Monks Of Doom - The Insect God

I'm not much of a horror movie fan. Give me vampires, werewolves, zombies, or any other supernatural creature that politely announces its arrival and I'm fine. But spiders? Bugs? Any creepy-crawly thing with more legs than common sense? Absolutely not. The very thought makes my skin start scheduling emergency evacuation procedures.

Every other year or so, our house becomes the filming location for a nature documentary called Me vs. Eight-Legged Terror.

For some reason, giant spiders decide our front yard is prime real estate. And when I say giant, I mean they're approximately the size of Cincinnati. Scientists may argue with that measurement, but scientists have never walked face-first into one of these monstrosities at 5 a.m.

These creepy little architects spend the night constructing enormous webs stretching from the tree to the ground right across our path. Not off to the side where sensible creatures would build them. No, directly where Cooper and I are guaranteed to walk the next morning.

Nothing gets the heart pumping quite like strolling through the yard in the dark and suddenly spotting a massive web suspended in front of you. It's the closest I've ever come to discovering a hidden superpower. If startled badly enough, I'm convinced I could clear a six-foot fence without touching it.

Of course, Cooper is no help. He just happily trots along while I'm scanning the horizon like a paranoid cryptid hunter searching for signs of arachnid invasion.

Thankfully, this was one of the years they skipped town. No webs. No eight-legged nightmare fuel. No impromptu cardiovascular stress tests before sunrise. I'm not saying the spiders hold conventions and only visit every other year. I'm just saying the evidence is starting to pile up, and I'm not brave enough to attend the next meeting.

The good news is I survived past encounters. The bad news is I probably used up ten years' worth of courage in a single early morning. If vampires ever show up at my door, I'll gladly invite them in for coffee. But if a spider the size of a nickel appears in my bathroom, expect to hear a grown man screaming from several counties away.

So here we have the "Insect God" and a poem that blurs the line between reality and the uncanny, I always loved how this one explodes out of the gate:

"What has become of Millicent Frastley? Is there any hope that she is still alive?"

Now that's how you open a record.

I bought this new back in the day because I was already a huge Camper Van Beethoven fan and knew about their side project. Back then I was happily throwing money at mail-order catalogs from every interesting Washington State label I could find: Sub Pop, Estrus, C/Z. Buying this was less a decision and more a reflex.

The 10-inch picture disc is absolutely gorgeous, but thankfully the music lives up to the packaging. Far too many records treat the artwork as the main attraction and the songs as an afterthought. Not this one.

Years later I discovered the song was adapted from an Edward Gorey poem of the same name. Gorey was still alive when this was released, which makes me wonder if he ever heard it. Did he smile approvingly? Did he raise a skeptical eyebrow? I'd like to imagine Gorey emerging briefly from a cloud of ravens and Victorian gloom, listening with perfect indifference, then pronouncing it “reasonably bleak” before disappearing back into the ether.

Because if you stop and think about it, this is a remarkably strange piece of writing. A missing girl, unanswered questions, lingering dread, and a uniquely piece of writing making the absurd feel unsettling and the unsettling feel oddly funny. It reads like a supernatural mystery narrated by someone who has seen entirely too much and plans to explain none of it. Looking at the illustrations online, I can imagine a parent flipping through the book in a bookstore in 1963 and thinking, "Oh, what charming drawings..." only to find themselves several pages later wondering, "Wait...this is for whom exactly?"

The Monks understood the assignment perfectly. They created a musical backdrop that feels like wandering through a foggy cemetery with a faulty flashlight while a distant voice calmly recounts events that are becoming increasingly impossible. The result is charming, creepy, intelligent, and just weird enough to linger in your brain long after the needle leaves the groove.

Much like poor Millicent Frastley herself.

R. Dean Taylor - There's A Ghost In My House/Don't Fool Around

I took a half day off yesterday to get my tire fixed. Thankfully it turned out I had just run over something that punctured it, so the shop patched it up quickly. For once, automotive drama arrived as a short story instead of a full-length novel.

However, they informed me they "couldn't" get the spare tire back under the truck because the fastener was "stuck." Being a longtime student of learning how to muddle through either repairing things correctly or mucking them up, I pulled into a large parking lot afterward and decided to investigate. Having never lowered or raised the spare before Sunday, I fully expected an engineering nightmare. Instead, I gave it a little tug, the cable came down smoothly, and I was able to get the tire slipped right back into place. Amazing what can be accomplished when someone actually tries.

The day's second battle involved the washing machine repair company. Apparently the replacement part being shipped directly to me instead of them created some level of cosmic disturbance (and probably impacted their reimbursement). After a bit of discussion, interpretation, negotiation, and what might qualify as hostage diplomacy, they finally agreed to come out Wednesday. With any luck, my washing machine will once again be an appliance rather than a large decorative monument to unfulfilled potential.

Knowing the roofing crew may start work today, I spent part of the evening recording songs before several days of mandatory silence arrive courtesy of hammers, compressors, and gravity. At this point, this blog has become part music page and part therapy session where I process minor disasters through obscure records. That'll be fifty dollars please.

As for today's selection, does "Ghosts" count as a Halloween song if it's really a metaphor for lost love? I say yes. Heartbreak can be terrifying. Especially when your evening plans involve eating cold SpaghettiOs straight from the can while staring into the middle distance and wondering where things went wrong.

Two years ago, I posted the version by The Fall. In a confession that may cost me my Record Collector License, I never paid much attention to the songwriting credit and had absolutely no idea it was a cover version until I picked up this copy earlier this year. Then the dots connected.

R. Dean Taylor is primarily remembered for "Indiana Wants Me," although someday I hope to own the red vinyl promo copy with the picture sleeve because apparently I enjoy expensive, unnecessary quests. But this double-sided soul monster deserved to be a massive hit. Instead, it followed the familiar path of many great records: ignored by the masses, adored by collectors, and eventually priced high enough to make grown adults mutter obscenities at record shows.

Naturally, I paired it with one of the classic Motown Hitsville sleeves because sometimes the music, the label, and the artwork line up so perfectly it feels like destiny.

Or maybe the ghosts made me do it.

The Phantom Five - Graveyard/Cool-It

Yesterday was one of those "the universe giveth and the universe immediately demandeth payment" kind of days.

The good news? I spent the day digging and found a 45 I'd been forced to part with about 25 years ago when my wife went out on disability and bills had priority over vinyl dreams. I paid more than I wanted to, naturally, but still managed to get it for less than current market insanity, so I'll call that a win.

The bad news? On the way home, one of my tires decided it had reached an early retirement age and blew out on a busy freeway.

Now, despite owning this truck for years, I had never actually changed one of its tires. This led to an educational roadside seminar titled "How the Hell do I get the Spare Tire out from under the Truck?" After much crawling around, creative vocabulary, studying page 301 of my owners manual and several negotiations with gravity, I finally got the spare down.

Unfortunately, the tire appeared to weigh roughly the same as a small moon.

By the end of the ordeal my hands looked like I'd been wrestling barbed wire, my shoulders were filing formal complaints, and my old bones were questioning every life choice that led me to that shoulder of the freeway. But somehow I got the tire changed and made it home.

What makes this even weirder is that I bought a full set of expensive new tires for the Colorado back in May. In June, the right rear tire got impaled by a metal pipe and had to be replaced. Thankfully warranty softened the blow. Now, just a few months later, it's the exact same tire causing trouble again. Either that corner of the truck is cursed or it has developed a taste for roadside debris.

So yes, I reunited with a long-lost record yesterday as well as 88 other's that will grace my turntable. But apparently the crate-digging gods charged a flat tire, several layers of skin, and half my remaining youth as the admission fee.

Back to Halloweenie week.  Who can resist a label that looks this cool and surf instrumentals that hit with all the subtlety of a rogue wave? Everything about this 45 screams Halloween. You've got a band called The Phantom Five, which immediately raises important questions. Were there actually four previous Phantoms? Did those "Phantoms" vanish before the photo shoot? Or were there five band members and they figured nobody was going to conduct a paranormal headcount on what happened to the previous Phantoms? I'm far too lazy to investigate, and frankly, the mystery is part of the charm.

The artwork alone looks like the band just finished a leisurely stroll through a graveyard, stopping only to admire how impossibly cool they are. In my mind they're all wearing sunglasses despite the fact that they're ghosts and it is probably midnight.

I picked this one up from my friend Jesse last year, proving once again that some records don't need a famous name, a hit single, or a Discogs essay the length of a doctoral thesis. Sometimes a killer label, a wonderfully ridiculous band name, and enough reverb to wake the dead are more than enough.

Halloween Radio Spots....S s s s s s s" & Young Frankenstein

It's Halloweenie season, peeps, and as is tradition around here, I'm kicking things off by taking a hard left turn into Weirdsville.

I had a few spooky grails on my want list this year, but despite my best efforts, they continue to elude me like a reasonably priced original garage 45 at a flea market. At this point, I've got several years' worth of Halloween posts squirreled away, so if I ever do find those missing monsters, something else is going to get bumped into a future year's lineup. It's becoming less of a Halloween series and more of a haunted scheduling problem.

I picked these up nearly a year ago as part of a larger haul from a guy who occasionally opens up his magical "Wherehouse," a place where records seemingly reproduce in the dark when no one is looking. As luck would have it, I get to go digging there again today. YIPPIEE! Somewhere between the excitement and the caffeine, I've already mentally spent money I haven't handed over yet.

What makes these especially interesting is that they're the first radio spots I've ever found in all my years of collecting. Thousands upon thousands of records have passed through my hands, but radio spots? Practically mythical creatures. Maybe they were hiding behind all the Herb Alpert albums.

Now, these aren't the scariest recordings ever made. Nobody's sleeping with the lights on after hearing them. But they're delightfully oddball, which is often even better.

"SSSSSS... once this picture sinks its fangs into you, you'll never be the same. Touch your skin... it's scaled. Look for your legs... they're gone. Feel your body... it's cold. Listen for the hissing. Don't say it... hiss it."

I mean, come on. How freaking cool is that? It's the kind of gloriously over-the-top copy that makes me miss an era when advertisers apparently thought the best way to sell things was to turn people into reptiles. While not a "horror" movie fan...I do think I want to try to find this one to watch! The movie poster advertisement is AMAZING!

And then there's Mel Brooks. Really, who can resist Mel Brooks? The man could probably record himself reading a lawn fertilizer label and I'd happily sit through it twice.

I've got a few more of these radio spots tucked away, and they're weird enough that they'll probably deserve a future megapost of their own. Because if there's one thing record collecting has taught me, it's that no matter how strange the item in your hand may seem, there's always something even stranger waiting in the next box.

Nova's Nine - Pain/Why Listen

Yesterday I went to the office for the first time in several months. Now, normally that sentence wouldn't qualify as exciting news, but this trip came with a side quest.

About six months ago I stumbled across a little junk shop on a secondary highway and asked the owner if he had any records. His answer was, "They're in storage and I'll try to get to them." Every time I'd stop by after that, I'd get the same answer, usually followed by, "Don't worry, I'll set them aside for you and won't let anyone look before you."

At that point I figured this was one of those promises that would join the ranks of New Year's resolutions, political campaign vows, and my washing machine repair timeline.

So, on my way home at lunchtime, I stopped again and asked if he'd found those records.

"Come with me," he said.

Those are dangerous words for a record collector.

We walked into the shop and he told his daughter, "The guy for the vinyls is here." Apparently I have now achieved a level of local fame where I am known simply as The Guy for the Vinyls.

He pulls back a tablecloth and underneath are milk crates of LPs, plastic totes full of 45s, and a footlocker packed with albums. His daughter says, "We were afraid you weren't coming back." Turns out they had been holding these aside for me for over a month.

The pressure was suddenly on.

I move a few lp's on top of the 1st 45 tote (Andy Williams and Firestone Christmas lp- not promising) and grabbed a handful of 45s from the first tote and the first two 45s I pulled were a Hank Williams MGM EP with the cover and a Johnny Cash Sun EP with its cover, both in surprisingly nice condition.

Before getting too excited, I asked the all-important question:

"How much are you asking?"

Anyone who's dug records long enough knows this is the moment where dreams either soar or get run over by reality.

"You can have them all for $50."

I probably handed over that money faster than a contestant hitting the buzzer on Jeopardy.

At that point I hadn't even looked through any of the boxes. For all I knew the foot locker was fifty pounds of Andy Williams and Firestone Christmas LPs with a few records sprinkled in for decoration. But I like the owner, he buys estates and auction lots regularly, and I wanted him to remember me as a good customer instead of the guy who haggled over fifty bucks.

I didn't have time to dig through everything until after work. One box of 45s turned out to be entirely promos. The Good. Unfortunately, many looked like they'd spent several years in a barn conducting weather research. The Bad. But they were old country, easy listening- The Ugly and that was good news. But in the other totes were some interesting Northern Soul, and a bizarre mix of 1980s rock picture sleeves alongside more Johnny Cash Sun EPs.

The LPs were a mixture of soul and country, easy listening, with many of the lp's in rough shape, but the footlocker held some pleasant surprises: late-'60s and early-'70s white-label promo albums by artists I've never heard of and, best of all, in pretty respectable condition. Those are the records I'm most excited to hear.

Will many of the trashed records be headed to the great recycling bin in the sky? Absolutely.

Did I find enough good stuff to make the deal worthwhile and share some records with friends? Without question- one box had 80s country 45s in wonderful condition and I have a friend who will groove on that.

Meanwhile, on the home front, my washing machine remains very committed to its retirement. The repair company appears to have devoted the same level of urgency to fixing it that sloths devote to NASCAR.

They've allegedly been waiting on a part for over a month. After repeated attempts to get answers that produced roughly the same results as shouting into a well. At one point I was about ready to channel Samuel L. Jackson in Pulp Fiction and start reciting the "great vengeance and furious anger" speech, although probably with a few modifications involving appliance repair and customer service. Fortunately, cooler heads prevailed and I contacted Electrolux directly.

Electrolux asked which part was needed. I told them that getting information from the repair company required skills usually reserved for hostage negotiators and archaeological expeditions. The shop had already informed me they couldn't get the part through Electrolux.

Funny thing about that.

Electrolux contacted them, found out the needed part, and promptly informed me they're shipping it directly to me next week.

So at the moment Electrolux has solved more problems in 24 hours than the repair company has solved in a 3 months. And let's be clear, this isn't exactly an endorsement for Electrolux. When a nine-month-old washer breaks down, we're already well past the point where anyone should be taking a victory lap. Credit where it's due: they stepped in, contacted the repair company, figured out the mystery part that apparently required the investigative skills of Sherlock Holmes to identify, and are sending it directly to me. That's more progress than I'd seen in weeks. Still, I'd much rather be praising a washer for washing clothes than praising a manufacturer for helping me navigate a repair process on an appliance that just celebrated its first birthday and only worked 3/4 of the year.

In the meantime, enjoy this one-off single from a North Carolina band. Some folks call it garage soul. I hear more soul than garage, but either way, nobody has to wait a month for a replacement part to enjoy it.

Jose de la Vega - Ode to A Hijacker / Coffee, Tea or Cuba

A little Latin obscurity that followed me home from the flea market this past summer. The sleeve looks like it lost a bar fight, got run over by a shopping cart, and then spent a decade in someone's attic, but there were two copies of the 45 sitting there, daring me to take a chance. Thankfully, years of record collecting have taught me that sometimes the roughest-looking sleeves hide the best surprises. I rolled the dice and I'm glad I did.

And then came the part that really made me do a double take. One of the co-writers is none other than Dickie Goodman, the undisputed king of the break-in record. Now, when I think of Dickie Goodman, I think of hearing Mr. Jaws on the radio as a kid and all those wonderfully goofy records he cranked out over the years. I've picked up more than a few Goodman 45s in my collecting adventures, but finding his name attached to a Latin record? That was definitely not on my bingo card.

Which naturally raises an even bigger question: Who was Jose?

This appears to be a one-off release, with almost no trail to follow. No obvious history, no stack of follow-up records, no easy answers. Just a mysterious Latin 45, a battered sleeve, Dickie Goodman lurking in the songwriting credits, and a guy named Jose who seems to have vanished into the mist of record-collector mythology. 

Of course, that's part of the fun. If every record came with a complete biography, detailed liner notes, and a Netflix documentary, there'd be a lot less excitement in digging through flea market boxes on a hot summer morning. Sometimes the best records are the ones that leave you with more questions than answers.

For now, Jose remains a mystery. But somewhere out there, I'm convinced at least three people know exactly who he was, and two of them probably can't find their reading glasses.

Over the last few years I've developed a real appreciation for Latin sounds and Boogaloo records, which has also encouraged me to gamble a little more on the oddball, overlooked, and downright mysterious singles. After all, if every purchase made perfect sense, what fun would crate digging be?

And speaking of mysteries, are you ready for Halloween? I've got some wonderfully obscure seasonal oddities lined up that may have been heard by fewer people than have actually read the record labels they were pressed on.

After that, I'll have to dig through the shelves to see what I can uncover for Veterans Day and Thanksgiving. And as for Election Day... let's just say I have a surprise planned. No matter which way the votes go, I can guarantee the song will be far more obscure than any candidate.

L. H. And The Memphis Sounds - Double Up /House Full Of Rooms

I have questions. Lots of questions.

Was L. H. And The Memphis Sounds actually from Memphis, or did they simply borrow the Memphis name because it carried a little extra weight on the Southern soul circuit? Did they pack up a station wagon, point it west, and somehow end up in Hollywood long enough to cut a couple of records for a California label? And when those records didn't launch them into the big time, did they quietly head back home with their tails between their legs?

Or am I being completely unfair here?

Truthfully, I have no idea what I'm talking about. And maybe it doesn't even matter.

What I do know is that "Double Up" and "House Full of Rooms" are two absolutely killer sides.

"Double Up" sounds like someone walked into the studio and announced, "Let's use everything." You've got organ, bluesy guitar, punchy brass, soulful vocals, and just enough saxophone to remind you that nobody was interested in subtlety that day. It shouldn't work as well as it does, but somehow they threw the entire kitchen sink into the pot and let it simmer in pure passion.

Then there's "House Full of Rooms." The slower B-side. The one that sneaks up on you. Soulful, bluesy, and so deep in the groove that before long you're no longer listening to the record, you're living inside it. It doesn't demand attention. It earns it.

That's the beauty of collecting old 45s. Half the time I'm chasing stories that may never be fully answered. The artists disappear, labels come and go, and the trail often goes cold long before Google was invented. But every now and then a forgotten little slab of vinyl reminds me that history isn't always about who made it big. Sometimes it's about two songs that still sound fantastic sixty years later.

The world feels a little brighter every time I drop the needle on a record like this. And honestly, that's reason enough for me to keep digging.

Update Time

Last week I posted The Church Columbus and I thought I had a promo copy of The Church's "Columbus" on 45. As it turns out, my memory was apparently operating on the same level as a worn-out styrene pressing. After a little investigation, I discovered I did not own the promo after all.

Then, as fate, temptation, and collector OCD would have it, I stumbled across a cheap copy online last week. At that point there was really only one possible outcome. Resistance was futile. The order was placed.

The 45 arrived yesterday in beautiful condition and now sits proudly in the collection, proving once again that record collecting is less a hobby and more a series of financially questionable decisions justified by tiny label variations.

I have updated the Columbus post to include the promo copy- say: Thank You.