When I was a kid, new to records, and not even really sure what kind of music I liked, someone else did. Every morning I ritually demolished a good portion of a box of breakfast cereal. Whilst doing it, I was immersed in the world of advertising, mail order products, cheesy illustrations and fascinated by the ultimate prize for kids such as me, the FREE INSIDE prizes. I recall picking a few cereals I was sure to hate just because of the must have crap toy inside.
It was during this phase in my life when I was watching Saturday Morning shows like Fat Albert, The Osmond’s cartoon, the Jackson 5 cartoon and The Partridge Family. I had gotten the small record player and box of 45’s from the garage sale that my grandma took me to and I was just beginning to listen to them and figure out what I was into.
So, when my cereal box featured a record… mind blown! Right on!
Yep, right on the back of the box, which I think I may have cut out immediately, the bag holding the cereal plainly visible through the huge hole I hacked in the box, and played probably even before brushing off the cereal dust.
The sound was of course complete crap. First of all, the grooves were junk and the sound suffered. Second of all, the record wasn’t heavy enough and would just slip, particularly when the crappy groove held the needle too much. I distinctly recall trying to tape the flexi-disc to the record player platter. That didn’t work very good as you might expect.
These were the trials and tribulations if you wanted to listen to your Sugar Bears songs.
It wasn’t just the sugar cereals in on the act either.
When you did get these records to play they were just about what you would expect from a record they give away free on a cereal box.
I do however really like the media. The possibilities are interesting. Dalton had a flexi-disc of the group Bad Brains that he got from a magazine. It was the first one I had seen in years and years.
Recently I felt like I needed to have an example of this type of media in my collection. I wasn’t willing to spend too much, and didn’t want any cereal box junk. As it turns out there are lots of non cereal box flexi-discs available out there.
Check out the blog Every Record Tells A Story and the interesting info he dug up. Love that Bog.
http://everyrecordtellsastory.com/2013/06/03/things-you-dont-see-anymore-4-the-flexi-disc/
I found one that seemed to fit the bill, low cost, non-cereal box, and ordered it. It was 1 dollar (plus 3 bucks shipping) for 1 flexi-disc and what looked like some notes to go with.
The yellow flexi-disc record spoke to me. Turned out to be a good pick.
It turns out it’s a 3 band sampler.
It’s a 38 issue reissue of an original limited run of 500. Yellow flexi.
Note the instruction to the right of the spindle hole that indicates that if the soundsheet slips place a coin on it. Classic flexi stuff.
Each band has a page for notes and bio and lyrics and such.
Humidifer:
Thompson’s Disease:
Face Of Decline:
There was also a catalog of available releases (back then)
Plus this charming graphic of Abilene, in case you needed guiding in.
Last but not least, there are copies of notes from the would be cover artist, and a note from Jello Biafra requesting a copy. Pretty cool.
The flexi looked awesome on the Strictly Discs platter pad.
The songs were good too. I was afraid I would hate them because the word punk was thrown around, but these were just good old garage rock tracks. I’d probably check out a full release by any of these bands, which I might add, is probably exactly the POINT of this type of media. They are cheap, easy to distribute, and great fun. Bravo.
So glad I picked this up.
I looked and there are still 7 left on E-bay.
Tell Stan I sent you.
The Aural Retentive 