Bizarre Records

This is a repost of a post on the old BizarreRecords blog

Lord Antics & the Lyons Band
“Hotter Than Hot:
1970 Antics disc

Lord Creator
“Big Bamboo”

The best Calypso records are local, low-fi productions straight from Jamaica, the Bahamas, Trinidad, or other Caribbean islands.

Talk about home made! Check out Lord Antics: this album cover is made from plain green paper, folded and held together with masking tape. Instead of cover slicks, the cover picture and track list are glued on. Not just the cover, but the vinyl itself is pretty crappy, like most of the original records from the legendary Dynamic Sounds studio in Kingston, JA.

Lord Antics actually plays in the country Mento style. Believe it or not, this record is from 1970… I had always figured if for 1960 or so! Included here are versions of several “dirty Calypso” classics:

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And one of his own:

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Here’s another, far more polished version by Lord Creator from Trinidad:

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…and another standard:

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And finally, a version of “Sell The Pussy” by Junior Jennings And the Humble And the Meek from the Caymans:

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With the obvious entendre of “big bamboo”, I’ve always thought it quite amusing that the Houston Astros’ Minute Maid Park has a faux-tiki bar called “Larry’s Big Bamboo”. I hadn’t realized that this bar was named after a cool-sounding joint in Florida, which burned down recently.