"Give Just A Little" Seattle Helps The Hungry (1985)

The release of Band Aid's 1984 single "Do They Know It's Christmas?" raised a new consciousness of the devastating famine in Ethiopia in which several million Ethiopians died after years of drought and the unimaginable horror and suffering the Ethiopian people were enduring.

The success of the single inspired an American response single, "We Are The World" by USA For Africa and soon, artists from other countries and music communities began releasing what has become known as The Benefit Single. In which artists, producers, recording studios, labels, distributors and retail outlets would donate their talent, time and resources in bringing these singles to market with no compensation and 100% of the proceeds from the single would go to the charities in which they were intended.

After seeing a similar benefit single released by local artists in another city, Seattle producer and songwriter David Perry created Seattle's own benefit single for Ethiopia. This single, "Give Just A Little" was a sort of who's who of Seattle's local music talent and media personalities of that time. Including Annie Rose & The Thrillers, The Eagertones, The Dynette Set, Rail, The Cowboys, Chuck Conlon, Eric Tingstad, Michael Tomlinson, Mondo Vita and Red Dress. Radio and TV personalities Wayne Cody and Nick Walker of KIRO-TV, KUBE Radio's Truck Rogers, KHIT Radio's Maureen Matthews, KPLZ's Jeff King, KNBQ's R.P McMurphy and local legend Merrilee Rush (who sang the original version of the pop classic "Angel of The Morning"). As well as The Neville Brothers and many others.

The single benefitted the USA For Africa aid charity as well as local food bank Northwest Harvest. Reminding us that hunger exists right around the corner as well as halfway around the world.

This single (like many others) got some brief media attention, but it was also becoming apparent the market was becoming saturated with benefit singles and while local sales were good, they were eclipsed by the "We Are The World" single which inspired them.

However, as we are approaching the 30th anniversary of "We Are The World" (and it still seems like yesterday!), these singles still stand as an irrefutable testament to the fact that were it not for the music communities, Ethiopia would have starved while the politicians just talked. And every little bit helped.

Shake-A-Pudd'n

Royal Shake-A-Pudd'n was an instant pudding mix from the late 1960s.

It came with four cups, four spoons, four lids and four packets of pudding mix. You just added water.


The line was later manufactured by Jell-O in the early-mid '1970s (as the more grammar-correct Shake-A-Pudding.) before being discontinued.

Ipso

Ipso was an Irish made breath mint that was popular in the UK in the 1970s and '80s and was briefly sold in the US. They came in Peppermint, Orange, Lime and Raspberry flavours. Spearmint and Cinnamon replaced Lime and Raspberry in the US.

They were most famous for their Lego-like boxes, which you could collect and stack. However, they had a very special use for drug users, who used them as stash boxes, leading to many American schools banning them. But overall, they never sold well in America and disappeared from US shelves by 1981. They lasted until the late 1980s in the UK.

They never had a large advertising presence in the US, but in the UK, they were noted for this classic TV ad.

White Van Speaker Scam

They lurk around shopping centers and box stores....Shady people, usually young men (but sometimes young women) in vans and SUVs.

They look at you and lick their chops as they pull over to you and make you a deal you just can't refuse; a brand new set of surround sound speakers and subwoofer for $200.

And this wasn't just any run of the mill surround sound set-up. This one is from a super boutique audiophile brand, renowned all over Europe; Olin Ross. Only the super snobs can afford this stuff. But by some strange ordering fluke, today is your lucky day and they just happened to have this Olin Ross surround sound thing that retails for $5,000 in a high-end audio shop, but if you act quick and run to the ATM and pull out $200 cash, you can get this thing off their hands and be the envy of everyone on your block...

Who is Olin Ross? you ask?

He/She then whips out a glossy brochure and even reviews in an audiophile magazine. And you begin to salivate at the superlative filled testimonials and reviews by audio experts who were left breathless by the performance of this thing.

So....You give them $200 and even an extra $20 for beer money because they were so cool. You race home and begin to set this thing up.

And it's right there you find out you've been had.

You got speakers, but really crummy and tinny sounding ones. The subwoofer is particleboard slapped together with glue. The volume control has static and overall, it's garbage. The magazine with the glowing reviews? Fake. The brochure? Fake. The company web address on the brochure? Fake too. And you wouldn't have bought this at all if you knew what it really was.

You my friend, have fallen victim to the White Van Speaker Scam, aka "The Speaker Guys"



It's not a new scam, it goes way back into the early '70s. And it isn't just speakers or even exclusively white vans the cons use. But any fishy sounding person who sells any kind of stuff from the back of a van or SUV in the parking lot of a Walmart, Home Depot or a supermarket.  I have heard many stories from people who got screwed already so when I was first approached by these cons in the '80s, I was able to fend them off (but not easily, they just don't know the meaning of give up.) But in recent years, the scam has really been on the rise.

You can find more details here.

And it's not just in America. You can find these scammers all over the world.


Protecting yourself is easy; Buy A/V equipment only from reputable dealers and not from vans.

Here's a list of some of the brands associated with this scam. Also be aware many of these brands are also being sold on eBay as well. So buyer beware:

Olin Ross

Marc Vincent

Divinci

iCinema

DOGG

Hermann

Nexis Audio

Jonsson

Eliese

Paramax

Hauffmann

ProTechnika

Maclaren

Kinetic

Some Weird DAT I Have: Is It YOURS?

Sometime in early 2002, a friend of mine gave me a box of loose cassettes.

They were mostly mixtapes by random people with no labels. I played a few of them out of curiosity. I still like doing that sometimes whenever I run across an old used blank cassette. I can still do that because I still have not just a cassette deck, but a full blown audio component system. Hey, I was "hipster" before they even had a name for them.

Some were stuff recorded off the radio, others were full albums. Babylon And On from Squeeze and Tango In The Night from Fleetwood Mac was on one of them. Another cassette had The Division Bell from Pink Floyd recorded on one side, The Spice Girls on the other.

But nothing in my life prepared me for one mixtape that was the craziest one I have ever heard in my life. Side One started out with "Somewhere" Barbara Streisand.

Genteel, I know. But I let it play as I was writing an article on vintage record label designs for a friend's web site. I figured it was probably a Babs tape. Or a mix of something of the "Lite Adult Contemporary" ilk.

I suddenly spit out my sip of Jim Beam & 7-Up all over my keyboard when I heard the next song - a GG Allin song.

WTF? (And if you don't know who or what a GG Allin is, here. But let's say he's just not the kind of guy they play on "K-Lite".) And FYI, that wasn't the actual song on the tape. Just the only one in his repertoire clean enough to play on a fairly PG-13 blog. You can look up YouTube for the rest. But make sure grandma is out of the room.

The tape continued with The Dazz Band, Waylon Jennings, unknown ragtime music, Motley Crue, Ed Ames, The Buzzcocks, Rita Coolidge, Yngwie Malmsteen, Sylvester, Mercyful Fate, Gordon Lightfoot, Millie Jackson, The Mentors, Parliament, Dan Fogelberg, Scritti Politti and so forth.

In that order.

I had to put the whiskey away and finish the article the next day (with a more stable soundtrack.) My brain just couldn't process the mental whiplash of everything.

And I am NOT making any of that up. I still have that cassette.

But to the point of the matter.

At the bottom of this box, next to a dead spider, was a DAT (Digital Audio Tape)

DATs were a short lived digital format in the early '90s that was popular with amateur/developing musicians. Mostly for mastering demos, as this tape is.

The problem is I can't tell you what it really is because I don't have a DAT player. The group (or solo project) is called Innervision and I'm not sure what it is musically, but from the song titles, it would appear to be some kind of progressive rock act.

  

The track listing:

1. Someone To Love Me
2. The Goblin
3. Deja Blue
4. Dark Days

It's an audio mystery in fading pencil writing on the J-card. And most importantly, (which the scan did NOT read)  was "MASTER". This means whoever did this recording must've put some serious dedication into this.

All I want is for this DAT to come back to it's rightful owner. It's been here long enough. Maybe I should just scoop up an old DAT machine somewhere and hear what it sounds like. But I know musicians and they tend to be picky about things. So out of courtesy and respect, I will hold on to it. Someone knows somebody. And a chance look through Google. That sort of thing. I don't know if it's a priceless, one of a kind demo. But I have it.

Let me know, wherever you are.