Polish Flexi-Disc Postcards
(All the corny information on this page was submitted by the great Mikael Agardsson.)
- See also: Russian flexi-discs
Polpress Postcards
Apparently, the Polish Polpress label, at some point in history, made several sets of "flexi-disc postcards" - postcards that you could play on your record-player - with material from a wide range of Zappa albums. The German underground Zappa reference books known as The Torchum Never Stops, list a mess of such postcards. We don't know if these were made under legal license (sounds very unlikely!), or if they were bootleg products.
From Mikael Agardsson:
Here are 6 pictures of the Polish flexi-disc postcards! At first glance, you wouldn't believe that these postcards have anything to do with Frank Zappa - but they are playable, even though the sound quality leaves a lot to be desired. All the cards have the track title stamped on the back (see picture).
Don't Eat the Yellow Snow (14.8x10.1cm)
Nanook Rubs It (14.9x10.3cm)
St Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast (14.8x10.3cm)
Father O'Blivion (14.8x10.4cm, tilted)
Excentrifugal Forz (14.6x10.2cm)
Cosmik Debris (14.6x10.2cm)
Unfortunately, there is nothing on the card to indicate when they were made; it doesn't even indicate that Polpress have anything to do with the cards, even though the Torchum books say so. The print on the back varies, and makes you wonder if they're all from the same company!
Card Print on back of card Don't Eat the Yellow Snow Wszelkie Prawa Zastrzezone (c) Nanook Rubs It Printcard (c) St Alfonzo's Pancake Breakfast Goetz & Goetz Print
Wszelkie Prawa ZastrzezoneFather O'Blivion DDK Edition s.c. -Poznan Excentrifugal Forz PPH ZN-AK Poznan 0-61 853 01 67 rys. W. Wejner Cosmik Debris PPH ZN-AK Poznan 0-61 853 01 67 rys. W. Wejner Newer Postcards
Mikael Agardsson (late 1999) came across some newer postcards:
I don't know if this are from Polpress; it doesn't say so anywhere on the cards. I think they are newer than the [above] Polpress cards. They're all laminated on the front with a thin plastic coating, and the others are not.
Wowie Zowie (10.3x15 cm)
Czerwony bar 1990, olej plótno 89 x 117 cm
Lonely Little Girl (10.6x14.5 cm)
Szwajcaria Kaszubska
Zolar Czakl (10.0x14.5 cm)
Muzeum Narodowe W Warszawie
XVIII dynastia, panowanie Hatszepsut (c 1479-1458 PNE)
Son of Suzy Creamcheese (14.8x10.4 cm)
Avatar IIIAg
Emperor of Ohio (14.6x10.4 cm)
Ferdynand Ruszcyc (1870-1936), Ziemia, 1898
Olej, plótno, 164x219 cm
Muzeum Narodowe w Warszawie
Fountain of Love (15.0x9.9 cm)
[back of card lists "Fontanna"]
Belvedere Palace
Bobby Brown (15.0x10.0 cm)
Palace of Culture & ScienceAll except "Son of Suzy Creamcheese" have lines printed on the back. They also have a blue "FZ" stamp. Each card also has a sticker carrying the name of the song.
Avatar IIIAg (Reconstruction)
The object of art on the "Son of Suzy Creamcheese" card is a "reconstruction" of "Avatar IIIAg", and the back of the card, instead of lines for writing the postcard, has a description of the object, in Polish and English. The English part is:
Avatar IIIAg
(reconstruction)
COMPOSITION:
Ag - 93.5%
Cu - 6.5%
DIMENSIONS:
240/52/52 mm
WEIGHT:
Ca 550 g
PROPERTIES:
antiseptic
APPLICATIONS:
for three fingered superior being
EFFECTS:
facilitates help for endangered beings
who in this life received
unfavourable temporary body of an insect
USES:
for carrying of
insubordinate
tiny
living
moving
feeling beings
SIDE EFFECTS:
possibility of contamination with material featureYou can read the Polish part on our Central-European page.
Morgots Records Postcards
More from Mikael Agardsson:
Here's some info on the flexis I mentioned yesterday. These flexis too are made to be postcards. The difference between these and the others [above] are that these are larger and blank on the flip-side, except they all have a stamp there (the others [above] have lines on the flip-side). The cards were made by Morgots Records, which I don't know anything about at all! :)
I've got my hands on 30 of these flexi postcards. I don't know how many were made, but I'm sure there were more than a hundred! I have 6 from We're Only In It for the Money, 13 from Uncle Meat and 11 from Weasels Ripped My Flesh. (The flexis from each album all have the same picture on them, but in different colours.)
Their dimensions are as follows (some of them are a few mm longer or shorter):
- We're Only In It for the Money flexis: 13.9 cm wide, 16.9 cm high
- Uncle Meat flexis: 16.1 cm wide, 13.6 cm high
- Weasels Ripped My Flesh flexis: 15.5 cm wide, 13.5 cm high
From We're Only In It for the Money:
- Telephone Conversation (pink)
- Bow Tie Daddy (pink)
- Harry, You're a Beast (turqouise)
- Flower Punk (turqouise)
- Let's Make the Water Turn Black (pink)
- Lonely Little Girl (pink)
From Uncle Meat:
- Uncle Meat (light blue)
- The Voice of Cheese (lime)
- Nine Types of Industrial Pollution (light blue)
- Zolar Czakl (pink) ["Zolar" misspelled as "Zola"]
- Dog Breath, in the Year of the Plague (yellow)
- The Legend of the Golden Arches (orange)
- The Dog Breath Variations (orange) ["Variations" misspelled as "warations"]
- Sleeping in a Jar (lime)
- Our Bizarre Relationship (pink)
- The Uncle Meat Variations (yellow) ["Variations" misspelled as "wariations"]
- Electric Aunt Jemima (pink)
- God Bless America (yellow)
- King Kong V (light green)
All tracks from Weasels Ripped My Flesh:
- Didja Get Any Onya? (orange)
- Directly from My Heart to You (light blue)
- Prelude to the Afternoon of a Sexually Aroused Gas Mask (orange)
- Toads of the Short Forest (orange)
- Get a Little (light blue)
- The Eric Dolphy Memorial Barbecue (orange)
- Dwarf Nebula Processional March & Dwarf Nebula (orange)
- My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama (orange)
- Oh No (light blue)
- The Orange County Lumber Truck (orange)
- Weasels Ripped My Flesh (orange)
From Mikael Agardsson:
Just like I suspected, there are more Polish flexi-discs. I got an e-mail from a Polish collector and he has the following goodies for sale:
- "15 flexi cards with all songs from Absolutely Free - Morgot Records 012A
- 11 flexis cards with all songs from Weasels Ripped My Flesh - Morgot Records 015
- 19 flexi cards with all songs from We're Only In It for the Money - Morgot Records 017
- 28 flexi cards with all songs from Uncle Meat - Morgot Records 048
- 18 flexi cards with all songs from Sheik Yerbouti - Morgot Records 051
- 34 flexi cards with all songs from 200 Motels - Morgot Records 053
- 9 flexi cards with all songs from Apostrophe (') - Morgot Records 055
- 7 flexi cards with all songs from Over-Nite Sensation - Morgot Records 056
- 13 flexi cards with all songs from Cruising with Ruben & the Jets - Morgot Records 057
- 13 flexi cards with all songs from Freak Out! - Morgot Records 058" (but there are 15 songs on Freak Out!, so two seem to be missing)
I wouldn't be surprised if there turned out to be flexi-disc sets from all albums! :)
Postcards Lists in the TORCHUM Books
The postcard lists in The Torchum Never Stops are a real mess. First there are these sets of five postcards each, which correspond more or less to Zappa albums:
- Willie the Pimp (Polpress 015)
- Apostrophe (Polpress 016)
- Motels (Polpress 031 - 200 Motels material)
- Sheik Yerbouti (Polpress FZ 4)
- 1981 (Polpress FZ 3 - Tinsel-Town Rebellion material)
- Freak Out!
- Absolutely Free
- We're Only In It for the Money (Polpress 044)
- Hot Rats
- Weasels Ripped My Flesh
- Chunga's Revenge (Polpress)
- Fillmore East - June 1971 (Polpress)
- Bongo Fury (Polpress 0051)
However, the Apostrophe (') set above is a set of six, not five. Others may also be incomplete, and in reality correspond to the Morgots sets. Then, there's a three-postcard set:
- The Great Dance Songs of Francesco Zappa (Polpress 113-115)
Then some items were listed as individual postcards. Most of them are songs from the albums above, and were probably really parts of those five-postcard sets. In fact, in some cases it was not known whether it was a single card or a set of several.
- Sheik Yerbouti (!)
- Hungry Freaks, Daddy
- Brain Police ["Who Are the Brain Police?"]
- Shoulder ["Go Cry on Somebody Else's Shoulder"]
- No Heart ["I Ain't Got No Heart (to Give Away)"]
- The Gumbo Variations
- Peaches en Regalia
- It Must Be a Camel
- My Guitar Wants to Kill Your Mama (118)
- Sharleena [listed twice]
- Camarillo Brillo [listed twice]
- Let Me Take You to the Beach
- Greggery Peccary, Part 1
- Why Does It Hurt When I Pee?
- The Central Scrutinizer
- Catholic Girls
- 1981 (Polpress FZ 2)
- Be in My Video
- Frogs with Dirty Little Lips
- The Closer You Are
From this list, we can assume that there were also several-postcard sets made from at least the Them Or Us, Studio Tan and Joe's Garage albums. "Sharleena" may be listed twice because one item belongs in the Them Or Us set, and the other in the Chunga's Revenge set. Why "Camarillo Brillo" was listed twice is another question. Maybe there were two versions of the postcard.
Finally, there were two four-postcard sets:
- Frank Zappa, Turkyeni
- Frank Zappa, Turkyeni, 68, 69, 73, 73
These may not be from Polpress - "Turkyeni" might indicate something Turkish. Hopefully, there were at least playable!
That's It!
In 1994, the 1981 set was valued at £100 pounds, and one of the others at £20. If you know anything at all about these postcards, if you know any others, or an exact list of what was issued in Poland; if you can tell me what "Turkyeni" is or means - then mail me!
