Records I Am Glad to Have Found in 2023: Part 2
"Part" may be the wrong way to express this as a series but it's too late now.
Superdragons – "Super Dragon" promo 12" (Mercury, 1976)
There's a shop north of Chicago that's the kind of place where the immediate charms of digging for wild records are often rewarded. I have a regularly scheduled appointment out near this shop, which gives me an excuse to stop in every few months and see what's changed. Every time I go, I seem to clean out a section that doesn't immediately get replenished, but in typical crypt-style record store fashion, there's always something more to find.
In recent years, that section has been their 12" singles. If this is the thing you're looking for, record shops with heavy inventory truly cannot be beat. You won't typically have much competition getting down on the floor and looking under the browsers or whatever dusty, low-traffic area this format is typically relegated to.
Which is to say, on a previous visit I found a promo-only Bohannon single and was regaled with a story about The Gilbert Kong collection. Kong was a Mercury Records mastering engineer who at some point dipped out to work on his own, but I'm told he kept his contacts and worked with the label steadily throughout the '70s. His craft is most readily apparent on a series of 12" promo singles, pressed for radio and disco use, which were generally not for sale. A relative who had inherited his collection wound up selling it to this store, they found an acetate of the first Rush album out of it (which they donated to a Rush museum, apparently, after being rebuffed when presenting UMG with the chance to use it for a reissue), and most of the 12"s quietly went out for sale.
You can identify these records by their monochromatic, plain sleeve art, and a catalog prefix of MK. In every instance I've come across, the record is mastered LOUD, with incredible fidelity and bass response. Kong had no compunction about spreading three minutes of music across an entire side of a 12", and the results are about as deep and rewarding as you'd expect from an audio standpoint. Whether the music – typically disco records pushed by the PolyGram fam, top 40 hopefuls, and sampler albums – is your bag, that's another thing. A frequent target of bootlegging, these promos weren't pressed in significant quantities; the appeal of DJing with a really full, loud copy of, say, the Osmonds "I, I, I", as opposed to the squashed fidelity of the same song on the LP, cannot be overstated. Second-market pricing on these varies wildly, from a few bucks to a few hundred.
I grabbed a bunch of these releases on my last visit, sound unheard. The bare, red print of "Super Dragon DISCO VERSION" by Superdragons did its best to blend in, but the anonymity of it all, a heady year of release, and a production credit for Bunny Sigler held promise.
Did it ever! Clearly a product of Philly's finest studio musicians, "Super Dragon" looks to glom as many popular song ideas together as a single track could hold, with panicked, immediate strings, parping brass, rolling rhythms and virtually nothing at all to say. "Draaa-gon! Draaa-gon! Super dragon, super dragon." That's all you get! You also get notions of Bobby Womack's "Across 110th Street," Rhythm Heritage's "Theme from S.W.A.T.," and Steve Miller's "Fly Like an Eagle," three tracks I wouldn't have thought should go together until now. "Super Dragon" is a full-tilt disco hustler with big main title soundtrack energy, and I wasn't surprised to find out it was used for just that (an excerpt turns up in a Bruce Le movie, 1978's Bruce and Shaolin Kung Fu).
Superdragons left it all out on the field after this one; the B-side contains the same song, in case you wear it out. Apart from a customary pressing as a 45 (with Part 1 and Part 2 indicators), this was it. This 12" presents a unique disco mix with no side break, and at 5+ minutes runtime gives you everything you came for and a little more.
Crown Heights Affair – "Say a Prayer for Two" b/w "Galaxy of Love / I'm Gonna Love You Forever" promo 12" (De-Lite, 1978)
Probably don't need to say much about this known disco slammer, presented here with a little more of an intro. The bass response on this one is fucking insane, and if this isn't getting your floor moving/potted plants dancing off the shelf, you might be doing it wrong. A high point in these Mercury promo offerings, and my favorite song from this group.
City Boy – "5.7.0.5." promo 12" (Mercury, 1978)
Loved this song from the first time I heard it. City Boy's biggest hit, this has some real right place/right time energy, the vaguely new wave screamer ELO never really had in 'em (at least not in '78). Grooves on this one are cut so wide you can almost sightread them from across the room. I was hoping one of these would be in with the rest at this shop.
(Doug Mosurock)
