History's Dumpster

Sunday, September 16, 2012

"The Fool On The Hill" Bjork (1977)

I could have put the cheesy Brasil '66 samba version of the Beatles classic up here, but I wanted SHEER mozzarella. So here's Bjork - yes, the one and only, at age 11 singing "The Fool On The Hill" - in Icelandic - from her first album....

There Oughta Be A Law.......

Some actual laws (some are STILL on the books!)

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In seventeenth-century Massachusetts, smoking was legal only at a
distance of five miles from any town.

In Vermont, USA, it is illegal for women to wear false teeth
without the written permission of their husbands. 

A monkey was once tried and convicted for smoking a cigarette in
South Bend, Indiana. 

Acting was once considered to be evil, and the actors in the first
English play to be performed in America were arrested. 

It's illegal to buy ice cream after 6 pm in Newark, NJ. unless you
have a written note from your doctor. 

In Texas, it is illegal to curse in front of or indecently expose
a corpse. 

In Michigan, USA, a man legally owns his wife's hair. 

As late as 1932, jail-breaking in Texas was not a crime if the
prisoner escaped without using a gun. 

It's against the law to catch fish with your bare hands in Kansas. 

In Kentucky, it is illegal to carry ice cream in your back pocket.

In Boston, it is illegal to take a bath unless one has been ordered to by a physician.

An old law in Bellingham, Wash., made it illegal for a woman to take more than steps backwards while dancing.

In Idaho, USA, the law states that all boxes of candy given as romantic gifts must weigh more than 50 pounds.

Mailing an entire building has been illegal in the US since 1916 when a man mailed a 40,000-ton brick house across Utah to avoid high freight rates.

In Texas it's legal for a chicken to have sex with you, but it's illegal to reciprocate.

In Tennessee, USA, a man must walk in front of any car driven by a women, while waving a red flag as a warning.

In Louisiana, USA, a man may legally beat his wife with a leather strap, as long as it is less than 2 inches wide.

In Texas, it's illegal to put graffiti on someone else's cow.

In Vermont, USA, it is illegal for women to wear false teeth without the written permission of their husbands.

French Lick Springs, Indiana once passed a law requiring all black cats to wear bells on Friday the 13th.

Playboy Records

Playboy Records was one of the most promising new record labels of the '70s. With the nudge-nudge, wink-wink, backing of Hugh Hefner's empire and finances, what could possibly go wrong?

Well first, everything.

What Playboy knew in what guys want in everything else didn't translate quite so well for it's record company. Playboy albums usually flopped on the charts, most never even appeared. The company did very little to promote it's artists, thinking the Playboy name would sell itself. It sold magazines and a softcore porn cable TV channel, but not records.

Another problem was much of Playboy's roster had only a few recognizable names and the rest were unknowns. Add to the little promotion of their albums and it was a recipe for disaster.

There was also the fact that some independent record stores (namely in the Bible belt) refused to stock Playboy Records - possibly out fear of being accused of smut peddling by clueless church ladies. In reality, Playboy Records had an artist catalog so clean and genteel, it made Mike Curb's uber-conservative management of MGM Records in the early '70s look downright sleazy by comparison and that was the biggest problem of all.

For example, Playboy Records' biggest selling artists were Mickey Gilley and Hamilton, Joe Frank & Reynolds. There was no punk, heavy metal or hard funk on Playboy Records (Even MGM had Elf, Ronnie James Dio's pre-Rainbow band.)

This was the biggest hit on Playboy Records:

With a name like Playboy Records, people were naturally EXPECTING something a little more provocative than soft rock ballads and urban-cowboy country. Perhaps Playboy Records was making the BIG mistake in trying so hard to be a respected major independent label, they had completely forgotten the value of it's own name (a lesson that was not lost on Virgin Records, which - ironically - released albums that were far edgier than anything Playboy Records offered.)

But one #1 hit just doesn't keep a record company going and soon, even Hefner lost interest. The label was soon distributed by Epic Records and was quickly folded into Epic by 1978......

Botan Rice Candy

One of my favourite candies since I was a little kid, Botan Rice Candy was unqiue because of it's clear inner wrapper. It melted in your mouth. It was very popular with kids in the '70s. And the box still looks the same as we remember it when we were kids.

It also came with cool Japanese stickers that I used to stick all over my Pee-Chee folders in school......