Quartz

Artist: Quartz

LP: Camel In the City

Song: "Camel In the City"

[ listen ]

The next record shop I went to in Minnesota (my 4th) was Electric Fetus in Minneapolis, a place that has evidently been around since 1968. (Electric Fetus, I mean. Minneapolis has been around even longer.) Why, that's even before I was born! One of the neat things I found at Electric Fetus is this 1979 LP from a French disco-synth outfit called Quartz. I'd try to glean more information from the worldwide web about Quartz, but I keep falling asleep while I'm typing. Good night.

[ Electric Fetus — Minneapolis, Minnesota ]

The Moments

Artist: The Moments

LP: Look At Me
Song: "Girls (French version)"

[ listen ]

Song: "Look At Me (French version)"

[ listen ]

Last night I went sifting through my soul and R&B records to find something quiet and romantic to bring my enjoyable evening to a delicate close. This 1975 LP by The Moments that I put on the console was already hitting the spot, and then they started singing in French!

I had not realized until now that The Moments were the same fellows who later turned into Ray, Goodman, and Brown. Stang Records evidently wouldn't let the trio keep the name when The Moments decided to leave the label in 1979. (Update: Oh. I guess I did know this 10 years ago. My memory just ain't what it used to be.) Mais peu importe comment vous les applez, ils sont simplement magnifiques! 

[ Harry Ray: December 15, 1946 — October 1, 1992 ]

[ Al Goodman: March 30, 1943 — July 26, 2010 ]

[ Billy Brown: b. June 30, 1946 ]

Seventh Avenue

Artist: Seventh Avenue

LP: 12" single

Song: "Armed Robbery"
[ listen ]

The armed robbers made off with Seventh Avenue's clothes! This is one of the few things I picked up at Moby Disk, the sole record shop in the lovely town of Girona, where I spent a day and a night after taking a very early train out of Figueres. 

[ Girona, Spain ]

 
During my stay in Girona I visited the Museum of Cinema and then had a late dinner at a neat old restaurant called Café Le Bistrot. And then I got lost wandering the streets on the way back to my hotel. It was wonderful.

[ Museum of Cinema — Girona, Spain ]

[ Café Le Bistrot — Girona, Spain ]

But anyway, back to Moby Disk. Two nice young fellows were working at the shop, and though I finally worked up the guts to ask them for a photograph...I forgot to turn my camera's auto-focus on, so they're vague.

 
I don't know much about Seventh Avenue, except that they might be British, they may have previously been a little more disco, and they often end up wearing hardly any clothing...sometimes just towels.

...and they shouldn't be confused with the German Christian metal band nor the Latin Christian rock band (based in Atlanta, I think) that are also called Seventh Avenue. Unfortunately, I was unable to find photos of either of these other bands in the shower. More Seventh Avenue record covers here and here and here.

[ Moby Disk — Girona, Spain ]

Deja Vu

Artist: Deja Vu

LP: Song For Everyone

Song: "Be Happy"
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I'd love to have been in the room with the execs at Capitol Records when Deja Vu pitched their idea for THIS album cover. Holy mackerel! Now you'd think a group of guys into metal underwear and body paint would be guaranteed to sound pretty far out—like Hungarian space rock or something—so it's pretty disappointing to find that Deja Vu actually sounds a lot like something we've heard somewhere before. 

But the LP artwork these Canadian rockers came up with for their 1976 "Song For Everyone" LP certainly isn't like anything we've seen anywhere else before. The best feature is the set of individual black and white portraits of the band laid out on the inner sleeve. There's a little photo insert of what each fellow looks like in his normal everyday life—like when he goes to the hardware store or out for fish 'n chips—which allows us to compare that with how he looks if you remove all his clothes, cover him head to toe with metallic silver body paint, and then force him to wear a speed-o made out of aluminum foil. These guys got guts.

Faze-O

Artist: Faze-O

LP: Good Thang

Song: "Funky Lady"
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It's my birthday! I'm gonna' put on my milk-chocolate silk shorts and go get me some ice cream!

[ Faze-O in full bloom ]

Hambone

Artist: Hambone

LP: Big Fat Juicy Fun

Song: "Big Fat Juicy Fun"
[ listen ]

Speaking of pink album covers and harmonicas, here's some 1981 instrumental disco music I picked up at Square Records in Akron, Ohio a few years back that's pretty heavy on the mouth organ too. Recorded in Atlanta, Georgia and arranged and conducted by jazz trumpeter/high school teacher Tommy Stewart, the music itself is not nearly as big, fat, juicy, or fun as the LP cover would lead us to believe. It's not ghastly or anything, but some pretty high expectations have been set by that lady with the lollipop—not to mention the cutesy stuffed elephant and pig.