Did you ever pick up an album, gasp in amazement at the cover or subject matter, think to yourself "Now who in God’s name would buy THIS??" and then, after making sure nobody you recognized was looking in your direction, slink up to the cash register and plunk down your money?

Oh…you never did that?

Your loss, Skippy. In 20 years of rummaging through the cut-out and last-chance two-for-a-quarter bins in the record sections of K-Marts and Woolworths all over the south-east, I came upon many strange and wondrous specimens. I’d never seen them before, and if I didn’t grab ‘em right that minute, I just knew I’d never have another chance to acquire them (a prediction that was astoundingly accurate – 90% of this off-the-wall stuff never passed my way again).

So this is the section where I dump all the LPs that are truly weird, whacked-out, perverse, monumentally distasteful, or that were obviously paid for and/or performed by deluded or very disturbed people.

This is also where you’ll find those "classical party records" that enshrine performances so hideously maladroit, so commercially and aesthetically pointless, that they go ‘way beyond Camp and into the realm of …MUNDO BIZARRO !

Here, buddy, take a hit of this fine Appalachian Brown-Lung and jam those headphones on real tight. I’ll just crank up the volume a wee bit…

"The Nine Symphonies of Ludwig van Beethoven, for Promenade Orchestra & Ice Cream Vendor’s Bell. Conductor unlisted; Netherlands Radio Symphony Orchestra. [13:30] [Louis, son of Hendryk, is one of the few Dutch avant-garde-ists with a sense of humor. And a wicked one at that. Rather brilliantly, he’s arranged this flip-em-the-bird pastiche of, well, the Nine, and woven throughout it an insane, mind-numbingly persistent obligato part for, well, an ice cream vendor’s bell. Humor, especially satire, is hard to do in music, but this nose-thumbing 13-minute romp works because it reflects a genuine respect for the original music. One imagines Beethoven laughing raucously – just as the enchanted audience does in this live broadcast performance from the mid-Eighties. In its own ditzy way, it’s a masterpiece.]

"THE DUKE OF OOK" By Alan Seidler. [A cult hit from the mid-Seventies, a period rife with anti-Rock-Establishment items and artists (George Carlin comes to mind; as do Derryk & Clive, the Residents, the Fugs, Monty Python & Fawlty Towers, Ducks Deluxe – you name it, we’re carrying it! Now, about the "Duke of Ook"…imagine an album that starts off with a Neanderthal-grunt parody of "Duke of Earl", then segues into a tender lament of social alienation entitled "Me an’ My Oozin’ Cyst" – "Ol’ Man Debil’s got me on his List!" and you’ll get the idea. Seidler’s cracked and warbling tenor, his rinky-dink Elton-John-with-Itching-Powder-in-his-Jock piano playing, and his mild, wide-eyed delivery of truly disgusting and loathsome lyrics, make this a cult-classic for the mentally disturbed. If a man singing about the loneliness imposed on him by anal warts tugs at your heart-strings, you really should own a copy of this album. Just don’t tell me anything about your private life when you order it… The R. Crumb cartoon captures the spirit of this dubious enterprise; if you think that’s funny, you ought to find the whole album a real thigh-slapper.]

Bohemian Rhapsody ;)

Nights in White Satin; )

Whole Lotta Love; )

Paint it Black; )------ Total Time Approx 28.5 minutes.

White Shade of Pale; )

Lucy in the Sky; )

Can’t Live Without You;

I’m not in Love

GOULD, Morton:

KENTON, Stan:

Mickey Spillane Reads a Mike Hammer Adventure". (w/ music by Stan Purdy). (Source is a 10-inch LP issued by the "VL" label – maybe their only issue. I had the pleasure of chatting with Mr. Spillane -- who really is a most charming, quick-witted, and affable gentleman without the slightest pretensions of "literary" stature – as in, "Of course I write this stuff for money! And I’ve had a damned good time doing it, too!" – and as far as he remembers, only two thousand copies were pressed; distribution was apparently by pack mules and mentally deficient St. Bernards, because he himself never saw a copy in any record store, and was flabbergasted to see me holding one. Exactly where I found it, I cannot remember – "thrift" store probably, sometime around 1959 – and it had been "rode hard and put up wet" by the time I bought it, so expect considerable sonic grunge. But what a camp classic! Spillane reads his own script in a voice like a bucket full of rusty bolts, and Purdy’s soundtrack makes the music from "Peter Gunn" sound like late Beethoven, but it too is charming in its generic "tough guy" style. I wish the Source were in better condition, but at least it’s playable and understandable, and your chances of ever hearing it or finding another copy are significantly less than your chances of spotting the Loch Ness Monster in the Central Park reservoir. Timing is roughly 25 minutes. If you’ve read this far, you already know whether this is for you or not, but without doubt, it’s been one of my most popular Party Records for four decades – wait until you hear Spillane’s hard-breathing dialogue with the slinky dame named…Velda!

PETER USTINOV LECTURES ON CHAMBER MUSIC. The Last Civilized Man in Europe holds forth for 43:28 on one of his favorite subjects, with his trademark wit, intelligence, and charm. New-comers will learn a lot; connoisseurs will be delighted.