Wij Houden Van Oranje

Artist: Wij Houden Van Oranje

LP: De Allergrootste Voetbalkrakers

Song: "Olé, We Are the Champions"

[ listen ]

In case you live on Mars or one of the other planets besides Earth and so you haven't yet heard...Philip Seymour Hoffman died today from drugs. Not only that, but the Seattle Seahawks are Superbowl champions! (In case you live in the USA or one of the other countries besides Holland, "Wij Houden Van Oranje" translated to English means "We Just Won the Fucking Superbowl.") I never thought I'd be posting sports logos and statistics on my blog (did I mention that the Seahawks beat the Broncos 43 to 8?), but these guys have earned it. The Seahawks have the entire city going nuts, they've made everyone in the state happy and friendly (and drunk), and I have to admit it's all pretty gosh darn contagious. Well done, guys!

Double Exposure

Artist: Double Exposure

LP: Locker Room

Song: "I Got the Hots (For Ya)"

[ listen ]

Anyway, getting back to Washington, DC—after setting up the conference booth at the hotel where I was staying, I headed over to my favorite 24-hour DC diner, simply called The Diner. After enjoying a delicious omelet and plenty of coffee I dropped by Red Onion Records & Books, which was the basement record store I'd been trying to locate the evening before. (I forgot they sold books too, so that part of their name threw me off.) I'd found lots of great stuff at Red Onion the last time I was in DC, and managed to leave with plenty of neat stuff this time too—including this 1979 locker-room-themed LP by the Philadelphia-based disco group Double Exposure. James, Joseph, Leonard, and Charles have evidently been singing (and showering) together since they were in junior high school, though in the 1960s their group was called United Image instead. According to the Double Exposure Wikipedia page here, these lads released the first-ever commercially available 12" single!

[ the inside of The Diner — Washington, DC ]

[ a delicious omelet w/ grits and English muffin at The Diner — Washington, DC ]

[ the outside of Red Onion Records & Books — Washington, DC ]

[ the inside of Red Onion Records & Books — Washington, DC ]

[ the inside of Double Exposure's sports uniforms — Washington, DC ]

Meadowlark Lemon

Artist: Meadowlark Lemon

LP: My Kids

Song: "Earthmen"

[ listen ]

Smash Records was the next Washington, DC record store I visited last week; it's just a few blocks up the street from Crooked Beat. The store seemed more geared toward punk, metal, indie rock, clothing, and that sort of thing, so I didn't really expect to find much for my collection. I figured I'd pop in anyhow and I'm glad I did. They had some terrific stuff tucked into the dusty corners, and then they also had this bizarre 1979 album from Meadowlark Lemon, one of the most well-known and beloved members of the famous Harlem Globetrotters basketball team. The album is mostly a celebration of the beauty and innocence of childhood (Meadowlark has 10 kids; see front cover and the dedication in the liner notes), but it also includes an odd closing track called "Earthmen," a call for planetary unity in the face of a hypothetical hostile alien takeover of the planet. If such a takeover actually took place—complete with MOONRAKER-style laser-beam sound-effects—Meadowlark wonders: would people in the world finally forget all their prejudices and come together as one? For all of us are Earthmen! (Well, except for Earthwomen, of course. But we could probably offer them up as some sort of sacrifice or donation to the hostile aliens in order for them to leave all of us newly-unified Earthmen alone.) You can read all about the life and career of Meadowlark Lemon here, visit The Meadowlark Lemon Foundation website here, and get lots of info about The Harlem Globetrotters here. Hey, guess what Whoopi Goldberg, Pope John Paul II, Henry Kissinger, and Bob Hope all have in common. Each of them is an honorary member of The Harlem Globetrotters!

[ the outside of Smash Records — Washington, DC ]

[ the flag and neon sign of Smash Records — Washington, DC ]

[ the inside of Smash Records — Washington, DC ]