FREE RECORDS GIVE-AWAY
La Vice and Company
Two Sisters from Bagdad
Jazzman reissue, limited to 1000 numbered copies
Behold one of two or three LPs that I would actually pay more than $1000 for. This thing is deep in Detroit record collecting legend. Stories that folks have sent angry emails to Popsike asking them to remove completed auction listings so as not to obscure how rare it may or may not be. That hundreds of copies were destroyed in a basement flood. That it wasn’t really that good of a record.
The main driver behind the demand and apocrypha behind this record is the unparalleled funk of the track “Thoughs Were the Days” (sic). Featured on Numero Group’s “Good God” A Gospel Funk Hynmal” comp from 2006, that’s clearly how most folks became aware of this disc. But with literally no more than a handful of original copies known out there, even just getting to hear the rest of the album was a task, one even I was unable to accomplish until this straight full reissue landed in my lap.
In the hubbub after the “Freedom at 21” flexi-disc had sold for $4000+ on eBay, I half-jokingly offered up a copy of said flexi as a straight trade for “Two Sisters From Bagdad” on the record nerd site Waxidermy. The response was “A one-tracker for a one-tracker.” Even just last week, a buddy deep and dear to this record said everything on this record except “Thoughs Were the Days” was “soft.”
So with the understated, repetitive opening of “Happy and Blessed” and I couldn’t help but feel frustratingly PISSED that I’d gone so long without hearing this. The variety on the album is wonderfully varied, slightly odd and the EXACT thing I imagine when I cannot sleep at night.
Background: this LP is the soundtrack accompaniment to a play of the same name that ran at Music Hall at Detroit’s Center for the Performing Arts for two weeks in August 1973. The production was a flop and the description below may explain why so few copies sold in the lobby of the performance…
“The play was the story of two sisters who met their earthly demise very early in life and were joined together in Heaven. But there was also a character named Jake, who was an agent from Hell whose job was to recruit people from Heaven because Hell was not getting the people they were used to receiving. Well, Jake got a little frisky with one of the sisters and it appeared that one of the sisters became pregnant and the two were kicked out of Heaven and had to go to Hell. Of course, the Devil took a liking to the other sisters while Jake was wrestling with this thing called LOVE.”
(quote from Ernest Garrison, composer/arranger for the album, brother-in-law to “Bagdad’s” playwright, La Vice Hendricks)
To me, odd, hodgepodge neighborhood productions, something only a couple hundred people ever saw, with no filmed evidence and (seemingly) no extant script…this is what I live for. Such a unique snapshot of a time and place, that no matter how in-depth liner notes may go, no matter how clear they explain the premise of a Hendrick’s “personal commitment to introduce non-racial comedy to a city that has been separated by crime, narcotic and racial differences” highlighted by an all-black ensemble…I will NEVER really know or understand what exactly it was like to witness the performance. It is the absolute definition of ephemeral. And honestly, I feel like the songs legitimately smoke and all those record nerds calling this a “one-tracker” are out of their minds. I STRONGLY urge to give this one a listen, even just to appreciate the industriousness of an endeavor, that while failed during its time, is beautiful and compelling near 45 years after its creation.
Side notes:
- I think the drive behind my appreciation for this record is the same as my newfound and ever-spiraling appreciation for school band and church records. So many unexplored possibilities! So many flops! You’ll never know or find them all…that makes good collecting.
- My mother-in-law and her younger sister were literally “two sisters from Baghdad” (the production got the spelling wrong) living in Detroit in 1973. I oftentimes play fantastical feats of imagination and conspiracy theorist trying to make them the inspiration for this record.
- My grade school put on a production of a play I recall as named “Let’s Put on a Show” in the mid-Nineties. We did similar productions every year. Equal parts musical and spoken dialogue, I am DYING to know who in the hell actually wrote these things? How did they get into the hands of my music teacher? Was this a profitable endeavor for the composer? I believe my brother has a VHS copy of the entire show and I am DYING to see it, to go back and relive the awkwardness (each production had a token “rap” song that always received HUGE laughs from the largely white and moderately suburban parents that, even as a child, felt misguided). We never put on a production of ANYTHING that I’d heard of/seen ANYWHERE else. No “Annie”, no “Godspell”…just some random rinky-dink thing that I’d never hear/see again in my life…AND IT DRIVES ME CRAZY. I’ve gone on here before about the difficultly of a memory that has no outside corroboration…these things PAIN me. Bro is supposedly working on getting a transfer. I will happily upload to YouTube if it happens.
And since you’ve made it this far…FREE RECORDS! It probably slipped past most folks, but TMR did three co-release 7-inch singles with the wonderful folks at Numero Group last year. La Vice and Company’s “Thoughs Were the Days” b/w “Yes I Do” was one of them. Word out there says 200 pressed but it may have been a little more than that. Anyway, I’ve got a stash here. Post a comment, a good one. Maybe it relates to the feelings/thoughts I described above? Maybe it doesn’t. I’ll pick one (or a few) and you’ll get some free, limited edition 7” singles landing in your mail box. How cool is that? And if you’ve got a line on an original…I am listening.
So, whats the other 2 co releases you guys did with Numero Group? Great label!
I was raised by my father on very standard classic rock and country. I always thought that was all I’d ever need. I would listen to the same songs in my dad’s iTunes library enough to make your ears bleed. One day, though, it all changed. I started developing my own musical taste. I discovered so much music that I never thought i’d ever like. That’s what Third Man Records is best at – giving you a chance to listen to music you’d never find on your own. Now I’ve got a record collection of over 200 LPs in counting, with artists that would make my dad scoff. I would have never heard some of my favorite music if it weren’t for Third Man Record’s obsession with releasing older, lesser known albums on a large platform. This is especially evident with the Detroit scene – Third Man Records introduced me to Death, which became one of my favorite punk bands. I have full faith in this company to introduce me to a new Detroit scene band that I’ll love.
This year I actually attended my middle school nephew’s original musical, that I believe was written by the drama teacher. It was called Gold Fever, it was set in the old west and it was horrific, slightly racist and misogynistic. I’m not sure how this thing got approved by the school but I guess it costs too much to put on a production of Godspell.
one of the best one take tracks I ever experienced was associated with a live butoh performance of 2 musicians and an dancer in a run down community art gallery next to some railroad tracks… the entire stirring of bronze bowls and tinkering of chimes was punctuated with frayed electric guitar moments and somber tones of scintillation… as the dancer made her way from one corner of the room to the other in the hour and a half session it became clear that we were being dredged through each second of experiential dilemma which transpired between the three as they improvised with crescendo their way to resolution… just as the piece was ending in the standing room only venue we had the distinct pleasure of anticipating the coming of a large train with whistles and chugs and whirs and clacks that left us with the final impression of a singular bell ringing at the crossing as the artists admitted surrender to the whole of truth and passage of life signaling to them that their moment had come and gone amidst the fury of humanity’s progression towards inevitable industrial overload… a fitting close and entirely random
Your story made me think of the Bourbon Tabernacle Choir. I had to pull it out. The song Simple is so good…and long.
I think the best work is archival work. Finding these records to preserve them for the next generation to be able to hear. Quality stuff!
this piece sound weird to me , but not an ugly weirdness , the kind that you dont understand , the one that came before knowing if you like it or not , some record make you live that feeling for a long time and this one seems like it. I got this feeling for the first time with a bit after I heard about the dirtbombs in a punk rock documentary (didnt kknow you was in that band back then) there was some part of ultraglide in black playing and was loving it. SO a couple of month later on a trip to toronto I saw a copy of ‘’ party store ’’ and bought it has I was still hooked on ultraglide. HAd to week 2 weeks to listen the album and boom….the hell is that ?!?! Until this day , I still dont understand this album and give me the ‘’ not understanding ’’ feeling . Right now La vice make the same to me.
I was so afraid to perform in my class play in 1st grade that I swept the cafeteria floor instead. I was a weird kid. Poor me.
I must say that I do admire how much admiration go into your record finds and the emotions behind them. Glad that there are people like you still around that can bring music like this to our ears and tell great stories behind them! SIDE NOTE I just got Watcher live at TMR 7" as a gift and I must say. Going in COMPLETELY blind, it was a cool release! Side A Wood Glue was a reminder of Mevlins live at TMR that slow beat with explosive lyrics Thank you!
When I was a kid I played “Elfis” in the school play. My dad being a huge Elvis fan, I guess I was the only one who could do a decent Elvis drawl and lip flare while singing an Elvis sounding kids’ song in front of everyone’s parents. I have no clue where this Elfis school play came from. My dad didn’t know any of the songs.