Sunday, February 13, 2011

Various Artists "Exploiting Plastic Inevitable" LP international 1960s

Full title: Exploiting Plastic Inevitable: Lesson 1, World Wildlife Soundation.  This is a rare and great compilation of garage (on the "Drinking" side) and psych (on the "Smoking" side) from all over the world.  There is a second volume out there which I believe was also limited to 700 copies, and I'd love to get my hands on a copy of that or at least hear the music if anyone out there has one (hint, hint to other bloggers!).  These releases appear to have been pressed around 1995, and I likely bought this in a used record store shortly thereafter.

The claim is that this is Yahoo Records 009; I'd certainly be interested in what the 8 previous records were if they exist.  [See Comments below... Yahoo is the German guys who do the Prae-Kraut Pandemonium series .] The few photos of this I've seen online have a yellow cover, so I feel special with my blue construction paper one.  The title is obviously derived from the Andy Warhol/Velvet Underground Exploding Plastic Inevitable events, which I believe is what was satired in one scene in the movie Midnight Cowboy.

The music selections are mostly excellent and psych/garage collectors will certainly recognize some of the bigger names.  Most songs are originals, but there are a few covers (of Bo Diddley, Lothar & The Hand People, John Lee Hooker, The Easybeats) and the Los Yorks track is at least initially derived from the Kinks' instrumental "Revenge."  Some tracks have appeared on other, better-known collections, but others I've only heard on this release.  The Sir Henry & His Butlers track has appeared elsewhere, but I've heard it comped before with the piano coda missing, so this might be a different edit that was for a different format/release.

A couple of items in the tracklist below are altered from the info in the liner notes.  I believe the multinational Rhythm Checkers also had a Luxembourg connection [it turns out I am wrong about this - see Comments!] and The Cedars (a.k.a. The Sea-ders) were Lebanese but are identified on this LP and sometimes elsewhere as being Israeli, which I would imagine would bother them some, especially with the cedar tree being the national symbol of Lebanon.  It'd be like calling a band with the name The Stars of David "Jordanian."  Note also that as the name "Diaz" suggests, Danny Diaz and The Checkmates were Filipino, not Chinese, and worked in Hong Kong.  Blogger kept my Labels (below) for the post to 20, so unfortunately I had to leave out a few countries.

Also of interest: Dr. West's Medicine Show and Junk Band was a project of Norman Greenbaum a couple of years before his massive hit "Spirit in the Sky."

Smoking Side
1 "Jigsaw" - Dr. West's Medicine Show and Junk Band (USA)
2 "I'm Looking in the Universe" - The Rabbits (Greece)
3 "Hard Work" - Mogollar (Turkey)
4 "Machines" - The Cool Cats (Norway)
5 "For Your Information" - The Cedars (Lebanon)
6 "19.8" - Los Walkers (Argentina)
7 "Pretty Style" - Sir Henry & His Butlers (Denmark)
8 "Mira tu" - Los Yorks (Peru)


Drinking Side

1 "Pills" - Shorty and Them (UK)
2 "Clock on the Wall" - The Guess Who (Canada)
3 "She's So Fine" - Danny Diaz & The Checkmates (Philippines / Hong Kong)
4 "Far Away" - The Countdowns (Switzerland)
5 "Yo grito" - Los Sirex (Spain)
6 "'Cause I Need You" - The Rhythm Checkers (West Germany /France)
7 "We Are Happy" - The Seasons (Chile)
8 "You Don't Love Me at All" - The Moonjacks (Sweden)
9 "Boom Boom" - The Tempters (Japan)

Smoke and drink.

8 comments:

  1. now look-a-here, someone dug it up finally. Yahoo was the label of 3 friends in germany, and released 15 volumes of prae-kraut pandaemonium, a comp series of 60s beat, psych,garage and some weirder stuff of german, austrian & swiss bands, plus a lot of UK-bands who only released records in Germany.(the yahoo-moniker was dropped soon as the www.yahoo got big. We forgot to register trademarks. Stayed poor, but happy that way, ha ha...) These records are chronologically posted these days on allmusic-wingsofdream.blogspot.com (aka old melodies)(vols. 1-4 are up already) When making vinyl wasn't possible anymore, we decided to keep going and released vols 16 -20 of prae-kraut as web-only compilations. These can be found on spurensicherung.blogspot.com (aka roots and traces) alongside some web-exclusive comps of horrendously rare Kraut singles 69-73. Exploiting Plastic was a fun project in times, when things like these still were unusual, except for some continental european garage comps. We tried to put some more exotic countries on the map. You're right about The Cedars, although they were popular in Tel Aviv, and Lebanon was a very different, westword-orientated little country in the 60s. Rhythm Checkers had nothing to do with Luxembourg. In deed not even with Holland. They were a German band from the Saarland with a French singer, but played more in France than in Germany. Later on, after a lot of lineup changes, they turned completely French, and lived in Strasbourg in the partly German speaking region of Alsace as The Checkers. The Sir Henry-track is taken from the 45 instead from LP, which explains the difference. The story of the covers (relaesed in 6 different colours, but in shithouse-paper quality) is a funny one and can be explored on www.prae-kraut.de Anyway, good to see our ancient work available in blogland again. we never made any money whith that shit, but we had a lot of fun. Yours, the lolly pope.

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  2. Lolly Pope -

    Thank you for the comment and the info! I corrected the Rhythm Checkers info in the post.

    I have very much enjoyed all of your comps through the years, I have a couple of volumes of Prae-Kraut you haven't posted yet on vinyl and was thinking of doing those soon. Would you mind?

    You might notice that your blog is already in my blog roll and it's a good one!

    I had never noticed the label name on the Prae-Kraut series and never realized this was also you.

    Are you ever planning to post Exploiting Plastic Inevitable Vol. 2? I imagine that's a great compilation too. Thanks for all of the work you've done online and before - I've enjoyed this album for years... I think the Mogollar track was my first contact with the great world of Turkish '60s/'70s.

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  3. Oh yeah, I think I got the Luxembourg thing from the notes to a Diggin' for Gold compilation, although I don't have it in front of me at the moment ... thanks for setting me straight.

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  4. Hi there, QMChris. Thanks for response. I've posted comments on old melodies & roots and traces concerning your upload of "Exploiting 1". On roots & traces we never do things we've done before. Call it snobism, but we wait for others to dig up that stuff (and as you see, it works out sooner or later. You've done it.) But the good people at old melodies might probably do it, if asked. But at the moment they have a lot to do with uploading all the old vinyl-volumes of Prae-Kraut. Yours, Lolly.

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  5. Oops, I forgot... It's ok for us if you want to post your volumes of PKP, but you got to be aware of getting in competition with old melodies, who are planning to upload all volumes chronologically and have started already. Your choice... I'll tell van daale to put a link to your blog on roots. You've got a very intelligent linklist, by the way...

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  6. You know, I might just let them do that so there isn't duplication. And I will ask about Volume 2, it's very hard to find on vinyl!

    I think these are wonderful blogs and starting this blog actually makes it easier for me to be updated on everyone else's posts in one place. Thanks again!

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  7. if we find a way to communicate without making my e-mail address public, I could send you my last spare copy of exploiting vol 2. for a ridiculously low price. I'd like to support your efforts. Lolly

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  8. Looks like Mediafire blocked this. ):

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