Swearing in the Bushes, Dr. Dirty, and Porn Mags at the Soviet Checkpoint: A Vinyl Misadventure

Matt at the Vogue is always looking out for Lou’s best interests.  Lou’s best interests would be dirty records of questionable taste and quality.  So, Lou was optimistic when Matt handed Lou a copy of Swearing in the Bushes:  A Shocking Record for the Gentleman on Galatea Records out of Boston from around 1960.  Could this be the vinyl equivalent of a black and white 8mm stag film?  Things looked promising with titles like, “Nailed to the Floor”, “The Little Foxes”, “The Hired Girl”, and “Giant Cucumbers”.  Fingers crossed.  

False advertising!!!  Lou should have known better when he saw that the record was issued out of Boston in the early 1960s.  This is an era when the phrase “Banned in Boston” still had some force.  The City on the Hill’s Puritan streak was alive and well.  During this period, William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch would be charged with obscenity in a case that went to MassachusettsSupreme Court, where Burroughs eventually prevailed, being deemed what he is, a writer of literary merit.  

There appears to be little information about this LP or Galatea Records for that matter.  Lots of stuff about the swearing in of the presidential Bushes and some stuff on Oasis’ “Fucking in the Bushes” but nothing on point.  On Discogs, Swearing seems to be the only LP issued by that label.  Digging around a bit turns up the fact that Swearing was the second record issued by Droll Yankee Records, a label founded in Rhode Island around 1960 or so to preserve “the sounds of old new England” and “release[ing] records covering material ranging from sounds of the natural world and old trains or boats, to off-color new england humor and farm life.”  The label was founded by Peter Kilham and Alan Bemis, who are featured on Swearing.  And that is what Swearing is:  old-time Yankee humor.  Again, this humorist shit.  See my post on That Wonderful Old Two-Holerfor a fuller description of what this sorry crap is.

Alas.  Lou was hoping for something blue, not just off-color.  Something like John Valby, also known as Dr. Dirty.  Now as you know, Lou travelled around Eastern Europe with a cassette of R.E.M.’s Green in the summer of 1989, but what he did not tell his dedicated readers (Hi, Mom!!) is that Lou was also listening to a bootleg tape of John Valby.  In short, Valby was an obscene Weird Al Yankovic, who was doing his thing years before Weird Al.  Valby specialized in sexist and racist song parodies that he performed live in clubs with a white tailcoat and a black derby hat.  Lou knew nothing of Valby from the club circuit.  He only experienced Valby through bootleg tapes that had been recorded from God knows what source, God knows how many times.  Valby’s discography is immense but his recordings from 1987 to 1989, when Lou experienced his work,give you some of his flavor:  A Midsummer’s Wet Dream, Don’t Go Soft on Me Now, Beaver Fever, and Your Face or Mine.  Valby did tons of this crap for decades.  Lou still remembers some of the lyrics to Valby’s take on Helen Reddy’s “I Am Woman”.  Buy Lou a beer at the Vogue and he will recite a few bars as it is bar bathroom stall material for sure.  

Fun facts from Wiki:  Valby had a small role as a piano player in a Tijuana brothel in Tom Cruise’s Losin’ It from 1983.  Valby also recorded a song for Trump’s 2016 campaign, which he later backtracked on.

Listening to Valby behind the Iron Curtain was daring stuff.  It reminds Lou of all the checkpoints in Eastern Europe.  Lou went through Checkpoint Charlie on the group tour bus and armed guards came on the bus and shook the whole tour group down for $20 a head to go through.  When we were in West Berlin, Lou spent his free time drinking German beers.  Some of his fellow travelers went into the Berlin porn shops to buy magazines.  Not coincidentally, one of these guys also had the Valby tape.  In any case, as the Soviet border crossing approached our chaperones told us repeatedly not to have anything incriminating in our luggage.  No, of course not.  

So, we rolled up to the Soviet checkpoint, which was like a toll booth with a concrete building nearby.  Armed guards told us to go into the building with all our luggage and carry-ons.  Oh no.  A full search was in the offing.  Even if you did not have anything in your luggage it was a nerve-wracking experience as anyone knows about security after 9-11 in the US.  All was going well, until one of the guards opened a Valby enthusiast’s luggage and found a cache of German porn mags.  The guard proceeded to flip through every single porn mag page by page.  When he was done, he called over every guard in the building one by one so they could have their look as well.  After what seemed like a few hours, the initial guard put the magazines back in the luggage and sent us on our way.  Luckily, they never listened to any of our cassettes.  John Valby would have blown their minds.  Swearing in the Bushes not so much.

Suggested Sites and Sounds:

Droll Yankee Records:  discography - droll yankees records

John Valby Dot Comedy:  JohnValby.com - The Official Home Of Dr. Dirty

Losin’ It (see 37:43):  Losin' It | FULL MOVIE | Tom Cruise, Shelley Long | Cult Sex Comedy Drama

-- Lou Waxman