No fantastic stories today. It did get me wondering, though, how many of us have these little tales that are fascinating to us but land somewhere between "mildly amusing" and "please stop talking" for everyone else. I shared yesterday's adventure with my staff, and I'm pretty sure their collective takeaway was, "Well, that certainly explains a lot."
In fairness, the line between "great story to tell later" and "featured prominently in next year's Darwin Awards" is probably about the thickness of a human hair. Some people collect accomplishments. I apparently collect cautionary tales- and I have more than my fair share.
As for today's useless-but-vital music trivia: The Tikis first recorded this gem around the time of their debut Autumn 45 and for for reasons known only to record executives and possibly extraterrestrials named themselves as The Other Tikis. When it was finally released on Warner Brothers, they were back to being The Tikis. It promptly achieved absolutely no chart action whatsoever.
If you notice, the Warner Brothers stock copy has both songs listed as A-sides, while Autumn actually had the courage to pick a favorite and designate an A and B side. Apparently Warner Brothers subscribed to the "let the people decide" school of marketing, whereas Autumn preferred the more traditional "we'll decide for you" approach.
In a fascinating demonstration of record industry strategy, neither method produced even the slightest hint of chart success. So the verdict is in: whether the public chooses, or the record company chooses, absolutely nobody chooses if nobody's buying the record. Still, it's a fun little label variation. Warner Brothers basically looked at these tracks and said, "We're not taking sides here." The listening public responded, "That's okay, we're not taking either side."
Undaunted by a complete lack of commercial success, they changed their name yet again and eventually found sunshine-pop fame as Harpers Bizarre. So in the end, persistence paid off. Or maybe they just finally stopped changing their name every fifteen minutes.
Anyway, thank you for attending today's completely useless TED Talk. So say thank you for allowing me to replace whatever useful information was occupying a small corner of your brain. The information you've just absorbed has now displaced something far more important from your memory. If you suddenly can't remember where you left your car keys, wallet, reading glasses, or why you walked into the kitchen, I'm sorry, I can only apologize on behalf of The Tikis, The Other Tikis, and The Tikis again. But on the bright side, you now know the complicated naming history of a moderately obscure 1960s vocal group, which is obviously the more practical life skill.
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