Say What You Mean

This was the first record I picked up at the flea market yesterday, and I think we can all agree, it's creepy as hell. (Literally as creepy as hell.) They're just coming right out with it, aren't they? It's like "see you when we're dead" but they're all smiles. The music is awful but I had to buy it for the cover.

Same goes for this—had to have it for the cover and the album title—but the music is great too.

The rest were $1 or $2 each, nothing to shout about but some good disco and mild psyche. The big score of the day was probably The Hot Dogs' Say What You Mean, a side project of Terry Manning that came out on Ardent, a division of Stax, in 1973 (click to enlarge the photo above, and you can see it in the middle of the top row). Manning was a prolific engineer, handling the boards for such minor artists as Isaac Hayes, Led Zeppelin, Albert King, and David Porter. I found his first record Home Sweet Home several years ago at the Orcas Island sanitation department's pay-what-you-think-is-fair thrift store, and am still blown away every time I listen to it.

Terry Manning "Savoy Truffle" (Listen to the whole thing but if you can't, skip ahead to around 7:00 for some nice drums)

Home Sweet Home was re-mastered and re-issued a few years ago with an additional track, "One After 909," also a Beatles cover. The story goes that Manning, being on the inside, got hold of a demo version of the song and recorded his bugged-out psychedelic take on it before the Beatles' version came out on Let It Be.

Check for Home Sweet Home at your local record store or order it from amazon.com.