Recommendations of the Editorial team
Come on, let’s open a record store!” Clueso sings on his new album and actually means something much more universal: a place of refuge from everyday troubles and world events, shelter from the storm. As always in life, it’s about searching and finding. On his Instagram profile @thingsifoundinrecords Jeff Ogiba, owner of Black Gold Records in Brooklyn, presents strange record sleeve finds.
Because I’ve never found anything of note in a used LP, I doubted the credibility of this project. Until Ansgar came to my shop and talked about how he was once allowed to rummage through vinyl boxes at a decluttering company. He took 70 records into his care for a small fee, and in a Rush LP he found something he never expected in his life: ten bonus discs! Crazy!
Unfortunately, it was not possible to determine their value on Discogs. It was a 200 gram pack of Black Forest ham, smoked over fir wood, salted by hand and expired for several years. “The color was a bit brownish, but there was no mold to be seen,” laughed Ansgar, who runs the website ex-beatles.de, “a German guide to the Fab Four’s solo work.”
The first record of life
My first recording wasn’t by the Beatles. It was the “Super Mood Hit Parade” (1988), presented by “Freizeit Revue”. A snack box for the ears, with popular hits from Mike Krüger, Jürgen von der Lippe, Klaus & Klaus, Frank Zander and Karl Dall.
My favorite song on this compilation came from the immediate vicinity of the Black Forest Schinken: “Everything has an end, only the sausage has two,” in the cover version by Gottlieb Wendehals. The piece originally appeared on Stephan Remmler’s debut, released in 1986 shortly after Trio disbanded. Trio guitarist Kralle Krawinkel only released his only solo record in 1993, wrote the lyrics in English and then had them translated into German by Rio Reiser.
Only recently, thanks to a customer of my record store, I was able to celebrate the closing of an educational gap: Klaus Voormann was not only considered (like so many) the fifth Beatle, but also the fourth man in Trio! He produced all of their albums and drew the cover for the trio’s last single “My Sweet Angel” (B-side: “Hello Mutti”). It shows the band in a boat, on a moonlit lake. Like a continuation of Echo & The Bunnymen’s ‘Ocean Rain’ (1984) album artwork, as if they’d finally made it out of Carnglaze Caverns in Cornwall.
Other groundbreaking recordings from my childhood were the LPs for the RTL show “Mini Stars,” in which pop songs had lyrics suitable for elementary school students and were sung by children. Unforgettable hits like “Heut’ comes the one”.
School Dentist” (“In The Army Now”), “I want a hamster” (“I Should Be So Lucky”) or “An Interview with Steffi Graf” (“I Only Wanna Be With You”), the latter performed by the girl duo Jessica & Kikki.
Jessica Wahls, then ten years old, later became a singer with the No Angels. She grew up in a district of the small town of Rosbach in Hesse, where Frank Farian also had his studio. Only fifteen minutes by car from my shop Villa Hansa Schall Platten in Bad Nauheim.
A customer reported that until a few years ago he had a craft business and worked regularly for Farian. The music producer liked to cook for the group of craftsmen himself – with hearty home-cooked food. Maybe there was a cold plate of Black Forest ham in between.
