The Bathrooms Are Coming -- LEGENDARY & RARE industrial musical

$

400

If you've seen "Bathtubs Over Broadway" or read "Everything's Coming Up Profits," you know that private pressing "industrial musical" souvenir albums are some of the rarest and weirdest records in existence. These motivational musicals were only for dealers, salesmen, distributors and other industry insiders at sales meetings and conventions, and the souvenir vinyl records were not available to the public. And many of these shows boasted outstanding music and performances along with the bizarre corporate subject matter.

I'm the collector and historian profiled in the documentary "Bathtubs Over Broadway," and the co-author of "Everything's Coming Up Profits - The Golden Age of Industrial Musicals." I'm thinning out my stash of duplicates, and offering an assortment of records that range from the scarce, to the very rare, to the "you'll probably never encounter this again."

Here it is, the crown jewel: "The Bathrooms Are Coming," American Standard, 1969.

If you've bothered clicking on this listing, you probably already know how gorgeously strange and wonderful and improbable this record is. These songs, and the stories of the talented people involved with the production, are a central element of "Bathtubs Over Broadway."

"The Bathrooms Are Coming" was commissioned by American Standard and staged in Las Vegas and Atlanta for plumbing fixture distributors in early 1969. It's the perfect storm of an industrial show. The subject matter -- bathtubs, sinks, toilets, showers -- you're not gonna do better. The cover -- mind-blowing. The colors, the fonts, the show photos... the cast photos and credits and the  corporate blurbage... primo. And the songs by Sid Siegel live up to the visuals and the promise of the premise.

Sid, one of the great masters of the genre, is at his peak with these startlingly well arranged and recorded tunes. Of course everyone craves the hauntingly beautiful and notorious ode to a woman's private kind of place, "My Bathroom." But there are plenty of other highlights, like "Proximatics," "The Time For Change," "It's Revolution," "The Distributors," plus deep cuts that aren't heard in the documentary. The singers, including Patt Stanton Gjonola and Sandi Freeman (featured in the documentary), are excellent.

Everything about "The Bathrooms Are Coming" is cranked up to 11.

This example is extremely solid and presentable, with light wear on the cover, and nice vinyl with just a few very minor marks and scuffs.

As far as rarity goes, TBAC (as insiders call it) is certainly rare, though more common than many industrials. But its notoriety has made it highly desirable. The last copy sold on Ebay went for $538.95. Other copies out there are priced much higher. Grab this one while you can.

Check out my other listings for many more killer examples of this deliciously strange and secret slice of American musical and corporate history.

Buyers of multiple records get a break on shipping charges.