Soundtrack-Paramount Pictures Presents Cheech y Chong's Up In Smoke (1978)

Artist: Soundtrack (Cheech and Chong, War, Search Boys, Yesca, Alice Bowie)

Title: Paramount Pictures Presents Cheech y Chong's Up In Smoke

Label: Warner Bros.

Format: LP

Cat #: BSK 3249

Year of Release: 1978

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1978 Gatefold, Goldisc Record Mfg.

Listed Condition: VG/VG

Sell Date: 3/15/21

Sell Price: $10.99

Discogs Last Sold: 10/15/20 VG+/VG $9.52

Low: $4.00 VG+/VG

Median: $10.00

Average: $11.65

High:  $20.00

Current low price: $8.93 VG+/VG+

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 7

Have/Want: 87/27

Where Sold:  Yuma, AZ

Time it took to sell: 6 years

Where and When Bought: Worcester MA in the Worcester Center bookstore mall as a gift for my mother

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A

Sad To See It Go: Yes

"You get a goddamn job or I'm shipping you off to military school with the Goddam Finkelstein Shit Kid!  Son of a bitch!!" was how I recited the intro of the Up In Smoke soundtrack excluding the "we" and the "Mom" dialogue in the background.  Mr. Stoner aka character great Strother Martin said that famous line.  If he didn't have the infamous "what we have here is failure to communicate" line in Cool Hand Luke a decade before, this would be hands down his greatest performance.

I bought this Soundtrack for my mother for her birthday around the time this was new.  She had seen the movie with my dad and liked it quite a bit.  I was too young at 8 to see an R rated movie.  This was one of those childhood gifts that were given and immediately taken over by the child giving the gift.  It found it's way into my record collection before the time I was a teenager.   By the time I was old enough to be taken to Cheech and Chong's Next Movie (which I deemed the greatest movie of all time up until that point in my 10 year old life, my mother not only didn't like that one but gave the ultimate put down "I was bored and thinking about other things").  I think in my later teens I saw Nice Dreams on videotape with and was bored and thought about other things.

So anyway, this soundtrack was listened to over and over to the point I had memorized all the soundtrack dialogue before I actually saw Up In Smoke.  "Hard Hat" was MY Who's On First!  By the time I saw Up In Smoke around age 12 give or take a year first at a friends on scrambled cable with the dial turned so the picture would come in to borderline watchability, then on videotape a couple years after that.   I had discovered that all the highlights were on the record.  So many things that shaped my overall life philosophy: "sometimes you gotta go when you can't."  I didn't understand until my mid teens when I was more conscious of roving eyes in a public urinal.  But once it happened, Cheech Marin was my philosophical guide.  And who could forget the blow by blow of Chong smoking dogshit then taking a ton of acid by accident?  A life lesson learned.

As for the music, this was my intro to "Low Rider" by War and it's greatness was even something my classical guitar playin' dad could agree on.  Hearing this in headphones in it's congo flyin' frenzy before this went out was a joy.  It truly is a perfect song.

The incidental soundtrack music is what it is, and I know every note even if I haven't heard the album since 1979 or so.  The Coasters parodies are cool also.  My introduction to "Framed" long before I heard the Alex Harvey Band as well as "Searchin'."  The original songs are cool as well, particularly the theme song.

The redo of "Earache My Eye" is stellar although the studio version I took out of the library relentlessly on the Wedding Album was prefaced by the authoritarian dad meets stoner man child Chong gag.  

Every kid can relate.