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[Rudy]

"Electric motors have no fears..."




I think @Mr Bill at one point was able to get into contact with Patrick D. Martin, but beyond that, almost nothing is known about the creator of this 7-song EP on I.R.S. Records. Essentially it's pop/new-wave with a heavy British accent.
And I never knew this video existed until I stumbled across it just recently:




Anyhoos, that's today's Grab Bag Thursday special...

 

[Rudy]

I have those two tracks on the soundtrack LP and CD. Sounds great on the 12".

"Ballad" never appeared in the film in this version--it was a theme written for the film that Yellowjackets recorded for the album. But "Market Street" was the music used when the Enterprise crew are first shown in downtown San Francisco.

 

[Rudy]

Here's an interesting title for Jazz Saturday.

This is one of those "out there" jazz albums--John Klemmer's Nexus for Duo and Trio, featuring Klemmer on sax (of course), Carl Burnett on drums, and Bob Magnusson on bass. This is almost free jazz or avant-garde--you won't find any similarity to Touch, Arabesque, or even anything similar to his earliest albums on Cadet Concept. It's also a very long album, a two record set clocking in at 1 hr 43 min. Originally released on the Arista Novus label, it later got a CD reissue which omits four of the nine tracks, with an altered title of Nexus One (for Trane).

 

[Rudy]

Catching up as I ran out of time to schedule posts here.

A rare Impulse! album from Chico O'Farrill, never issued on CD--Nine Flags. Apparently it's based on a theme of nine countries (nine "flags"). Decent, although not great, pressing...




I uploaded Randy Van Horne's first RCA album, Swingin' Singin'. Notable on accordion on "Hucklebuck" (the first track) is our pal Pete Jolly. This was recorded prior to stereo, so it was available in monaural only.




Another digitally unreleased John Klemmer album: Intensity. This is one of his "out there" sessions on ABC Impulse! prior to his Touch phase. This one was uploaded to fill a request from one of the channel's subscribers.

 

[Rudy]

...and finally this one, an album overlooked these days. Bobby Nunn's Second to Nunn. "She's Just A Groupie" and "Got To Get Up On It" were the two local radio hits, and there was also a single release of "Sexy Sassy" which leads off side two (which also appeared in an extended version on the flip side of the 12-inch single featuring the Mary Jane Girls and their first hit "Candy Man," Motown PR-115).

Nunn played most of the instruments on this Motown record, and sort of channels Prince in some of his vocals and some of the music (it is mostly synthesizer-based funk). From what I can tell, he only had one other album release, Private Party, and I'm pretty sure I had that one somewhere around here.

 

[Mr Bill]

A new arrival at Casa Rudy--the 7-inch EP Play by The Humans. This was released on I.R.S. Records, which at the time was distributed by A&M. I lucked out in finding a sealed copy of this record for only $5. (I've seen sealed copies $20 and up.) @Mr Bill knows about this one...

Yes!!!!

I was fortunate enough to find a one-sided 12" of the entire EP that also included a fifth track, the single B-side of "Wild Thing" (B-side of IR 9009 single of "I Live In the City." Oddly, that 12" is on A&M and not I.R.S. numbered into A&M's promo series 17xxx (It's 17900, oddly, perhaps the jump to 900 was going to be for I.R.S. at the time). The 7" mini LP also featured a poster. The band had been an institution in the Santa Cruz area for nearly a decade when the New Wave thing happened and I.R.S. signed them.

They did one follow album called Happy Hour which featured a song called "Get You Tonight" which garnered a little hype on the west coast as "The K-Mart Song." The sticker on copies sold out west read "Contains 'Get You Tonite,' the K-Mart Song you've been hearing." That album was also made into a full length video from Mike Nesmith's Pacific Arts label on VHS and Laserdisc. I only managed to find the VHS.

Lead singer Sterling Storm later went into production design for music videos (Billy Joel's "We Didn't Start The Fire" and low budget films (A Little Crazy and Big Time) and video games (Psychic Detective) and TV commercials. He's worked a lot with Devo's Gerald Case who now produced commercials as well.

The mini-LP format lasted for one more release, The Payola$ Introducing which was a 7" version of their debut A&M Canada release of the same name. Payola$ went on to release one more I.R.S. album before being sucked up to A&M proper (like Oingo Boingo) for a few more albums.

--Mr Bill

 

[Rudy]

The 7" mini LP also featured a poster.

Yep! This one has the poster. The whole package is a cool artifact of the time. I haven't even taken off the shrink to see the gatefold yet.

 

[Rudy]

A bit behind on updates.

I uploaded most of the Perez Prado album Pops and Prado. It's one of those "grabbing at straws to sell records" albums he was cutting at RCA. Not even worth linking here, IMHO.

I finally got Fresh Feathers done. A bit of damage on the opening cut, which I tried fixing up in the editor. This one predates Joh Klemmer's Touch era but also anticipates it, as it's a drastic change from albums like Intensity.




One of my rarer 12-inch singles is the extended mix of Earth, Wind & Fire's "Getaway" in both stereo and mono versions, released only as a promotional 12-inch single at 45 RPM.




I think Epic's Nu-Disk series was a stab at creating something similar to I.R.S. Records. These were a series of 10-inch EPs released, starting in 1980, and lasting only a very short time. This one is by The Continentals. Four songs, 13:30 total.

 

[Rudy]

A big favorite, somewhat rare, and luckily I was able to upload it. Here is the entire album Luiz Eça & Cordas (cordas being "strings"). This was a 1964 album that revolved around Luiz Eça's piano and string arrangements. (Luiz was classically trained in Austria.) It's basically a Tamba Trio album but with a focus on the leader; Rubens Ohana and Bebeto Castillo round out the trio. This is a great album and I've played it numerous times since getting it in June of 2021. The copy I bought was the Japan release of the album, which had a different title: Imagem. (The title of the second track on the record.)

Only recently, probably just a month or two after I bought the LP, it was released on CD in Japan.

But for now, you can hear the entire album here.

 

[AM Matt]

Cheap Trick "Found All The Parts" also was a Epic Nu-Disk 10 inch 4 song record which came out in 1980 which included The Beatles remake of the 1966 song "Daytripper" recorded live. Anne Murray also did "Daytripper" in 1975 (from "Highly Prized Posession").

 

[AM Matt]

 

[Rudy]

A couple of rarities this past week.

Another Epic NU-Disk 10" EP, this one by Shakin' Stevens, kind of a rockabilly revival project. I only bought it because it was in the NU-Disk series and was cheap. I guess Stevens has had success across the pond, but didn't do much of anything here in the US. (Similar to how the Stray Cats had to get their break in the UK before catching on here in the US.) I really would like to get a few others in the NU-Disk series, so I'll keep an eye out for more of them.




Also, I have finally posted this LP. I believe this should be Lyle Mays' first recorded performance. It is the North Texas State University Lab Band, and was famous back in the day for all of the jazz talent it produced. In fact, one of Lyle's classmates, Marc Johnson (bass), has also gone on to an acclaimed career. This is the album release for the school's 1974-75 academic year, called Lab 75. When the lab band voted on which tracks should go on the record, they unanimously chose Lyle's arrangements for the entire record. He also wrote all but one of the compositions, the remaining one being a cover of a Chick Corea song. Notable, too, that this album was the first for a college or university to receive a Grammy nomination. Lyle plays piano on all tracks. Even in these early years, his style was unmistakable. He had three compositions on Lab 74 the year prior, but did not play on the record.

 

[Mr Bill]

I have most of those "Nu-Disk" 10-inchers... Unfortunately since my move to TX I haven't been able to locate them )or several boxed sets including the Rhino and Hip-O Bacharach sets, Disney 3-CD box, Ryko's Bowie box and Rhino's Rocky Horror box).

I always found it odd that a main-stream rock act like Cheap Trick had one 10" snuck into to that series!

--Mr Bill

 

[Rudy]

I always found it odd that a main-stream rock act like Cheap Trick had one 10" snuck into to that series!

I remember that! Yeah, it was strange. But I'm thinking it might have been a way to attract buyers to the series, by including a name they already recognized.

 

[Rudy]

This is a weird album... Cy Coleman recorded some piano jazz albums and wrote a few song for others with a lyricist ("Witchcraft," "The Best is Yet to Come", both covered by Sinatra, and "Playboy's Theme" which was used as the theme for the 1959-1960 television series Playboy's Penthouse), and launched into a career as a music composer for the stage, taking home 19 Tony Awards.

There's no excuse for this album, though. It's a mix of jazz trying to sound hip, with some songs taking it to the dance floor. You've been warned!



Baja fans should notice a familiar track on side two (penned by Coleman).

 

[Rudy]

If you've ever wondered which Lou Rawls album the hit single "Dead End Street" came from, it was Too Much! It's in a soul-jazz format, a direction he took after some early albums more rooted in jazz.

YouTube flagged this one for copyright.

 

[Rudy]

Yet another Perez Prado album, and his last hurrah with a well-known charting hit, "Patricia." "Dilo" means "Say it!," and was one of his common vocal utterances on his recordings.

 

[Rudy]

Jazz Saturday brings us this little record by pianist and now-legendary arranger Marty Paich. Hot Piano was the original title of this album on Tampa Records, but it was also released with a different cover as Music For Relaxation.

 

[Rudy]

For Twelve-Inch Tuesday, I made a "bonus" version of the Brothers Johnson "Strawberry Letter #23" 12-inch single. On the single, this track is sped up, presumably to be more dance-floor friendly. As the third track in this video, I've corrected the speed back down to what it would be on the original album version. "Get The Funk Out Ma Face" is an extended version which, at the time, was only available on the 12-inch single.

 

[JOv2]

Yet another Perez Prado album, and his last hurrah with a well-known charting hit, "Patricia." "Dilo" means "Say it!," and was one of his common vocal utterances on his recordings.

My dad had this one. Great record. The recording / release configuration of this LP is confusing. The RCA Label Discographies project and DisCogs only show this as a monaural-only (LPM-1883) release and as a late '50s RCA LP its recoding quality is unusually disappointing. Yet, the LP was recorded well in the "RCA" stereo era -- 1958. Furthermore, one selection, Leyenda Mexicana (recorded JUN 1957) was released as a bonus track some years ago: it appeared to be the same take as on Dilo (Ugh!), yet it was in stereo -- and sonically it was consistent with RCA's beautiful 1950s living stereo releases. Patricia itself was recorded in 1958 and by all accounts should have been captured in stereo. That Prado re-recorded a "stereo" version in 1960 suggests the 1958 version was mono only. There is a stereo version or Patricia floating around YouTube that IS the same session as the monaural -- but it's not consistent with living stereo sonics, so I think it was "created" by some wizard-enthusiast using all that post-digital age black magic stuff... Given 65 years have passed it's highly doubtful we'll ever get this one resolved. (Yeah, I know: JO just button it and enjoy the music; but, man, what I'd give for a living stereo version of this LP. Tell 'em, Rudy!)

 

[Rudy]

The recording / release configuration of this LP is confusing. The RCA Label Discographies project and DisCogs only show this as a monaural-only (LPM-1883) release and as a late '50s RCA LP its recoding quality is unusually disappointing. Yet, the LP was recorded well in the "RCA" stereo era -- 1958.

I remember looking at this LP a month or two ago. Hmmm...I should get a stereo copy of this. Only to find on Discogs that there was never a stereo release. Surprising because in 1958 like you say, there were so many other stereo releases.

A couple of thoughts. First, Prado was recording in the US as of the Mambo Mania LP, released in 1955, so we can rule out the album being recorded in Mexico City (which was one of his "homes" over the years). Also, as I seem to recall reading elsewhere, Big Hits by Prado was supposedly his first stereo release for RCA. Sort of the same premise as Kenton in Hi-Fi--re-recording the hits on the latest technology.

With the timing of RCA and stereo, though, I thought maybe it was recorded a few years earlier. Yet as early as 1956, and even 1954, RCA was already recording in at least two-track, if not three-track (later in the 50s). RCA's first stereo release was Fritz Reiner's first RCA recording of Also Sprach Zarathustra, released in 1954 on two-track reels, and not reissued on LP until 1960 (two years before he'd record it again). But 1954 might seem a bit experimental, as Mambo Mania was a 1955 production. There is also Reiner's recording of Concerto for Orchestra (Bartok), first released in 1956 in mono, but reissued in stereo in 1958, so that one was recorded on at least a 2-track recorder for it to be released in stereo.

This is one reason Dilo (Ugh!) might have a different mono sound than Mambo Mania--Dilo sounds a little more up front and modern (yet rolled off) than Mambo Mania. The latter album is a compilation, though--"Cherry Pink" was slightly different from the other current tracks, and "Mambo en Sax" and "A la Kenton" were from years earlier. "Tomcat Mambo," "Ballin' The Jack" and "Marilyn Monroe Mambo" are among the "new" recordings on the record, and they have a different, almost "tighter" mono quality than Dilo does.

It makes me think Dilo was recorded to two-track and mixed down to mono. And perhaps Mania was maybe recorded straight to mono. One argument that Dilo was a two-track recording is the fact that you've heard stereo versions of some of the songs from the LP. Me, too--the Rhino compilation Mondo Mambo! has "Patricia" in stereo or rather, two-track, as the stereo mix is simply a dump of left and right channels, with no center.

Not that RCA didn't do that on other stereo LPs. Prez is a 1957 album, with the mono release in 1957 and stereo in 1958. 1957 might have been around the time that RCA began recording in 3-track, as Prez is a mixed bag of left/right and left/center/right stereo on record. "Machaca," "Come Back to Sorrento" and a couple others are left/right. Most are 3-track mixes and on this LP, this places drums and percussion in the center with the orchestra left and right.

Do we know when Dilo was actually recorded, though? Thing is, I can't see RCA or Prado wanting to sit on a hit like "Patricia" for a year or two before releasing it.

One final thought--RCA often mastered their LPs with rolled-off highs and lows, as most labels did, to accommodate record players of the time. The stereo version of "Patricia" is brighter on the Rhino compilation than it is on the Dilo LP. That is a common thing with many of the audiophile remasters--they'll often go back to the original 2- or 3-track recording and make a new stereo master from that, which has the full range of the recording on it, and the differences range from subtle to startling. The Dilo LP could just be a result of the mixing/mastering process. Someone going back to the originally recorded tape would probably unearth something sounding completely different.

 

[Rudy]

A favorite EP: Fleshtones, Up-Front, their debut record. If you haven't heard them, they have a garage band vibe that's infectious. From the I.R.S. Records catalog.

 

[JOv2]

"Patricia" in stereo or rather, two-track, as the stereo mix is simply a dump of left and right channels, with no center.

That's it.

Stereo was intended to capture the two-dimensional effect of an orchestra's soundstage in the concert hall (i.e., creating the aural illusion of a concert hall in your living room). Initially this was done by just hanging two mic's out in Row 7. Next, the engineers tinkered with highlighting certain sections that they deemed were not picking up well. All this was fine and dandy for orchestral music. However, the stereo soundstage for pop combos didn't quite work as well in the beginning. A concert hall recording for a quartet was sonically senseless and the combo soundstage from a small studio was difficult to capture, which is why pop groups' stereo LPs are a quagmire of engineering approaches until about 1966-7 (and 8-track technology), when reductions became the norm and allowed an engineer to construct a stereo soundstage.

Back in that early period, approx 1956-63, when a lot of studios were recording 2- or 3-track, one really couldn't set up or build a stereo mix. Consequently, the vast majority of those "stereo" LPs are simply a dump of both tracks to left and right as Rudy states. This is not stereo...rather, it's simply two monaural tracks playing side-by-side: there is no stereophonic imaging. The 3-tracks didn't fare much better: in that case the engineers simply added track 3 to both L and R. It wasn't really until 4-track recording, which heightened reduction opportunities resulting in at least some sort of stereo effect.

Remember Dylan's debute LP? Dylan's voice was on the left speaker; his guitar was on the right. That lame shenanigans set people back an extra buck in 1962 -- and only because the guy at Sears who sold the Stereo console explained that "Stereo is good because different sounds come out of each speaker...".

Oh, good grief.

(Following the Beatle's LP run, 1962-69, one can sonically hear their transition: 2- to 3- to 4- to 8-track (with a transition of using two 4-tracks running side-by-side (Sgt. Pepper ('67)). Abbey Road, their final LP ('69), was their only LP recorded on a solid state board -- and man, you can really tell: the noise floor is gone and everything is clean!)

 

[Rudy]

That lame shenanigans set people back an extra buck in 1962 -- and only because the guy at Sears who sold the Stereo console explained that "Stereo is good because different sounds come out of each speaker...".

That is partly what killed quadraphonic sound. Aside from expensive additional equipment, and many listeners having no room for extra speakers, it was poor "quadraphonic-ing" that made it seem like a gimmick. Just throw instruments at any one of the four speakers without any plan other than to make different instruments come out of each speaker.

At least when surround music became a thing in the early 2000s, the mixes were much better, with some thought put into them. They might place little surprises in the rear speakers, but the main part of the music always came from the front. And there were some really good surround mixes. Yet it all died due to, again, needing more equipment to play it back, and a pair of competing formats (DVD-Audio and SACD) that consumers couldn't figure out how to play. At least most DVD-Audio discs had information in the video directory, so at least a lossy Dolby or DTS surround could be played over even the cheapest of home theater systems.

One of the better examples is how the Carpenters SACD compares to a quad mix of the Now & Then album I heard. With the latter, it was a staff engineer that placed instruments all over the place. The SACD instead puts the main Carpenters "combo" tightly up front, with only sweetening coming from the rear. It's a nice effect (aside from the fact that some of it was re-recorded, which bugs the s&#t out of me).

Stereo was very much like that as well, and those early stereo days remind me of the early days of CD--if you can find a way to cash in on the new "stereo fad," get it out to the record stores. (Just like the early reissues CDs were pretty much rushed into production from whichever shabby master tape they had laying around the record company vaults.)

I do like the RCA 3-channel sound, as they did it quite well--the engineers offered a full-bodied sound that filled the space nicely between the speakers, despite being only three distinct sources. You don't get as much of a sense of it being a 3-channel recording with RCA's records as you do with, say, A&M's, especially since A&M (or actually, Gold Star) beat to death the drums/bass on one side, other instruments on the other, featured soloist(s)/horn(s) in the middle. With RCAs, though, it also could be that they recorded much larger ensembles, so we don't tend to notice individual instruments as much.

 

[AM Matt]

Well my late parents did NOT had the f---in' money to get me the stereo turntable & receiver back in March 31, 1986 which I got from the old Highland Appliance store (Kenwood AM/FM receiver, Technics turntable & Sony headphones) & The Audio Shoppe (where I got Polk Audio small speakers) in Saginaw, MI when I was 20 years old because I graduated from Sanford/Meridian High School back on May 23, 1985. Also bought TEAC double cassette player at the old Arnold's in downtown Midland, Michigan on April 2, 1986. So I saved my money (for $1,025) which included insterting papers from the Midland Daily News (hated the black ink in my hands) including Friday nights at 9:00 (till 3:00 or 3:30 Saturday morning) for the Saturday paper!! I am glad I did not hit a deer when I was riding U.S. 10 freeway when I came back home in 1985 & 1986!! I decided to quit the MDN in October of 1986!! Also I had to save the money for the Technics compact disc player which I also bought at the old Highland Appliance store in Saginaw, MI back in the 2nd week of July of 1986.