Vinyl record covers discussed. This episode: The Very Best of the Greatest. Hosted by Rich Bachelor and Mark Mager. StylusCast from Downtown Portland, home of the world’s very best and greatest vinyl scene. Each week we discuss 5 albums selected by the merit of their covers (usually).

Cal Tjader “The Best of Cal Tjader” 1967 Verve Records
John Coltrane “The Best of John Coltrane – His Greatest Years” 1970 MCA Records Dizzy Gillespie “The Greatest of Dizzy Gillespie” 1972 RCA Records
Jackie DeShannon “The Very Best of Jackie DeShannon” 1975 United Artists Records
Various Artists “Best of the Truck Driver Songs” Starday Records

Read more…

Sue Saad and the Next have an odd story to tell. Well, let’s start with that name. The unavoidability of the word “sad” in the lead singer’s name sort of leads you to a place where it sounds like her name is an insult: aw, yer just a Sad Sue.

And then there’s The “Next”. Sounds like Life Itself wants to move on: ” Well, here’s Sue, and her band,  uh-” “Next!”

Best of all, what information one may find about them on the internet is exactly what one would assume about a band with a name like that. They are sometimes derided as a “one hit wonder,” though the further one looks, the less evidence there seems to be of their ever having had a hit. They appear to have suffered from there already being a Pat Benatar and a Blondie in the world, and the world was largely indifferent to a underwhelming hybrid of the two. The highest they ever rose on the charts was #131st.

There’s even a really sad fan page run by their one remaining fan, but that’s the internet: there’s something on there for everyone, and if you say one bad word about someone you’re pretty sure everybody hates, you stir up the hornet’s nest of the final hardliners who are defending the good name of, Farrah Fawcett, say. Read more…

“Geddes sings from first person narrative in the character of the titular young man. Joey recalls the events leading up to a recent tragedy in which his girlfriend Julie is unintentionally gunned down by her own father, who intended to kill Joey after learning that Julie was pregnant with Joey’s child. Joey himself admits that he repeatedly relives the tragedy in his mind every time he tries to sleep.”

This is how some anonymous Wikipedia contributor (perhaps being funny; hard to tell with material like this) summed up “Run Joey Run,” the only hit David Geddes ever had, in 1975.

Why buy the album at all when you can just read this maudlin comic about the only song anyone cares about right here?

What can we say about David Geddes that isn’t already sort of apparent in his choice of topic matter? The Seventies were a great time for shit like this. And by “shit like this,” I mean sad little songs that sort of make a much bigger deal out of things than is deserved by what is actually being discussed.
It’s a song that was first introduced to me as “a song about a guy who gets his girlfriend pregnant, and now he needs to run away.” But no; it’s a song about a guy who has gotten his girlfriend pregnant and has been told specifically to stay away from the house of said girlfriend by said girlfriend, and his going over there gets her shot.  Run Joey, Run! Read more…