The Tube Bar (1990)

 

Artist: (field recordings)

Title: The Tube Bar

Label: Teen Beat

Format: LP

Cat #: No. 31

Year of Release: 1990

Country and Year of Edition Issue: US 1990 first edition 700 pressing

Listed Condition: VG+/VG

Sell Date: 9/2/21

Sell Price: $24.99

Discogs Last Sold: 3/19/21 VG+/VG+ $14.50

Low: $6.90 VG/VG+

Median: $14.25

Average: $18.71

High: $44.04 VG+/VG+

Current low price: $32.14

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 2

Have/Want: 65/46

Where Sold: Allen Park, MI

Time it took to sell: 6 years

Where and When Bought: New In Your Ear or Newbury Comics around 1990

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A

Sad To See It Go: Yes

"I'll put the Z-Z's on both of your cheeks.  You'll remember me the rest of your life."-Louis "Red" Deutsch

Perhaps the most important phone prank recordings ever to exist, this Teen Beat Records limited 700 pressing release was the first of many configurations of mid-70's recordings made to The Tube Bar in Jersey City, NJ.  These recordings are presented in such a way that the prank evolves throughout the duration of the calls from innocuous requests for various Al's: DePansu, Coholic.  Italians like Ben DeBananna and Jo Mama and Poles like Al Breakunek and Hal Jalikikik.

Red catches on and gets angrier and angrier as the calls progress.  At some point the caller also becomes combative.  Red is older than old school.  Research shows he was born in 1895 and came from the Bronx.  A boxer drafted into World War ONE and came back to make collections for the mob.  This is where the "Z-Z" came from.  I always assumed it was the mark of Zorro.  It was actually what the mob did in the process of roughing someone up with a straight razor.  

Red tries to gain the upper hand and inform the caller that  "I know who you are!  You've been bragging to your friends."  The best parts are when Red gets so angry he can't keep his insults straight.  Motherhood is debased.  As in "I've been fuckin' your mother and suckin' my prick for many years and now you're trying to make a jerk out of yourself."  The climax comes when a call is made late at night to Red's home.   "Barbarino" speaks briefly to Red's wife before informing Red the bar is on fire.  Needless to say Red explodes in a hierarchical cacophony of slurs and threats starting with the "Guinea Bastard" he is talking to.  

One could say that there is great joy to see Red get his comeuppance to a faceless provocateur.  Nobody likes someone who can't keep their anger in check, whether child or adult.  We are drawn into this outlier getting "street justice."   The listener is reeled in the way a 6 year old likes to hide in the bushes and watch what happens while telling a 3 year old to give a "dirty" message to his mother.  Tube Bar brings out the inner child in us all.  We The People naturally want to see a different result than what the world of "law and order" provides.  We want mean bullies fucked with.  

Mark Robinson of Unrest/Teen Beat pads out this important recording with some filler: the side closes with a Jamaican radio show shout out. He credits Stu B Fine and titles it "The Kensington Posse"  He credited the main event to Tube Bar and called it "Cranking Up Redd On The Phone" Side 2 Flesh Tip Fix entitled "Don Sex Phone Action Hillary Styley" is a sexless chat between a 19 year old WMUC DJ from Bethesda, MD and an older Debbie Harry new wave phone sex operator named Hillary.

Tube Bar made it's way into a great short film, Red, staring Lawrence Tierney complete with a fantasy ending.  The pranks also made their way on The Simpsons.  Moe cuts a belly open much the same way Red does.  I always envisioned Red to look more like Lawrence than Moe in a wifebeater shirt with his resonant voice a cross of Popeye and street thug that cuts through decades of cheap cassette hiss and analog phone wires.

For the sadistic voyeur in us all.