Welcome back to my An Album A Day Project, Week 9. So far (for those of you who might be here for the first time) we’ve explored my record collection via some good and some not-so-good themes. There was Mort Aux Vaches week, there was Covers! Covers! Covers! week, there was Nurse With Wound List week, Non-Music week, and several others whose titles have already slipped my mind. I think the next five posts are going to go over pretty well. If you have a record collection of your own I’m sure you’ve experienced this countless times. Maybe you can relate. And, if so, you should totally share your thoughts and some examples from your own collections. I’m talking, of course, about One-Song Wonders. That is, albums I’ve purchased NOT because I like the artist, but because there’s one song on the album I might enjoy (either seriously or in ironically…it could go either way), and that’s the ONLY reason I’ve filed the LP in with my collection.
My introduction to Wazmo Nariz came via my friend Steven. We were discussing New Wave “hits” like Modern English‘s “I Melt With You” and “Mexican Radio” by Wall Of Voodoo when he asked if I’d ever heard “Checking Out The Check0ut Girl”. Not being familiar with it, he started singing the refrain in his best Wazmo voice. I found it humorous (probably because we were drinking at the time), so I wound up hearing the refrain over and over, as if Steve’s repeating it ad infinitum might suddenly jog my memory. It did not, but my new mission became to find “Checking Out The Checkout Girl” on some physical format (non-CD) for him. A 7″ passed through my hands once at work, and since it was priced at 99¢ I grabbed it. Of course, by that time Steve had moved out of LA so I thought, “I’ll just hold this for him — he’ll be back.” And then a few months later a copy of Things Aren’t Right found its way into my hands. Since it was $2.99 I decided to grab it for myself. Steve moved back to LA and I don’t remember if I ever gave him the 45, but every time I hunt through my records for things I don’t need anymore, I can’t bring myself to sell this one. I look at it and convince myself over and over again that I need that record just because of “Checking Out The Checkout Girl,” a song I’ve only heard a couple times in my life and can really only claim to “like” because of one drunken night of hearing a friend sing it five hundred times. It’s total hoarder logic, whereby even the most insignificant item possesses more importance than every other artifact on the face of the planet. And I’m guilty of subscribing to that logic every time I see it on my shelf. “I need this,” I tell myself, even though I don’t know why. If it didn’t sound so weird and record collector-y to say, I’d describe Things Aren’t Right as one of many albums in my collection that I tell myself I *need* time and time again, when I probably don’t. I’m sure there aren’t THAT many…but there are certainly enough to make this week’s An Album A Day theme a fun one.
Wazmo Nariz, a record I own because of just one song, and it’s not even one I like. It’s one I heard a drunk friend sing almost ten years ago. And yet on April 17th, 2010 I purchased it. And I’ve held onto it for four years… just because.
Wazmo Nariz
Things Aren’t Right
(IRS – SP005, 1979)
A1. The Mind Is Willing, But The Flesh Is Weak
A2. Who Does It Hurt?
A3. Luncheonette Lovers
A4. Stubbies
A5. Plunger
A6. Deeply
B1. Checking Out The Checkout Girl [MP3]
B2. This Is Your Elbow
B3. The Oven
B4. Lips
B5. Germ Proof Cleaners
B6. Al’s Radiator
