Branson. No excitement over that concert DVD here: but like the rest of the world, we, too, can celebrate the career of the youngest Osmond, the former host of Branson Jubilee, and inventor of the Hummy Bear by downloading these tracks and album art.

Side 1
1. Killer Joe
2. Little Girls are Fun
3. My Girl
4. Mama'd know What to Do
5. Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear

Side 2
1. Long Haired Lover from Liverpool
2. If My Dad Were President
3. Tweedlee Dee
4. Mother of Mine
5. Rubber Ball

This Month's Thrift Store Vinyl Sharity

The Great Strings, The Great Strings Play Dear Heart & Goldfinger (International Award Series-Pickwick, [1965])

The label reads "Manufactured by K.M. Corp., Freeport, L.I." Long Island? That can only mean one label--Pickwick, just as New Jersey usually suggests Peter Pan. Oh, and it says Pickwick on the back of the album cover. The front of the sleeve claims that Scheherazade [sic] is on the LP: it isn't. And, for those who care, this seems to be a repackaging or rerelease of a Design Records-Pickwick album, all done for our friends at Sears Roebuck.

AK-256/DLP-195
Side A
1. Dear Heart
2. Emperor Waltz
3. Fascination
4. Merry Widow Waltz
5. Ciribiribin

Side B
1. Goldfinger
2. Estrellita
3. Habanera
4. Adios Muchachos
5. Nocturne

You'll find it here.