Vinyl Fetish

Back in the day, a stag party record like Humpingville U.S.A. ("small-town hicks getting their kicks") was akin to a mink-phallus necklace--less than desirable and extremely hard to find. Which, of course, is what makes it a precious collectible today. Over the past five years, a growing number of collectors have bid on obscure sleazecake LPs as if they were Monets and Van Goghs. "It's hard to believe that these were ever made," says Matthew Glass, a New Yorker who has several thousand nudie-novelty discs. "It's getting harder to walk into a store and find these records. The best stuff often pops up online." While the records typically cost between $20 and $100, buyers have paid more than $400 for a rare slab of sin. "I have one customer who's spent close to $15,000 on cheesecake alone," says Preston Peek, owner of Vinyllives.com, the largest source for weird and erotic LPs. Other outlets include websites like Jackdiamond.com and eBay (search under "stag," "nude" and "cheesecake"). David Drozen, who worked with his father at the risqué comedy label Laff Records in the late Sixties, is amused by the current craze. "Back then I don't know what anybody did with them. They were conceived as party records more than comedy records." Today, nobody cares why they were made.