“Back in the day” when LP’s were still the norm, there were two truly great record stores that I would frequent in Toronto: Peter Dunn’s Vinyl Museum and Incredible Records.
Dunn’s (which closed more than 15 years ago) sold so many records at his three locations that his plastic LP protectors and inner sleeves still turn up on used albums sold in the Toronto area.
Ironically, it was Incredible Records that was a true museum. The walls were plastered with rare concert posters from the 1960s and 1970s and the main counter contained various memorabilia that was unmatched anywhere in Toronto at the time.
One of the items that always caught my eye was a copy of Charles Manson’s LP that was released on the ESP label. Every time I walked into the store, Manson’s contorted face (on the faux-LIFE mag cover) would taunt me.
I always wanted to hear what that album sounded like, so I did a bit of blog-o-trolling and came across a decent FLAC download [part-1|part-2] at the Stadium Studios blog that I converted to mp3 format. This CD re-issue is made from an LP and not the master tapes, but the quality is still worthy for download.
Incredible Records moved to Sebastopol, California (west of Santa Rosa, which is north of San Francisco) in the 1990s.
You can listen to Look At Your Game Girl while you are reading the original Stadium Studios blog post below:
Lie: The Love and Terror Cult (actual title Charles Manson Sings) is the debut album by Charles Manson, originally released by ESP-Disk. Recorded on September 11, 1967 and August 9, 1968 (overdubs), its distribution began during the Manson murder trial.
The cover is a copy of the 19 December 1969 Time Life front cover, only with “LIFE” substituted with “LIE”.
“Cease to Exist” had been previously recorded by the Beach Boys under the name “Never Learn Not to Love”, and appears on their 1969 album, 20/20, and as the B-side of the single of “Bluebirds over the Mountain”. The single gives songwriting credit to Manson and Dennis Wilson. Manson is not given co-writing credit on the album. It is worth pointing out that the Beach Boys’ version does include significant changes (including a bridge that wasn’t part of Manson’s version, and changing the line “Cease to exist” to “Cease to resist”, which does alter the meaning of the song).
Portions of the album have been sampled by many other artists, such as Front Line Assembly. Many of the songs have also been re-recorded; a version of Look at Your Game, Girl appears as a hidden track on Guns N’ Roses’ cover album “The Spaghetti Incident?”, while GG Allin covered “Garbage Dump” for his 1987 album You Give Love a Bad Name and Redd Kross and The Lemonheads have both covered “Cease To Exist”. Dilute released a cover of Home is Where You’re Happy in 2002 on the CD compilation If The Twenty-First Century Didn’t Exist It Would Be Necessary To Invent It (5 Rue Christine). The Brian Jonestown Massacre does a slightly reworked cover of “Arkansas” (called “Arkansas Revisited”) on their 1999 album Bringing it All Back Home – Again. The band’s leader, Anton Newcombe, has expressed interest in Manson’s songwriting.
Devo are alleged to have plagiarized their song “Mechanical Man” from Manson’s composition of the same name.
An acoustic version of the song “Sick City” was recorded by Marilyn Manson but has never been officially released. The Marilyn Manson song “My Monkey”, from the album Portrait of an American Family, contains samples of Charles Manson speaking, as well as lyrics from the track “Mechanical Man”.
All proceeds from one reissue of the album, released by Awareness Records, are donated to a California fund for victims of violent crime (California law prohibits Manson from collecting any money or royalties for his work).
Artist: Charles Manson
Title: LIE
Label: Awareness Records
Catalogue No: 08903-0156
Year: 1974 (CD Release 1987)
Track Listing:
1) Look At Your Game Girl
2) Ego
3) Mechanical Man
4) People Say Im No Good
5) Home Is Where Youre Happy
6) Arkansas
7) Ill Never Say Never To Always
Garbage Dump
9) Dont Do Anything Illegal
10) Sick City
11) Cease To Exist
12) Big Iron Door
13) I Once Knew A Man
I am the creator and site administrator at The Basement Rug. I have been collecting LP's and CD's for more than 30 years. I