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This jacket was so popular when we posted it on Facebook, I thought people would like to hear a track – It’s far less offensive than the World’s Greatest Obscene Phone Calls from last week, but more offensive than Marmaduke.  The best laughs come from innuendos like in the track below (usually ending with similar punch lines).

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(“Indoor Sport” by Cliff Ferré)

Last fall we listened to some tracks from an album of Aaron Copland’s compositions for piano, and I remarked that I would like to hear the pianist, Michigan-native James Tocco, perform transcriptions of Copland’s ballets (the album included a piece titled “Four Episodes from Rodeo“).

While one can certainly find piano transcriptions of Appalachian Spring and Billy the Kid, the quality of their interpretations are dubious – evident by the fact they have not been recorded by recital pianists of note. In fact, good recordings of Copland’s work as performed on piano are few and far between – so there was little hope I’d find one of James Tocco playing a ballet or anything else.

But it turns out that Leonard Bernstein ones wrote a piano transcription of Copland’s symphonic suite El Salón México. James Tocco performed it at the end of an album of Bernstein’s works for piano.

El Salón México is not my favorite piece by Aaron Copland (although I must be missing something – it was also transcribed for piano by Arturo Toscanini), but it is an excellent demonstration of the composer’s ability to adapt folk melodies into a seamless program. El Salón México is also the first in a series of works that would distinguish Copland and also ensure his ongoing success and artistic freedom.

Tocco’s performance is light-hearted and celebratory, with an occasional darkness that is perhaps drawn from his experience performing Bernstein’s maudlin “Anniversaries”. At times it really captures the liveliness of Copland’s suite and the feeling of a saloon.

So while it’s not a recording of the pianist performing one of the composer’s famous ballets, it is awfully close:

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(“Terra Nova” by Red Rhodes)

A sweet pedal steel album with a funny cover, and a song for our little girl Nova – A gift from Jake Hyer.

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This seven-minute epic, replete with spiritual imagery, only describes one thing as sacred…

It’s a record store.

Dave learns several lessons about records this week, all courtesy of this one:

(front)

(back)

So first of all, about split LPs:  Never liked the format.  Split singles are okay in my book (Guilt Ridden Pop’s Dragons Power Up!/Puppies and Trains single was one of my favorite local records of the year) – they’re just a friendly introduction.  Split albums are too much for me – if you’re not familiar with either group it’s like back to back blind dates.

Over the past couple weeks several large collections have flooded the shop.  We’ve been working long hours to clean records and get them out there, digging through wine boxes and crates filled with records that mostly…suck.  You know the kind of records I’m talking about.  We could probably travel west down Lake Street to Saver’s and find ‘em.  Mantovani, Tapestry, Van Cliburn’s recording of Tcaikovsky’s piano concerto.

And the Yetti-Men/Uppa Trio split on KAL Records was in one of those boxes.  I thought it was an album called Yetti-Men by the Uppa Trio and I played one side…

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Kind of fun in a Mighty Wind sort of way, but not exciting enough that I turned the record over after a side.  I did think the jacket was fun -”Yetti-Men, kick ass!”  I decided I’d give it to the good folks at Yeti Records as a wall decoration.  I put the record in the car, where it sat for a couple weeks as I meant to bring it over there.  Twice the kids and I drove over to 35th and Nicollet but got there when Yeti was closed, so the record sat in the back seat in between the car seats.

After I saw the Yetti-Men (a band, not a title!) mentioned in a thread on the Modern Radio Message Board, I took the time to look the record up.  Turns out it’s a split album made here in Minnesota in 1964.  The Yetti-Men reportedly recorded their side in the Minnetonka High School gymnasium where they were students.  One of the Yetti-Men was Tom Rapp, who would later perform with the influential psychedelic band Pearls Before Swine and record a couple albums of his own for Blue Thumb in the 70s.

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(“Wine, Wine, Wine”)

And the Yetti-Men is kickass, reverb-soaked surf!  Lessons learned:  Listen to both sides of a split album before giving up on it, and look up records before giving them away.  Hymie’s is doing well, but not so well we can give away a gem like this as a wall decoration.

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(“Break Down”)

Oh yeah, third lesson learned: Don’t leave super sweet records sitting in the car.  Especially not between the kids’ car seats.

This weekend on the Hymie’s website:  A tribute to Buddy Holly, who died fifty-three years ago today in a small plane crash over Clear Lake, Iowa.  Tune in (click in, I guess) tomorrow and Sunday to hear Buddy rarities and a playlist of classic Crickets covers.