The Bathrooms are Coming!
An incredibly strange “industrial musical” created, performed and released as a “souvenir” to employees and customers by the American Standard bathroom fixtures company. From 1969. Check out WFMU’s Beware of the Blog to listen to this warped artifact of late sixties “promotainment”. This one made an appearance as one of “Dave’s Record Collection” on the Late Show.
From the Liner Notes: The Bathrooms are Coming premiered a new decade of bathroom fixtures born out of exhaustive human and product research by American-Standard. The story began with the introduction of a mythical Greek goddess Femma, the epitome of all women’s attitudes, reflections and desires and the leader of all women’s movements. In the play Femma is called upon by other women to start a bathroom revolution – “Join the fight for bathroom safety, Femma…the fight for beauty and luxury. We need freedom from bathroom oppression. Join the fight for better bathrooms.”
And so it was that Femma led the story. It began with a declaration that “plumbing” is a feminine business, shoring a profile of the “woman of the 70’s,” and the case for change against the status quo, She carried the audience through the Cornell research, to a view of markets in terms of people. Then, the Revolution unfolded in terms of new attitudes, new programs. Then one by one, the real stars of the show were revealed – Economy Wall Surround, Proximatics, Ultra Bath, Bone and Spectra 70.
We sincerely hope that this delightful music helps you to recapture the excitement, color and laughter of the original show.
(33 votes, average: 3.48 out of 5)
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April 7th, 2009 at 10:53 pm
Smokin’ in da boyz room…
June 21st, 2009 at 1:55 pm
Femma and Enema, the greek bathhouse goddesses. This is the original cast recording to the musical based on the novel “Everybody Poops”.
October 12th, 2009 at 9:27 am
Interesting. I’ve never really heard it put like that before.
June 1st, 2012 at 9:27 am
Two things I know about this record:
1. “My Bathroom” is a slow ballad-like song, which talks about the intimate relation the singer has with her loo. “My bathroom is a special kind of place”.
2. For those who don’t know, the picture in the top middle is a subtle pun. The monk is obscuring one door, but the pic shows the authors of Gospel, Matthew, Mark, Luke (hidden), but the half-moon on the door that says “John” implies that like many other buildings with half-moon, this is an outhouse.
October 29th, 2012 at 12:08 am
Like just about everything, this has made it to YouTube. There is a dramatic key change at 1:25…After that, it becomes a bit suggestive. If it were a man’s voice crooning the tune, it would be downright unambiguous:
February 12th, 2014 at 3:53 pm
At long last, I have this masterpiece on vinyl! All I need now is a copy of “The Fritos Twist” in decent condition and my dream record collection will be complete.
July 27th, 2014 at 8:28 pm
A well-discussed LP in the only book I’m aware of covering the Industrial Musical story:Everything’s Coming Up Profits,published in 2013.Writers have made contact with composer Sid Siegel and one of the singers.Great fun,including a newsy website with weekly samples of IM material.Google is your friend.