I used to love to go crate digging in record stores, but haven’t done so in a long while. Many stores I frequented are no longer around and I’ve now also drastically curtailed my LP purchases (I’ve never particularly enjoyed flipping through CD bins. It’s just not the same). Instead, these days I often come across online needledrops of obscure LPs, mostly from the 1960s and 70s, but sometimes going back to the 1950s and forward into the 2000s. Perusing such album posts has become my current version of crate digging, or perhaps now it’s more like “virtual digging.” Some fun and fascinating finds have popped up and I thought I’d periodically post reviews of these “virtual digs.”
I remember reading about Root Boy Slim and the Sex Change Band in Rolling Stone, but never got around to checking them out. Root Boy Slim started life as Foster MacKenzie III, a bright, though troublemaking kid, who grew up in Washington, DC, and attended a string of prestigious schools, eventually landing at Yale. While at school, he formed several bands, often shocking audiences with his flamboyant appearance. wild antics and satirical lyrics. Following graduation, MacKenzie was diagnosed as schizophrenic and medicated for the rest of his life after running across the White House lawn, determined to find the center of the universe during a bad LSD trip. He then became the outrageous frontman Root Boy Slim and built an enthusiastic fanbase around Washington area clubs. In 1978, Warner Brothers Records released the self-titled debut, though the label soon dropped the band due to disappointing sales.
Which brings us to Zoom, which I.R.S. Records issued the next year. While it may be easy to dismiss Root Boy Slim as something of a joke, his band impressively included a bunch of stellar musicians that backed jazz and rock greats Miles Davis, Joe Cocker, Dave Mason, Gil Scott-Heron and Dizzy Gilespie. Imagine a tight R&B/blues ensemble like the J. Geils Band fronted by a slightly unhinged, but still incredibly right vocalist belting out pop culture mockery such as “Do the Gator,” “Quarter Movie on My Mind,” “Dare to Be Fat” and “Dozin’ and Droolin’.” I regret not hearing this crazy ‘n’ crude masterpiece sooner!
Mackenzie continued to perform and record throughout the 1980s and early 1990s. He finally settled in Orlando, Florida, in 1993 where he died of a heart attack at age 48.
APRIL 12, 2024
Letter to the Vatican 