Neil Hamburger-Great Phone Calls (1992)


 

Artist: Neil Hamburger


Label: Ipecac

Format: CD

Catalog Number: IPC-10

Year of Release: 1992

Country and Year of Edition: US 2000 

Sell Price: $3.65

Sell Date: 9/5/24

Condition: VG+/F booklet missing

Discogs Last Sold  5/8/24 VG+/VG+ $3.89

Low: $2.22 10/12/16 VG+/VG+ 

Median: $4.47

Average: $5.45

High: $15.56 7/2/22 M/NM

Current low price: $4.44

Current Number on Sale at Discogs: 15

Have/Want: 129/46

Where Sold:  Greenville, SC

Time It Took To Sell:  12 years

Where and When Bought: promo

Gwiz-gau Letter Grade: A

Sad To See It Go: No

Great Phone Calls was part of the holy trinity of phone prank albums along with The Tube Bar and The Jerky Boys.  I originally found a vinyl copy on the wall heading into the basement of Venus Records on St. Marks in NYC in late '92 or early '93 and snatched it up.  That copy has since gone MIA--I don't think I ever had it around when I put everything on Discogs ten years ago, but this was sitting on my CD shelf minus the booklet.  I'm guessing I got a promo of it when Ipecac shared an office with Tee Pee and I was working there.  

Anyway, Neil Hamburger in 1992 was just a character on the record since it was issued uncredited.  The underground has a way of producing it's marquee stars much the same way pop culture does, by word of mouth.  Now Neil has released a whole catalog of several dozen releases under that moniker including a bunch on Drag City.  He was actually weirdo musician Gregg Turkington in his other life was a menagerie of Avant Garde releases under different names.  I bought his Bean Church cassette in the mid-80's from the Subterranean catalog and also his act Zip Code Rapists on the Amarillo label that this was originally released on and didn't know the true connection in it's day.

The pranks on this stand the test of time.  I was already mimicking voice modulators in the early 90's, so it was natural for the "Hijinks" series to be replayed and discussed add infinitum.  The nuanced hilarity of the film starring Bette Midler as....The Ringmaster.  "I'm In Your Band" kicks out songs on the fly that are better than most things.  Who could forget the image of a morbidly obese man getting taken by wheel barrel escorted by young boys so he could get his breadless pizza on cardboard?  Chabela Burrito or Picked Potato?

I'm reeeeeeal hungry!



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