WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Live Catch: August 31st-September 6th, 2007

Things are slowing down a bit in New York as the summer draws to an end, but there are still some great shows to look forward to over Labor Day weekend and beyond. Here's this week's edition of Live Catch, Beware Of The Blog's guide to live music in WFMU's New York and New Jersey broadcast area.

The summer free concert series at South Street Seaport comes to a close tonight with a terrific bill, Deerhunter and Battles.

This year's Columbia University back-to-school concert is free, outdoors, and open to the public, unless it rains. So if you wake up on Saturday morning and the sun is shining, head up to their campus at 2pm to catch performances by Neptunes-affiliated rappers Clipse and blogger-favorites Vampire Weekend. Later on Saturday evening, you can catch Acid Mothers Guru Guru--a band featuring members of Acid Mothers Temple and Krautrock legends Guru Guru--at the Mercury Lounge.

On Thursday night at Southpaw in Brooklyn, you can see Bill Callahan (formerly known as Smog) and the Sun City Girls' Sir Richard Bishop.

For comprehensive listings, check out our regularly updated Arbitrary Guide To Popular Culture.

2:40 Distractions: Michael Jackson, King of Beers, R.I.P.

No, not that Michael Jackson; and not that King of Beers.  British journalist Michael Jackson, pictured here, is credited with giving beer a level of credibility that resulted in, among other things, the microbrew movement and the international availability of Good Beer.  He has died, aged 65.

While his writing was often hokey and persnickety (at the same time!), still one had to admit he was usually right on.  And seriously, if it weren't for Michael Jackson, we'd be stuck drinking that other King of Beers, alas still alive and well.

Links: obit; his homepage

Thanks for the headsup, Jeff Moore

365 Days #243 - Pat Campbell - Just A Quiet Conversation (mp3s)

MP3:
01 Silent Worship (3:43)
02 Giddy Up Go (3:43)
03 Mother Went A Walkin' (2:43)
04 Big Railroad Man (4:48)
05 Deck Of Cards (3:54)
06 The Last Goodbye (2:56)
07 It's You (2:47)
08 I Think I Can Sleep Tonight (3:01)
09 The Gun (3:12)
10 The Mission (3:30)
11 The Late Arrival (2:53)
12 The Deal (3:35)
13 The Upper Room (3:32)
14 Trouble in Amen Corner (2:48)

Aah Pat Campbell. I first encountered this gentle voice of Irish country when he was featured on Kenny Everett's World's Worst Record Show in 1977 with The Deal. Sadly not about drugs as you might think it's the mawkish story of how a father-to-be makes a 'deal' with the good Lord to take his life instead of that of his wife or his unborn child when he hears bad news in the delivery room at the city hospital. I love the way he says his wife and child mean the whole world and everything to him, and I also like the way he says of his unborn child "I caught myself a little chuckle and thought – hey, it might be an old girl." Surely he means a baby girl. If his wife gives birth to an old girl then that's some deal he made!

Amazingly this single just scraped short of the British Top 30 in 1969 and was popular enough to spawn this album the following year. Prepare yourself for more Steel pedal guitar-fuelled death rants and tear-jerkers.

Pat had been a member of Irish vocal group The Four Ramblers with Val Doonican but the group split up when Val went solo in the late 1950s. Pat later found found fame as a disc jockey on Radio Luxembourg and championed American C&W hits. These included Red Sovine's legendary trucker narrative Giddy Up Go and so impressed was Pat that, when he signed his own deal with Phil Soloman's short-lived Major Minor Records in 1968, he seems to turned himself into Ireland's answer to Red Sovine.

I love Pat's 'voices'. There the urgent, nervous one he adopts on the organ-driven It's You (probably my fave track) where he sounds like he's about to have a nervous breakdown. Then there's his 'little tyke's' voice he does on the truly nauseating (and confusing) Big Railroad Man. The Mission sees him potentially in spaghetti-western mode with tales of cowboys in San Antone, but you know as soon as he mentions "the smiling padre" that someone's gonna get a bullet in the bonce. But for me the worst track is The Last Goodbye where his wife dies in a car crash but comes back to see him one last time. This features what is possibly the worst lyric in song writing history "I didn't look up, I just nodded okay and asked her to pass me an ashtray."

The sleeve text reveals: "Pat Campbell was born in Ireland, but it might just as well have been Nashville. He's been there many times and he's welcomed as a friend by the biggest names in the world of country music. On each visit he brings a little piece of Nashville home with him, but also leaves a little of Pat Campbell there in return."

In 1968, before he made these recordings, Pat was invited to narrate a couple of the tracks on the album The Power and The Glory by label-mate keyboard player Mike Mercardo, who was better known as 'The Swinging Monk' (I kid you not!). These are more religious in tone and feature strings and gospel-pop vocals by the ubiquitous Mike Sammes Singers although strangely very little piano. I have included these two tracks here as a bonus.

- Contributed by: David Noades

Images: Just A Quiet Conversation (Cover)

Media: Album
Label: Major Minor
Catalogue: MCP5051
Credits: Produced by Tommy Scott, Musical direction by Nicky Welsh.
Date: 1970

In Defense of The Defenders of The Hate

Times are hard for Seth Putnam.  His body slowly recovers from a drug induced coma which reduced him to a wheelchair.  His soul can't ever possibly recover from the immense amount of hatred that he's spewed into the world.  After ridiculing any and all forms of weakness in others for twenty years, Seth's train has come in: in the most beautifully ironic way possible, Seth is a completely pathetic self-parody.

Seth's drummer Nate is leaving: "Even before Seth's coma, Anal Cunt was already a mere shadow of what it once was.  Honestly, Anal cunt should have broken up in 1999.  To be even more frank, I think Seth needs a live-in nurse and a bedpan, not a band.  By his own hand, Seth has robbed himself of middle age.  He went instantly from a 36 year old drug addict to a 90 year old invalid.  The spectacle and circus that involved being in Anal Cunt grows tiresome after a while."

If you know of Seth Putnam, it's probably as the vocalist for Anal Cunt, the most offensive band in the history of the world.  Boys laugh at their song titles throughout middle school and occasionally listen to their music for short amounts of time.  I can't blame them for disposing of AC as soon as they can grow decent facial hair, but they're wrong if they think that moral depravity is all that AC has to offer...it's only the overwhelming majority of what AC has to offer.

Do I hesitate before I place Seth Putnam up there with Iggy and GG as one of the most insane stage presences ever?  Only for as long as it takes me to consider whether I mind exaggerating a bit!  At any rate, insanity at this level isn't easy to comprehend.  It's like wondering how bright the sun is.  Anal Cunt in fact nearly became Allin's backing band in the late 80s but lived too far from the legend to actually go through with it.  See what Seth was doing on stage durig his salad days circa 1988:

(Four MP3s on the flip side)

365 Days #242 - The Great Soybean Raid of 1981 (mp3s)

MP3:
Tom Mason - The Great Soybean Raid of 1981 (3:57)
Mark Rice - My Momma Picks the Hits (3:37)

I have a few tribute songs in my record collection. Some Elvis tributes, even one song about the astronauts in the Challenger explosion. But I had to do an online search to find out what the heck this song was talking about. The song is called "The Great Soybean Raid of 1981", performed by Tom Mason.

In 1981, Wayne Cryts and a goodly amount of fellow farmers went to a grain elevator in Missouri to get what he felt were his soybeans back, while they were in limbo when the elevator he deposited them in went bankrupt.

You can read more details in this page I found that has a 1982 Time Magazine report about the raid.

The song on side 2, "My Momma Picks the Hits", is performed by Mark Rice, the writer of both songs on the 45.

- Contributed by: Sammy Reed

Images: Label

Media: 45rpm 7" single
Label: Mr. Music Records
Catalog: MR-31681
Credits: Both songs written by Mark Rice and produced by Ken Kilgore and Mark Rice
Date: 1981

Out Of Context Cinema: Skidoo

Archie Club News #7

Throughout the nineteen sixties, seventies and eighties, most issues of Archie Comics featured a two-page spread titled Archie Club News. The banner at the top of the page announced, "ARCHIE CLUB MEMBERS send in your news reports and be eligible to win cash prizes in the Archie Series Magazines." The results of this venture were generally irrelevant notes sent in like "Dear Archie, I love your records and cartoon show - they are the most!" Often what was sent in appeared to be part of a class project. Elementary school children were in the process of learning how to write letters and encouraged by a teacher to send something Riverdale way. Sometimes the letters were weird or even profound and other times prophetic or just silly.

This letter originally appeared in Laugh #186, September 1966:

Dear Archie,

I took a trip to Disneyland last summer. I had the most fun ... in the motel. At night when we were looking out of the motel there were beautiful sights. Everything was so colorful and bright. The scenery is very nice at night. In the motel we had two bedrooms and a kitchen. I was very sorry when we came back home. But I still love the place. I hope that everybody gets to go to Disneyland.

Nanette Szabo
1601 Spring Road
Cleveland, Ohio

This letter won the fifth prize of one dollar. Sort of reminds you of that old cliché about the kid who receives an expensive toy as a gift but ends up being more interested in the empty box. A google search informs us that Ms. Szabo is now a customer service rep for a chemical company in Avon, Ohio. The small town of Avon is home to the annual Avon Heritage Duct Tape Festival!

365 Days #241 - Mia Marianne and Per Filip - Where The Roses Never Fade (mp3s)

MP3:
01 Where The Roses Never Fade (3:29)
02 Come and Follow Me (2:55)
03 Amazing Grace (3:56)
04 Change The Bombs For Bread (2:38)
05 Morning Song (2:43)
06 This Little Light of Mine (2:34)
07 Let Your Love be Alive (2:34)
08 Bengawan Solo (2:55)
09 Brighten The Corner (2:32)
10 Londonderry Air (3:36)
11 If I Had A Hammer (2:13)
12 Dakota Hymn (3:02)

I dunno if this really qualifies for the 365 days thing but it has many of the attributes necessary to do so. Bad cover. Naff music. Obscurity...

Ah! Mia Marianne and Per Filip may be too well known to be real contenders... Not that I have ever heard of them but the sleeve notes state that they had a platinum album in Sweden... Hmmmm... I have to say that's still obscure in my book ;-) ( Google doesn't show up much either )

I bought this record on the strength of the cover. As you do. (That and the 99p price tag, I ain't gonna spend even vaguely big on naff records I'm afraid. My kids were mystified enough as it is.) The cover looked seriously promising, and once I got back from holiday and actually played it, it delivered.

So, what do we have here? A collection of clean and jolly songs with a Christian message, sung by a clean and jolly Swedish couple, in English. In fact, an English language version of a Swedish album that did quite well in its Swedish incarnation, though they say it themselves. In other words, what we got here is Nordic Niceness To The Max – in English.

What's it like to listen to? Nice. Nicely Nice. Nicely, Nicely, Nice, Nice, Nice. So Nice it made my teeth itch, but in a Nice way... Did I mention it was Nice? Mia Marianne and Per Filip are so hardcore Nice they make Peter, Paul and Mary sound like The Nine Inch Nails. Their music is the aural equivalent of Crimplene. Music for those days when the Seekers are just too radical!

However, the sleeve notes are enjoyable. i.e.

"Mia Marianne has a dark, warm and well-timbered soprano voice with an unusual vocal extent."

Did she inhale a lot of sawdust at an early age or something? Maybe all those log cabins had something to do with it. I wonder what a half-timbered voice would sound like.

"Despite the volume of their voices, they yet sing simple songs with the right feeling and it is through their natural, beautiful way of singing and acting that they have got their great popularity."

Indeed. If it's too loud, you're too old. Enjoy.

- Contributed by: Jon Allen

Images: Front, Back

Produced by Mia Marianne and Per Filip
Sleeve Design by Mia Marianne and Per Filip
Published 1985
Hans Edler Ltd. London
15021 Molnbo Sweden

Skin Disease Or Supper (6)?

Jump the flip to find out. 
Don't jump the flip if you don't want to find out.

365 Days #240 - School Band Thrift Store Favorites (mp3s)

I love old school band and choir records, especially if the selections performed are unusual choices for the kids in question. I also love hearing kids who sound like they're just barely starting to pick up their instruments. I have many many of these records collected over the years, and have many favorites. Usually these kind of records only have one to a handful of redeeming tracks, so for you fans of incorrect and outsider music, Otis and I have put together a compilation of a few recent thrift store favorites (!) found both in Utah and Vermont (where I'm currently attending school. Hopefully this will also get you pumped for the upcoming school year!

- Contributed by: B.C. Sterrett (The Lost Media Archive)

MP3:

1985 Lebenon Junior High - Band Chorus Chorale Encores (New Hampshire)
01. Chorale - Theme From Cheers (2:07)
02. Chorus - You Are (3:51)
03. Chorus - At The Hop (1:36)

Triton Regional School Music Department Spring 1984 (Massachusetts)
4. Junior High Band - Beat It (2:48)

Winthrop Elementary School - Spring Concert 1982 (Massachusetts)
05. One Tin Soldier (Theme From Billy Jack) (2:54)

Springville Middle School  1978-1979 - 7th Grade (Utah)
06. General Chorus - A Word from our sponsor (2:42)
07. Swing Choir - Commercials (2:11)
08. Swing Choir - What Do I See? (2:09)

Valley Junior High School - Good Vibrations, 1979-1980 (California)
09. Intermediate Choir - Be Kind To Your Parents (2:25)
10. Viking Band - The Sloop John B (3:10)
11. Viking Band - The Muppet Show Theme (1:43)

John C. Fremont Elementary School - 1971 (California)
12. Raindrops Keep Falling On My Head (1:50)

Sensei Rebel's Archive Picks of the Week (August 20 - August 26, 2007)

All MP3 and RealAudio links are streaming links from the WFMU archives.

Rock And Roll
Money Money - ???? RealAudio from Music To Spazz By with Dave the Spazz

International
Asha Bhosle - "Dum Maro Dum" RealAudio from Coffee Break For Heroes & Villains with Noah (filling in for Ken)

Experimental
Darkstar - "Out of Touch" RealAudio from Mudd Up! with DJ/Rupture

Dance
The Tuss - "Last Rushup 10" RealAudio from Maria Levitsky's show
Cerrone - "Supernature" RealAudio from Maria Levitsky's show
Leech Ernowetz - "Bring My Charlie Cup Version2" RealAudio from Diane's Kamikaze Fun Machine
Professor Genius - "Night Games" RealAudio from Nickel and Dime Radio with $mall Change

Instrumental
Rufus Harley - "Love Is Blue" RealAudio from This Is the Modern World with Trouble

Ambient
Lawrence Casserley / Simon Desorgher - "Music from ColourDome 3" RealAudio from Evan Muse's show

Fave Songs of the Week
Magazine - "Definitive Gaze" RealAudio from Maria Levitsky's show
Susuma Yokota - "Morino Gakudan" RealAudio from This Is the Modern World with Trouble

Another Fun Musical Postcard

Listener Marty generously shares another great postcard flexi with us! Check out more vintage Euro musical postcards here.

First, the music: Unknown Italian tune (MP3)

Now, let's tackle that photo. What the hell is going on here? This blond and braided little girl appears to be sporting a Fred Flintstone costume (is that a red and green plaid shirt peeking through?) and a bracelet of shells, as she munches on what appears to be either jackfruit or a yellow tulip.

Braids = Viking
Flintstone gear = Bedrock
Plaid shirt = Scotland
Shells = Beach
Jackfruit = Southeast Asia

Any theories on this carefully crafted oddity?

365 Days #239 - D.C. And Company - Let's Dance The Night Away (mp3s)

MP3:
01 Let's Dance the Night Away (2:45)
02 I Just Can't Say Goodbye (4:22)
03 Bump To The Funk (2:23)
04 Dreams Of You (3:12)
05 Lovely Lady (2:33)
06 I Don't Want To Hurt You (4:02)
07 This Is My Song (2:40)
08 Tell Me (2:20)
09 One More Day (1:34)
10 It Makes You Want To Cry (3:36)
11 Party (3:02)
12 Who's To Blame (3:43)

Released in 1977, "Let's Dance The Night Away" has to be the most unfortunate disco miscalculation in my collection (and I've got a lot of 'em). The cover depicts four seriously caucasian dudes dressed up in what they've mistaken for disco threads (actually, they're Las Vegas Elvis suits), but they look like they'd be much more at home in a west-Phoenix steakhouse than in a dance club. From all indications, D.C. And Company were an average bar band struggling to find work at the height of the disco craze. So they nailed together a couple of lame grooves with titles like "Party" and "Bump To The Funk," and shoehorned them into their otherwise dance-floor-unfriendly repertoire.

Like most self-released "vanity" recordings of this type, the sound is cheap and thin. The terrible production makes the band sound anything but muscular, and in no way inviting of dancing for even a minute, let alone the whole night. Most of the songs here are interminably slow "confessional" ballads, with titles like "I Don't Want To Hurt You," "Who's To Blame" and "It Makes You Want To Cry." the songs seem to be attempting some sort of personal unburdening, but all they really do is make you want to grab the singer by the collar and yell, "dude, she's NOT going home with you!" And when they trot out their "disco" material…well, you just gotta hear it for yourself.

- Contributed by: Derrick Bostrom

Images: Front Cover, Back Cover

Media: 12" LP
Album: Let's Dance the Night Away
Label: Shining Sunset
Catalog: (none discernible)
Credits: (see back cover scan)
Date: 1977

Kazutoki Umezu & Tom Cora (MP3s)

Cellist Tom Cora was a fixture in the NYC downtown scene, and a member of Curlew and Skeleton Crew, among many other projects. Probably best known is his collaboration with The Ex on their two excellent albums Scrabbling at the Lock and And The Weathermen Shrug Their Shoulders. His cello sound spanned a wide range from relatively traditional melodic folk-influenced playing to cat-in-a-blender sounds and spaced-out weirdness. Sadly, he died way too early in 1998.

Saxophonist Kazutoki Umezu first gained international recognition in the 80s, touring and recording with the Doctor Umezu Band, which led to collaborations with John Zorn and friends. Apart from many jazz and avant-garde projects, he is the founder of the first (and to my knowledge only) Japanese Klezmer big band Betsuni Nanmo Klezmer (featuring Makigami Koichi's Yiddish throat singing). He has also collaborated with Fanfare Ciocarlia, B.B. King, and Ian Dury, among others. Am I allowed to say "eclectic"?

In 1988 the Japanese Umisushi (or Umiushi) Records label released "Abandon" (or "Abandon All Improvisation", the details are a bit sketchy), a duo concert of these two outstanding improvisers, recorded live at Roulette in New York in October 1987. This is a true rarity, impossible to find and not listed in most discographies. Enjoy the music, all you friends of free improvisation and prepared cello.

MP3s:
First Act: Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3
Second Act: Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8

Moms Mabley - Agitation in Moderation

"Moms Mabley ... She was fabulous." - Rudy Ray Moore

Moms Mabley was one of the greatest comedians of all time. She is widely regarded as one of the most important African-American entertainers that ever lived and as the first bonafide female stand-up comedy superstar. At her peak, she was making ten thousand dollars a week for stage appearances alone. It's ridiculous that a book has yet to be written* about this comedy legend, one of the first to use the stage to advocate civil rights for both her race and gender. The social issues that boiled over in the late sixties were something Mabley had been addressing for decades. When the struggle against war, racism and varied discrimination became the focus of a new generation, Mabley suddenly found herself a bigger star than before, her message embraced by those involved in the fight. Television programming geared to the new youth market regularly booked Mabley and white viewers discovered the joy that the Black community had known about for years. The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour booked Mabley several times. So did ABC's Music Scene, a program that featured musicians on the Billboard Top Ten, which in turn meant plenty of counterculture performers whose smelly clothes and pacifist postures would normally have had them escorted off the lot.

365 Days #238 - Leona Anderson - Music To Suffer By (mp3s)

MP3:
01 I Love Paris (1:58)
02 Chloe (3:02)
03 Hep Cat (2:21)
04 Habanera from "Carmen" (2:11)
05 Il Bacio (1:54)
06 Tell Me A Tall Tale (2:24)
07 Indian Love Call (3:06)
08 Limburger Lover (2:47)
09 Giannina Mia (2:22)
10 Rats In My Room (2:11)
11 Yo Ho The Crow (2:06)
12 Italian Street Song (1:32)
13 Fish (2:14)

Presenting Leona Anderson in all her vocal glory.  For your dining and dancing pleasure we present "Music To Suffer By" accompanied by the song "Fish" for dessert.

- Contributed by: Morita Tensanger

Images: Front Cover, Back Cover

Media: LP
Album: Music To Suffer By
Label: Unique Records
Catalog: LP-115
Date: 1958

"Fish" sourced from the 1997 CD collection "The Ernie Kovacs Record Collection" (now out of print).

Archie Club News #6

Previously I have stated that "most issues of Archie Comics featured a two-page spread titled Archie Club News." Most, but not all. In titles like That Wilkin' Boy or Betty and Me, the spot usually reserved for Archie Club News featured readers sending their letters and questions to advice columns manned by their favorite comic book characters. The following is from the feature "Dear Betty and Veronica."

This letter originally appeared in Archie Giant Series Magazine: Betty and Veronica Spectacular  #210, July 1973.

I'm kind of fat, but all in the middle -- sort of what you'd call a "spare tire" ! The boy I like keeps complimenting me! He says I have a cute face and nice legs and if I lost weight I'd be beautiful! Should I take this as a joke or that maybe he really likes me?

J.C., B'KLYN, N.Y.

The reply came from either Betty or Veronica - it is not specified which. I'm going to guess it was Veronica who devised this answer:

A "spare tire" is never a joke! I think he really likes you and I wouldn't "spare" anytime getting rid of the "spare tire"!

365 Days #237 - Nuptials In New Jersey! (mp3s)

THE HARRY SANDS ORCHESTRA - JOSEPH & ELIZABETH"S WEDDING (live)

The bulk of this material was recorded live at a wedding reception somewhere in Northern New Jersey, sometime in the mid-1980s. The band hired for the occasion was the Harry Sands Orchestra, Mr. Sands being the drummer, lead vocalist, and MC. The other players are unknown.

This tape succeeds and enlightens on a number of levels. For one thing, it does take you right there, to a real New Jersey wedding reception, giving you every important element, from the intro of the bride and groom through the 'Hokey Pokey' (and Sands' brilliant 'everybody coicle, make a grea-big coicle'), right down to the signoff and the band actually congratulating itself on a job well done! Also, it gloriously allows Mr. Sands to reveal his full credentials as an musical 'outsider', both behind the drum kit and on the microphone. It also includes everything that give wedding bands a bad name: the corny (and demeaning) patter, the complete lack of real groove and taste, the horns blaring continuously over and through vocals, the rhythm section guys throwing needless jazz quotes in whenever possible, the hideous quality of the vocals themselves, the botched-up lyrics (especially Sands, who sounds like he is near seizure in trying to remember some of the words), and much more.

There are two remarkable elements to think about here. One is that, out of all the great bands available in this part of the country, these people chose and elected to hire Harry Sands of their own free will, and no doubt pay him a princely sum. They certainly had access to quality bands, and could preview them easily via their gigs, live showcases, or video, but this is the direction they chose. And, sadly, it points up the fact that if you get enough drinks into anybody, the quality of the entertainment becomes less important, as witnessed by the fact that, despite the music, it seems as if a good time was had by all. Now, you can have the same good time that the attendees of Joseph and Elizabeth's Wedding had, only in a slightly different way.

365 Days #236 - Lionel Casson - Open-End Interview (mp3s)

MP3:
Side 1 - Open-End Interview (for use with local commentator) (5:08)
Side 2 - Flipside (tones) (2:58)

Not all "interview minus one" promos were of macho TV actors who suddenly viewed themselves as the second coming of Tom Jones. For example, there is this fill-in-the-blanks interview (issued on a 7") of the eminent maritime historian Lionel Casson, to promote his 1964 book "Illustrated History Of Ships And Boats." Side 2, by the way, consists entirely of tones!

- Contributed by: Phil X Milstein

Images: Record Label

Archie Club News #5

Throughout the nineteen sixties, seventies and eighties, most issues of Archie Comics featured a two-page spread titled Archie Club News. The banner at the top of the page announced, "ARCHIE CLUB MEMBERS send in your news reports and be eligible to win cash prizes in the Archie Series Magazines." The results of this venture were generally irrelevant notes sent in like "Dear Archie, Let me tell you the day I got a tape worm..." Often what was sent in appeared to be part of a class project. Elementary school children were in the process of learning how to write letters and encouraged by a teacher to send something Riverdale way. Sometimes the letters were weird or even profound and other times prophetic or just silly.

This letter originally appeared in The New Archies #14 May 1989:

Dear Archie:

My report is on computers ... In the future, computers will become an even more important part of our lives than they are today. Computers will also be different and more powerful. While some people say that computers will never replace humans because computers can't think, that's not necessarily true. Scientists are already experimenting with computers that can actually think for themselves! Who knows, maybe when you grow up, computers will have the right to vote!

Stephen Perkins
Cordele, GA

I think Stephen accurately predicts the problems we'd experience eleven years later with computerized voting machines. Although computers do not legally possess the right to vote, they are more than willing to change a vote for a democrat to that of a republican. Good call Stephen. By the way, I'm fairly certain that this Stephen Perkins is not the drummer from Jane's Addiction.

If you've read the other letters in our Archie Club News series you may also notice a difference here. Archie Comics decided by the late eighties to no longer print the child's full street address. Previously the full name, city, street address and zip code were provided for all to read. Initially, the concept behind giving out a letter writer's address was to encourage the worldwide Archie Comics pen pal program. By signing up to be a card carrying member of the exclusive Archie Club you also allowed yourself to be put on the roster of lonely children desperate to find somebody else who read Archie comics. Did it instead encourage molesters to lure kids with promises of free Archie Comics instead of candy? Probably not, but one imagines that was the reasoning behind the change.