This 1968 LP stands as a particularly strange UFO in the UFO-filled sky of the psychedelic and kitsch record collector. In 1968, producer Enoch Light commissioned an LP from Hugh Heller, a publicist who used to put together albums of skits and short musical spoofs his agency privately distributed to industry people. Heller teamed up with his agency's commercial jingle composer Dick Hamilton. Together, they wrote 12 light comedy tracks and brought in visionary electronician Robert Moog (inventor of the Moog synthesizer) to give their project a space-age feel. The result is an unusual cross between Perrey-Kingsley's infamously kitsch outer-worldly music, the Lawrence Welk Show, and The Partridge Family Show -- technology, ballroom music and variety show one-liners, all rolled into one. This half-hour of material has aged tremendously, but to most connoisseurs of the genre, that is where its value resides. Some themes are actually nice and groovy ("And Now the News," the Schoolhouse Rock-esque "Take 46"), and Moog gets to stretch out in "High Fly Ball," but the format chosen (two-minute tunes) means that nothing gets developed and what you hear on first listen is what you get: thirty minutes of collaged commercial jingles. The album failed to sell, but attained a certain cult status. Fallout Records reissued it on CD in 2006 with explanatory liner notes. Still, this is the kind of thing you will most likely listen to only once. ~ François Couture, All Music Guide
Tracks
1. It's 74 in San Francisco
2. And Now the News
3. The Elevator
4. Take 46
5. The Piano Lesson
6. The Flight
7. The Mist of Time
8. High Fly Ball
9. Life Story
10. I Can't Get Around in the Morning
11. The Mechanic
12. The Button Man
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