{"title":"Perfect Toy","description":"\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003ePerfect.Toy Records is a label based in Germany that focuses on creative musicians of the Jazz, Funk and Rare Groove scene worldwide. Founded by Marcus Hacker, a Munich based DJ, Jazzman and former head of Spinning Wheel Records, this label showcases both old school sounds from the past and present productions. Although Marcus Hacker has since departed, the label was briefly managed by Jerker Kluge before being taken over by a collective of record collectors and DJs.\u003c\/p\u003e","products":[{"product_id":"a-point-of-view-2","title":"A Point Of View","description":"\u003cp\u003eLIMITED TO 500 COPIES \/\/ HIGH-QUALITY TIP-ON COVER \/\/ INCL. DOWNLOAD CODE\nOFFICIAL RE-ISSUE, DONE IN COOPERATION WITH THE FAMILY OF BOBBY COLE !!!\nIf you lived in New York during the 1950s through the 1990s and liked jazz, you knew about Bobby Cole. He played piano, sang, composed, arranged and, in 1967, released an album of original compositions titled \"A Point of View\" (Concentric Records). He had fans but avoided becoming mainstream. He stayed contemporary without becoming current. Jazz, folk, rock, modern dance scores…he wrote and performed them all. He smoked too much, drugged too much, drank too much. He was also cerebral, curious, a prodigious reader of poetry, philosophy, theology, and an uncommonly intelligent and literate lyricist.\n\nOn a December night in 1996, he had a heart attack while walking to work. An ambulance brought him to New York Hospital where, a few hours later, he died. Bobby Cole performed throughout Manhattan for forty years, but he spent most of the 1960s headlining at Jilly's, the midtown bistro owned by Frank Sinatra and his friend Jilly Rizzo. Sinatra called Bobby \"my favorite saloon singer.\"\n\nBobby Cole caught the attention of Judy Garland, who visited Jilly's one night in 1964. She was hosting a weekly television show, and in the midst of a feud with her special materials arranger, Mel Torme. Three weeks later, Mel was out, and Bobby was in. He performed on Judy's show with his Trio. Bobby was scarcely 30 years old and it was his first time on television, but he was unruffled, sophisticated, and so damn cool. After Judy's show ended, Bobby occasionally arranged and conducted for her until she died.\n\nToday, Jilly's is called the Russian Samovar and the piano is in the same spot. My husband and I ate there a few years ago. As we enjoyed our meal, I talked about Jilly's in the Sinatra era. Jilly had an apartment on the upper floor. I pointed up to the apartment and the balcony, where Jilly and Frank would sometimes drop water-balloons on unsuspecting pedestrians below. Another story described Jilly's as \"tough, and you had to be tough to work there. Bobby Cole was tough. Frank and Jilly used to throw firecrackers at him to see if they could rattle him, but nothing rattled Bobby Cole. He ignored them and kept on playing.\" In the 1980s, Bobby headlined at a club called the Café Versailles. His daughter sometimes visited with her friends. She recalled that when she and her father would exit the club after work, a panhandler would be waiting for him. Bobby, who fought his own losing battle with the bottle, would slip the guy twenty dollars and wryly admonish him, \"Be sure not to spend it on food.\" The night my husband and I visited the Russian Samovar there was a guy playing piano there, very young, and trying hard. I talked to him a little bit between his numbers about Bobby and the history of Jilly's and he was sweet, but I could tell he didn't care. I felt like one of those old people who bore young people to death with stories about things that happened before they were born – which, let's face it, is what I was. Nonetheless, when we were ready to leave, I put twenty dollars in his tip jar and said, \"This is with compliments from Bobby Cole.\" After we left my husband said I should have added, \"Be sure not to spend it on food.\"\n\nMarie Hegeman (December 2021)\n\nThis is the first OFFICIAL RE-ISSUE - limited to 500 (HAND-STAMPED!) COPIES. The record is housed in a HIGH QUALITY TIP-ON record jacket and comes with a FULL ALBUM DOWNLOAD CODE.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Perfect Toy","offers":[{"title":"LP","offer_id":50434661581131,"sku":"2056120","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_f6e77dad_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726892731"},{"product_id":"best-of-down-in-the-valley-vol-1-and-2","title":"Best of Down In The Valley Vol 1 and 2","description":"\u003cp\u003eA heavy selection of mod-rockers, garage and psych-funk tracks, runs the sub-title of new compilation series, Down In The Valley from Perfect Toy, encapsulating in a nutshell the multifarious pleasures on offer. And what better way to open such a set than with Van Broussard's banging titty-shaker Mojo? This is followed by The Little Bits' screaming garage-soul cut Girl Give Me Love (recorded when the band members were all between nine and twelve years old!) and Frozen Sun's Jamm Pt.1 - a monster psych-soul number secretly laid down in the lobby of radio station KTKT (in Tucson, AZ) on a Sunday after midnight and about as aptly named as a track can get. Cover song thrills are to be had in the form of Phlegethon's heavy-psychedelic take on the Clint Ballard-penned classic You're No Good and The Penny Arcade's version of Funky Way while yet more garage-soul delights are locked down by offerings from The Chapters, The Looking Glass and The Four. Pump's previously unreleased Ashtray Candle 6:33 is a slow-grooving psych masterpiece and another previously unreleased cut is Morning Reign's dance-floor heater Can't Get Enough Of It. There are also two frantic garage-soul cuts from a pair of super-obscure groups: 1906 \u0026amp; Company and Band of Gold while Rex Garvin \u0026amp; The Mighty Cravers' titty-shaking instrumental Strange Happenings slows things down to a monster shimmy with retro horror movie vibes. The Animal Show Band's Tell Daddy provides the male answer to Etta James' Tell Mama and rocks just as hard as the original while Gino Scorza's funk-tinged soul heater Little By Little (which he originally privately pressed himself) gets reissued for the first time. Closing the album is a real treasure by Big John K in the shape of his heavyweight slab of soulful blues-funk - Poor Souls. Once again, Chan the Man – previously the guiding light for Perfect Toy's Down \u0026amp; Wired series - was the driving force behind this project. It is his incredible knowledge, combined with the network of record collectors, DJs and vinyl nerds that he has established over the past few decades which have made it possible to come up with such a high-octane selection of super-heavy and extremely rare tracks. Accompanied by detailed liner notes and never-before-seen photos of the artists, The Best Of Down In The Valley sets the bar high. Stone Monkey\/ monkeyboxing.com – March 2018\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Perfect Toy","offers":[{"title":"CD","offer_id":50436020568395,"sku":"1034352","price":14.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/e905dd9c-1ccc-43a0-8162-ec43e19a5628_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726911093"},{"product_id":"love-is-you-2","title":"Love Is You","description":"\u003cp\u003e*** ULTRA RARE PSYCH-FUNK \/ GARAGE ROCK ***\nThe General Store recorded four songs in 1967 of which these two were released on a nowadays very very very very very hard to find 7inch single. This re-issue is limited to 300 copies and one with the blessing of the band. Tower of Power meets Funkadelic.\nA second 7inch will be released soon with two UNRELEASED tracks!\nAs comped on \"DOWN \u0026amp; WIRED Vol.7\" (PT068LP).\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Perfect Toy","offers":[{"title":"Black 7\"","offer_id":50440806859083,"sku":"2201442","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_64d9935e_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1726967822"},{"product_id":"no-time-to-ride","title":"No Time to Ride","description":"\u003cp\u003eThe General Store recorded four songs in 1967 of which two of them remained unreleased. More than 55 years later they see the light of the day for the very first time. Tower of Power meets Funkadelic.\nLimited to 300 copies and released with the blessing of the band. Can you ask for more?\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Perfect Toy","offers":[{"title":"Black 7\"","offer_id":50443032002891,"sku":"2203511","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_cd58e520_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727007625"},{"product_id":"down-and-wired-vol7","title":"Down And Wired Vol.7","description":"\u003cp\u003eRARE \u0026amp; PREV. UNRELEASED PSYCH-FUNK AND GARAGE ROCK !!!\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eSay hello to Down \u0026amp; Wired Vol. 7 as Perfect Toy Records unleashes yet another instalment in its long-running compilation series! Once more, the label provides a delectable selection of obscure funk and soul-influenced psychedelic and garage rock tracks to delight even hardcore collectors of both genres.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eAnd make no mistake, there is plenty to discover among these eleven tracks. At the funkiest end of things, Function's Free Style morphs from West Coast psychedelia to country funk to swamp rock and back again in its sub-three minute length, Dandy King provide psychedelic funky-soul and The Whiz Kids take a heavy dose of funkiness with them into psych-rock territory – sample fiends watch out for the fat twenty-second drum break towards the end of the latter! Purer psychedelia can be found in the offering from Third Stone while Würzburg band Prisma provide all-out epic psych-rock carnage. And if rock carnage is your thing, you'll be feeling the dirty garage rock onslaught of The Comin' Generation and a previously unreleased cut by Synod - soon to be a 45 single on Perfect Toy. That just leaves The General Store, The Soul Society, The Vestells and another unreleased cut from The Villagers (from whom the label will be dropping more unreleased material soon!), to close the circle by adding a heavy dose of garage soul.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA worthy successor to the previous volumes, Down \u0026amp; Wired Vol. 7 is once again accompanied by an insert containing detailed information and photos of the bands and a download code is also included with every vinyl LP.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Perfect Toy","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50452501725515,"sku":"2215668","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/cover.ki_0956f3de_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727154298"},{"product_id":"first-step","title":"First Step","description":"\u003cp\u003eBorn in Donauwörth, a small town in Bavaria in 1951, Götz Tangerding studied piano to concert level at the Leopold Mozart Conservatory in Augsburg. In the 1970s he started to make a name for himself on the local Munich jazz scene and traveled through East Europe with drummer Rudi Roth. In 1976 he came to New England Conservatory of Music in Boston to study compositions with George Russell and Jaki Byard with whom he played in the New York Big Band in 1978.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eIn 1980 he returned to Munich, Germany and founded his formation Bhakti Jazz as well his own record label Bhakti Records. \"First Step\", recorded at the Loft in Munich on May 1st and 2nd that same year, was the debut album and showcases the huge talent of the young and gifted band leader.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Perfect Toy","offers":[{"title":"Black | LP","offer_id":50469508448587,"sku":"1158088","price":27.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}]},{"product_id":"down-wired-8","title":"Down And Wired 8","description":"\u003cp\u003eSay hello to Down \u0026amp; Wired Vol. 8 as Perfect Toy Records unleashes yet another instalment in its long-running compilation series! Once more, the label provides a delectable selection of obscure funk and soul-influenced psychedelic and garage rock tracks to delight even hardcore collectors of both genres.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Perfect Toy","offers":[{"title":"Black LP","offer_id":50498383282507,"sku":"2218056","price":24.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_e41d8668_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727746476"},{"product_id":"ill-stop-at-nothing","title":"I'll Stop At Nothing","description":"\u003cp\u003eBilly Gee and the Whole Shabang provides what we today call 'Soul-Sockin'-Blue-Eyed Soul'. Both sides are equally great and definitely deserve to be heard by a wider audience.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Perfect Toy","offers":[{"title":"7\"","offer_id":50521600229707,"sku":"2056106","price":9.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_abcb4dfe_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1727992669"},{"product_id":"birthday-6","title":"Birthday","description":"\u003cp\u003eOnly hardcore collectors of rare Garage-Rock, Psych and Krautrock 7-inches have ever heard of Germany's LONY \u0026amp; THE MISFITS LTD. For more information about them feel free and check out the recently released \"DOWN \u0026amp; WIRED Vol.8\" (PT069LP) compilation album.\nLIMITED TO 300 COPIES.\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Perfect Toy","offers":[{"title":"Black 7\"","offer_id":50531364634955,"sku":"2209649","price":12.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/test_6c29d05a_thumbnail_4096.jpg?v=1728105729"},{"product_id":"weird-you-wouldnt-believe-me","title":"Weird \/ You Wouldn't Believe Me","description":"\u003cp\u003eA legendary garage rock monster gets a proper re-release! \u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Perfect Toy","offers":[{"title":"7\" - Black","offer_id":53332455620939,"sku":"R5012-2862","price":11.99,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/files\/cover-1.ki_26387fc6-fe94-40ac-80e4-59e7227a0655.jpg?v=1757252833"}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0867\/1120\/6219\/collections\/test_b68b6248_thumbnail_4096_02225082-f168-4a74-8a78-40540412b182.jpg?v=1725622400","url":"https:\/\/shop.roughtrade.com\/collections\/perfect-toy.oembed","provider":"Rough Trade","version":"1.0","type":"link"}