Highway HIFI Podcast

Welcome to Highway Hi-FI Podcast. We go track by track through the underbelly of music history using research and trivia to locate the roots of our obsession with vinyl records.

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Remember: Shop at record shops, go to shows, buy vinyl, and support the people who make and distribute the music that we love.

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EPISODE 98: Tax Scam Labels

Today, a look at the albums and labels that were born to lose money. The artifacts of music industry mischief and copyright chicanery. So, go ahead and file an extension on your common sense. Declare the next hour or three a total loss and adjust your gross. Put your dependents to bed and audit yourself for a stiff drink. This is going to get taxing. Get ready for the write-off records. In this episode, tax scam labels.

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The Four Songs Featured on this Episode:

Harlem River Drive - Harlem River Drive (Theme)

Reverend Kristen Michael Hayter - All of My Friends Art Going to Hell

The Savages - The World Ain't Round, It's Square

Elyse Weinberg - Houses

Resources:
Aaron Milenski article on Shit-Fi

Dangerous Minds - Richard Goldman Story Part 1 and Part 2
Dangerous Minds - R Stevie Moore Story
Patrick Lundberg for the story of Steve Kaczorowski

BadCatRecords…comprehensive website

Great Album Covers:

And Mo Levy. Notice the Sign Behind Him: "O Lord Give Me A Bastard with Talent"

Episode 97: Animal Bands (Non-Human Part 2)

This episode, we will devolve to dance among the beasts. So, tell Marlin Perkins to dust off that keytar, St Francis to open the cages, and David Attenburough to tickle himself some ivories. Get ready for thrillin’ reptilian. Amplified amphibians. Ambles of Mammals. When this ark gets to rockin’, be wary of knockin’. This petting zoo is going to get heavy. Today, non-human bands, part 1: the animal kingdom.

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The Four Records Featured on this Episode:

The Mighty Sparrow - Congo Man

Hatebeak - Birdzum

Jim Wilson - God's Chorus (excerpt)

Jack Blanchard & Misty Morgan - Tennessee Bird Walk

American Hero/Jingle Cats Creator Jack Spalla with one of his "artists".

EPISODE 96: Underwater Library Music

Following the worldwide success of Jacques Cousteau, there was a deluge of underwater documentary programming and the need for music. Lots of it. Hours and hours of background music to create a soundtrack to the whimsy, mystery, and excitement of the new frontiers of human exploration…jungles, deserts, space, and, of course, underwater. As this trend was peaking in the 70s, Music library companies were happy to oblige by setting their incredibly industrious composers and session men to the task of creating a background sound for the unknown. Hundreds of records were made just for this purpose. From these libraries, came an unlikely but enticing subgenre, Underwater Music.

On today’s show, we’re casting our line out as far as we can to reel in an episode about a music style that is as expansive, deep, majestic, and mysterious as the oceans themselves. Be ready for thrills to your gills and grins to your fins! These sperm whales are ready to breach. All right, chums, it’s time to pull your snorkel and flippers out of storage and your lures and bobbers out of the tackle box and join us as we flush ourselves into the fresh and oh so moist world of underwater music.

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The Four Records Featured on this Episodes:

Sven Libaek - Inner Space

Robert Wyatt - Sea Song

Joel Vandroogenbroeck & Walt Rockman - Fairy Tale

Myriam Gendron - The False Friends

Episode Links:

Trunk Records

Alain Meunier and his Famous Underwater Diving Organ

Halloween Mix 2023

HALLOWEEN SPECIAL: BLOB DYLAN

Sorry, we ghosted you. We're back from the beyond with new trivia and spooky mix (it's just Thriller backwards).

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Episode 93: Ringo Tribute Songs

From 1963 to 1967 hundreds of songs about the Beatles, but not by the Beatles, were issued by no-name artists on tiny fly-by-night labels. An unimaginable amount of these mop top dedications were simply trying to scrape the bottom of the barrel of Beatlemania Bucks. And while the whole band received an unending amount of adulation from the masses of music makers, one member had an almost metaphysical magnetism for bad musicians: Mr. Ringo Starr.

In this episode, we are going to explore America’s Jingoism for Ringoism. The ladies who love the goofball percussionist and the men who love to hate him. Odes to the drummer who is better than the best. Or at least better than Pete Best. And the scores of singers who can’t possibly imagine a better subject matter than those shaggy locks and that Gomer Pyle grin. Listening to this music...it don't come easy. But we’re going to brave the bewildering and backbreaking Beatlemania Bacchanalia to bring you a bounty of the best bedeviling Beatle bauble by bewitched Beatle buffs. In this episode, Ringo Songs.

Get ready for some Starkey Malarkey:

The Four Records Featured on this Episode:

Jescos - Beatles Vs. Stones

Violinaires - Salt of the Earth

The Magic Tones - Together, We Shall Overcome

Ted Hawkins - Sorry You're Sick

Oh shit, we forgot to mention that none-other than Moog-sporting rock-n-roll Zelig, Mort Garson, co-wrote Ringo for President.

Beatles Novelty Website 1 2

If anyone has those Russian Beatle Novelties...send us an email. We will trade you some quality lock from our stash of Ringo hair.

Great podcasts to Check Out:

The Toth Zone

Low Profile with Markly Morrison

Buy Some Music/Records:

James Toth/Wooden Wand

PIAPTK

Sorry about this, Ringo.

EPISODE 92: The Music of Spaghetti Westerns

In this episode, we track the legacy of the music of the grittiest of film styles. Scores of scores that are riddled with bullet holes, whiskey bottles, scattered cards, wanted posters, and bloodstains. Tunes that put a bounty on your mind and will ride you down in the desert. So, saddle up your pony and load your six-gun. Down that bottle and kiss your senoritas farewell, Prepare yourself for double-crosses, and double-double-crosses. Get another coffin ready. Today, we’re gunning down the history of Spaghetti Western Music.

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The Four Records Featured on this Episode:

Calexico - Minas De Cobre

Peter Tevas - Pastures of Plenty

BF Shelton - Pretty Polly

Timber Timbre - Grand Canyon

Spaghetti Western Database

Federale Band (buy some)

Killer Pipe Organ

Killer Banjo

EPISODE 91: Famously Bad Musicians

Nobody intentionally builds cathedrals to mediocrity. Music criticism, and really society in general, is often preoccupied with defining, declaring, and debating superlatives by using any means at their disposal, subjective to scientific. Look at the vast array of books, articles, lists, blog posts, and podcasts dedicated to rock’s most important bands or the world’s greatest albums, or the first true trip-hop song, or even the musician with the most substantial mustache. We seemingly have a compulsive need to declare a winner. To pin an imaginary medal for a make-believe achievement of unquantifiable greatness.

What we rarely do is look to the opposite side of the bell curve. To the outliers at the bottom, that is equally rare as their counterpoints at the apex, but not nearly given as much consideration for how unique they truly are. Those who stand out because of their outstanding failure and shortcomings. The best of the worst. The dregs of the entertainment community.

In this episode, we are going to explore the pop stars who found fans in spite of (or perhaps because of) their gross musical incompetence and who were demonstratively aesthetically just plain bad. The small handful of musicians who would be, under all circumstances, considered conventionally terrible at music yet manage to attain success. Those who through sheer will or perhaps complete ignorance managed to make a name for themselves. And those who were exploited, mocked, and enjoyed ironically but still fought to the top.

We seek to understand first what the motive is behind their drive? Were they sincere? Delusional? We’re they okay being a novelty and laughing along with their hecklers? Did they even know it was happening? Or did they just want to cash in by any means at their disposal? And secondly, we explore the motive of their audience. Did these people truly enjoy these exhibitions of atrocity much like watching a train wreck? Or did they get off on holding this secret over an oblivious performer? And finally what sort of unhealthy dynamic is formed from the strange relationship of the two.

Listen Here: