The rules of Scratch Ticket Radio are simple. During a trip to a record store, I put aside $10 to specifically spend on a few used 45s. The $10 limit is firm, so I end up with different amounts of records depending on their prices. Consistent with the gambling analogy, I do not listen to them in the store before I buy them, and I cannot select 45s by artists that I already know or that contain songs that I am already familiar with. Then, once I have them home, as if taking a quarter to a scratch ticket, I listen to each song to determine its quality. If I come out with more keepers than duds, the ticket as a whole can be considered a winner. 

Strange Maine 

(Portland, ME)

April 2026

In early April, I was in Portland for the second annual CAMP (Comic Arts Maine Portland). It is a cool little festival, held at the downtown library in Monument Square. Since one of my kids was tabling and not me, I had time to roam the city after checking out the other vendors at the event. At Pinecone + Chickadee, a place dedicated to various forms of ephemera, a got a used tape of The Jet’s Greatest Hits for $2. The fidelity had degraded so much that it now sounds like a forgotten early hauntology experiment. I also visited Moody’s Vintage, which had both clothes and records. It was uncluttered, well-lit and airy, and gave off a very curated and pricy feel. A few doors down was Strange Maine – an old-fashioned fire hazard of a used record store. Cramped, dank and filled with beat-to-shit records.

They also had a picture of Fred Lynn, my favorite baseball player of all time, taped to a bin. It could be a recent addition, or have been there since 1975 – time seemed to have stopped inside this place. They had a small collection of 45s, stuck in one corner, with a few genre dividers that had long since given up the ghost. For that reason, I picked through the whole thing. I put aside the ones I was spending my dedicated $10 on and also grabbed a few others. It seems like the prices on the records were merely suggestions, as the clerk substantially rounded down from my total when I gave him my stack. For that reason, I added a record to the Scratch Ticket Radio group, treating it like a bonus. 

France Joli (Prelude / 1979)

Joli was a Canadian child TV actor and cut this single when she was just 16. Come to Me was a big hit on the dance charts, spending several weeks at #1. She gave the first public performance of it at the huge Beach ’79 party on Fire Island. Apparently, she was a last-minute replacement for Donna Summer, and the crowd of 5,000 reportedly loved the song. Joli appears in a documentary about the lasting influence of that party (When Ocean Meets Sky) and from what I gather has retained a cult status in the gay club world. My knowledge of disco is quite limited, so on the surface Come to Me sounds like a collection of ideas from other songs (Summer’s own Last Dance, for one).  However, if I was in the mood to hit the floor, it’d work. The B-Side sounds like a TV theme song, and it brings to mind Charlie’s Angels. Blech. Confusingly, on my single the song is listed as Let Go, but in other places it is titled Don’t Let Go.  Those are contradictory pieces of advice. 

Bonus: In 2012, Joli released a dance version of Cohen’s Hallelujah. The performance makes it seems like she didn’t really get the lyrics. In addition, although many people claim Jan Terri’s video for Losing You is the worst music video of all time, Joli’s Hallelujah video is way, way worse. And as Terri herself would certainly point out, probably cost way, way more. 

Lance Lindsey (Voices in Vital America / 1973)

The photo on the cover is Lt. Ron Dodge. At the time he was a prisoner of war in Vietnam, and later he was executed. His remains were returned to the US in 1981 and buried in Arlington National Cemetery. This single was put out by an organization named Voices in Vital America that was dedicated to calling attention to the situation of POW/MIA in Vietnam. They became well-known for bracelets they created that had the name of individual soldiers who were not accounted for. They also sold bumper stickers and oddly, matchbooks.   

This seems to be the only recording by Lance Lindsey, and I couldn’t find any other information about him. Wake Up America! is a pretty straight forward pop-folk tune with overwrought strings. Lindsey calls out America for not taking care of POW/MIA from the Korean War and urges the country to not make the same mistake with soldiers in Vietnam. How Do You Tell a Small Boy? is sung from the perspective of a returned POW who rues all the things he missed sharing with his son and is as maudlin as you can imagine. I actually think it would have worked better as a less-orchestrated country song. 

I understand the concern for those soldiers who were held in captivity in Hanoi, but there is no context provided or any recognition of incredible destruction the US visited upon the country. Perhaps not surprisingly, Voices in Vital America was formerly known as the Victory in Vietnam Association. 

Nino Maisano (G.F.C./ Year?)

I couldn’t find anything out about Maisano, either, but it seems like he recorded a number of songs as he shows up listed on some compilations of Italian folk music. I also don’t know what year this came out. However, the photo him in what is clearly a ruin of some sort gives proto-indie vibes. So does the photocopy quality of the paper and the print. 

Serenata Sdeegnusa is pleasant enough, but if it was a from a larger collection of Italian folk songs I picked up, it would probably not be the one that made it into my listening rotation or my year-end list. I do like how sometimes in this genre the singer seems to be going up against the limit of their range. Also very indie. As for the B-Side, Chista Si E’ Na Tarantella, I’m sure this song would be better live, with a beer in my hand and some other folks dancing. I had access to a mandolin once, and managed to figure out the basic tarantella rhythm. If called upon, I could air mandolin to this. Not sure how likely that exigency is, but I’m prepared is all I’m saying. 

Melina Mercouri (Polydor/ 1960)

I never smoked and never found women smoking sexy. I don’t find Ms. Mercouri sexy, either, but I couldn’t resist picking this single up. It looks like she is about to matter-of-factly drop some rough truth-bombs on me, while I wonder how long her ash will get before she feels the need to flick it. I didn’t really think about it when I picked this up, but “sonntags…nie” is the German title for the film Never on a Sunday, which featured Ms. Mercouri. The film was directed by her husband, Jules Dassin, who also starred as a scholar trying to get her character to change her ways (she played a sex worker). I have not seen it, but apparently it was spoof, rather than a morality play. Mercouri won a best actress award at Cannes and got Oscar and BAFTA nominations for her work. The fact that I didn’t know who she was is quite embarrassing. In addition to being an accomplished actor, she served in Greece’s Parliament, and was a political activist. In the late-60’s, she joined the struggle against the military junta that had taken over the country, and they revoked her citizenship. She famously commented: “I was born a Greek and I will die a Greek. Those bastards were born fascists and they will die fascists.” I know the photo on the sleeve is from the movie, but this is now how I picture her saying that. 

 The A side is a song from the film, Ta Pedia tou Pirea, translated and sung in German as Ein Schiff wird kommen. Unfortunately, it sounds way better in Greek than in German. Ein Schiff wird kommen? Nein, danke. I don’t think the B-Side, Die gleichen Stern, was from the movie. Perhaps it was recorded specifically for the German market? It actually goes down easier than the A side. 

            Fun Fact: Dassin, famous for his noirs, was born in Middletown, CT. 

Nonostar (Earsugar Jukebox/ 2007)

There was no date on the record, so I was surprised to learn that it was from 2007. I also didn’t expect it to be a German label. Perhaps the same person brought this and the Melina Mercouri record into Strange Maine. I couldn’t find out much about Nonostar as a band. Discogs suggests that they are dub and/or indie rock. I would instead describe them as soporific. The A-Side, Shine Some More, just sits there in a mid-tempo holding pattern until it becomes more distorted for a bit. The B-Side, Day Follows Night, is more of the same, this time without the distortion. I’m not even sure what this is supposed to be, and I’m not going to spend one second more thinking about it.

Spring (IX Chains/ 1973)

Please note, this is not the 1970’s prog rock band Spring from England. This is also not the 1990’s rock band Spring from Malaysia. This here is the 1970’s sweet soul band Spring that recorded two singles for IX Chains and then disappeared. I find much of 70’s soul to be like pizza – it is generally edible, even when it is not particularly remarkable. Talk to the Rain is not a standout slice. It’s more like what you get from the local guys who have been there since you were a kid. You’re So Hard to Forget is more of the same. It asks you how your parents are doing and can’t believe how big your kids have gotten. 

The label name is intriguing, but I couldn’t get any information about it. I’m really curious to know what the reference is. Is it religious? Nine is associated with various valued qualities in different belief systems, but why would chains be described in that way? Odd.

Anyways, IX Chains released about 24 singles, which appear to be mostly soul, and one LP that collected various Dickie Goodman cuts. The Hell? His bit was to create a scenario where somebody is asking a series of questions, and the answers are snippets from various songs to create hilarity. I remember Mr. Jaws being on the radio when I was kid, and I’m hoping I never plunked down my 99 cents to own a copy. When I learned about this record, I listened to the beginning of Convention ’72. I couldn’t get very far. Just the downright stupid spoofs of broadcasters’ names were enough to suggest what the rest of the thing would be like. I’m afraid to even think about how the Superfly Meets Shaft sounds. 

Jerry Wallace (Liberty/ 1967)

Wallace had a number of country hits, and while never being a big star, it seemed like he was a fixture on the scene. This is polished and overly orchestrated country-pop. The arrangements for the backing singers are truly annoying, as they literally just repeat what he said. Wallace comes across like a well-adjusted guy, but that doesn’t make for a particularly interesting country song. Underneath the production goop, This One’s On the House is probably a decent tune. The B-Side, A New Sun Risin’, sounds more like filler from an album. Taken together, these songs give me a candy stomachache.

Results

At a certain level, I’m OK with getting a batch of records that didn’t have any songs that I totally dug. What I’m not OK with is hitting a number of dead ends when trying to learn more about the artists and labels. I guess I assumed that with enough sleuthing, I could discover the history and context of just about any record. I need to recalibrate my expectations, and lean into learning more about Melina Mercouri.