Deep Purple - "Highway Star"
1972
The Imaginary Further Adventures of Guys Who Had Written Their Names on Albums I Bought in Used Bins
Jim Clark, Deep Purple, Machine Head — Later as an adult when his nephew played The Replacements’ “Takin’ a Ride”, Jim realized they nicked its opening from Deep Purple’s “Highway Star” (And damn: both were opening tracks.) Then he went to a local store, bought Machine Head on compact disc for $15.99, and realized that the jokers at the record label had released it in quadraphonic sound and everything sounded bizarre. Around this same time, his nephew asked if he still had his vinyl albums and could he look through them for anything by Budgie, Bloodrock, or Funkadelic. I’m getting too old for this, Jim said to nobody in particular.
Steve Forman, The James Gang 16 Greatest Hits — On the album cover after “The James Gang” he wrote “with Steve Forman” because he was moved by the plea of the Gang’s “White Man, Black Man”, a pop culture racial unity moment on par with Jerry Seinfeld’s “look to the cookie” speech in 1994. He was also delighted to see that they had a “Funk #48”, which makes sense: Because if there were a “Funk #49”, it must be assumed that there were funks one through forty-eight beforehand.
Eber (only surname was inscribed), Blue Oyster Cult, On Your Feet or on Your Knees — His roommate ate all his Cheetos and also made a serious dent in his Frosted Flakes stash so hell no is that joker going to abscond with his Foghat, Montrose, or BOC albums. Eber sat down with a black Bic pen — the same model he used to take the ink reservoir out of to configure a spitball shooter in eighth grade study hall — and plainly wrote his name on all of his LPs. Even the Flip Wilson album that ended up in his collection after his big brother left for college. Your move, roomie.
Sam Birkholm, Alice Cooper, Love It to Death — Once his mom found out they had a song titled “Dead Babies,” all of Sam’s Alice Cooper albums went in the Sell Immediately pile when the family emigrated from their 42-parishioners Laestadian Lutheran church to a breakaway 17-parishioners one. This new sect adopted a further hardline (no card playing, no playing music on the radio) and held its services on Sunday mornings in a vacant storefront in a half-empty strip mall on the south edge of town. Sam would later go on to form a metal band called Lutheran Schism before sidelining music and getting a manager’s job at the local Jiffy Lube.
Duhe (only surname inscribed), Bad Company — On this debut long player, the band’s pared-down logo, designed by album cover masters Hipgnosis, is simply stamped in bold white letters across a black field. Duhe couldn’t stand to mar this visual masterpiece, so on the sly he wrote his name on the inside jacket of the LP. In cursive as well, to offset the bold sans-serif font used by Bad Co. on the cover. He currently has a job where he uses the word “creative” as a noun and hosts weekly Mad Men parties, though the show has been off the air for years.
Donn B., John Entwistle, Whistle Rhymes — In 1976 a cash crunch necessitated the selling of all solo works by members of The Who. Donn felt none of them had been that outstanding and the one where a shirtless Roger Daltrey was portrayed as a centaur always gave him the creeps. This one had to go as well because Entwistle did not spell his name using “whistle”, while Pete Townshend had a silent “h” in his surname. A maddening bunch.
Tom Lenzen, Focus, Moving Waves — This album contains “Hocus Pocus, ” which is not only the greatest rock ‘n’ roll song with yodeling AND a top-five one featuring a flute (Lenzen briefly had a flute-rock section in his vinyl collection: Focus, Jethro Tull, Marshall Tucker Band), so damn straight he was going to ink his brand on the cover.
Ray Nickels, Yes, The Yes Album — Ray, bitter that this album had a song called “Starship Troopers” but it had nothing to do with Robert Heinlein or libertarianism, sold it with all his other Yes albums. Yes was always too happy and hippie-dippie for his taste anyway. He took the cash, walked to a nearby used bookstore, and bought a second copy of Heinlein’s (yes) Starship Troopers to keep at his cabin in the woods.
