A Wonderfully Incompetent Vanity Record (MP3's)

The Tin Pan Alley record label, of New York City (and later, of Sarasota, Florida), is known - if known at all - largely by two groups of people. First, there are doo-wop collectors and fans, who enjoy the records earliest releases, some of which have even been put together in a few anthologies one can find here and there.

Then there are those like me, who collect the much longer and broader section of Tin Pan Alley's history of releases, their song-poem output. Actually, my understanding is that even the majority of the doo-wop releases (many of them quite valuable) were actually song-poem records, but made with the involvement of some of the top talent in the doo-wop world of the day, leading to considerably better quality than might otherwise have been the case.

One thing I'd never seen before on a Tin Pan Alley record was a vanity recording - someone's own performance of his or her own song. These crop up on some of the other large song-poem labels, but judging from the American Song-Poem Music Archives Tin Pan Alley page, there was, at the time that that site stopped updating, only one confirmed vanity record on the label. I now have another, with a very similar label number to the one previously confirmed.

And it is, I must say, a doozy. Someone named Frank Geramita wrote both sides of the record, and is the credited performer on both songs, as well. The really amazing track is the one identified as the A-side, a recording so filled with incompetence it's hard to know where to start, but the obvious place is with the misspelled title, "I'm So Sad Your (sic) Gone". Then there's the first thing you'll hear, which is the recording cranking up to speed (the record similar comes to a sudden - and more rapid - shutting down at the end).

But the real fun is in listening to the guitar part which seems to have been grafted on, over the strumming and singing that make up the majority of the track. First, this track is recorded loudly enough to dominate vocal sections here and there. But more than that, it is played by someone who clearly has a rudimentary idea of how to solo, and even apparently some decent improvisory ideas, but who just as clearly was nowhere near learning the techniques necessary to pull off what he or she intended to do. Bum notes fly out in almost equal number with good ones at times, the "lead strumming" overpowers the rest of the track at other points.

Almost obscured by all the guitar weirdness is the sort of droning, ponderous nature of the song and performance, which stretches out to nearly five minutes. Be sure to listen for some very odd, and out of place ho-ho-ho-ing just before the song's sudden termination.

Frank Geramita - I'm So Sad Your Gone (MP3)  |  Single A-side Label

The flip side, "As the Time Ticks Away", should absolutely have been the A-side, to my ears. I don't like it much, but I like every aspect of it more than the flip side. While it's still very much a drone, it's a bit more lively, the vocal interplay (where it occurs) is more effective, and it's a better song than "I'm So Sad".

Frank Geramita - As the Time Ticks Away (MP3)  |  Single B-side Label

Comments

[Rick]

Yikes. This must be what they play in the cafeteria at Gitmo.