#michael farneti

[ammonitetestpatterns]

Visit Original Link

full moon records, michael farneti’s private label, 1976. anything i could scrape at in language would cower meekly in effect before everything already said by the end of the tune, you are a movie movie movie movie movie movie movie movie movie movie movie movie movie movie star!

[bustakay]

[stillgotit]

Michael Farneti - Come To Europe (1976)

[zalright]

[thecircaprogram]

CIRCA5 #6: Homemade Records

“The personality, the human being was right there in the music, not hidden behind it.” –Paul Major, Enjoy The Experience

The world of the American private pressing (a/k/a vanity pressing) is a world that is both weirdly wonderful and wonderfully weird—if you know where to look. But where to start? Thousands of records were churned out in limited runs with basically zero promotion, often given away to family and friends or sold as souvenirs by local bands playing the area Hotel Inn. These LPs were often made by people just trying to document their creative side.

The new coffee table book Enjoy The Experience: Homemade Records, 1958-1992 (Sinecure Books) will not only steer you in the right direction, it just might lead you down a path you didn’t know existed. CIRCA5 #6 hopes to do the same.

1. Robbie the Werewolf – “Vampire Man” (At the Waleback, 1964)

Folk singer Robbie Robison had been playing in coffee houses since the late 1950s when he developed a new persona. He began appearing on stage in makeup and costume, which was a bold and unusual move in a scene that prided itself on authenticity and humorless subject matter. The fact that he made himself up to look like a werewolf—well, no one could have seen that coming.

Recorded live in front of a certainly bemused but obviously appreciative audience, “Vampire Man” is a send-up of “Greenback Dollar,” a then-recent hit for the Kingston Trio. The concept, taken as a whole, is really a stab at dead serious folkies, and Robbie the Werewolf’s brand of horror-comedy-folk-punk, while much-needed in such a stuffy scene, surely irritated a few sedate coffee house beatniks back in the day. Hopefully, at least.

Robison would eventually shed his werewolf skin and was one of the founders of the psychedelic group Clear Light, though he was quickly excused for being, as a band mate put it, “a terrible guitar player and absolutely insane.”

2. Dennis the Fox – “Bazooka” (Mother Trucker, 1975)

Aspiring songwriter Dennis “The Fox” Caldirola recorded an album’s worth of demos in the early ‘70s in an attempt to score a major label deal. Caldirola wrote in as many styles as possible, not knowing what type of music would interest a record label. It was ultimately self-released a few years later when no takers were found. The classic-truck-driver-country-colliding-into-new-funk heard on “Piledriver” (about a “mean mother trucker of a girl”) is a highlight that has been making the rounds as of late, but “Bazooka” is the most interesting of the LP tracks.

On the surface, this is a groovy piece of sunshine pop, at times reminiscent of the song “Yellow Balloon” (a 1967 hit for the group of the same name), with a heavy dose of solid-but-lite lead guitar (imagine Jimi playing on a Monkees session). It’s easy to get lost in the breezy melody, the “sha-la-la’s,” and the inspiring, child-like calls to “just write a song,” but there’s something else going on here. The protagonist of “Bazooka” is a down-on-his luck songwriter—so down he has “nothing left to lose” and is willing to do anything for fame, even if it means altering both his material and his appearance (with the most drastic of measures—plastic surgery—on the table). It appears The Fox is writing about himself here—we know now that he was purposefully composing in a variety of styles to increase his chance of making it in the big leagues—but the song also has meta qualities. The title itself refers to the bubblegum nature of the tune, the intro drives home our hero’s slumped state with a nod to Hendrix’s “Manic Depression,” and it sure feels like Caldirola was trying to kick himself in the pants by writing a catchy song about writing a catchy song in order to show off his pop song sensibilities, which would, in turn, lead him to his very own pot of gold.

3. Michael Farneti – “ESP Switch” (Good Morning Kisses, 1976)

When listening to Good Morning Kisses it’s as if you boogied on into an alternate ‘70s reality, where dramatic Broadway show tunes peppered with crazy synth squiggles and spacey background vocals make perfect sense. It’s a world where “You better turn your ESP switch on” is advice you really should take.

4. Gary Wilson – “I Wanna Lose Control” (You Think You Really Know Me, 1977)

Endicott, New York native Gary Wilson self-released You Think You Really Know Me in 1977. It might be looked back upon as a minor event in rock history (if even at all), but this little-record-that-could foreshadowed synth-pop, awkwardly confessional singer/songwriters, and the one-man funk of Prince. Wilson’s DIY sensibilities proved to be inspiring as well, helping to set the stage for college radio and the indie rock movement. Not bad for a record that was limited to just 600 copies.

The songs spoke of loneliness, doomed relationships, and obsession for members of the opposite sex, who Wilson often singled out in his songs using their real names. Some tunes were funky and upbeat, while others were creepy and stalker-like. If Prince and Lou Barlow bumped into each other at the same hotel in upstate New York and, after collaborating with the resident lounge band, Steely Dan, roped in a local loner with a James Brown fixation to sing their new composition, it might sound something like “I Wanna Lose Control.”

“I have always been interested in making my own records,” Wilson told me when I interviewed him in 2004. “If I couldn’t get any interest from the record labels, I would release the records myself.” A simple concept, but in 1977 few in the rock world had the guts to do just that.

5. The Shaggs – “My Pal Foot Foot” (single and Philosophy of the World, 1969)

Philosophy of the World has been called the greatest album ever made—and the worst album ever produced. There are those that love the Wiggin sisters for their naïve charms, and then there are others that think they never should have been allowed within fifty feet of a recording studio. Just seconds into hearing them for the first time, it’s impossible to not have an opinion. It’s probably the most famous private press LP, and was likely the first vanity record to be given the reissue treatment (on Rounder in 1980).

My favorite Shaggs story: In a moment of doubt, after the sessions for the album ended, Austin Wiggin—father of the girls and Shaggs’ Svengali—hired a session drummer to “fix” the drum tracks. After giving it a few tries, the professional drummer gave up, realizing he would never be able to duplicate the rhythm at the heart of the Shaggs.

Profiles of Robbie the Werewolf, Michael Farneti, the Shaggs, and others can be found in the massive (512 pages!) coffee table book Enjoy The Experience: Homemade Records, 1958-1992, along with hundreds of mind-blowing album covers, records reviews, an mp3 download card, and more.