"Weird Al" Yankovic
OMMA Catalogue Number
OMMA-0001
Artist
“Weird Al” Yankovic (credited as Alfred Yankovic)
Title
“Take Me Down”
Release Details
SLO Grown is a late-1970s compilation of local musicians produced by San Luis Records on behalf of a local radio station and the Economic Opportunity Commission of San Luis Obispo County. No catalogue number is recorded. The 12-inch vinyl LP was copyrighted and finalized in 1978 and hit record stores in April, 1979.
Edition & Variant Identification
This represents “Weird Al” Yankovic’s earliest commercial vinyl appearance documented in the record and had an estimated pressing of approximately 1,000 copies.
Matrix & Pressing Data
No matrix or runout inscriptions have been verified.
Physical Description
Twelve-inch vinyl LP issued by KZOZ radio and the San Luis Obispo Economic Opportunities Commission as a benefit compilation. This copy is in its original picture cover and sealed in original shrink wrap with a price tag sticker attached. The shrink has a small (1.5″) seam split on the verso but is otherwise intact. The sleeve is in excellent condition, albeit with small but visible corner bumps evident in all four corners.
Factory-Origin Characteristics
No factory-origin anomalies are recorded.
Condition Report
Sealed. The vinyl is presumably in Mint condition, with the sleeve conservatively graded at VG+.
Provenance
Purchased via eBay from seller fizdryypz on February 2, 2025. The seller personally reported the following:
“I was actually a student at Cal Poly in SLO when I picked up that record, and I remember that there was a fair amount of lore about Weird Al from way back when he was a student there … ”
“I also remember that at the record store where I found it, the upstairs area where they kept all the vinyl felt more like a very old storage attic where most of the inventory clearly hadn’t moved in a very long time — so I feel like there’s a non-zero chance that that copy of SLO Grown might have actually been sitting there since 1978.”
Market Context & Historical Notes
“Take Me Down” documents Yankovic before his Capitol debut single, the Placebo EP, and the Scotti Brothers albums that finally launched “Weird Al” to stardom.
In response to a photo of this record being posed on Reddit, “Weird Al” roommate Jon Iverson responded with additional historical context, saying, “Al and I were roommates at Foothill Garden Apartments in San Luis Obispo and this was recorded upstairs in the living room of our apartment one afternoon on my Teac 2340 4 track R2R machine. Al played accordion and sang – I played guitar, bass and backup vocals (helping with the arrangement) and Tom Walters did backup vocals and mandolin along with Joel Miller on bongos. We invited all of the kids we could round up in the apartment complex for the chorus of voices at the end. …
“A local record distributor credited on the cover as ‘San Luis Records,’ part of Square Deal Records (owner of Cheap Thrills record store), handled the original distribution for the EOC. Later, they had a few boxes of these that they trickled out for sale in their store in SLO in the ’00s – I remember seeing them on the rack when I would go in the store during that period. I would guess they were re-wrapped at that time – which is also why there is a Cheap Thrills price tag on the LP in the photo above, indicating it was bought locally around then.
“Al and I recorded a few other things while we lived at Foothill Gardens, and we played locally several times. We had developed an entire set of parodies of late 70s rock hits and based most of them around the theme of food (My Bologna was one.)”
Canonical Status in OMMA
A-tier origin object and also one of the origins of this Archive. The discovery of this record and its status as the Archive’s first holding documents the often-surprising, humble and obscure beginnings of storied musical artists’ careers. This earliest documented commercial vinyl appearance of “Weird Al” Yankovic represents how musical artists start by finding places for their music wherever they can.
References and Source Documentation
- Discogs SLO Grown candidate listing: https://www.discogs.com/release/4165568-Various-SLO-Grown
- Weird Al Wiki SLO Grown page: https://weirdal.fandom.com/wiki/Album:SLO_Grown
- Jon Iverson Reddit Comment: https://www.reddit.com/r/weirdal/comments/1ikyd51/comment/mikbods/