Description
Dennis Oppenheim (September 6, 1938 – January 21, 2011) was an American performance artist, sculptor and photographer. Theme For A Major Hit is the title of a piece that he produced in 1974. It consists of a motor driven marionette on a circular stage, a 2-hour soundtrack and a spotlight. The soundtrack to this installation, a psychedelic freestyle jam by Oppenheim and friends, was recorded at Angel Sound, New York in 1974. From the recordings of this high-spirited and joyous session with the line “It aint what you make, its what makes you do it” for a recurrent theme, a handful of LPs were privately pressed in 1975. One of those signed 12″s is in Jan van Toorn’s unparalleled collection of artists’ records. With the kind permission of the Dennis Oppenheim Estate this LP has now been re-released on vinyl on Van Toorn’s own Slowscan label. The resulting double album was released in a limited edition of 300, 100 of which were reserved for Museum Schunck in Heerlen in conjunction with the exhibition ‘Visual Vinyl’ (November 2015-March 2016), which showed a selection of Van Toorn’s collection. Slowscan’s ‘Theme For A Major Hit’ comes in a handsome gatefold sleeve designed by Johnny Van de Koolwijk.
Drums: Roger Welch. Electric organ: Connie Beckley. Guitar & vocals: Bill Beckley & Christa Maiwald. Lyrics: Dennis Oppenheim. Vocals: Jim Ballard. Recorded at Angel Sound, New York, 1974. (sea-urchin.net)