Die schlechteste Schallplatte der Welt (dazu noch ohne Rückseite!)

“The worst record in the world (On top of that without a flip side!)”

Okay, that´s not true. If it was, you would probably have heard about it. It´s a pretty nice German novelty record with a cartoon sleeve. Perfect for Berlin Beatet Bestes. And, the flip and the back of the sleeve are indeed  blank.

The label, that says “Lachplatte” (Laughing Record) and the Art Nouveau-style of the lettering, suggest that the song is based on the idea of The original Okeh Laughing Record: a man and woman laughing uncontrollably about a musician playing out of tune. For whatever reason, this song has very little laughing, but a lot of out of tune playing.
I assume, that the Kleckerdorfer Symphonieorchester is  actually Rolf Schneebiegl´s brass band. Scheebiegel (1924-2004) was quite an interesting musician who played jazz after WWII with Freddie Brocksieper, Kurt Edelhagen and Hans Koller, before he started his own very successful brass band, the Original Schwarzwaldmusikanten. While it might not work as a re-make of the famous Laughing Record, fans of classical music might still find humor in this rendition of  Franz von Suppe´s “Dichter und Bauer”, as arranged by Rolf  Schneebiegl.

There´s some crafty voluntary out of tune playing to be heard…

DAS KLECKERSDORFER SYMPHONIEORCHESTER, Dichter und Bauer

The reason I bought this record, was the sleeve, designed by cartoonist Reinhard Streit. I found no information about him online at all.

However, I found four cartoons by Reinhard Streit in my collection, published in the small book “Ohne Worte” (Without Words) in 1956 by Verlag Kurt Desch. The company published a European, a French and a German cartoon anthology. This is from the German edition:

Patentamt (patent office)

DIE OK-SINGERS, Die Susi mit dem Mini-Rock, 1965

He´s been in the business for 50 years and has sold millions of records. He´s also the most famous incredibly strange artist from Germany. Jello Biafra is a big fan. I´m not going to write his name in full, because – contrary to my usual policy – this artist is still very much alive and working. In fact, since he re-invented himself two years ago he´s been very successful, and now appears on German television every week. Since this blog deals with odd German records, it was inevitable that I finally came to the undisputed king of German musical weirdness. You know who I´m talking about….

So, this is the first record ( self-published by Dieter Wolf, the Ok-Singers´ guitarist) that our man was ever involved with. The group recorded two more 45s for Vogue and Electrola, but none of them have ever been reissued commercially. The two tracks are  risqué “Stimmungslieder” with a rock´n´roll twist. While his solo career was largely built “in contrast to the modern beat hysteria” (according to the liner notes from his first LP), this record, that features a cartoon girl in a mini-skirt, shows that he had an early brush with it.

Risqué songs, rock´n´roll, cartoon – now, that makes it pretty much…

A PERFECT RECORD!

DIE OK-SINGERS, Die Susi mit dem Mini-Rock, 1965

DIE OK-SINGERS, Lieschen, dein Blüschen, 1965