Vinyl Craft Tat

I seem to be hooked on seeking out images of butchered vinyl. Like picking at a scab, studying the wannabe artistic endeavours of talentless hobby crafters gives me a grim, masochistic pleasure. After some consideration I've come to the conclusion that, ugly, mundane objects though they undoubtedly are, if these hideous vinyl crafts weren't being made, some delusional numpty would be selling the same scratched-to-buggery records on ebay, in their unmodified state, describing them as 'in excellent condition' - it happens all the time, believe me! Every laughably executed salad bowl is one more terminally ill record taken out of the vinyl gene pool. At the risk of flogging a dead horse, here are a selection of some of the worst examples of vinyl craft tat that I have stumbled across. Helpfully, I've provided captions detailing how the 'artist' describes his creation, just in case it's not immediately clear what the hell you're supposed to do with it.

Cake stand

Fruit & veg holder

Vinyl flowers

Record bowl...

...and a handy serving suggestion!

Flower pot holder

Vinyl wreath - Christmas or funeral? You decide

Scarily, the wreath image comes from a blog that encourages parents to let their children become apprentice craft tat-mongerers. Bad idea. Most kids wouldn't be able to tell you what a vinyl record is for, let alone be capable of assessing whether it is too scratched to play. Put the idea of record modification into their heads and you can kiss goodbye to your cherished vinyl collection, carefully and lovingly amassed over a lifetime. But at least you'll never be short of somewhere to keep your fruit and veg.

In the interests of even-handedness, and to show that for every rule there's an exception, I've found an example of vinyl craft by somebody whose artistic abilities are clearly in a different league to the competition. I love this!

Judie Tzuke Gets A 'Tache

There always seems to be someone trying to palm off their shoddy, misguided vinyl crafts on us record enthusiasts - usually a 'stunning' fruit bowl fashioned out of a melted Paul Young LP, or a set of 'beautiful' drinks coasters made from the hacked-out centre labels of a bunch of car boot sale finds that the desperate seller, not having the first idea of how to grade or describe records, failed to shift in their un-butchered state. Inevitably, these hobbyists' abominations are aimed at the well-meaning friends and relations of record collectors who, in a misguided attempt to buy the collector in their life a gift they might like, miss the mark by a country mile. I have friends who are cat lovers, but I have never deemed it appropriate on their birthdays to give them gift-wrapped, feline body parts in recognition of their moggy love. Leave our vinyl alone!

That said, I stumbled upon this on ebay today and couldn't help but laugh and, when I'd stopped laughing, I found myself actually wanting to own this item because it is so hilariously shit.

 

When the creator of this (inevitably 'stunning') clock was choosing a record sleeve to turn into a timepiece, did it not occur to him that the market for blonde, conflagrant, winged rabbits might be so niche as to be virtually non-existent. Judie Tzuke is an attractive woman, whose looks are definitely not enhanced by a Terry Thomas-style moustache, but damn it if I'm not tempted to make a purchase!

Tragedy - All Metal Tribute To The Bee Gees

If, like me, you've ever lain awake at night wondering what your favourite Bee Gees hits might sound like given the once over by a grotesque, foul-mouthed Heavy Metal band, you can now kiss your insomnia goodnight, because I have the answer: something like Tragedy, the world's number one (and possibly, only) 'All-Metal Tribute to the Bee Gees and Beyond.' During my trip to the States last year, I was simultaneously chuffed and gutted to stumble upon this poster only to find that the circus had long-since left town.

On Sunday evening Mrs Shelf-Stacker and I finally caught up with the band when they played at the Jazz Café (!) in Camden Town. The line-up has now expanded to a five-piece (plus onstage stooge), whilst their image has degenerated into that of a bunch of corpulent, homo-curious bikers let loose in Cher's wardrobe. I laughed 'til my jaw hurt!

Like Hayseed Dixie before them, the band has obviously wised up to the potentially limiting nature of covering just one band's songs and have broadened their repertoire to include any über-camp hit that can be given the Tragedy treatment. And so, we are treated to barking mad, flying V-enhanced versions of songs popularised by Donna Summer, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, Dolly Parton and Kenny Rogers, KC and the Sunshine Band and Bonnie Tyler. Pick of the bunch though has to be their mash-up of Slayer's Raining Blood with The Weather Girl's It's Raining Men. If you can keep a straight face through their promo video you might want to check your pulse.

So Shelf-Stacker, where's the vinyl in this post then, you may ask? Well, it's a tenuous link at best, but Tragedy's support act, a genius one-man-band by the name of Corn Mo, who also happens to be the keyboard player in Tragedy using the pseudonym Disco Mountain Man (are you following this?) happens to be in another band called .357 Lover who have a new album out on vinyl. I did mention that the link is tenuous, didn't I? If the whole album features material as gloriously, ludicrously, uninhibitedly, pomptastic as the title track, The Purchase Of The North Pole, then my pole is definitely headed north!

It's Miller Time

Frankie Miller is someone I had always meant to check out. I mean, I was vaguely aware of the man and the musical ballpark that he operated in, but never quite got around to giving him a proper listen. Until recently.

No doubt I saw Frankie Miller on Top Of The Pops back in 1978 when Darlin' hit the UK top ten, but probably found his music a bit grown-up alongside fluffier distractions such as Blondie, Sarah Brightman & Hot Gossip, Queen and Boomtown Rats who all charted at the same time. I next heard Frankie's name around 1984 when I found myself in a recording studio for the first time. It was a tiny, pine-clad space in the converted loft of a terraced house in Berkhamsted, Hertfordshire. The studio owner, a charming gent called Stewart Blandamer, had a clock on the studio wall fashioned from a copy of Miller's Darlin' 7" single. It turned out that Stewart had written the song for Frankie and been rewarded with the financial wherewithal to set up a home studio in which to record talentless local bands such as my own. As a bunch of teenage headbangers we were excited to discover that Stewart was responsible for playing the tenor sax on Status Quo's Hello LP, but the Frankie Miller writing credit was, no doubt, far more lucrative. To his eternal credit, Stewart was patience personified and sent us home, dreaming of stardom, with a tape sufficiently well-recorded to make our numerous deficiencies achingly clear. I would never have knowingly thrown away such an important historical artefact, but my copy does seem to have disappeared. Perhaps a music lover stumbled upon it and decided that the only humane thing to do was to put it out of its misery and have it destroyed. The world will just have to cope without ever hearing High Time For Love or Don't Let It End. An incalculable loss!

Even when not pursuing his solo career Frankie Miller's fingerprints seem to have been all over the music industry. Before setting off on his solo path, Frankie was in a band called Jude with Robin Trower, Jimmy Dewar and Jethro Tull's Clive Bunker, but they never recorded together. What a waste! Having said that, could you realistically have two vocalists of the calibre of Miller and Dewar in the same band? Surely Dewar wouldn't have been content to just play bass? The Live And Dangerous version of Still In Love With You by Thin Lizzy is, quite possibly, my all-time favourite ballad, but for years I was unaware that it is Frankie who duets with Phil Lynott on the studio version of the song. Twenty years after that recording, in 1994, while in the process of putting a band together with Joe Walsh, Nicky Hopkins and Ian Wallace of King Crimson, Miller suffered a brain haemorrhage and fell into a coma. Another of those 'what if?' stories that seem to litter the music industry. Miller's Paul Rodgers / Rod Stewart / Bob Seger-hybrid of a voice fronting that line-up would have been quite something! Most importantly though, Frankie survived.

No doubt discouraged by a more modest level of commercial success than his vocal talents deserved, Miller would often write for others and had the likes of Ray Charles, The Eagles, Rod Stewart and Joe Cocker queuing up to record his songs. Bob Seger covered Miller's Ain't Got No Money on his Stranger In Town album and has cited him as a major influence. Perhaps Miller has a Stranger In Town clock on his wall to remind him who pays his mortgage.

Here's a couple of killer tunes from Miller's The Rock album, complete with one-time McCartney sideman Henry McCullough on lead guitar. Blues-Rock at its best!

Concerto For A Rainy Day

Living a stone's throw from the River Thames is a wonderful thing. Twenty minutes is all it takes by train to get to central London from the Shelf-Stacker abode, yet the tranquillity of the river can make it seem that the big city is a thousand miles away. In what now seems like another lifetime I would walk the length of the Holloway Road to get to work, stepping over freshly spilt blood on the pavement outside the type of pub you really don't ever want to find yourself in, senses numbed, inured to the ever-present tension and hostility that seeped from the concrete around me. Now, the closest I get to hostility is when a couple of swans square up to each other on the lazy swell of the river. I'm more likely to see a heron fly overhead than a beer glass these days. Idyllic. But there is a down side. That stone's throw is in danger of becoming a half-hearted lob as, in common with much of the UK, the relentless rain is threatening to bring the river into our home.

Okay, I'm losing you, I know. What the hell's this got to do with record collecting? Well, just that, by my reckoning, a mere one inch of water would be enough to destroy over a thousand of my LPs as they're sat on the floor waiting for the day when I miraculously find shelf space for them. I've already told Mrs Shelf-Stacker that in the event of a flood - fuck the soft furnishings! - I'm getting my vinyl to higher ground. Her response was that perhaps the kids and the cat should be my priorities. Sod 'em, they have legs, they can look out for themselves. In fact, they might want to help carry my babies to safety. I've just read that back and, perhaps it doesn't show me in the best light.

While I take a long, hard look at myself, here are two of the most atmospheric, evocative, inclement weather-related tracks ever commited to vinyl. Love 'em! They're sure to clock up plenty of needle time on my Ark.

Hedge Over Troubled Water

You know how sometimes you can't see what's right in front of your face? Well, I guess sometimes you can even miss what's right in front of someone else's face. I must have looked at the sleeve of Simon & Garfunkel's ubiquitous Seventies dinner party soundtrack a zillion times without noticing Art Garfunkel's brief but valiant dalliance with facial hair. That's one hell of a 'tache you've got there Art! You might want to get a tissue though - you seem to have a small, man-shaped bogey caught in it. And there was me thinking it was Art who got up Paul Simon's nose!

High On The Hog

Have you ever noticed that little column over on the right? Hi-Fi Hogs? Well, why not? I thought music fans loved lists! In case it needs spelling out, this is a selection of some of the many records currently floating my coracle. Do you give a monkey's? Or even a Monkees? Probably not. Perhaps if I zhuzh things up a little by explaining why these LPs are making my music-loving heart glow like the valves in a Vox AC30, you'll start to care.

Frost - Through The Eyes Of Love (1970)

For starters, I love that psychedelic artwork by renowned artist David Edward Byrd. Carelessly, I've yet to hear the other Frost albums, but can they possibly offer up anything as thrilling (or with such a kick-arse title) as Fifteen Hundred Miles (Through the Eye of a Beatle)? Don't let the harmony vocals on opener Black As Night fool you, Frost have the urgency and thuggish momentum to overturn tables and knock fully grown men off their feet. Lead guitarist Dick Wagner later shored up Alice Cooper after the original, classic Alice line-up imploded. No wonder Welcome To My Nightmare is such a humdinger. The whole of Through The Eyes has an amped up The Move feel to it, what with Dick Wagner's and Don Hartman's Wood and Lynne-alike vocals, the bass working harder than a fat man's heart and the guitars flitting between a caress and a scalping.

Turning Point - Creatures Of The Night (1977)

Not to be confused with that other classic album of the same name by Jazz Rock / Fusion pioneers Kiss. Turning Point features ex-members of Ian Carr's Nucleus and Isotope - two other bands well worth exploring if, like me, you get off on all this clever-clever, noodley, wankery. Admittedly, there's nothing here as singalong as I Love It Loud, but listening to this will increase your IQ.

Highway Robbery - For Love Or Money (1972)

I've been slumming it with a CD copy of this album for ages, but finally managed to pick up a pristine vinyl pressing last month. Highway Robbery's one and only album is up there with other gobsmacking debuts by Captain Beyond, Montrose and Stray Dog. Soundwise, chuck Uriah Heep into the mix and you've got the picture, or whatever the aural equivalent is. I was tempted to link to a YouTube video for All I Need (To Have Is You), an uncharacteristically sensitive little ditty featuring acoustic guitar, bottleneck guitar and lead and harmony vocals that scream David Byron-era Uriah Heep, but the gonzo little devil on my shoulder persuaded me to inflict Promotion Man on you instead. Damned fine choice lil' devil - slide guitar to the max!

The Golliwogs - Pre-Creedence (1975)

Sporting a moniker I'm sure they'd sooner forget, the pre-Creedence Clearwater Revival Golliwogs laid the foundations for the CCR sound we know and love. More than just a curio, there's some must-have material here. Walking On The Water features some of the best wasp-in-a-jam-jar fuzz guitar you'll ever hear.

Randy Pie - Highway Driver (1974)

German and funky. Are you sure? They get labelled as a progressive rock band, but the groove overrides everything. Despite not singing about bringing daughters to be slaughtered, Mrs Shelf-Stacker's ears prick up whenever The Pie shake the mancave. My US version of this LP has the same tracklisting as the UK pressing, features a lame cover illustration of a bird in flight and, just to create confusion, is self-titled (as is their debut). Hmm, record companies - don't you just love 'em!

Spooky Tooth - The Last Puff (1970)

I think I said enough in my last post. If you're not a convert yet, you never will be.

Jonathan Wilson - Fanfare (2013) / Jonathan Wilson - Gentle Spirit (2011)

What should I listen to today? Neil Young? Crosby, Stills and Nash? Tom Petty? Bob Dylan? Pink Floyd? Oh, I know, I'll stick them all in a blender and whizz myself up a Laurel Canyon-flavoured Jonathan Wilson smoothie. Has to count as at least three of my 5-a-day! Have a swig - it's tasty and soooo good for you.

Bloodrock - Bloodrock (1970)

If you're not from the USA, you'd be forgiven for never having heard of this bunch of hairy herberts. By all accounts D.O.A. from the Bloodrock 2 LP was a radio staple on the other side of the pond in the Seventies and seems to attract as much derision as anything by Iron Butterfly or Grand Funk Railroad. No surprise then that I'm a fan. It seems that Grand Funk Svengali Terry Knight very nearly pulled off the remarkable feat of turning another critics' piñata into a huge commercial success. Think Black Sabbath, Grand Funk, Uriah Heep. Okay, enough thinking already - this ain't Turning Point!

 

Beckett - Beckett (1974)

Another Progressive Rock band who refused to be constricted by that label. The track here has more in common with Led Zeppelin or the criminally overlooked Detective than Yes or Genesis, but their sole album features its fair share of introspection, moody orchestration and 5-minute-plus excursions. A Rainbow's Gold was covered by Iron Maiden for the B-side of some juvenile, Boys' Own, gallopy-crap 7" or other, but don't let that put you off. This is a stonewall classic from an album that is mystifyingly unheralded. Vocalist Terry Wilson-Slesser went on to front Paul Kossoff's Back Street Crawler, turned down an offer to join AC/DC and was considered as a replacement for Paul DiAnno in Iron Maiden. He should have been a star.

Now, do pay attention at the back, 'cause the Hi-Fi Hogs will be changing and I shall be testing you. Here endeth today's lesson. Class dismissed!