A Very Special Cassette Sharity

Presenting Baron Pryde's Cosmic Dreams (Star Machine Records, 1989)

Here's a strangely high-concept independent, dare I say "amateur," project rather similar to the material our friend Pastor McPurvis provides at his beloved vinyl orphanage. The artist and band aren't exactly clear here, although the narrative interludes (yes, the ones that put each song into context as part of the album's larger, progressive story) clearly attribute it all to the title character, Baron Pryde. Is there such a band or even person? I suspect not, but on my cassette copy, it turns out that the whole project is copyrighted by John P. Gaudio. He, I suspect, is the mastermind behind this project.

So the album's narrative frame centers on the "Space TV" interview of Baron Pryde, who, for several decades, has become the universe's number one "space rock" star. But the people of his home planet (that would be Earth) despise and fear him, although he is number one with a bullet on Alpha Centauri. Apparently he was jailed for some sort of rock-related crime, but freed, and then sort of jailed again, and along the way met a magical space woman who stole his heart. Will he find true love and bring rock-and-roll back to Earth? If I told you, it would be cheating.

From the description above, you might suspect a tendency in this album to present, say, a love song as a "space love" song, as if the addition of one simple adjective casts a spell of wonder and sci-fi wizardry over the project. Indeed, that is the strategy, as exemplified by the weirdly catchy "Searching for a Space Girl," and "Goldilocks was a Space Chick," about which I cannot comment fully. But the Baron also has a fondness for futuristic technological song titles, like "Atomic Lover," and "My Cyberg [sic] Lover," and the unusual "Synthetic Man," which includes this heartbeat-like buzzing percussion.

Other titles seem a little more generic, such as the ambitious "Rock Invader." How does that fit into the Baron Pryde mythos? Well, as his "space rock" career reaches one of its many peaks, "with the universe at my fingertips," the Baron says, "I didn't think of myself as a conqueror. [. . .] I was an invader-- a Rock Invader." There may be a subtle difference in the metaphors, but you'll have to listen to be sure.

I come across this tape frequently at the Rochester, NY-area thrifts. Despite the fact that I don't think Baron Pryde actually was a locally performing act, the talent behind this project is real--there are members of the 1980s Rochester band Backseat Sally (which briefly became a national recording act) and a bunch of session people from the old PCI studios (Spyro Gyra recorded there).

This can be had as two .zip files at rapidshare.com: one and two.

This Month's (Not Quite Thrift Store) Vinyl Sharity

Werner Müller and His Orchestra, Songs of Joy (London/Phase 4, n.d.)

The US album art is a bit misleading: this isn't world, African-American, or African-European music. Instead, Müller's extrememly competent orchestrations, as noted here, rule the day. But then again, if you knew the label and orchestra, you wouldn't be confused anyway.

There seems to be an alternate cover that in its mood and subject is almost in direct opposition to the US art.

I cannot find the date for this record anywhere. It looks early 1970s. But this list of Phase Four recordings, and this one, too, do not provide any clues.

This, too, is a legacy rip from my father-in-law's collection. It is one big 56MB .zip file at rapidshare.