365 Days #325 - Rhino! (mp3s)

Of all the world's records 98% are boring. The 1% that are good, have been talked and written about so much, they've started to get boring too.

These records have to do with the remaining 1% - The records you love to hate.

The Rhino Brothers Present - The World's Worst Records Vol. 1
01 The Novas - The Crusher (1:55)
02 Edith Massey - Big Girls Don't Cry (2:44)
03 Jimmy Cross - I Want My Baby Back (3:17)
04 Heathen Dan - I Like (3:53)
05 The Temple City Kazoo Orchestra - Kazooed On Klassics (1:59)
06 Gloria Balsam - Fluffy (3:56)
07 The Seven Stooges - I Wanna Be Your Dog (3:04)
08 Ogden Edsl - Kinko The Clown (2:35)
09 The Turtles - Umbassa And The Dragon (2:54)
10 Johnny Meeskite - Ugly (2:45)
11 The Breakers - Surfin' Tragedy (2:11)
12 Wild Man Fischer - Young At Heart (1:37)

The Rhino Brothers Present - The World's Worst Records Vol. 2
01 Mrs Miller - Downtown (2:32)
02 Mickey Katz - K'nish Doctor (2:20)
03 Barnes & Barnes - Party In My Pants (3:31)
04 The Credibility Gap - Foreign Novelty Smash (2:54)
05 The Halos - The Nag (2:47)
06 Yogi Yorgesson - Who Did The Halibut On The Poop Deck (2:18)
07 Shad O'Shea - Goodbye Sam (5:21)
08 Bob & Zip - Just A Big Ego (2:47)
09 Sticky Fingers - Candy Rapper (2:27)
10 Debbie Dawn - Hands (3:10)
11 Rockin' Richie Ray - Baseball Card Lover (2:13)
12 Little Roger & The Goosebumps - Fudd On The Hill (1:57)
13 Naploean XIV - Split Level Head (2:06)
14 Killer Pussy - Teenage Enema Nurse In Bondage (4:14)
15 The Troggs - The Troggs Tapes (5:24)

Temple City Kazoo Orchestra - Some Kazoos
01 2001 Sprach Kazoostra (1:10)
02 Staying alive (2:43)
03 Miss You (2:58)
04 Whole Lotta Love (2:41)

- Contributed by: The ToD

Images: Worlds Worst Records Vol. 1, Vomit Bag, Worlds Worst Records Vol. 2, Some Kazoos

Media: LP
Album: The Rhino Brothers Present - The Worlds Worst Records Vol. 1
Artist: Various
Label: Rhino Records
Catalog: RNLP 809
Date: 1983

Media: LP
Album: The Rhino Brothers Present - The Worlds Worst Records Vol. 2
Artist: Various
Label: Rhino Records
Catalog: RNLP 815
Date: 1988

Media: 12" EP 45
Album: Some Kazoos
Artist: Temple City Kazoo Orchestra
Label: Rhino Records
Catalog: RNEP 501
Date: 1978

Comments

[Dave In NYC]

Outstanding!

[Listener bkd]

Damn. Now I need to find a barf bag...

[Jim]

I've been looking for that Temple City Kazoo Band 'Whole Lotta Love' for years! Yay! And the original Rhino album of them has them doing (briefly) the Hallejulah chorus - thus proving a long held theory of mine (and that the TCKB read Richard Farina).

[Ticklemouse]

Oh Lordy! I've got a feeling 'Teenage Enema Nurse' will need some shifting from my cranium.

The Temple City Kazoo Orchestra reminds me of the later (but unfortunately URL'd) 'Oozak'; http://oozak.caseyporn.com/ who did a wonderful 'Groove is in the Heart' on Kazoo.

[Kip W]

I bought the LP for Jimmy Cross (and that cut has been on my iPod for a while), but now manybe I'll listen to some of the other stuff. The barf bag's a nice touch, but it makes the record a little hard to file.

[arratik]

Bless you for posting these. I remember buying these albums on cassette from a cut-out bin @ a Wherehouse record store in some mall somewhere in California years ago for a buck a piece, and both of them ended up getting eaten by my car's tape deck. Memories...

The best line from "Foreign Novelty Smash", as far as I can tell from what little German I studied - "My bra is too warm, and the waterfall is blood."

[Jaylefus]

My God, I've got this in my horrendous stack of vinyl that I've been meaning to convert . . . Now I can add this to the list of nevermind along with Flight F-I-N-A-L.
-Eleni Sabachthani

[Goyim in the AM]

I have always wondered if the Kinko's copy chain is named after the Kinko song. Anyone know?

[Jess]

Actually, The Gap's "Foreign Novelty Smash" is "You Can't Judge a Book by its Hair" in German.

I love the Credibility Gap, if anyone happens to have any more mp3s besides the 2 found here in the 365 days project, please send me a link. I'm dying for Gap stuff. :D

[Goyim in the AM]

Foreign Novelty Smash translated (the many grammatical errors in original mostly ignored):

I have bad headaches
and I don't feel well
I have stomachaches
and the bone is rotten (? -- really badly pronounced, whatever it is)

I want a glass of cold milk
Where is the hospital?
You have to stay in bed
and where is the bat?

Chorus:
I don't understand everything
What did you say?
No! He's wrong!
No no no! He's right!
Somebody robbed me
Don't move!
And there's too much water in the boat.

I want change for a ten
This butter isn't fresh
I have a driver's license
I don't eat fish

Sell a hat - done!
Sell the stuff
My bra is too warm
And the waterfall is blood

Repeat chorus

Boom shakalakalaka -- very good! (2x)

Repeat first verse, then chorus, fade out.

[Andy]

I'd love to get my hands/ears on the Rhino International Elvis Impersonators Convention that came out about the same time.

[craig]

the troggs bit is an edit from a muuuuuuuuuuuuch longer tape... the full half hour or so is stupefying.

[James]

I remember listening to Bill Zebub's Vortex Of Chaos show once, when he dropped "Split Level Head" into the middle of a set of (otherwise) European metal stuff. The transition was jaw-dropping brilliance.

[tom]

WORLD's worst records? Are there any songs on the records that are from outside the USA?
America is not the world...

[the crusher]

America is the only part of the world that matters musically tom- we invented it ALL.
Jazz, Blues, Country, Rock n Roll and all variations thereof. Good music from outside America is largely American influenced.

The Novas-The cCrusher really doesn't belong as it is in the %1 of very good music.

[Dartman]

I have Vol 1 on vinyl but my copy contains Paralyzed by the Legendary Stardust Cowboy as the final track. Was this an omission on your part? Thanks for all of the great posts!

[Mark McDermott]

Well, "I Want My Baby Back" was voted World's Worst Record in a poll conducted by London's Capital Radio around 1980 (I clipped the article from Billboard, that's how I remember it). So I guess that's the justification for the title of the albums.
Clearly the album has to limit itself to english-language entries. There are surely many terrible records in other languages, but we would only find funny the ones by foreign groups attempting to sing US pop songs in their native languages.
Besides, most of the acts on the records were Rhino Records artists, or those popular on Dr. Demento at the time.

[David Noades]

Tom, the whole point of this blog is that it is full of 'the worst' records from all over the world (although whether they actually are 'the worst' is, of course, a matter of opinion. One man's meat is another man' poison). I myself have uploaded several tracks from Britain and others from Spain, Malta, Yougoslavia, etc, and there are more to come.

As the later poster said Kenny Everett rounded up 60 of 'The World's Worst Records' on two Top 30s in 1977 and 1980 on his Capital Radio shows and these were mainly from Britain. So the compilers here have used the same title and have rounded up a lot from the USA where they are based. I remember the first of these albums when it was released, it came with a free sick bag!

First I want to say that I am glad that I now know there is an english translation of the song FOREIGN NOVELTY SMASH. All this time I kept thinking that it was the German version of ONE BAD APPLE by the Osmonds. But as I listen to the song and try to blend in the words I see here, it's funny how that is the translation. (giggle)

John T. Ehrhart
Katy, Texas

[John T. Ehrhart]

First I want to say that I am glad that I now know there is an english translation of the song FOREIGN NOVELTY SMASH. All this time I kept thinking that it was the German version of ONE BAD APPLE by the Osmonds. But as I listen to the song and try to blend in the words I see here, it's funny how that is the translation. (giggle)

John T. Ehrhart
Katy, Texas

[John Hempill]

One of my favorite records my senior year in college. The other was a collection of punk rock versions of the songs from Saturday Night Fever - the version of Night Fever was a killer - but even in the day of the internet I cannot find any of these songs anywhere. Anyone?

[Country Paul]

"Fluffy" is a masterpuece - tragic, funny, insane, great hook, haunting irritainment. The day my mother died - coincidentally, on my birthday - WFMU was on the car radio as I drove over to make arrangements. I had tears streaming down my face from crying for her, and I was laughing over the song, and crying over the song, and crying simply for relief....in short, it was an ultimate WFMU experince. When you're on the air you never know how something you say or play will affect someone's life. That day, you guys made mine easier in the strangest and best way.

[Kelly]

The Credibility Gap is my new favorite band name.

[Dementee]

Big thanks to Jess for the note about "You Can't Judge a Book by its Hair": that answers a question I had, that of whether this was the same Credibility Gap with Harry Shearer, David L. Lander, and Michael McKean.

Meanwhile, "Foreign Novelty Smash" has been a favourite of mine since I heard it on _Radio Tip-Top_ on BBC Radio 1 back in the 1990s—I had a tape recording, then, but no title nor artist until I stumbled across a list of someone's least favourite songs with it on.

Then I found this page—thanks!

And last night I decided to sit down and transcribe the song (having forgotten about Goyim in the AM's translation). Here's what I got:

Verse 1:
Ich habe schlimm Kopfschmerzen
Und ich fühle mich nicht voll
Ich habe Magenschmerzen
Und der Knochen ist vervoll
Ich möchte ein Glas kalte Milch
Wo ist das Krankenhaus?
Sie müssen im Bett bleiben
Und wo ist der Fledermaus?

Refrain:
Ich verstehe nicht alles
Was haben Sie gesagt
Whoo!
Nein
Er hat unrecht
Nein, nein, nein
Er hat recht
Man hat misch bestohlen
Wemwegen sieh's ich nicht
Und es gibt zu viel Wasser im Boot

Verse 2:
Ich will zehn Dollar wechseln
Diese Bütter ist nicht Fisch
Ich habe einen Führerschein
Ich esse keinen Fisch
Verkaufen Sie ein Hutgeschaft
Verkaufen Sie der Zug
Mein Bustenhalter ist zu warm
Und der Wasserfall ist Pflug

[repeat Refrain]

Boom shaka-laka-laka
Sehr gut!
Boom shaka-laka-laka
Sehr gut!

[repeat Verse 1]

[repeat Refrain]

Boo-ba-da-boom-ba-dum
Sehr gut!
Boom shaka-laka-laka
Sehr gut!
[…]

… which (apart from the singer not bothering to pronounce words correctly, choose the correct articles, and properly decline his adjectives) mostly agrees with what GitA said. I actually came up with Markenschmerzen, "das Mark" meaning bone marrow. "vervoll" I assumed was "Verfall", decay/rot. I took the first two lines of the refrain as a single sentence, "I don't understand everything you've said" (but it doesn't matter: my bone marrow is hurting and my bones are decaying!!!). "Hutgeschäft" would be hat shop, "Zug" is train, and "Pflug" is plough.

[Mapie]

@dementee
Mostly right, but...
Und ich fühle mich nicht voll=Und ich fühle mich nicht wohl (I dont' feel well)
Wemwegen sieh's ich nicht=Bewegen sie sich nicht (don't more)
Diese Bütter ist nicht Fisch=Diese Butter is nicht frisch (this butter isn't fresh)

And other things just don't make sense at all which is wonderful. I borrowed this on vinyl in the eighties after trying to find the music I heard on a pirate station. Had an old tape recording too... Sigh...