I must have been about 9 or 10 when I first became aware of the “break-in” record, in which the man-on-the-street dishes up pop hit sound bites in response to each and every one of the news reporter’s questions. I remember hearing “Watergrate” and “Mr. Jaws” on Cincinnati’s pop juggernaut, WSAI 1360 AM, and then, not too long after, obtaining an LP compilation of the better Buchanan and/or Goodman break-in records, from the first flying saucer 45 in 1956, all the way up to “Superfly Meets Shaft” & “Convention ’72.”
Cover design by Jim O’Connell
[Pres. Nixon in the driver’s seat, with Henry Kissinger riding shotgun –
Spiro Agnew in the backseat, flanked by Superfly and Shaft]
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I enjoyed the silliness of it all and was thrilled, as a fan of satire, by the send-up of pop culture, as well as straight society. My brother Dean’s experiments stitching together break-in records at home inspired me to make my own, and I even roped in my friends to help me in my pointless series of “interviews” set at Fred’s (fictitious) Delicatessen.
Images below:
Zero to 180, thus, would like to celebrate a milestone — 5 years! over 700 posts! — by force-feeding you an amateur “break-in” home recording (c. 1976) that features extensive sampling from the family record collection, aided in no small part by the 4-LP box set, Superstars of the Seventies. Best to ignore the reporter’s inane line of questioning:
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“Fred’s Delicatessen” by Chris Richardson & Co. (c. 1976)
[Pssst: click triangle above to play streaming audio]
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Zero to 180 Milestones:
The Preschool Years
- Inaugural Zero to 180 post that established a bona fide cross-cultural link between Cincinnati (via James Brown’s music recorded and distributed by King Records) and Kingston, Jamaica (i.e., Prince Buster’s rocksteady salute to Soul Brother Number One).
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- 1st anniversary piece that featured an exclusive “Howard Dean” remix of a delightful Sesame Street song about anger management (with a special rant about how WordPress’s peculiarities made me homicidal the moment I launched this blog).
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- 2nd anniversary piece that refused to acknowledge the milestone but instead celebrated the under-sung legacy of songwriter/session musician, Joe South – with a link to South’s first 45, a novelty tune that playfully laments Texas’s change in status as the nation’s largest state upon Alaska’s entry into the Union.
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- 3rd anniversary piece that revealed the depths to which Zero to 180 will sink in order to foist his own amateur recordings onto an unsuspecting and trusting populace.
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- 4th anniversary piece that formalized – as a public service – musical chord changes for an old (and tuneless) “hot potato” playground game called ‘The Wonderball.’
