The Happy Moog
Sometimes I buy an album that I think it super-obscure and incredibly hard to find and then I find out that it has a huge cult following and I’m late to the game. The Happy Moog is one of those albums. Never released on CD, this album is a real hoot and is a must-listen to anyone that digs early electronic music. I could give some backstory about the album, but this site tells it much better.
The Ultimate Radio Bootleg Vol. 1
Now for the really odd crap. This “bootleg” is nothing but random soundbites from various radio DJs, commercials and jingles from KCBQ in San Diego. There’s no rhyme or reason to how these clips were selected, its just totally out there, man. There are some great little clips in here though, including some awfully awful jokes from Steve Martin!
Tomorrow Media Side 1
Okay, I bought this on a whim for about 2 bucks and have been trying to figure out what it is ever since then. From what I can gather it’s a promotional album from Tomorrow Media – one of those evil demographic companies that helped turn radio in a sea of mediocrity throughout the 70s and into the 80s. Its two LPs. Three sides are just samples of their various programs and radio ads and are incredibly boring. However, the first side is…really…um…special.
Posing itself as a broadcast from the future (2076) it tells the story of how direct marketing saved the universe. Going back and forth between silly soundbites and badly acted skits involving spacemen and radio programmers, it is hands-down the weirdest thing I ever bought from a record store. I don’t know what Tomorrow Media was thinking with this one, who would hear this and think “They’re right! Demographic studies are the future of radio – so says this spaceman!!!”
Maybe if Tomorrow Media would’ve spent more time working with their customers instead of making silly records then they’d still be around right now.
The Other Eye
A soundtrack album to U.S. News & World Report. From the back cover:
“Here are themes from the striking, multi-media portrait seen through ‘The Other Eye.’
Fresh, imaginative, buoyant, contemporary, these selections illuminate the profile of the typically human U.S. News And World Report reader. He is a man of achievement and affluence. A homeowner. Family head. Leader. An active, well-educated individual with youthful tastes and the above-average means to enjoy them.
Most important is the fact that for news he is so deeply, personally involved with U.S. News And World Report. And there are seven million others who share his preference, comprising one of the most important markets in America.
The USN&WR reader is a man worth knowing. So we invite you to listen…to relax and enjoy this tuneful album…and to see him with “The Other Eye.”
Okay, um…what the fuck? “the typically human U.S. News And World Report reader?” as opposed to the canine USN&WR reader? And all readers of this mag are hip cool cats with money to burn? My dad reads USN&WR, and he sure as hell ain’t hip or cool. I’m digging it though (the music, not the magazine.) There’s no artist information on the record, so the performers/writers are mystery….
WOW!!! This was a truly awesome post!!!! Forget the cheesy moog record, the Tomorrow Media LP & the Ultimate Radio Bootleg are the true gems here. (Posted the day before my birthday… I’ll consider it a late present… THANKS!!!)
Tomorrow Media was probably an advertising production agency and no doubt made it’s owners very rich considering the handful of acounts mentioned on this side. (Not to mention the creative way this promotional item was presented. I have some CDs from more recent production companies and they SUCK compared to this little gem!) One such client was the N.A.B., the National Association of Broadcasters, definately a ‘big bucks’ client. I’d make bets the client examples on the other sides would prove me right. It’s companies such as this that produce items like the US News record you love so much! Just listen again to this side and you will get some great historical insights into the nature of media in America. Like the prediction that all media would, one day, come from a single source. Can you say Internet?! As the announcer says at the end, “Marconi saw but a single spark, and today the blazes of broadcast communications leaves no one untouched!”. I’d love to hear the other sides as well.
As for the Ultimate Radio Bootleg record, these are compilations of what are called ‘airchecks’. NOT ‘soundbites’ which are modern beasts of a completely different species and nature. These records were produced by Cash Box magazine in conjunction with MCA records and sent to radio stations as well as record companies. Do a little research on each of these companies and you just might figure out the connections between the two, (fuhgeddaboutit!) as well as the ‘stroke’ value they were intended to produce. (Hint: Wiki) For radio DJs, airheck records and tapes were a great way to hear what other guys were doing to glean new ideas. (As one who knows, it ain’t easy to come up with something ‘new’, day after day, as a radio announcer! Come to think about it, blogging isn’t much different now is it?!) They also serve as a way to preserve a bit of radio history. I actually own Vol. VII just to give you an idea of how popular these were/are. So, THANKS AGAIN!!!
One more thing, if you want responses to posts such as these you might want to consider a little networking with other blogs who might have readers inerested in the material. (Send ’em an e-mail with a link to your post) WFMU might be interested in the 2 I liked and the ‘lounge music’ bloggers (such as Bellybongo) might like the US News music. You could also hit up blog aggregators like elbo.ws or ecbrown.org and et listed. Just a thought… then again maybe I should just keep my big mouth shut… too many visitors here might use up the bandwidth… Fuck it, go for it and may this blog become successful so you can get out of the evil economics field!!!
This is not an elpee from a cheesy an advertising production agency. It’s a promotional piece by TM productions in Dallas.
One of the leading radio-id-jingles companies in the world in the 70’s and eighties. They produced jingles for radiostations all over America (like WPLJ) and around the globe.
They still exist today as TMcentury.com doing work for many stations (id’s-commercials, libraries and imaging)Check out
http://www.tmcentury.com for their latest work or http://www.studiodragonfly.com for 90’s and early 2000’s work.
Their older wokr (70’s, 80’s) is high sought after by jinglecollectors. Most of their old demos are currently preserved by the MEDIA PRESERVATION FOUNDATION (http://www.jingles.org)
Most of us refer to TM’s production “Tomorrow Radio”. I think it dates back to 1979. TM featured it again by request on later jingle compilations. As for Ultimate Radio Bootleg,this was Mercury Records attempt at revamping, and making a name for itself in the top 40 radio world. Not only did you hear some great snips of great stations and DJ’s, but the music you hear in between the chatter is none other than Mercury artist of the day.