Label: Real Gone Music

Reissued 9/12/2025, Originally released 1974

Tired of “Monster Mash”? Through with calling “Ghostbusters”? If your Halloween playlist is begging for something different, look no further than the frightfully fun Music to Freak Your Friends and Break Your Lease. Don’t believe us? Take The Bride of Frankenstein’s word for it–she’s on the cover! Real Gone Music and Second Disc Records have given a new lease on life to one of the most unusual records of all time. Upon its initial release in 1974, this “Symphony for Tape Delay, IBM Instruction Manual, & Ohm Septet” was credited to “recognized raconteur, genius, composer, musicologist, conductor” Heins Hoffman-Richter, whom the original liner notes blithely inform us, “died from an ear lobe tumor.” It turns out that the late Hoffman-Richter was none other than best-selling poet and all-time cult music hero Rod McKuen…but you won’t find any cats named Sloopy here. Instead, Music to Freak Your Friends and Break Your Lease is Rod McKuen’s very own Metal Machine Music. He immersed himself in musique concrète, or music which utilizes recorded sounds as raw material, for the most unusual album in his vast discography. Like Lou Reed’s later experiment in feedback and noise, Freak Your Friends features no songs or traditionally structured compositions…but it just might scare off those candy-hungry kiddies on your doorstep with its Moog-tastic mayhem! Simply put, this wild journey through the electronic underground has to be heard to be believed…and this is its first-ever reissue. It arrives on seaglass with black swirl vinyl limited to 750 copies, in a package that replicates the collectible original release and also includes an insert with new liner notes from The Second Disc’s Joe Marchese. Music to Freak Your Friends and Break Your Lease will indeed act as potent pal and landlord repellent!

Track listing:

Symphony For Tape Delay, IBM Instructional Manual, & Ohm Septet

1. 1st Movement: Milkshake
2. 2nd Movement: This Is My Beloved's Chamber
3. 3rd Movement: Gidget Gets In Trouble
4. 4th Movement: Send Out The Clowns