jim henson

It's a music mystery, and our help is needed to solve it!

On her blog, Pop Music As Pornography, Shelley (Music Director and 'Shuffle Function' DJ at Minnesota State University, Mankato's KMSU FM) relates a tale about scoring a big batch of old LPs that has a familiar ring as the sort of 'fishing' story that record collector nerds all have told at one time or another.

In 'We Need Your Help With This Mystery Track, Music Geeks' she writes about one mysterious unmarked album among the others...

"In one of the crates I found a test pressing album hand dated for '4-22-74'.
"The record was recorded for the Keysor-Century Corporation, and has a number assigned to it: - 42415.

"That is the only form of identification that I can find, all though there are numbers etched into the record itself.
"I share all of this information with you because I am desperate to find out who the band is on the record."

Shelley has included a 'movie clip' of one catchy, untitled track off of the mystery test pressing, and talks of her fruitless search to identify the unnamed band.

Giving it a listen, I agree with some of her assessment; The band sounds very familiar, and to my ear the mid-'70's sound seems very West Coast.

It made me think of a slightly less latin El Chicano or Malo, a less brass, more organ-based
Tower of Power perhaps, and the lead vocal reminds me of the Steve Miller Band before they hit the arena rock years.

It also sounds exactly like the sort of thing that once solved, we'll all say, 'Oh, of course! How obvious, why couldn't I figure that out?'

- - But for now, who knows? Not me, but what about you?

Click over, take a listen.
No record collector geek should have to suffer through such a thing alone...

- - ▼ and here's the lyrics ▼ to the mystery song, ring any bells for you??

Can you climb a mountain
When you want?
Can you tell a story
When you want?

Are you free?
Are you free?
Free to do what you want when you want,
Are you free to say 'no' when you choose?

Do you shuck and jive
All the time
On a steady high (getting high)
All the time

Are you free? Tell me now,
Are you free?
Free to do what you want when you want,
Are you free to say 'no' when you choose?

Do you shuck and jive
All the time
On a steady high (getting high)
All the time

Are you free? Tell me now - -
Are you free?
Free to do what you want when you want,
Are you free to say 'no' when you choose?

Free to do what you want when you want,
Are you free to say 'no' when you choose?

Free to do what you want when you want,
Are you free to say 'no' when you choose?


UPDATE, 8.24.09: Thanks to a commenter who cracked the mystery!
It spurred me to check in at the Shuffle Function blog to verify that they too had tumbled to the identity of the mystery band.

- Follow this link to their 7.05.09 post, 'Case Closed' and read the story and a bit about the band Haze from Minneapolis, and their eponymous 1974 LP!

Taking just a moment to direct you over to a gallery of images I posted at flickr and first linked to here at ILTS about fourteen months ago...

- Please follow link to my flickr set: Nostalgia for the Scholastic Book Club of the '60s & '70s

Since posting that set I've received nice feedback from time to time from folks who remember reading some of those books and others like them via The Scholastic Book Club back when they were kids.

I've updated the gallery a few times over the months, as I'll stumble upon more of these old titles in thrift shops and used book stores.

Today I just added 39 more images of book covers and illustrations, bringing the current total of the set up to 226.

The timing seemed right, as traffic to the flickr set spiked dramatically over the past few days, since being linked to in a post over at Boing Boing last Thursday.

Crazily, tens of thousands of people looked at the set over the weekend, and the sudden additional feedback has been most gratifying.

Many thanks to BB's Mark Fraunfelder, and to several other sites that have since picked up on it, including the
On Our Minds @ Scholastic blog from The Scholastic Book Club itself, still very much alive and well, and still generating excitement in the classroom!




























































































- The scans in this post are a sampling of the new images just added to
my flickr set:
Nostalgia for the
Scholastic Book Club
of the '60s & '70s
(click on link)

(This is a compiled repost of items culled from my soon-to-be-extinct subsidiary blog, 'Brief Window')

1. Celebrating the life of Miriam Makeba.






Miriam Makeba passed away this week,
at age 76.

The legendary South African singer / social activist collapsed suddenly, immediately after a concert performance in Southern Italy.

Follow links to obituaries for her from the
Associated Press and Times Online.

Click over to You Tube to see video of Miriam Makeba in performance, or to Last.fm
to hear some of her music.


2. Tony Dow sez: “Having something shown at the Louvre is about as good as you can get”

'Gee Wally, d'you really think so?'



Have you heard the exciting news?

Former child-star Tony Dow, now 63, the quintessential big brother of the classic TV sitcom 'Leave It To Beaver', has a sculpture that will be on display next month at the Louvre.

His abstract bronze figure,
'Unarmed Warrior' has been named as part of a juried group of pieces that will be shown in the historic Paris museum from December 11th - 14th as part of the Societe Nationale des Beaux-Arts exhibition.

- Read more about the details of this story from the Associated Press or at the Los Angeles Times site.

It's so very tempting to poke fun at this story - -
as in, 'Finally! The Louvre is getting smart about building a reputation for itself!'

- - But really, it seems like any light-hearted joking about
'Wally Cleaver, the bigshot artist' takes second-place to the simple thought;

'Think how excited Tony Dow must be right now'.

Dow has pursued many professional careers outside of acting in his life, and has been painting, woodworking, and sculpting for many years.

- You can see more of his bronze works at the website for the Karen Lynne Gallery in Beverly Hills.















3. Just now tumbled to
'Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog'

Okay, by now it's old news to many who are
up-to-date on just this sort of thing, but if
- - like me - - you've been cruising along unaware of the online musical super-hero film
'Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog', you may want to click over now and check it out. Big fun!

'Buffy' auteur Joss Whedon is behind the
action-comedy-romance, initially intended for internet-only distribution.

Neil Patrick Harris is perfectly cast as an
'up & coming' super-villain out to prove himself, who is also harboring a secret crush on the girl he's seen at the laundromat.

The musical numbers are well suited to NPH's Stephen Sondheim credentials.

After a few months of advance promotion, the 43-minute film premiered online in July of 2008, initially serialized into three separate acts.

This charming little movie benefits from its low budget, and is also an interesting experiment in crafty distribution.

Follow the link to the Wikipedia entry to learn more of the story behind the movie, and about its creators and cast.

Currently it streams for free at Hulu. Go watch it!

You can also watch 'Dr. Horrible's Sing-Along Blog' at the official website, where there's lots of other background material, links to soundtrack downloads, and info about the soon-to-be-released DVD edition, which is said to include lots of extras, including singing commentary - - ?