Welcome ye fare forwarded voyagers to my humble abode for all that is under appreciated in the world of recorded music. I specialize in the past but the current is certainly not completely ignored either. I hope you will find a gem or two before you mosey on down the road. I mostly post recent finds from my digging expeditions across the land, but occasionally I will post up random things as well. -Transpac Jackson
So there is an LP by Jim Schmidt that is certainly one of the most desirable items in the christian soft rock modern soul smooth pop crossover genre, and I have inexplicably found it not once but twice, and it isn't something you should find often at 250 dollars a pop, so I became pretty familiar with it of course, and with the song "Serious" which Jim wrote, then one day I'm looking through the dollar bins and I see a sealed record by David Dale, Lubbock Texas christian soft rock stuff, I buy it not thinking much of it, then I put it on, and I see that he has covered the very obscure Jim Schmidt song 'serious,' weird I think, but it does have that Michael Mcdonald sound so I know it's gonna be big. This is an unknown record previously mind you, so then a couple months pass and I'm diggin through the dollar bins again and I see Jim Tucker, hmmm, looks like christian soft rock to me I think, so i buy it. I then put it on at home and what do you know, ANOTHER cover of 'serious' by Jim Schmidt! A third unknown christian pop obscurity covering an already obscenely rare record. So now I'm wondering, how many more of these instant gold unknown christian pop LPs that cover 'serious' are out there? Is reality somehow manifesting itself in a loop? popping out these records for me to find like some endless LP forever skipping on a bad groove? a cosmic joke? a sign from God? okay, a little overboard, I know, but it really is strange, finding any of these is like a needle in a hay stack, I'm not saying I'm doing some off the charts digging here, if that were the case i'd be finding a box of sealed butcher cover beatles or some shit, this is just utterly bizarre to me. well anyway, I don't have the Jim schmidt recorded in full, I have 4 of the tracks but I think it is available on Itunes so I will throw Jim a bone and not put it up for free, I'm sure he could use the dough, but I will give you some Jim Tucker and David Dale action... (I know I know I only have the sample for David Dale, again, I'm very sorry I don't know how I didnt record it all but thats what I have) I will be posting the full track of the newest find by Jim Tucker, and then maybe the clip of David Dale just to remind you (I posted it before in a splurge about 80s Christian pop... damn I wished I recorded that entire LP.) Have fun, and poo on anyone that doesn't like my TIMOTHY 7"... yacht rock forever. By the way there is a christian boogie group called Omega Sunrise with a track called Destiny that Jim Schmidt covers on this album, another link in the chain of obscure covers doing covers doing covers.....
Here we have a return to the older style of posts I normally put up, this is an obscure and really fantastic College jazz band album that I haven't seen any other copies of anywhere, there is a few from the later years around but they aren't nearly as good. I was actually kind of shocked by how low the price was for this when I auctioned it, 30 bucks pretty much, but the breaks/beats college high school band market is pretty weak at the moment. There was a time around 2004-6 when you could sell golden era hiphop LPs that werent even that rare for mad money, houston rap was making waves in JApan, and any record that was unknown and had a break or sample on it was GOLD, especially college and highschool band stuff, my friend sold the lesser Kashmere stage band album for two thousand dollars in 04, friggin unbelievable, but the Euro/Japanese markets were clamoring for anything funky to sample, now all of those aforementioned items have cooled quite a bit, but they remain a staple record collecting genre regardless, in fact the ultra-obscurist 90s hiphop market is doing fantastically well. If you can find a 12" by a group that no one has heard and it sounds even remotely like Wutang, you are in the money. So anyway, back to this record, its really solid all the way through but especially the 2 long tracks on A and B side, I can't remember the names, there are some moments where frenetic fender rhodes keys are dancing over some heavy drum patterns and the horns are just going off, I really was impressed by this for there being very little attention or info toward it. Have a listen to the samples and see what you think, the entirety is linked below.
*** Revised comment 10/8/11 Okay, first let me add something to what I splurged out yesterday, the only truely Yacht Rock release here is the first 7" by Timothy, that is pure unknown yacht rockness, and pretty awesome I might add, the Bondar and Wise is too uptempo but otherwise is pretty yachty, the others kinda straddle the new wave/boogie/poprock line so I included it in this post for the hell of it. And one last quip, there is no Yacht Rock collector scene at the moment, it is all a an early 80s smooth Christian pop rock scene, so I'm guessing that Yacht Rock will eventually emerge as a desirable 'hip' collector genre, and records like Timothy will sell for good money, as opposed to being utterly valueless like it is right now... so with that being said I will take you back to the original post... ****** So we all know that christian soft rock/aor/pop/modernsoul/crossover stuff from the late 70s to mid 80s is really hot and the market is very strong, IE Jim schmidt, David Dale, Omega Sunrise, Brown and Jackson, and all the other LPs I've posted about, in fact I just found another one which I'll be posting up soon, but what about all the stuff that is exactly like those aforementioned things but isn't about christian themes and lyrics, what of the smooth poppy 80s rock brilliance of something akin to Toto, Michael Mcdonald, Kenny Loggins, and Hall and Oates but buried and forgotten under decades of obscurity, the lost 7" singles by all the boat shoe wearing, razor cut sporting John Oates that never were. Enter Yacht Rock... At the moment even the most awesome and obscure yacht rock 7"s sell for only ten to 20 dollars, and LPs might go up to the 50 dollar range if truly awesome and obscure, everyone thought the idea of a resurgence in late 90s backpack rap was a ludicrous notion, but there it is, so anyway, I'm just pondering the possibilities here and trying to pry a bit into the future because I recently came across a few unknown yacht rockers that I really enjoyed but a market simply does not exist for them, a sad notion indeed. So here are a couple little diddies I found, theyre utterly obscure but still pretty much worthless in terms of monetary value, but I treasure them nonetheless, I also think an obscure underground 90s lofi tape/lp scene will gain some strength eventually, the kinda leftover synthpop/lofi/experimentalist leftovers, sort of in the vein of the Lizard Water release I posted. Anyway, here's the stuffs, and it's kinda in order of purity to the genre. The first two items are completely unknown and I think fit nicely, especially Timothy, its just so yacht rocky!
Timothy - Your Love Rolled All Over Me
Bondar and Wise - You and Me
Mark Thompson - Bad One
Peter Hostage - Samples from LP
(I'm not entirely sure this is Yacht Rock, but it kinda straddles that line and era, so it fits with the theme here...) Roy and Roe - Just Don't Come Back
(Maybe too new wavey I dunno but again it's close, it's in that no man's land...) Extreme Heat - Lonely (previously of the incredible funk band Steam Heat, I'll post this album soon if you want)
Breaking new ground on the blog today with yet another tape for you, this is Triffid - Uncovered, my first Hair Metal post, this actually happens to be one of the most sought after late 80s hair metal tapes out there, and it sells for upwards of $200 easily. I was astonished by how many cassette collectors there are out there, and its a very strong market because there isn't a huge amount of tape dealers and tape diggers out there really, so the occasional collectable tape really comes at a premium. I recently found a cache of rare metal demos, some of which I sold on Ebay recently, including this guy, and overall the auction did very well, I was pretty blown away actually. But back to Triffid... all I know is that they are from New Jersey and they pressed about 500 of these. So anyway, I know it's not exactly of the genre's I normally post up but I definitely think it is deserving of a post. I probably wont keep this link up forever so if you are interested grab it now, and the file is just an MP3 of the entire A and B side uncut, I'm sorry about the format but I got lazy, use Audacity to chop it up if needed.
Unknown Spiritual Ethnic Folk/Jazz album from Alabama cira 1986. No info about this record whatsoever. Has some really nice moments and I thoroughly enjoy it overall too. Mostly instrumental music kinda similar to Wali and the Afro Caravan, but a little more Native American/Andean maybe, though not by much, its quite similar actually just more 1986 sounding. Crisper production and such. All acoustic percussive stuff with a piano or an occasional electric guitar and every track features one hell of a flute player, some have a kinda hippie folk flute jam feel, others are very ethnic minimal sounding, a couple have vocals and are jazzier, and then a few are kinda all its own, there's only one track with real lyrics and song structure, it is slow and morose but i still really like it. Very interesting record haven't heard much like it, especially not from 1986 and out of Alabama... I don't understand why it's so obscure. I didn't do any research on the label yet though which I need to. The cover was stuck to another LP in the Goodwill I bought it at, I was so pissed. Ruined a really awesome looking cover, but the record was near mint. Also, the record is indeed called Sounds Ov Earth, not "of", and I'm guessing the artist is Solstice, but I could have that backwards. Produced by Jim Wizniewski If you have any info please let me know.
Okay so you're probably thinking enough with the tapes already but seriously, the tape explosion has just begun, so please bare with me... I have a lot of tapes to go... but I will of course be uploading my standard vinyl stuffs too but I just recently got my bad ass tape player hookup so I've been catching up on all these demos. I felt like since I had already done a 90s bedroom indie and a neosoul joint I should get back to the meat of the tape collecting world and do a new wave/synthpop/minimalwave release, so I am going to unleash yet another utterly unknown and unheard gem from the TX demo tape collection on you with this one, presenting... FELT NUN. The San Antonio synthpop/newwave group from 1988. I actually really started to like the first track, 'oh boy' after a few listens and then the rest of the tape grew on my as well, lots of nice moments here, the first track is probably the most upbeat and poppy, theres a little bit darker moments if thats your thing. So I'm quite happy with this find, cause trust me, decently good synthpop tapes that are still unknown are not easy to come by at all. Enjoy.
Breaking new ground on the blog today, my first tape!, I have now added the art of tape digging to my repertoire and sold my first successful Ebay tape auction last week, 75 bucks for Jack Kevorkian and the Suicide Machines... and since then I have acquired a huge amount of weird demo tapes and I think some of them are definitely worth sharing, so that will be the theme of the blog for a little bit. Tapes are a completely different ball of wax from records, they go way deeper down the rabbit hole of obscurity first of all, because basically anyone with a 4 track and a mic can make a release, and the availability of weird tapes out there for 50 cents is still massive, unlike records, though the market for tapes is much smaller and more particular. Theres 4 strong tape genres in collecting, private metal tapes, private synthpop/minimal tapes, private hip hop tapes, and private boogie tapes. I think gangsta rap accounts for the largest share of money transactions on Ebay by far. There's a healthy Japanese and NY/LA rap tape scene going, and next behind that is probably the uber hip minimal wave tape collectors, because the majority of great releases in the genre are on tape.
Anyway, my first post of a tape was supposed to be this bedroom psych/folk-pop demo I found but I haven't finished recording it yet(now posted!), so instead we have KATAU, which is Hawaiian neo-soul/funk circa 1990 by way of Dallas TX. I know thats a lot to take in but you'll understand better when you hear it. It's not Hawaiian like traditional ethnic music, I mean the regional variety of jazzy soul/funk that became popular in Hawaii in the early 80s and sounds a lot like Cali modern soul stuff, so it's that kinda, but 'Neo' cause its 1990 and the tuning is really tight and crisp sounding, a little bluesy almost, but don't let that dissuade you, and the group is performing in Dallas TX for this demo. I absolutely love slap bass boogie jams and this track definitely makes the cut for bombastic slap bass shakedowns, just listen to that breakdown at the end where the guy goes off! Like some Conrad Benjamin up in this biznitch. Man, I need to make a best of rare slap bass boogie compilation. Anyway, Hope you like it as much as I do, here's my favorite track below and then a link to the .rar of the rest.
Okay, here is the rest of the good tracks from Rosemary, there might be a couple piano only interludes missing but these are the tracks that make up the sample I gave you plus some others, seemed like everyone really liked Rosemary so this is everything I have of it for you. Enjoy.
Classic gospel funk album by the Violinaires, one of the best gospel funk outfits ever, and one of the longest lasting groups as well. They have a ton of fantastic albums but I particularly like this one for the title track Groovin with Jesus. This is a rip from ym copy, it has some scratches but I think it still sounds pretty good.
Violinaires - Groovin with Jesus
I love this song, I don't know why it, the Mel Prod have a few other releases that are much better, like 'airplane' but I figured I'd share this less often heard track from a local favorite with you.
Mel Production Band - She's My Lady (San Antonio TX 1980)
This post is for a friend of mine, I know this has been reissued in one way or another, it's not easily findable in the blog world, most likely because someone owns the rights, but whatever, if it's a problem I'll take it down, until then, anyone that doesn't have this gem of a record, get it now, this is from an original vinyl copy that was in very nice condition.
Kind of amazed that this LP isn't more readily available in the blog sphere, I see lots of uploads of the track 'Morning Spring' but that's it. Obviously that is the real highlight of the album but the rest is pretty solid too. Classic afro-funk spiritual jazz album that is sought after by many and rarely ever turns up. A few years ago someone tracked down the source and got a bunch of sealed copies, that's how a handful of copies got back onto the market and traded around, before it was near impossible to find and ran 500 bucks. Now all those are gone too and you see one pop up occasional for 200 bucks or so in really nice condition. This remains a perennial digger classic. I really do love that Morning Spring song, wow.
I was shocked to find that this album isnt available already on a blog somewhere so I felt it was high time I fixed that problem. Classic late 70s soul gospel record with a funky disco vibe, especially on track B1, which is why everyone wants this record. It's about 75 bucks usually, a standard in any serious gospel LP collection. Overall it's got some nice soulful gospel tunes, nothing mind blowing, but like I said track B1 - 'everything is gonna be alright' is the real killer here, its got breaks and samples galore, more disco breaks than hip hop but really you could go either way with it. I thought about just upping that track but it seems like everyone prefers the entire LP when possible so here it is, this is from my rip of course and it was in great condition, so enjoy.
Here are a few items which I have that are of interest to me and I am probably going to throw up on ebay if it seems worth doing, kind of continuing the Bill Post Family album post theme, unknowns without price that i'm throwing up to get some feedback on.
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Anyway, first we have a weird Latin Christian Jazz/funk fusion record from deep South Texas by Fred Cancio and Family. I would love to check out the rest of Fred's discography because if its anything like this kind of music, there's a chance that the vocals and arrangements might be even more awesome than this, but as it stands this interesting Mexican family album looks to be like some bad crossover Heysoos conjunto accordion jams, but instead you get light and airy California smooth jazz and a little funk thrown in for good measure, the only downside is the vocals, theyre in spansish and the male voice isnt very appealing. Anyway, give it a listen, theres 3 tracks in this sample, saty with it, it gets interesting!
Fred Cancio con su Familia - S/T (1981)
======================================== Next up we have a really interesting private folk rock record by David Marr - This Time, recorded as a live concert at the Sturbridge House, I don't have a firm date on this but its early 70s I think. It's basically just him and his electric guitar and a very rudimentary drum machine, like the ones on organs from the 60s and 70s. The majority of the tracks are covers, he has a kind of reverb laden dream quality to his songs, this track is an original composition and its the best on the album. This record is another completely unknown item and there was a guy on ebay that had one up for 4 dollars buy it now, I dunno if someone finally realized what it was and bought it or if it is still there, it amazes me how many unknown gems people put up on ebay for next to nothing. There's a really interesting vibe with the crowd noise, makes him seem even lonelier, like no one is even listening at his concert.
David MArr - This Time , Live at Sturdbridge House
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Next we have the Korean record by Yoon Book Hee and Yoon Hang Gi, which has some pretty rad 70s cop drama funk themes on it, no singing on the best track either, and then the rest is kinda soul/pop/psych ballads with the duo singing in korean over them, but check this nasty groove out, man.
Yoon Book Hee and Yoon Hang Gi - S/T LP (perhaps a kind of greatest hits for the duo?)
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Ladd Roberts - Lady up stairs [Same label as Mike Williams Free Man Happy Man (which I can also upload in full if you want) and the early lucinda williams album] This is a folkrock/country/jazzy folk record from Colorado that is amazingly unknown for being on the same label as the sought after early lucinda williams album. Its from 1974 and it has some good folky ballads but this track in the sample is definitely the winner. Should be a sought after item I don't know why there's no listings for this on record auction sites, its either uber rare or undervalued.
Ladd Roberts - Lady Up The Stairs (1974)
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This is a weird one, creepy Xian folk record that I can't find much info on, it seems that Charles Gellar has recorded about 3 or 4 really small private records in the mid 70s, I dunno what to make of it really, it's not great but its interesting and very ominous, I like his dark christian themes. Saw one sell a while back as another Buy It Now for 30 bucks I believe. Actually I can't be sure of that my memory could be off. Either way I'm curious what you think of it.
Charles Gellar - Tell it All Brother (197x)
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I love this record, wonderful samples abound, quite rare and small pressing, and it's pretty inexpensive still, this is the only record in the list that I know has a general established price and is listed in auction website catalogs, its a 50 dollar record, I just sold one recently and got 49 for it so thats about right. Since I'm doing showcases this is just the best parts, but people really only buy it for that one awesome Bob James like power jazzfunk track anyway, Ill upload that in full later on. John Standefer and Friends - For Love of The Art
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Sonrise! (not the Sonrise that's a much bigger private xian band, this is a college band with one other album preceding this one but they are virtually unknown) Yes friends it's another record I'm just not sure about, it's a christian rock/jazz/ Grand Funk Railroad wannabe kinda thing with a lot of covers of secular songs and one or two original compositions, I like the Lionel Richie Cover though, and the last track is alright too. This has a ton of bad pops and ticks on it though, very low quality pressing! But I figured it was worth your checking it out just because it's unknown and has no attached price or anything, see if you think its worth a shit or not (pretend it wasn't so scratched too...)
Sonrise - Movin' On
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Harvey Seaders Band - The Mad Surfer is a completely unknown 1987 lofi electro outsider exposition by one Harvey Seaders, it has a surfing theme, sounds like a lofi version of Paul Hardcastles Rainforest, has a lot of bad tracks but the few amazing electro jams make up for it. Basically a 40 year old white guy tried to make his answer to Rainforest, and this is it. Sadly I sold it already for some foolish reason and it only garnered 30 bucks cause no one could make heads or tails of it. Harvey Seaders Band - The Mad Surfer (1987)
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Rosemary Bailey, the nice middle-aged woman shown on the back of the jacket that looks like she's going to bring you a plate of cookies gets funky on her jazz organ here. Great and weird Lounge Jazz album by the inexplicable Rosemary. Completely unknown. Rosemary Bailey - S/T
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This was one trippy Junior High. Here we have the Stockard Junior High Band playing a tripped out version of Thus Spake Zarathustra from 2001, completely with avantegarde synth opening, which really makes the song, and then a pretty standard rendition of the rest. What was this band director putting in the kool aid?
Stockard Junior High LP
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Bill Dave and Mary - Transition, from 1971, a great little under the radar Xian jazz folk number with nice drums and pretty damn good lyrics, even has some sample worthy moments. I really like this one and I think its highly underrated, not sure what the value is either.
Bill Dave and Mary - Transition - Theres Gotta be More (1971)
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Frank Cardona's S/T LP has one really great song on it, a cover of funky nassau! My copy has a few scratches but still sounds pretty good.
Frank Cardona - Funky Nassau
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Isai y Victor - Generacion De Jesus! A mind boggler of a record if there ever was one, 2 lp, most of it sounds like it was recorded in a high school cafeteria off a tape player, and they range the whole gamut of weirdness, my favorite track is given below. Sadly I sold this a while back.
Victor Y Isai - Generacion De Jesus (1981)
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Lovely song on this Oklahoma Prison album compilation. There is a couple interesting tracks on here other than this gospel tune but they arent really worth mentioning. The real gem is this lovely old style gospel rendition, I can't remember the name of the group now either, I know Im worthless, it's called sorrows, it was recorded by female inmate while in prison. Ain't got time to lose - Sorrows.
Thanks for checking out my barrage of unknown records (with a few other little diddies thrown in for good measure.) I hope you can tolerate the sample clips/single tracks I gave you for the mean time but quite a few will be up on Ebay sometime soon. Including Bill Post Family, Fred Cancio, David Marr, Yoon Hang Gi, Ladd Roberts , Charles Gellar, Sonrise, and Bill Dave Mary. As for the rest if you are interested let me know and I will try to upload what I can, but I have a few other full LPs that are really great coming down the pike, including 2 Gospel Funk records! huzzah!
The list is stored on RateYourMusic.com, because I think it's the best site for making/generating lists. So if you've never been, which I'd be kind of shocked if you haven't, check it out from the above link. It's very safe and entertaining. yay. (I also have a 1970s list up from before too.)
Foolishly rare cosmic roller boogie single with really strange lyrics about reincarnation.... sells for $360.00, the bside is a bad new wavey heavy metal AOR song like 80s deep purple, blek. But this little guy is pretty darn catchy, even with the cheese meter on HI it still manages to pack a nice groove, a late 70s roller boogie film groove...
FUTURE FORCE - REINCARNATION 7" (BIG DEAL RECORDS 1981)
I include links in each post as either a hyperlink to a .rar that is held on divshare or rapidshare, or if there is a divshare player to listen to a track but no hyperlink to the .rar you can still download the mp3s from the divshare site if you click on the divshare button as they are all stored and ready for downloading as mp3.
