Careful with that tape transcription machine, Eugene.

Great time, and thank you for the invite to return. Big thanks to the ubiquitous Tony Renner, and wildman Chris Parr. Apparently the 'chance operatives' of our performance made the cut. 

Michael Coleman
Ian Lanius

Hamburger on WFMU

Welcome to The Most Pulp. i don't really feel like explaining tonight what this blog is about. i've eaten chocolate, and drank my tea, and i'm sleepy. but i figured it's been in existence for about a week now, and there is one(!) new subscriber...ya need somethin' to chew on. so here it is: last year, around this time i went to chk out "America's Funnyman" Neil Hamburger here in the ol' city with the Athenian heart, St. Louis. upon entering the club, the most beautifully disturbing music was blasting through the house monitors - a monotone cover of the 70's Jesus People standard "Day By Day" (see Godspell sdtrk.) it was truly awful. i beelined it over to the sound guy to inquire. "shit, i dunno who it is... ask neil hamburger, it's his ipod" was the reply. so began my acquaintance with Gregg Turkington. now Gregg IS Neil. and vis versa, see?...we ordered a couple shirley temple's, and got into a little chat about the stuff he had on that ipod, and i learnt of his interest in vanity pressings. what is a vanity pressing, you ask. well, this is music that was largely self-released in the 1960’s and early 70’s in runs of a few hundred copies and in many cases far less, then handed out to family and friends, or peddled on street corners, cocktail lounges, and ultimately the thrift store bins. Many of these records are so scarce that the artists themselves don’t have copies. among the people that recorded them are visionaries, complete no-talents, fools, freaks, heartbreakers, and the mentally ill. Gregg has hundreds of these things. he told me that when he has more money, the intention is to put out sort of a collection of the "Best of the Worst"...you know, like Neil Hamburger presents...kind of thing. it'll prolly come out on Eabla Records (www.eabla.com), the label he runs with friends. their sure to be ALOT of fun and there are a few additional releases and downloads currently available on the site, one of which, Joe E.'s Love Got In My Way i recommend highly. it's really worth a look. in the interim, Gregg suggested i began my own quest for these things - which i did in earnest (for about two weeks) but i am back at it. in future posts i will put up some of what i found - granted there are no pending reissues or conflicts of interest with the artists, promise. i really enjoyed my conversation with Gregg. while we wait for his compilations to surface, i've included a link to a segment he did on WFMU (see R. Stevie Moore) a few years back, spinning some of his found material. put it on and do the dishes, or transplant that root bound dieffenbachia you've been neglecting. i'm sure you'll agree, it's ALL wonderful. by the way, purty sure at this point i'd sell my ass at a truck stop in Amarillo for a copy of Kirby's eponymous album. you try finding one. wait! i could call Gregg... uh oh....

some words from the folks at Eabla about Love Got In My Way: Joe E.’s brooding music sounds more sensational than ever, having been lovingly remastered from the original tapes that Joe himself pulled out of his label’s dumpster in 1976. A profusely illustrated 16-page booklet tells the shocking story of the $20,000 gamble that gave birth to this lounge-pop classic, which we like to think of as a Pet Sounds for the middle-aged melancholic.

WFMU link:
http://www.wfmu.org/listen.ram?show=20283