Installment Number One — The Holy Ghost Reception Committee #9 - Songs for Liturgical Worship.

So I like records, new ones, old ones, good ones, crappy ones, basically as long as there’s something worth listening to. I like discovering weird and neat things that I don’t know about, which is why I like wmfu.org and the blog that they run. As far as I can tell, it’s like the weirdest of the weird and the most obscure of the obscure. They’re in the middle of the 365 Days Project, in which they basically put up a completely nutzo mp3 or album everyday of this year. I checked it out recently, going through the entire thing starting at Jan. 1 and I only heard of maybe one thing, [and only kind of]. The crazy people over there have wild records of which only five exist from over forty years ago. There’s one person who collects privately press Industrial Musicals, basically cast-recordings of musicals commissioned for large companies [JC Penney, GM, etc] to give to their managers and executives at company retreats where I assume they would also see a staged production.

So the point is, that the site blows my mind all the time and makes me realize that the records I own are not obscure at all, but like normal people haven’t heard them before. Know what I mean? But I love browsing and listening to them and so in an effort to justify keeping them around, I’m going to pick one every once in a while and write about it. Maybe it will be a weird one or maybe it will not, but I will talk about it.

So — The Holy Ghost Reception Committee #9 - Songs for Liturgical Worship. I picked it up because it sounded and looked weird. And it is definitely that, but also not really. It’s just some regular sounding songs but played by high school kids from NYC in the late 60’s. They wanted religious worship songs that sound like The Byrds and Jefferson Airplane, and so they made them. About a third of them I like [The Byrds] and the rest are very bad [Jefferson Airplane]. The production is, to put it mildly, spartan. You can hear everything ok, but it’s rough. There’s a lyric sheet with all the chord names, so you can play along with your very first listen. Here’s a picture of the tracklist from the back cover –

My favorite thing about it is that it is on VOID RECORDS. I looked it up on the internet and yes, this is the reissue which isn’t worth shit. The original is worth like $100. So it goes. Here’s another picture from the back cover. It’s of the kids in the band and I titled it “Have you been enjoying the flash from my camera?” –

Anyways, I do not recommend going out and buying it, rather, tape the first song on Side A, which is dynamite listening even with repeat plays, and let someone else snap it up.