Bloopers Inc. (1955)

A light-hearted farewell from Anna and Scott!

The "Pardon My Blooper" compilations were put together by "Radio and TV Producer" Kermit Schafer from submissions made by radio and television snoopers across the country. The LP offers a lifetime membership in Kermit Schafer's Blooper Snooper Club to nosy Blooper fans, and one can assume there are still a few lifetime members out there somewhere.

The best thing about this label (and there are many great things about it) is the subtitle, "Radio & Television's Most Hilarious Boners." To think there was a time when "boner" only meant a mistake.

Since this particular set of boners was compiled in 1955, it's safe to say that we can thank the sexual revolution for synonymizing the words for "an erection" and "a blooper."

Mobile Fidelity (1962)

Big Block Records (1988)

When critics look back on the Chicago music scene in the 1990's, almost all the coolness is geographically consigned to Wicker Park, but it's also useful to look back on the origin stories. Whereas the Chicago punk scene in the early-1980's was largely made up of city kids, the 90's generation was seriously suburban. Liz Phair's roots were in the North Shore suburbs, clearly evidenced in her post-Matador output. Urge Overkill came together not in the city-proper, but at Northwestern University in Evanston. Even the loner mentality of Billy Corgan's early Smashing Pumpkins was more rooted in his West-Suburban upbringing than his city adulthood--evidenced in the number of 1990's suburban kids with worn copies of "Siamese Dream." Jim Ellison was fully of Addison, Illinois. His sensibility was tied to the suburbs, a place where one feels more in high school than ever again, and longing power pop tracks like "Valerie Loves Me," "Diane," and "The Very First Lie" reflected that high school moment musically and lyrically.

Jim Ellison wanted to be a rock star, and Material Issue was his vehicle to success. He started Big Block records out of his bedroom, and through tireless promotion steered Material Issue to a major label contract in the early 1990's.

For awhile they were one of Chicago's great sucess stories: signed to Mercury Records, getting airplay on MTV's "120 Minutes," and making the CMJ and Billboard Modern Rock Charts. In the midst of all this, Ellison still made office hours for aspiring high school bands in need of guidance. For a guy who loved rock and roll, music, and cars, he had a surprisingly non-existent douchebag quotient.

VH1's "Behind the Music" has oft-told the story of some hair metal group or other casually, carelessly thrown from the spotlight by the grunge movement, but hair metal was not the only casualty. Power pop was jettisoned from success, as well, and Material Issue was one clear victim of this trend. They left Mercury Records after 1994's "Freak City Soundtrack," feeling that the label had turned its back to the band. By the time their final album, 1997's "Telecommando Americano," was completed, Ellison had been dead for a year.

Ellison's suicide in 1996 was a sad confirmation of his own deep romanticism. The contents of his suicide note are still private, but Ish-drummer Mike Zelenko has implied in interviews that his death was the result of an ended love affair, rather than frustrated career ambitions. There are so many elements in this early death that carry a poetic resonance, but the perfect story hardly makes up for the loss.

This label is from the pre-Mercury days, probably pieced together in Jim Ellison's bedroom. The music is still fun but it does feel, at times, like there is a ghost in the room.

Lookout! (2001)

Taang! (1989)

The Lemonheads breakthrough single, "Luka": the cover song that got them signed to Atlantic, that got them just far enough to hit the CMJ charts with another cover, their very-90's, very fun "Mrs. Robinson." So begins the final stretch of our short residency at Collector Not Completist--tales of the rise and the crash, the plateau, heartbreak, dejection, suicide... The what-have-you of bands that never made the pantheon, for whatever reasons. A lament, in short. And where else to start but with Evan Dando and his Lemonheads, right?

The Lemonheads started their recording career on Taang! Records, a Boston label devoted mostly to the hardcore scene, in which the Lemonheads initially played a bit part. The cover art on early LPs "Hate Your Friends" and "Creator" is so amateur-DIY that it's almost painful, and the music is so uninspired that it could only have been recorded by acolytes of a scene. And then, "Luka"...

It's hard to believe that many of the short-lived wonderbands of the 90's ever started on small labels, had cred, had an indie spirit, or had more than five or six songs written before being signed. Even in the era of the buzz ballad, there wasn't a whole lot of soul on the scene. But Evan Dando had soul. Ultra-northern soul, real California soul. It seems unlikely that covers of Suzanne Vega's "Luka," the Stone Poney's "Different Drum," or Hair's "Frank Mills" could have been anything but ironic in the Reality-Bites era, but Dando showed heart. He was genuine.

And then, as the story goes, he started doing a lot of coke. His success and good looks made him an alternative-rock coverboy and he started hanging with the wrong celebrity crowds. Out on the the town with Noel and Liam Gallagher, he played the clown. He followed Robert Deniro through a hotel stairway, got locked inside, and banged on the door yelling, "Robert! It's Evan from the Lemonheads!" Things went bad fast, which couldn't have been helped by the fact that 1993's "Come on Feel the Lemonheads" featured none of Dando's heartfelt covers, only alternately comical or nonsensical originals. (Still great, just totally valid grist for the crazy-mill.) The big-time likes kookie but doesn't feel so comfy with crazy, and the Lemonheads disappeared not long after the release of 1996's "Car Button Cloth." Dando didn't play live again for another four years.

Has Evan Dando resurfaced? His solo shows are all heart, still. He pulls the deepness out of the old classics like "It's A Shame About Ray" or "Big Gay Heart." But he's at his best when covering Gram Parsons, the Misfits, Linda Ronstadt or Hair. This is not the stuff of success, apparently, but it's maybe as close as pop music can get to suburban soul. So, "Luka"--it started here, and it's been ending ever since.

Plantation (1968)

Oh, the jukebox single... beat to hell, dirt cheap, and easily available on a Ronco comp replete with "As seen on TV!" ads. But the 45 is cheaper and only features one song that you don't want to listen to instead of twelve. So you pay for it at the resale shop counter--a few barely listenable 7"s mixed in with some Isaac Asimov paperbacks, an old high-school gym t-shirt, some old Time Magazine back issues...

Consider the scene: 1968, a Moose or Elk lodge, entertainment slot machines by the bar, and in the corner a mini-skirted, single-mom regular punching in #13 for Jeannie C. Riley's "Harper Valley P.T.A." There's a greatness to this scene no matter how you look at it.

By the late 1960's, alcohol was decidedly uncool in the youth scene. It was your dad's habit, not yours, so there's something telling in the success of this single in the year that America fell into radical bedlam--a reminder that it was the same year that Nixon was inaugurated. The song tells the story of a "Harper Valley widowed wife," tramping around in miniskirts at bars, causing a ruckus in the neighborhood, and finally telling off all the judgemental hypocrites in the P.T.A. for being just as bad as she is. What makes the song even weirder is that Jeannie C. Riley, in her 20s at the time, is singing about her own mother, a woman who would have hit her prime while the boys were overseas in the Pacific. I guess the jukebox success of this song, evidenced by the worn grooves on this particular copy, gives a little hint to the motivations and secret wildness of Nixon's silent majority.

Plantation Records proprietor Shelby Singleton, name-checked here on the label, is yet another weird fixture of the Nashville music scene, and probably deserves a book of his own. He made a fortune on this particular single, purchased Sam Phillips' Sun Records (and back catalog) in 1969, and co-founded a label with Bill Cosby called Tetragrammaton, which released John Lennon and Yoko Ono's "Two Virgins." Weird. Weird all over the place.

So, you know, a drink to the jukebox single, to the Elk lodge, to everyone in town being kind of a drunk and sexpot... Nostrovia!

A-Zap (2003)

Though it always feels like a rare surprise to discover a Melt Banana album on vinyl, they've been remarkably good about releasing their material on their own A-Zap label. Like Disaster or Sin, this is another label run by and dedicated to basically a single artist. Each label matches the template here, with the raw info, great A-Zap logo, and a small drawing. Cute labels for scary records.

SST (1989)

Warner Bros. (1981)

A label somehow worthy of Kraftwerk's entire discography. Just as our last three posts reflect the particular humanity of the artists at work, (Smog/self-portrait; Kramer/wildman; Spires/creep-out), this label probably reflects Kraftwerk's own brand of humanity rather perfectly.

Nihilist (2005)

Spires That in the Sunset Rise/Panicsville (Josephine Foster) split 7" on Nihilist, with layout by Andy Ortmann. Totally creepy, totally fitting.

Shimmy Disc (1990)

This label is from the 1990 Shimmy Disc album "Rutles Highway Revisted," a compilation of Rutles tracks covered by 90s independent artists and Downtown New York musicians. The compilation was put together by Shimmy Disc founder Mark Kramer, a Downtown producer who was then a member of Bongwater with "Making Mr. Right" star Ann Magnunson. Kramer has been affiliated with pretty much every weird artist working in the US since the late 80s, including Daniel Johnston, Danielson Famile, Butthole Surfers, John Zorn, Ween, and even GWAR. He seems like a pretty interesting guy, but lost active control of the Shimmy Disc label after a lawsuit with Magnunson in 1991. It was later revived as the house label of Knitting Factory, where Kramer still works as an A&R man. Reportedly he's spending less time on music and more on his new love, the theatre--he's become a member of the Actor's Studio, studying with "Bonnie and Clyde" director Arthur Penn. Oh, Kramer... What a character.

Disaster (1990)

Smog's LP debut, "Sewn to the Sky," was the sole vinyl issue on Bill Callahan's Disaster Records, based out of Maryland. In his even-adolescent coolness, Callahan had been involved in the zine scene, publishing a Replacements fan mag, "Willpower," and a generalist music mag called "Disaster." When he began releasing cassettes as Smog in 1988, he appropriated the Disaster name for his home-run label. The label didn't last for too long; Callahan shut it down when he was signed to the nascent Drag City in 1991. In the next few years, Drag City would re-issue "Sewn to the Sky" and "Forgotten Foundation," a compilation of tracks from Smog's early Disaster cassettes.

The label art here, like many of Smog's later labels, is by Callahan himself, and though the side A drawing is a little hard to decipher at first, it appears to be a self-portrait. Callahan rarely drew himself in his later sketchbooks and cover art, but it seems fitting that the introspective Callahan's debut LP would offer up this shadowy, stage-setting image.

Animal Records (1982)

Animal Records, a sub-label of Chrysalis, was founded by Blondie's Chris Stein in 1982. This indulgence was probably granted on the basis of "Call Me"'s massive success, and credit is due to Stein for keeping the label firmly grounded in the changing Downtown scene. Along with James White (née James Siegfried, aka James Chance), the label also hosted Walter Steding, a Basquait pal and solo violinist, Iggy Pop, for his "Zombie Birdhouse" album, and Los Angeles expats Gun Club. Most awesomely, the label has a ton of cred in the hip-hop community for having released the groundbreaking soundtrack to Wild Style, a reminder of hip-hop's New York roots and early reception in the only half-gentrifying LES art scene.

Alas, the run of Animal Records was short lived--in 1984, Stein's illness forced him to shut down the label after only two years. It must have been a rough time for the guy--descriptions of his illness seem kind of weird, and it was around this time that he and Deb Harry ended a relationship that had started before Blondie had even formed. It probably didn't help that Blondie followed up "Call Me" with 1982's "The Hunter," took a nose dive critically and commercially, and subsequently split.

As far as James White and the Blacks are concerned, it was reported that "Sax Maniac" was very nearly a breakthrough album for what was ultimately a very weird, very cool band. But a proposed "Saturday Night Live" appearance never materialized and James White/Chance moved off to Paris and split the core group. The early 80s were probably even worse to White/Chance than to Chris Stein--"Sax Maniac" is dedicated to the memory of his long-time manager/girlfriend Anya Philips, a legendary scene-maker in the No Wave era, who succumbed to cancer in 1981. When White/Chance last appeared in Chicago, backed by Watchers and billed as James White and The New Contortions, his brother served as his hype-man and his parents stood in the front row. He didn't punch anyone in the face this time around, let alone any girls, but it was nice to see him back in the game.

Sin (1986)

Thanks to Alexander for the opportunity to contribute here! In gratitude, our first posting is a tribute to this blog's own inaugural entry, highlighting the beautiful Sun Records label via Johnny Cash.

Sin Records of Brixton, London, home only to the Mekons and only for a few years, was born in 1985 with these words: "I was out late the other night/Fear and whiskey kept me going/I swore somebody held me tight, but now there's just no way of knowing." Supposedly, Sam Phillips chose the name Sun Records as a symbol for a new beginning, new opportunity--you know, a new day.* Fitting, then, that the half-joke of Sin Records marked the Mekons' rebirth as a hybrid "country" act, replete with ten-gallon hats and cowboy boots.

In terms of their career arc, the Mekons don't get a good rap or a bad rap, but mostly just a weird rap. It seems hard at first to connect the dots from the Leeds post-punk scene (Gang of Four, Delta 5, Mekons) to Bloodshot records and quiet nights at Chicago's Hideout, but there's an underlying continuity threaded into the band's post-hiatus transition to "country" music.

In contrast to the Gang of Four, the Mekons were always already folk music, in a way. The narrative was remarkably consistent: some poor, disillusioned person trying to keep his or her shit together in the midst of some completely fucked and confusing situation. War, labor strikes, unfriendly strangers, unreliable friends and lovers--these environmental hazards are just as common in the Mekons discography as in the Anthology of American Folk Music. And somehow, there's nothing nostalgic or retro-fit about the Mekons, at all.

"The Edge of the World," Sin's second LP, is the first Mekons LP to feature Sally Timms and Jon Langford together, then in Leeds and now in Chicago, and always, surprisingly, the very same Mekons.


*Supposedly, meaning based on several unsourced websites, of course. It's worth pointing out that one of the four sites we referenced suggested the name was chosen due to the sun's "universal power." Sam Phillips was a weird enough dude where that certainly seems just as plausible. Who knows? Anyways...