An imaginary record collection
January 15, 2004 10:53 AM   Subscribe

An imaginary record collection. Okay, so I hit the flea market last Thursday in the freezing cold and came upon this dope soundtrack collection - Melinda, Sweetback's Badass Song, The Marketts Play Batman, Mannix, More Mission Impossbile, etc.., when I came upon this box of... fake records!!
posted by soundofsuburbia (22 comments total) 3 users marked this as a favorite
 
two words: Folk Art.
Intriguing stuff.
posted by anastasiav at 11:00 AM on January 15, 2004


I love stumbling across stuff like this in thrift shops and flea markets. I'm always amazed what people discard as "trash." I've never seen anything that is of this scope, ranging across so many years, however. It's great!

Thanks for the link soundofsuburbia!
posted by ScottUltra at 11:12 AM on January 15, 2004


Wow, that's amazing. I wonder what became of the guy who made them? Hopefully the guys in that thread can find out a little more about the whole thing.
posted by vorfeed at 11:22 AM on January 15, 2004


A coworker of mine was pretty active in the DC music scene in the 70s and 80s. I showed the covers to him, and he couldn't make any sense of them.
posted by MrMoonPie at 11:46 AM on January 15, 2004


I used to draw out album covers for bands I was never going to form or record with.

I stopped at some point and now just make lists of song titles for songs I'll never write.
posted by jon_kill at 12:05 PM on January 15, 2004


these are incredible. great link!
posted by car_bomb at 12:49 PM on January 15, 2004


What a great day on Metafilter! Calooh callay!!!
posted by UlfMagnet at 12:57 PM on January 15, 2004


pretty cool!
posted by jcruelty at 1:41 PM on January 15, 2004


Sweetness.
posted by scarabic at 4:10 PM on January 15, 2004


Am I the only person that thinks this is less than spectacular?
posted by FormlessOne at 4:28 PM on January 15, 2004


i think it's quite spectacular. it's definitely outsider art. the owner, being in washington d.c., (i think) should definitely take them up to baltimore to the visionary art museum for review.
posted by centrs at 4:31 PM on January 15, 2004


From the Soul Strut thread: i imagine the mike was a dude working hard days in the meat plant working that mingerer and at night he'd kick back with some whiskey, throw on the melinda OST and get busy with some markers, yearning for the day when he could bounce outta DC (or b'more) and light up mics worldwide..

See, *that* is why this sort of stuff is cool. Not because it's brilliant art (although some "outsider" stuff is), but because it's a tiny window into someone's life, against which we can reflect ourselves.
posted by aramaic at 5:04 PM on January 15, 2004


This is a fabulous link. Thanks. :)
posted by dejah420 at 6:00 PM on January 15, 2004


Very cool. For us too lazy to follow the soulstrut thread I wont object to the "double-post" that links to the article that reveals all...
posted by meech at 8:21 PM on January 15, 2004


i've been following the thread. apparently, the guy who found the "records" went back to the flea market and purchased the rest of "mingering mike's" possessions. "mike" appears to be/have been a vietnam soldier. some reel to reel tapes were found with demos of some of the songs as well as some correspondence between "mike" and a buddy in prison - they were collaborating on lyrics. on the soulstrut thread, more images have been posted and someone said they have some "fake" 45's by the same "mingering mike". the original poster said he's been contacted by tons of people that want to write articles about his find and investigate "mike". he's currently arranging for digitizing the demo tapes and finding a spot with more bandwidth to host the scans and audio files.
posted by centrs at 10:27 PM on January 15, 2004


Am I the only person that thinks this is less than spectacular?

No, youre the only person who wasted their time saying nothing about nothing. Move along Thumper.
posted by Satapher at 11:48 PM on January 15, 2004


oops
posted by Satapher at 11:50 PM on January 15, 2004


Sigh. I guess an honest response is less desirable than I thought.
posted by FormlessOne at 7:52 AM on January 16, 2004


I got a kick out of it. I used to do this my first year in college, designing the great album cover art and detailing the track listings (including authorship and who's on what instrument) for a completely fictional band. Most of the songs I only had a few lyrics for the chorus or an idea of what the song basically might be. Actually, "completely" fictional isn't right, since the band was made up of supposedly historical personages. But I was the only one who seemed to believe that these people actually had a band.

Later I did record some demos of the songs. Once I retire and have nothing to do I'll get to the whole four-album set. Here's hoping Mingering Mike gets his stuff out before that!
posted by soyjoy at 8:14 AM on January 16, 2004


A Well-Imagined Star: Mingering Mike speaks! [nytimes]
posted by soundofsuburbia at 9:24 AM on February 2, 2004


what an interesting story...! i hope mingering mike gets a new chance at making music.
posted by t r a c y at 10:11 AM on February 2, 2004


Hey--this thread is alive again.
posted by Prospero at 10:14 AM on February 2, 2004


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