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(Planet Pimp, 1994)Those kooky jackasses at Planet Pimp laid a predictably puzzling egg with this Highlander II’s single: there’s a “Straight Side” (titled “Nursing a Hangover”) devoted to covers of traditional songs, and a “Queer Side” (“Cash in on Queer Core”) that addresses more modern themes. The music has a folksy, Appalachia-partytime feel to it, thanks to the omnipresent fiddle and arrangements that swing with a good-natured booziness, but the band does crank up a decent VU ’69 boogie on its kicking version of Jimmie Rodgers’ “Side Track.” The whole thing exists midway between garage rock and barn rock, with plenty of dumb humor (the lone original: “Slacker Girl”) and shit production to boot, making it proudly unnecessary beyond its entertaining sleeve art – even if “Side Track” does deserve to be heard by trash aficionados everywhere. Of course, as with most Planet Pimp releases, half the joke and half the joy is the fact that these guys – who were probably pals with, or working for, or running the label – even put out a record at all.And hey, have you actually SEEN Highlander II: The Quickening? Movies don’t get much more ludicrous, and the band is to be commended for hopping onto that very special bandwagon and paying tribute as they did. A poorly-written and since-deleted tidbit from the film’s Wikipedia entry sums up the movie’s absurdity quite well, and I offer it here unedited: “It is ironic that when Ramírez is about to die and Connor asks him if he will ever see him again Ramírez says ‘Who knows Highlander? Who knows?’ Then winks at the audience clearly implying that he will indeed return but due to the very negative reception of the film he does not end up returning.”
(Planet Pimp, 1997)Rough day for ME. I was traveling out of Boston on one of those cheap Chinese buses late last night, and it broke down – possibly burning – in the eternal hell-state that is Connecticut. A replacement bus arrived several hours later, and I reached New York well after 5:00am, which pretty much made Monday a wash, as I spent most of it in bed. Still, I reckon that shitride was a whole lot better than the ride Princess Diana took on August 31, 1997, because at least I didn’t get ENDED on those dark ’n’ speedy roads. But if I had, would Neil Hamburger pay tribute to me, as he did to Di on this moving 7”? Maybe! After all, I do own one of the greatest collectibles of all time: a Frank Sinatra Trilogy LP signed by Neil himself… and if THAT doesn’t launch me into the commemorative-single star-o-sphere , I dunno WHAT does.
But enough about me. FOR NOW.
This one starts off with some mock-respectful Diana-centric jokes (“Did you hear the one about the paparazzi with a heart of gold? Yeah, he stole it from Princess Diana as she lay dying.”) that become less and less directly relevant as the set proceeds, finally degenerating into a tasteless reprise of the “Zipper Lips” routine. The whole thing’s a batch of solid and clever setup/punchline jokes that strikes a successfully awkward balance between natural-feeling and Hamburger-style shoehorning in order to hew to the overall theme. The “solemn” B-side – which, according to the sleeve, should be played “at least once a day” — is an extended “moment of silence” that doubles as a tribute to Sonny Bono when played at 78RPM. Feel free to use the enclosed tissue when listening to this side; there will be no other way to stop them dead-celeb-inspired tears from fallin’.
(Planet Pimp, 1995)Comedian Neil Hamburger hits his stride on this one, locking into the bumbling, idiot-wiseguy mode of the classic America’s Funnyman album, his tortured punchlines happily tending toward the topical as he discusses race, Rush Limbaugh, and the O.J. Simpson trial in front of a hostile Modesto crowd. Further linking this recording to that LP, there’s even an extended, visual-gag cigarette joke that makes absolutely no sense on disk (and of course generates considerable canned laughter), which serves as a fine warm-up for the famed and equally nonsensical “X-Rated Hot Dog Vendor” bit soon to come. Technical malfunctions add to the yuks, with the final joke ending in over a minute of painfully shrill microphone feedback. One of his best records, and a perfect stylistic companion to the Funnyman alb – DEMAND a reissue today!
(Planet Pimp, 1998)
A warm March Saturday is a day to make it CLEAN. CLEAN of tooth (minty), CLEAN of hair (luscious locks currently drying), CLEAN of threads (just back from laundromat), CLEAN of mind (Bible), CLEAN of dwelling (broom, etc.). So it’s fitting that this Golding Institute record comes with a free sanitary toilet-seat cover – CLEAN of cheek. Ryan Kerr and his team – a female and a slow-witted male co-host – are back to explore further exotic locales through field recordings, and this time it’s “The Sounds of the International Airport Restrooms,” with visits to the potties of Hawaii, South Korea, Indonesia, Singapore, Los Angeles, New Zealand, and Australia. Hilariously earnest narrations that casually mix touristy local color with unpleasant topics (venereal disease, human rights abuses) introduce the Institute’s ludicrous real-world tapes. We hear urine splashing, feces plopping, toilets flushing, throats clearing, and horrible bursts of tape distortion. The formula is similar to earlier Golding releases, but this one is funnier, more disturbing, and better executed than the two that precede it. It would also be the last Golding Institute record until 2006, when the ASTOUNDING Final Relaxation came out on Ipecac and promptly blew the rest of the catalog right outta the water. Billed as “your ticket to death through hypnotic suggestion” and “the most unusual album ever sold,” Final Relaxation is a lead pipe to the kneecaps of your comedy-expectations, and MUST BE BOUGHT NOW.
NOW!
Or: NOW!
Asshole slowguy: THEN!
(Planet Pimp, 1997)
With the Golding Institute series, Gregg Turkington gets to indulge his trash-record fetish with parodies of the bizarre spoken-word albums that clog America’s dustiest thrift store bins. “Sounds of the San Francisco Adult Bookstores,” like its two companion 7”s, takes on the world of documentary recordings in the painfully awkward – and funny! – fashion of most of Turkington’s work, with poor sound quality, strange pacing, and a straight-faced adherence to the conventions of the genre that’s strong enough to avoid betraying any overt wink to an unsuspecting listener. Boring tapes ostensibly recorded within adult bookstores – unidentifiable bumps and rustlings, a clerk making an inane phone call, nails being hammered, muffled conversation – are presented as titillating aural glimpses into the world of pornography by narrator “Ryan Kerr” (who also appears on the first Neil Hamburger single). The chasm between the naughtiness of the subject material and the mundanity of the actual field recordings makes for a disc cram-jammed with depressing absurdity. Sample narration: “What’s that vacuum cleaner doing? Wouldn’t you like to know, you dirty-minded bird.” It doesn’t get much more obscure than this in the Turkington discography, true, but laff-pals of conceptually solid Hamburger records like America’s Funnyman and Great Moments at Di Presa’s Pizza House oughta get a kick or two out of the Golding releases, all of which are truly proud achievements in the annals of dollar-bin fandom.
(Planet Pimp, 1994)
Super-trebly surf punk. Sound quality is some real tapedeck SHIT, and I can’t deny that that gets in the way of my total enjoyment of the disc; it truly sounds awful (perversely, by far the best-sounding material on the record is the intro/outro drum-machine silliness that serves as a crass ad for the label). I’m no surf fan, though, so maybe it’s high praise when I say that this stuff does at least have energy and balls – a rockin’ “Baby Elephant Walk”?! – and, best of all, there’s a detailed backstory here that matches anything cooked up by the likeminded folks over at Amarillo Records. Briefly: At the time, the single was advertised in Planet Pimp catalogs as the debut offering from “America’s Gayest Surf Band,” and the sleevenotes tell the story of how label head Sven-Erik Geddes first met the Car Thieves in a San Francisco YMCA, where they slipped their demo under a bathroom-stall door. Song titles include such cheap guffaws as “The Man From U.R.A.N.U.S.,” “Steers N’ Queers,” and “Ass, Ass, or Ass, Nobody Rides For Free.” The label’s Goode Tyme Jhambhoree compilation continues the joke with a series of prank calls to the pissed-sounding band (Geddes “fucked our record up completely… he put on his silly little beatbox stuff and mixed it down real low”) praising them for empowering the gay surf-rock community. Then we get a hilarious disco/club remix – handclaps and police whistles! – credited to “The Original Car Thieves.” The overarching joke is better than the music, yeah, but that total package makes it well worth the attention of folks who get a kick out of acts like Neil Hamburger and Scharpling & Wurster. Simply consider this crude 7” part of the soundtrack to a larger, bizarro concept-gag and you’ll enjoy it just fine.
(...Midheaven’s $1.00 pricetag doesn’t hurt either.)
(Planet Pimp, 1994)
