The Homer & Jethro Project #12

A dozen posts in a dozen days.

Such heady times we live in.

June 1950 - RCA 48-0349 - Put That Knife Away, Nellie/Pizen Pete

Lo and behold, a fresh single with our boys having a hand in the composition of both sides. It works.

The A side is another of their Paeans to wedded bliss. Poor boy has the unfortunate misfortune of coming home a bit tipsy with his better half getting a bit out of sorts about the indiscretion and chasing him around with a carving knife.

I'd suggest counseling.

B side is a Western about a man too ornery to die. A quick google comes up with a 1913 short of the same name. Are they related? I dunno.

November 1950 - RCA 48-0404 - Oh Babe/Disc Jockey's Nightmare

In 1950 "Oh Babe" was a hit for Louis Prima & his wife Keely Smith. I kind of prefer this jumping little version to the original here. But that's me.

B side is a bit of lovely surreal word play nonsense authored by the boys themselves that they excelled at when they put their minds to it. For good measure they toss in a little nod to the biggest hit of the year the " Third Man Theme" from the Orson Welles movie which I can highly recommend for anyone not familiar with it.

The Homer & Jethro Project #11

Back again

#11 and a sixth of the way through.

And we kick it off today with another contribution by the future Mrs. Johnny Cash 

January 1950 - RCA 48-0181 - I Said My Nightshirt/Music Music Music


June Carter is back with another installment of her weird threesome romance with the boys which causes all involved some issues. It's kind of funny so long as you don't consider the implied menage a trois and focus on the humorous malapropisms of the lyric.

B Side is a Dixie fried version of a tune that was a current hit for Teresa Brewer that sounded like it should have been a much older song. It fooled me.

April 1950 - RCA 48-0308 - You Tell Her I Stutter/Does the Spearmint Lose Its Flavor on the Bedpost Overnight

A Side. Finding some humor in mocking an unfortunate soul with a speech impediment.
B Side redoing another old chestnut from 1924 as recorded by Billy Jones & Ernest Hare.

The song would have another life at the other end of the decade when a version by Lonnie Donegan became a hit during the short lived UK Skiffle craze where American Blues and Roots music was watered down with a healthy dose of UK Vaudeville. But the kids dug it which the led to them picking up guitars and a later watering down of American Blues and Rock and Roll that came to be known as the British Invasion.

Dark times. Dark times indeed.

(I'd also like to add that I have multiple versions of these songs. The original 45 looks like it's been sanded. Versions on budget compilations released in the mid-60s are in fake stereo (lots of crap reverb to fill out the mono sound) and with a long intro cut off of the latter tune.
I then found a 78rpm with nice gloss, but with a chip that goes right up to the grooves on the A side and then had to find someone with a 78 player to transfer it. It's been an arduous process, but the original 78 sounds pretty damn good, actually.)

You're welcome.

The Homer & Jethro Project #10

Another day. Stuffed peppers in the oven & work tonight.

Here's #10

December 1949 - 48-0144 - The Hillbilly Wedding of Lilli Marlene / The Hucklebuck


It looks like dates are all a bit fuzzy. But there's a Billboard that lists this as being released then, so we're going to go with it even it puts this shit slightly out of chronological order.

You should know the drill. A Side is another collaboration with June Carter with them doing a countrified take down of the the WWII hit beloved by Axis & Allies alike "Lili Marlene". It was the song you couldn't escape just like [insert title of current contemporary overplayed catchy nuisance song here] but more maudlin. The most famous version was by Marlene Dietrich, everybody's favorite 40's foreign butch vamp.

B Side is their take on a 1949 hit by Paul Williams and his Hucklebuckers, so for a change they're taking on much recent material. It's a toe tapping corker of a tune that will have you shaking a chicken in the middle of the room before you are even aware that you're doing that thing I just said.

January 1950 - 48-0170 - I've Got Tears in my Ears (From Lyin' On My Back In My Bed While I Cry Over You) /She Made Toothpicks of the Timbers of my Heart

This one was elusive and it took a long time and a lot of searching to track this particular 7 inches of green vinyl down and give it a forever home. It's happy now.

For a change both sides are originals as far as I can tell and really long titles. Entirely worth it. These songs were so good that they rerecorded them in the mid-60s. The gist of either side should easily be divined from the excessively lengthy titles alone.

I kind of prefer these versions myself, but you can make your own decision later.

The Homer & Jethro Project #9

I'm not so fresh on my math, so I'm still trying to figure out how to make the current number of posts fit into the number of days for Spring of 2018.
There's got to be a fairly simple way of figuring it out, but I'm currently to under-caffeinated and hungry to get a good answer right now.

Anyway, here's Post #9

Here's a nice promo photo of Homer and Jethro from, I'm guessing, around 1950 based on the singles advertised on the back. The last few gasping breaths of vaudeville.

But it wasn't all funny business.

June 1949 - RCA 21-0087 - Homer Haynes - Waltz With Me/Roll Along Kentucky  Moon



There appeared in 1949 a completely straight up country crooner by Homer Haynes.

It's a nice pair of tunes really. Well played and with some nice Chet Atkins guitar work & a Jethro mandolin solo, but it's hard not to listen to it and wait for the jokes that don't come to arrive. And Homer even had a hand in the writing of it.

It was a pretty noble experiment that didn't really pan out.

And while I was hunting for some info on that one I came across a recording of Red Sovine singing "I Wanted You For a Lifetime" that was another weepy ballad penned by Homer. The more I look the more there is to find apparently.

Another 78 rpm from the collection.


Another hard to find oddity from around this time is this one:

March 1950 - RCA 599-9049 - Spike Jones & his City Slickers - Come Josephine in My Flying Machine/Fiddle Faddle (w/Homer & Jethro)

This is a weird one. It appears that this collaboration with novelty band leader Spike Jones was recorded March 10, 1950 I couldn't seem to find anything close to a contemporary release for it despite appearing on a number of Spike Jones compilations over the years. (It was also at this session that they recorded "Pal-Yat-Chee" with Spike that would see release a few years later and slated for Post #23.)

The first (H & J-less) song is yet another updated pre-WWI chestnut "Come Josephine in My Flying Machine" that had a cylinder recording by Billy Murray (here with Ada Jones) recorded in 1911 and less than a decade after the Wright Brothers first historic flight at Kitty Hawk

The B side where Homer & Jethro make their appearance is a take on Light Classical composer Leroy Anderson. The tune is "Fiddle Faddle" which received its inaugural recording at the hands of Arthur Fiedler and the Boston Pops in 1947.

I did finally manage to track down its existence to a small box set of 10 seven inches released in 1955 amongst a host of easy listening favorites for dining and dancing. For the purposes of this exercise I only digitized the two Spike Jones tracks but hold in reserve the option of doing the entire box at some point and posting it on an upcoming Compilation 13th of the Month post.

You have been warned.

The Homer & Jethro Project #8

Eight.

Here's where the fun truly begins.

June 1949 - RCA 48-0075 (with June Carter) - Baby, It's Cold Outside/Country Girl




So now they're on RCA Victor. They're recording in RCA Victor studios, they've got RCA's ace session guys to back them and best of all they've got Jethro's brother in law, Chet Atkins producing and playing on pretty much every record they make from this point on.

In 1946 Jethro Burns and Chet Atkins married twin sisters. Then

According to wikipedia:

(Chet)

"... made his first RCA Victor recordings in Chicago in 1947. They did not sell, but he did some studio work for RCA that year but had relocated to Knoxville again, where he worked with Homer and Jethro on WNOX's new Saturday night radio show

In 1949, he left WNOX to join June Carter with Mother Maybelle and the Carter Sisters on KWTO. This incarnation of the old Carter Family featured Maybelle Carter and daughters June, Helen, and Anita..."

And thus the stage was set for this record in 1949, Homer and Jethro and June Carter doing their country rendition of  the Frank Loesser tune "Baby, It's Cold Outside" of which there are umpteen versions, but the song originates in a 1949 movie "Neptune's Daughter".

This song was the first of several singles that Homer & Jethro shared with the yet to be Mrs. Johnny Cash and would eventually have them show up on Johnny Cash's 1969-71 prime time variety show.
They even have a under-rehearsed geriatric go at this in 1970.

The B side is "Country Girl" and an early appearance of a song by the fabulous team of Felice and Boudleaux Bryant and has our gal June in the feature spot taking the lead.

October 1949 - RCA 48-0113 - Tennessee Border No. 2/ I'm Getting Older Every Day




First you start with a pretty straight song like Red Foley's version of "Tennessee Border", rewrite all the lyrics, tack a "No. 2" at the end and sit back and enjoy such gems as

"..Her hair was long, she had a Tony
Her neck looked like a roll of bologna..."

The B side is another gem of the inevitable slide into old age and yet another Homer and Jethro original composition.

"...Well the girls just look at me and grin
Say look what a shape the old man's in
(I'm a-getting older every day)
Don't laugh at me 'cause it ain't fair
You're the one that put me there
(I'm a-getting older every day).."

The Homer & Jethro Project #7

Day Seven.
It seems more official if you write out the number.

January 1949 - King 749 - I Feel That Old Age Creeping On/ Goodbye Old Booze



Here it is again, another Homer and Jethro original on the A side. When I was younger than now, I thought it was a funny song. Now as my middle age marches inexorably towards the decrepitude and the grave it seems more real than humorous. (sigh)

The flip is yet another old chestnut updated and given that special Homer and Jethro touch. A nice early version was committed to shellac by the great Charlie Poole & the North Carolina Ramblers back in the year 1926. Homer and Jethro seem somewhat less enthused to become teetotalers. I tend to agree with them.

"I'll quit my drinkin' when I have found
Another way, to get it down"

Hard to argue with that.

April 1949 - King 773 - The Girl on the Police Gazette/Poor Little Liza, Poor Girl



The A side is actually an Irving Berlin tune which apparently didn't quite enter the canon like some of his other efforts, but was a record of some status for Dick Powell in 1937. 

B side. Old folk song. There's a pattern. This one may date back to an old sea shanty, but who listens to that shit, lets rock out to the Tenneva Ramblers kicking out the jams in 1927 with "Miss Liza, Poor Girl"

September 1949 - King 809 - Always/Poor Little Liza, Poor Girl



So at some point here in 1949 Homer and Jethro jumped ship from King Records and got signed to RCA Victor. With still a few strays in the can King threw  to the winds yet another Homer and Jethro stab at an Irving Berlin tune and backed it with the previously released "Poor Little Liza, Poor Girl".
The song "Always" dates back to the year 1925 and is reported to have been written by Berlin as a wedding present for his wife. In 1926 Henry Burr committed this version to wax which sounds rather quaint compared to the simple country sincerity of Homer and Jethro.

The Homer & Jethro Project #6

#6

We do more musical history and hijinks.

Will the fun never end?

July 1948 - King 721 - Glow Worm/It's Bloody War



If you are familiar at all with this song it may be the Mills Brothers version from 1952 with the Johnny Mercer lyrics. If you're like me, maybe it's the Spike Jones version. (the first record I ever listened to regularly as a child was Spike Jones. It explains my tastes a lot, I suppose)

But it's origins are once again all the way back to a 1902 German operetta by Paul Lincke whence it was known as "Glühwürmchen" before being translated and used in a 1909 American Musical "The Girl Behind the Counter"

I'll take the H & J version myself. You can foxtrot like a mofo to it.

The B side doesn't quite go back as far. Jimmie Yates' Boll Weevils take the first stab at "It's Bloody War" in 1929 a decade after the end of WWI.

Homer & Jethro do theirs a mere three years after being mustered out of WWII, so it's perhaps a bit more fresh on their minds.

 

October 1948 - King 731 - Blue Tail Fly/All Night Long


Another oldie but questionably goodie folk song first published in 1840 that everybody may be familiar with but never quite took the time to contemplate the meaning of the lyrics. Here a slave is entrusted with shooing flies of his master until the master meets his untimely, but unmourned death when the horse he's riding is bitten by said Blue Tail Fly. It's all so much darker than you thought...

B side is a bit trickier to pin down. I'm not some kind of musicologist I just google really well. But the best I can come up with for "All Night Long" is that it's a rewrite of a much older traditional song as done in 1927 by Burnette & Rutherford.

It's most certainly not at all related to the terrible Lionel Ritchie song from 1983 that may be the first thing to come into most people's tiny minds. 

Don't confuse the two. It only leads to madness and death. 

The Homer & Jethro Project #5

Post #5

Another day, another lesson in musical history with Homer & Jethro

 

 February 1948 - King 695 - (Don't Telephone, Don't Telegraph) Tell a Woman/ Oh You Beautiful Doll



Well, looking this one up has been a nice surprise. The first version that I found was by someone who I wasn't aware of Roy Hogsed. His recording of "(Don't Telephone, Don't Telegraph) Tell a Woman" predates a hit version by Tex Williams by a couple of months and is pretty damn good. I'm going to have to look up some more stuff by him. (He also recorded "Cocaine Blues" which already makes him a winner in my book. Johnny Cash did the one most people may be familiar with from "Live at San Quentin")

The B side is "Oh You Beautiful Doll" which yet again another turn of the century hit by the first recording star Billy Murray. One has to assume that this was one of those songs that had been popular enough at the time of its release that it had seeped into the public consciousness to the extent that people just knew it by cultural osmosis in much the same way nobody needs to an introduction to "Stairway to Heaven" because it's just there hanging in the back of your mind like a cereal jingle or cartoon theme song.

April 1948 - King 701 - Gotta See Mama Every Night/It Bruised Her Somewhat


The A Side "Gotta See Mama Every Night" goes back to 1923 when risque comedienne Sophie Tucker did her version. Here's a nice BBC article that gives a pretty good overview of her life story on the eve of the 50th anniversary of her passing.

H & J add some nice barrelhouse piano and some fiddle to mix to stomp out a winner in fine vaudeville tradition.

But the B-side. Here it is. The first song attributed to Homer Haynes & Jethro Burns. It's an original about a woman with a balance problem and dignity issues. Just the ticket and probably brought the house down.

The Homer & Jethro Project #4

Here we are at #4.

August 1947 - King 659 - Donkey Serenade/Fly Birdie Fly


Our Heroes are at it again. Hamming it up corn pone style with another popular song that the kids today have no idea existed. This time the A side is their take on a song added to an operetta called "The Firefly" from 1912 when it was made into a movie starring Jeanette McDonald in 1937.

I'd never actually looked up the original version of this one before. If you do watch the video of Alan Jones singing the original hit in the movie, it just makes the H & J version that much funnier.

"Fly Birdie Fly" is another bluegrass classic which had previously been recorded in a very different version by Roy Acuff and his Smoky Mountain Boys in 1939.

December 1947 - King 682 - Three Night's Experience/ I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now



Digging way back for the A side here. A novelty song that had been recorded by Earl Johnson & his Dixie Entertainers back in 1927. "Three Nights Experience" about a very dysfunctional marriage between a drunk and a serial liar and possible adulterer. Those were such innocent times.

The other side is another hoary old chestnut "I Wonder Who's Kissing Her Now" that dates back to a 1909 musical "Prince of Tonight which premiered in  Chicago in March of that year.

Fortunately for H & J they didn't have to rely on people's memories of obscure turn of the century musical theater for their recording. At the time they made this in 1947 a film of the same name was released starring June Haver in technicolor.
 I couldn't find a clip of the song from the movie so you'll have to settle for the Dinning Sisters rocking up a fine contemporary version because once a song was a hit a hundred people tried to horn in on the action with their own versions or songs that sounded just about as close as you could get without being sued for copyright infringement.
Thankfully those days are over so we're spared a glut of wannabe Ed Sheerans.

I have nightmares like that...

The Homer & Jethro Project #3

Another day, Another post

April 1947 - King 620 - Managua, Nicaragua/Bill Bailey

In 1947 this song was a hit for Guy Lombardo and his Royal Canadians. He'd go on to personify being the squarest of squares and predated the animated corpse of Dick Clark as the face of New Year's Eve by decades.

B-side. Old song. "Bill Bailey" It was a big hit on cylinder for Arthur Collins in 1902 when Teddy Roosevelt was president and the top speed record for an automobile was set at 74 mph.

May 1947 - King 623 - I'll Close My Eyes/Symphony

This one was originally a 1945 English song but with a bit of a lyrical voodoo to make it less fucking depressing it was a hit for  Frances Langford who sings the shit out of it with strings in 1947.

And on the flip here we have "Symphony" and I really don't think you're going to do better than Der Bingle's 1946 version. You can almost hear the panties getting damp when he croons it.
Our heroes probably not so much. The pea pickers just play it too durn fast to make out to.

The Homer & Jethro Project #2

Homer and Jethro Post #2

Some things don't need much of an introduction.

Some things are just part of being culturally literate.
Some stuff needs to be placed in context.
There are links for the curious.

March 1947 - King 596 - Somewhere Over the Rainbow/Groundhog


Yeah, this. This isn't your 1939 Judy Garland version. It's pretty snappy and you can hoedown to it.

There's a couple of small interjections by Homer of bits of other songs into mix which are worth the time to source.

First is a little bit of "Hold Tight" originally a hit for Sidney Bechet but an even bigger one for Fats Waller also in 1939.

Second is a taste of the Slim Gaillard Trio's vouty rooty classic "Cement Mixer (Put-Ti Put-Ti)" from a year previous in 1946.
One of the coolest cats to ever grace a shellac. You could do much worse than go from here to jumping into a Youtube hole of Slim Gaillard tracks...

Once again they paired an well known A-side with a century old folk song of which there were hundreds of versions to choose. I'm going to go with the Pete Seeger "Groundhog" because the world today could use more Pete Seegers.

April 1947 - King 615 - For Sentimental Reasons/Cielito Lindo

Here we go with a corn pone version of what was a huge hit for Nat King Cole. I can't really tell who meant it more, but I'm pretty sure one version wasn't likely to get you any action...



Another record another really old tune that probably saved them a ton on publishing by being in public domain. Cielito Lindo is a mariachi tune and after that cockroach song the penultimate Mexican stereotype tune.

 Pedro Infante had this go at it in 1946 well before Taco Tuesday became a thing

The Homer & Jethro Project #1

Ok, Here's the deal.

If you've been following along with this trainwreck that I humbly proffer as a blog you should already be aware that I possess a voracious if not eclectic capacity to enjoy all sorts of music, noise, weird shit, novelty songs, punk rock, jazz and general nonsense. I've threatened this particular project on more than one occasion.

The nightmare becomes reality starting today.

With this inaugural post I present a fairly comprehensive overview of the musical careers of the Country Comedy duo known as Homer and Jethro. It's by no means complete since there's always odds and ends that are hard to track down for anybody with a decades spanning career, but it's probably as comprehensive as any other batshit motherfucker is likely to pull together in your lifetime. (I mean, I bought goddamn 78s for this and I don't even have the capacity to play them) Not even Bear Family is likely to touch this stuff...

I have also spent the weeks I've been working on getting this stuff digitized and ripped and the whole freakin' nine yards slowly formulating in my mind my best defense as to why Homer and Jethro. (...blah blah blah... really exceptional musicians. Jethro Burns pretty much invents a jazz/country hybrid of playing the mandolin. Dead pan comedy, puns and bad jokes...etc...)

But then I realized I really don't have to.
 I want to do this, so I will.

It's compiled from a variety of vinyl sources with most of the King sides coming from later compilations and filled in with original 78s that I tracked down and digitized at a friend's house then carefully put together in a vague-ish chronological order because I'm like that.

This has been no small project for me and even as I start typing this, I've still got some stray items on their way and have to upgrade recordings of others with recently purchased upgraded copies. It's been a process.

It currently looks to run about 66 posts that will appear for the entirety of the Spring of 2018 in the same way that last year's Fall of the Fall did or the Boyracer mania of a few years back.

So if this isn't your cup of tea, come back in June and the regular shit you've come to siphon will reemerge (including some really good stuff I picked up on a recent trip to the East Coast)


But here they are direct from the bar, Homer and Jethro...

November 1946 - King 571 - Five Minutes More/Rye Whiskey

It's probably just easier to link to their wikipedia page than to type out their life story.

They'd already existed as a duo for a decade (barring time served in uniform for WW2) by the time they released this initial record for the King Label. It's them doing a country hick parody of a song that had been a Number One hit for some guy from New Jersey  who went by the name of Frank Sinatra. This was their shtick and predates Weird Al Yankovic by three entire decades.

The flip was one of those old timey folk songs given the same treatment. (Somewhere I have an odd fexi disc with Nick Cave crooning it.) but I'm going to link to Western movie star Tex Ritter's version from 1936 because I can.

I like this song. But then I like whiskey.

I'm going to pour myself a glass now....

December 1946 - King 583 - Don't Let Your Sweet Love Die/Boll Weevil



For their next recorded foray they played it a little bit straighter for a take on a Bluegrass standard as done by the Blue Sky Boys among others and then backed it with another ancient folk tune about an insect scourge of the cotton growing South, the boll weevil which was much recorded. Tex Ritter did a nice version of this one too.

 I think Homer and Jethro were probably Tex Ritter fans.

This is from an original 78 I got which still sounds better than any other versions I could scare up.

What I Wanted to Hear Tonight

So this is what I wanted to listen to.
This is what I present here to be listened to.
It's symbiotic.

Season's Crane (1992)

Milk. The 11th band listed on Discogs with that name.

From Minneapolis, MN

this is the first single.

Making the Most of Minimal Hearing (1995)

This was their last single but it was recorded in 1992. So there.

There were three full lengths in between that I may or may not post sometime. It's fine state of the art early 90's indie rock with an essence of lo-fi dabbling and other kinds of primitive knob diddling nonsense that the cool kids were doing back then.

It's a compilation day

Why Do You Think They Call it Pop (1994)

01. Sleepyhead - Hot Stuff
02. Dambuilders, The - Pennsylvania
03. Small Factory - Yeah!
04. Versus - Sunburned (Life's a Beach)
05. Polvo - Colonial Arms
06. Monsterland - Sunburn
07. Wingtip Sloat - Leap Into My Velvet Arms
08. Helium - In a Little Box
09. Ruby Falls - Let Me Go
10. Twig - Airplane
11. Greenhorn - 50 Ways to Leave Your Lover
12. Kudgel - Friction~Ali Baba
13. Grifters - Black Fuel Incinerator

Lost Potentials

I'm a bit lost. It's Sunday night and starting to get late. It's also my week long stretch off work and I feel like I haven't really accomplished fuck all in the last three days. I mean, we did go grocery shopping and made a Costco run and I got most of my ducks in a row for the next big seasonal post queue, got a haircut and did a couple of loads of laundry, practiced some ukulele and cooked Maple Garden Eggplant but there's still that nagging feeling that I should have done more.

I'm not even any kind of an overachiever but still I feel like I've wasted my time because I slept, watched TV and played some video games.

And to top it off I've spent most of my awake time today working on stuff to post. Maybe that's why. That does seem kind of pointless...

Here's Lily Liver:

Lily Liver (1994)

I don't really remember much about this band except that they existed. I don't think I ran into them ever playing with another band I liked. I probably did. I just don't remember it. I don't remember a lot of stuff that happened in the early to mid 90's. (and remember more than a few things from then that I would like to have forgotten.)
But this single exists and it's quite good pop in a handmade sleeve. Both sides.

There is nothing more I might add or say that isn't already covered in this article from City Pages from 2011 except that listening to this again tonight reminded me that I need to track down that full length cd tomorrow.

Speaking of brief existences

West Coast Rip-Off (1995)

The Cherry Smash put this out in 1995 then changed their name to Spectacle. Nobody told me. Spectacle is a terrible name.

I quite like "Airport Girl" and had kind of forgotten that this record existed. I'm glad to be reminded.

Here's South Dakota

No Direction (1983)

I was originally intending to keep this on the back burner until I got to the 'N's because they have a single too, but both sides of that are on this long player so now's as good a time as any and because I might forget otherwise and wanted a reason to reacquaint myself with it tonight.

So No Direction, a band from Sioux Falls, South Dakota and from what I can find are the first band from Sioux Falls to put out an independent punk record there. It's also kind of surprising that they didn't end up just moving to the Twin Cities like everybody else. But here you have it.

It's not the hardest and fastest punk record you've ever heard, but it hits a bunch of those key points with a bit of agitprop in songs like "Reaganomics" or Tear Gas Justice" which I'm sure got them chased around by hicks in pickup trucks on more than one occasion.
It's a solid and earnest record and all the much more subversive for coming from a small Midwestern city like Sioux Falls where being different was more likely to get you beat up than someplace like San Francisco or NYC where the freaks live.

Enjoy it.

Missed These too

So it continues.
Mostly I'm trying to fill in the slots in the queue to get me until the Spring Equinox on March 20 so I can start posting the Homer and Jethro discography I've been working on and which will likely alienate nearly anybody who's ever followed this thing I've been doing. (But I'm going to do it anyway)

Stingers (1984)

A nice pair of power pop-ish little numbers by this Milton, Mass band that I never heard of and pretty much nobody on the internet has apparently said much of anything about that Google pulls up. My copy also doesn't have the sleeve. I pulled this picture off of the internet. That happens sometimes.

Use wisely

Action by Example (1980)

Third and final single by the horror themed band that started life as Demon Preacher who's first single was a song about Joyce McKinney and had naked boobs on the cover. This isn't that one.
There aren't boobs on this cover. It's too scary for that. They've also shortened their moniker down to just the Demons because it would otherwise be way too many syllables for lazy people like me to say in one sentence.

Listen to it in a dark room late at night. If you dare.....