The Moeder's Family Life with the Moeder's M.D.M. Productions

 The Moeder's Family Life with the Moeder's M.D.M. Productions 1978 No Cat #

Saw this in a thrift store, looked at it and thought two things, private press and religious.  Looked on the back sleeve, private press was pretty obvious, but not religious.  Even better, the family is from Oakley, KS.  Oakley is "Nowhere," Kansas.  Literally over 200 miles West of Wichita, 200 miles South of Denver.  It's a very small Western, Kansas town and very few people live there.

After purchasing this, I read the back cover and was already in love.  It's a family band, brothers and sisters, trying hard to bash out some pop tunes.  The bio is phenomenal, it states the oldest daughter, Roxanne, keeps the band together and is enrolled in modeling school in Florida.  The other sister, Dona, is the bubbly one and sings and plays guitar with her sister.  The brothers, they are hit and miss as far as the family band is concerned.  Mike plays bass sometimes, but his heart is with farm and livestock.  Drummer Jim likes horses and is self taught (because you'd never know by listening) and Steve is the youngest, he just kind of hangs out and plays percussion instruments.

The LP consists of a an original and covers.  None of the cover tunes are credited to the composer.  It states it was put out by M.D.M. productions, but listing to it, I got to assume that just means dad rented studio space in Hays, Kansas and hit record button.  It's amateur at best in terms of production.  Best part about it, the address and the home phone number are listed on the back as the spot to purchase your own copy of The Moerder's.  Seriously, I guess in 1978, giving out your address and home phone on an LP was cool and nothing to worry about.

So, it sounds terrible, it's amateur and poorly recorded.  I mean jeez, you can clearly hear out of tune guitars.  But, if this came out on K Records, people would call it twee-pop and rave about it.  It's impossible not to smile while listening to the girls sing their favorite country tunes such as Dolly Parton's 'Jolene,' Willie Nelson's 'Good Hearted Woman' and Kenny Roger's 'You Light Up My Life'.  It's all so honest.  And, accidentally, the band makes the songs their own due to the amateur nature of it.  The singing is monotone and off key, I've mentioned the drumming and guitars, the levels are completely flat, and the original tune, 'Family Life,' is highschool poetry at best.  The band has conviction, it's for real and it is honest.  I'm seriously contemplating making the trip to Oakley, KS, knocking on the door of the address listed on the back and asking if they still have a few copies of this.  I'd love to hand them out to friends and attempt to make this LP a "thing".  Try to hype the Private Press market with it.