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.

Albany: Last Vestige

August 2024

I rarely find myself in Albany, but for years I drove past it while going between home and the University of Vermont. With my UVM child having graduated, I figured I should go record shopping in Albany at least one time during the process of moving them back home. I didn’t have a plan, so I more or less randomly ended up at Last Vestige. They had a whole wall of 45s alphabetized by artist, which was impressive. However, to make my $10 last, I headed for the unsorted box of cheap singles. 

Foxy (DASH/1979)

Hot Number: The name is Foxy. The song is Hot Number. It couldn’t be any more 70’s than that. Unfortunately, it is the drag kind of 70’s. It sounds like the music for a party scene on a tv show when they can’t afford the rights to a well-known hit so they pay a band to cut a song that is reminiscent of it without being outright plagiarism. And yet somehow Hot Number actually charted. I can only imagine that was due to some payola-cocaine changing hands. Either that, or Baudrillard is 100% right. 

Call It Love: Yuck. Just, yuck.

Background: DASH was a Miami label that focused on Latin Soul. Fun fact – the percussionist was the son of Tito Puente. Another fun fact – Foxy played the backing track to ABBA’s Voulez-Vous, which was the only time ABBA recorded somewhere other than Sweden. Yet another fun fact – Carlo Driggs, their second lead singer, later sang for Paul Revere and the Raiders from 1983 to 2004. The world is indeed a wonderous place, too bad this music isn’t as well. 

The Happenings (B.T. Puppy Records/1967)

Well, this violated a key stipulation, as it turns out I did know the band. The Happenings had a hit with their cover of See You In September, which was a staple on oldies channels when I was growing up. It is not a good song, and the original is somehow even worse, so I want to cut myself some slack for not remembering the band’s name. But a rule is a rule. When I was a kid, I thought The Happenings were from California, but they were actually from Paterson, New Jersey. I guess they do sound more like The Four Seasons than The Beach Boys. In the end it doesn’t really matter I guess, because both of those bands stink. 

My Mammy: Even more rule breaking. When I saw this, I wondered how a song could have this title in the 1960’s. The simple but confounding explanation? It is actually a straight-up version of the old minstrelsy song. Yikes!!! They must have lost a bet, right? Or maybe it’s a failed attempt at satire? What else would explain this disaster? Who was this for? What kind of shows did they play this at? Messed up. 

I Believe in Nothing: Well, I believe I will stay as far away from The Happenings as possible.

Background: B.T. Puppy Records is a clunky name for a label, but perhaps it suited the vibe of the artists they worked with. The discography is mostly releases from The Happenings and The Tokens, who were the ones who founded the company (perhaps with their ill-gotten The Lion Sleeps Tonight money). Their other artists seem to have been low-rent garage bands (e.g., The Satans Four), girl groups (e.g., The Coeds, The Cinnamon Angels) and other mellow vocal groups. This includes Brute Force, who have perhaps the most ill-fitting name in the history of music given the style of music they played. 

The Loneliest Christmas Tree (Bus Stop/1992)

The Meaning of Life: Indie rock that seems more beholden to some 60’s British rock than some other bands of their ilk. The song feels like it is a build-up to something that never arrives, but it is not as cloying as I expected given their band name. It somehow brings to mind Thayer Street by the Dogmatics, except that song feels fully realized. 

The Treasure Chest of Me: There is a nice guitar riff that mixes well with the drum-forward sound, but the singer’s mix of restrained and strained vocals gets in the way for me. It is a very late 80’s early 90’s indie-rock singing style that I think is supposed to indicate sincerity or authenticity or something. This song sounds like Soul Asylum with the heavy metal touches removed. I bet heard live with a beer in my hand I would rate it higher. 

Purgatory: This settles right into the slow and meandering mood, so it works better than the first track. I still don’t dig the vocals (Gordon Gano + Mark Mulcahy + Something that doesn’t taste good), but they don’t get in the way of this mostly instrumental track. 

Background: It was hard to track down info on the band. They were from Massachusetts, and members played in various other indie-bands. This was a repress of a single put out on an even smaller label. Oddly, Country star Deborah Allen published a book called The Loneliest Christmas Tree in 2011, but it was nearly 20 years after the band put records out. My guess is that she had not heard of the band and that those words being used together was a bit inevitable. In her story, the city grows up around a tree (as in The Little House by Virginia Lee Burton) that longs to be made into a Christmas tree in somebody’s home. Instead, it is saved from a developer’s bulldozer by becoming a shelter for some unhoused people. Once she had the title, I figure the story pretty much wrote itself. There is another recently published children’s story with that title that involves a tree in a forest also being happy it finds a new home. Compare this treacle to Hans Christian Anderson’s The Fir Tree. In this story, a tree longs to be taken from the forest and turned into a Christmas tree. It is very proud when it finally happens. Then when the holiday ends, the tree is chopped into bits and tossed aside. Doh!

The Majorettes (Troy/1963)

White Levis (Tennis Shoes, Surfin’ Hat and Big Plaid Pendleton Shirt): Annoying teeny-bopper pop with the expected bleating sax accompaniment. Think Itsy-Bitsy-Teeny-Weeny Yellow-Polka Dot Bikini. It’s mainly an ad for Levi’s, but Pendleton shirts also get a plug. Those are the plaid shirts that are worn by surfers and those who cosplay as surfers, like the Beach Boys. In fact, their original name was actually The Pendletons. But as they say, the Beach Boys by any other name still stink. 

Please Come Back: Nope. 

Background: There are a few groups named the Majorettes out there, and there is not a lot of information out there about this one. Some accounts claim they were a mother and daughter vocal group. Others suggest they were a group of sisters. Their only other release (as far as I can tell) was a single with Dance With Me on the A Side and Let’s Do the Kangarooon the B (a failed attempt at starting a dance craze). 

Monster Zero (Seldom Scene/1996)

Spy vs. Spy: This is groovy noisy indie rock that has some interesting textures beyond the loud-soft-loud dynamics and the guitar freak-outs that were so popular in the 90s. Solid, if not spectacular, songwriting. Good job, kids. 

Stupid Man: This is a bit more open and energetic than the A Side, but is still tight and catchy. The shared vocals are certainly redolent of the era. I don’t know what else to say about this one other than it is the pick of the litter in this batch. 

Background: There also appears to be a few bands named Monster Zero (most likely named after Godzilla’s arch-nemesis King Ghidorah). There is a heavy-metal Monster Zero in Las Vegas, and one from Arkansas Tech.  Based on the limited amount of information I could find, this Monster Zero is from Columbus. It doesn’t look like they made an album, but they recorded two other singles. 

Pleasure Leftists (Katorga Works/2013)

Elephant Men/ Not Over: When The Stray Cats came out in the early 80’s, I thought it was silly. Why would these guys want to cosplay a genre that was 25 years old? What was the point of that? At the time, I could not expect that this type of pre-digested musical nostalgia would keep happening again and again. In this case, The Pleasure Leftists are even more committed to the era-specific production than The Stray Cats were. They ably capture the sound of bands like Siouxsie and the Banshees circa 1983 or so. Even the picture sleeve evokes that period of time. I just don’t understand kids these days. 

Background: They were a Cleveland band active in the 2010’s. The name comes from the radio show the singer used to host at Cleveland State University, and apparently doesn’t mean anything. She just liked the sound of the words together. The fact that their records are now receiving re-releases framed by nostalgia for the previous decade will likely collapse the time-space continuum entirely. 

Cozy Powell (RAK/1974)

The Man in Black: Even though the title of the song is The Man in Black, I thought because of the label this would be some kind of yacht rock. I mean, there’s a yacht there! But nope. This is a piano-led instrumental choogling vamp with a drum breakdown in the middle. If I had had the picture sleeve, perhaps my expectations would have been much different. 

After Dark: Another piano-led repetitive instrumental with a drum breakdown. Guess Mr. Powell had a vision of some sort. 

Background: Powell played drums in a lot of bands I don’t listen to. He was in rock bands (e.g., Black Sabbath, Rainbow, Whitesnake) and also played in prog bands (e.g., ELP). Apparently, he might have been the first person to have his name on his double-kick drums. Good for him.