The L.A. Carnival – Would Like To Pose A Question

This funk collecting thing is beginning to resemble Roger Patterson’s famous and debated Bigfoot Super-8 film. Tales of near glimpses and claims of non-existence, hunters camping out in unlikely geographic locations – the search for secret funk could just as well be the search for the Yeti. Some of the records now being reissued on this and other dedicated labels may in fact be rarer than the Sasquatch itself, with count-on-the-fingers copies surviving the thirty year wash. Word of mouth was how a Pacific Avenue record was sold in early ‘70s Omaha, and word of mouth is how the record found the interested parties thirty years later. One collector tells another that he may have trapped something that resembles the Real Thing, and that other collector does the necessary legwork to prove its correct existence. For the arm-chair tracker, new records such as the one you are holding in your hand should incite feelings of mystery and privilege as direct as those felt by the compiler upon discovering a long forgotten parcel of soul. In the case of the L.A. Carnival, a small snapshot exhumed from the depths of the Midwest provided for a full-length movie in the form of an unreleased long player. Like unknown footprints set in plaster, the 45 RPM single has provided enough clues to uncover the entirety of the beast in its full glory.