It Came from the Garbage

Weird as it may sound, the VVers, on a seemingly annual basis, come across vinyl thrown in the garbage.  Usually there are only a few records, but occasionally there is an entire box.  Recently, the VVers were walking out of a local record store and just twenty steps up the road found a massive stack of records cascading out of a garbage can.  A lot of these were very clearly beyond hope.  Quite a few were water damaged and were starting to show signs of growage.  This is where the buck stops.  Sifting through the trash heap, at least three of James Brown's most sought after records were found in this condition.  Sad as the thought of that may be, this discarded bunch contained many of the sorts of records that deserve to be put out of their musical misery.  A few exceptions?  There was one 70's "Fat Albert" animated series record, which at first glance looked ok, but upon further inspection (mind you that the inspection was going on out on the sidewalk of a busy street with VVer #1 digging in a garbage can, awkward) the vinyl was badly warped.  Initially, an "All in the Family" TV soundtrack looked sharp, but then it turned out the record itself was missing.  Fear not dear reader.  Digging a bit deeper, a few things were salvaged.  Important to note, when these records entered the House of VV they received a thorough, double cleaning, inside and out.  Here are the three that were rescued:

Aretha Franklin - You - 1975

Unfortunately, this record survived.  Side one is slightly listenable, lead off track "Mr. D.J. (5 for the D.J.)" being one of the funkier numbers.  It's also the only track she wrote on this trashed LP.  The ballad, "I'm not Strong Enough to Love You" is pretty on target.  Not really the sort of thing that makes hearts happy in the House of VV, but not too painful.  The rest are just rough.  VVer #2 was very unsympathetic to Ms. Franklin's caterwauling so much so that most of the album was accompanied by a dying cat impersonation.  It's for the best.  The most entertaining quality for this one is the photograph on the cover.  The outfit, the glasses, the blowout 'do, the pose, the campy smile... it's a special kind of train wreck.

Mr. T - Mr. T's Commandments - 1984

Tougher-than-nails 80's superstar, Mr. T, raps, does spoken word, and tells it like it is, with his back-up singers keeping the tempo up.  The album is a total cluster, geared towards young-ins.  The synths and songwriting are horrendous.  The tempo-less Mr. T's voice is like a bag of gravel being rolled around on concrete.  Think Oscar the Grouch and you're almost there.  Granted, his message to kids is full of wisdom, "Don't Talk to Strangers," "No Dope, No Drugs," and the like.  The tunes that really fail hard though are the ones about himself, "Mr. T, Mr. T (He Was Made for Love)," "The Toughest Man in the World," and "The One and Only Mr. T."  Taking corny to an entirely other level of pain--way to go T.  Somehow they figured out how to take the tough out of the toughest.  Awful.  He wrote exactly zero percent of what's on here so let's at least hope he got paid.  Those gold chains don't pay for themselves!  Again, the album cover is probably the most entertaining thing here.  Mismatched tube socks, boots held together with duct tape, gold chains, feathered earrings, and of course the mohawk.   He's a true original, sort of a disco era fashion icon of rags to riches.  It's just one of those ridiculous 80's artifacts that have to be seen (and not heard) to be believed.

James Brown - Nothing but Soul - 1968

All instrumental, a little chaotic, kind of funky.  There is a chance the VVers hold on to this one for a little while.  The Godfather of Soul takes a break from shouting about Hot Pants and Soul Power to instead focus on "his increasing technical ability as an organist," says the back cover write-up.  Also, it describes the album as a "series of instrumentals that should find their way on the turn tables of disc jockies and home recording machines of millions of his fans."  Good luck arguing with that!   Rhythms and soulful swagger are here, especially on the all too short "Buddy-E."  Not too bad, but sometimes it flows into a blurting, wince-inducing, scat-clarinet territory.  It tortures the ears.

Of the three, no big winners here.  In doing a bit of reading on the interwebs it turns out that all three albums are out of print, which is interesting, and not entirely disappointing.  Also, there is a good chance the Mr. T album is worth a little chunk of change, somewhat justifying the effort.  Sometimes garbage is just garbage, but you'll never know until you give it a spin.  Dig it!

James Brown - Soul Power - 1971

Got-ta have it!

VVer #1 found this pathetic-looking 45 while crate digging at a cavernous used book store in the South Street area of Philadelphia.  The place resembled an old auto body shop and smelled about the same.  Scouring crates of 45s is not the usual thing, but VVer #1 was in the process of doing some traveling (sans car) and didn't want to load down too much with LPs.   Also it seems as of late that stacks of inexpensive 45s are everywhere these days.  Is this because so many of the jukeboxes of the world have been decommissioned in favor of those awful internet ones?  BARFFF!  The store in question had at least twelve milk crates full of these little guys just stacked to the gills.  Unfortunately "stacked" means literally vinyl to vinyl with no sleeves to provide protection between the little slabs.  BARRRFFF AGAIN!!!  After a good bit of persistent digging and some level of prayer, James Brown popped out with "Soul Power."   The somewhat faded paper label on it had a nice little logo "A James Brown Production" with Mr. Brown's trademark crooked grin at the center.  Alright.  Smashing Pumpkins did a super fuzzed-out cover of this song in the waning days of the original line-up of the band so this was at least a sort of known quantity, but not the JB original.  The disc was scuffed and scratched up pretty badly, but no deep gouges.   Looked pretty rough, but hard to say how deep the scratches were.  Would it ever play again?  What the hell?  After all that digging it made sense to shell out the dollar and walk out with at least a scrap of a thing.

After giving it several goings over with a brush and some cleaning fluid the scruffy 45 is as good as it's going to get.  Surprisingly, it plays and sounds pretty decent aside from a little pop and hiss here and there.  Are 45s built to take more punishment than LPs?  Records of this size and from this era typically had a weight of only forty grams (compared to the typical 120-gram weight of an LP) which doesn't really give you a lot of groove (don't tell Mr. Brown that!).   Maybe that's less surface area to get damaged?  Maybe all those years in the relatively safe confines of a jukebox lessened the potential for the accidental scratch?  Who knows, but the dang thing plays and that is all that matters.  In fact, the natural wear of repeat playing and poor storage actually lends a gritty sound to this type of music that works in its favor.

"Soul Power" is a ripping tune with a tight chugging bass; ready for booty shaking.  James Brown sings about soul power "we got to have it," "we want it," "we need it," and some other stuff he raps in his gruff shout/singing voice.  Most of it isn't particularly interesting lyrically; it's the way he performs it that makes the big impact.  James is throwing himself at this full force with the righteous assistance of his band, the original JBs.  The call-and-response between Mr. Brown and the band mirrors that of the back-and-forth within the horns section on this track.  All of that is ferried along nicely by a persistent blues guitar riff.  This single has a pretty slick B-side, "Soul Power Parts 2 & 3."  Are the parts really that different from one another?  Well, no but there is plenty more "let's take it to the bridge one more time!," "AAAOwwww!," "good god!," and "houuugh!."  Apparently there is a twelve minute complete version out there, but you'll never fit that onto a 45 for jukebox use.  At that speed you can only squeeze four and half minutes max onto a side.  That's rough for any musician who wanted to release an extended jam as a single.  Not happening.

Though Mr. Brown is the godfather of soul, these VVers admit that they are often mystified when they come across this soul/funk category, be it a record shops or a DJ night, mainly because it is unexplored territory.  Exploring it through a little crate digging seems like a reasonable approach.