KEEPIN' IT SURREAL

Bizarre juxtapositions galore! Day-glo cartoon nightmares, sick humor, cult films, twisted tunes, today all from Los Angeles-based artists for some reason. It's this heatwave, I tells ya - our brains are melting. Now it's your turn:

DJ PaulV might be a top L.A. club and radio spin-meister, but no designer shades, fur coats, and posses for him - he's got a silly streak wide as Sunset Blvd., as evidenced by his latest mix "Din Daa Da Axel." Twink's toy-piano/toy sound-effects version of the '80s instro hit "Axel F" is absurd enough, but mixed with George Kranz's nonsensical "Din Daa Daa" vocals pushes it all into cartoon territory.

DJ PaulV: "Din Daa Da Axel"

The Illuminoids are not just a secret society of conspirators, they're also a crew with ties to both classic punk and lounge-revivalists LuxuriaMusic.com, and their latest tune shows just the kitsch-meets-punk aesthetic you'd expect: John Water's notorious underground film "Pink Flamingos" meets the Beatles over a stomping beat from Clap Your Hands Say Yeah. The Egg Lady meets the Egg Man, and Satan dropping by only adds to the whole wrong-ness of it all. 666, sick sick sick!

The Illuminoids: "Satan Said Walrus Eggs"

If any film can challenge "Pink Flamingos" in the controversy department it would be David Lynch's waking nightmare "Eraserhead." Lo! Peter Iver's song "In Heaven" from the film (and sound fx, dialogue) vs The Crystal Method's boomin' "Ready For Action" and one of the most twisted artifacts of the LA punk scene, Geza X's "Mean Mr. Mommy Man" = fun weirdness:

RIAA: "Eraserhead Seranade."

David Lynch is the king of cinema surrealism and I don't want to hear any of you smart-alecks say Luis Bunuel. Yeah, I'll give you his early Dali collaborations, but most of Bunuel's stuff wasn't really surreal - he was primarily a satirist. Lynch usually has no such agenda. MR. FAB HAS SPOKEN!

CURE COVERS CAVALCADE!!

The Cure are a kind of alternative Grateful Dead, inspiring worshipful devotion in their fans, and bewilderment in the rest of the population. Though I admit to being in the second camp, the ones largely unmoved by Robert Smith's tummy-ache vocals, I enjoy a kooky Kure kover, and coincidentaly there have been several coming my way lately:

Rockabye Baby: "Close To You" - From "Lullabye Renditions of The Cure"

The Satanic Puppeteer Orchestra: Robots Can't Cry - "Boys Don't Cry" for the cybernetic age

The Supersonicos: "Killing An Arab" - Surf guitar RAWK, even throws in some "Miserlou." This band is from Uruguay (!), and "The Supersonicos" is how "The Jetsons" is translated into Spanish.

I suppose The Fall could also be considered an alternative Grateful Dead, but I haven't heard any kooky Fall kovers.

MUSIC THERAPY FOR THE MENTALLY ILL

Adriano Primadei is a music therapist from Florence, Italy who has some interesting mp3s with his on-line article detailing his work with a teenage boy named Stefano. "His diagnosis is not clear...His language is very limited, bizarre and non-communicative. He is unhealthily attached to his mother and becomes distressed when she is absent. He tends to favour relationships with mainly soft objects...He shows different types of stereotypy, such as flapping his hands and rocking, and vocal stereotypy...in the form of babbling or small obsessively repeated melodic cells."

Primadei plays guitar lying flat on a table so Stefano can join in. Stefono's haunting, otherworldly vocals can be heard here:

Adriano Primadei & Stefano: Example2

365 PROJECT: ELVIS TRIBUTE SONGS

My latest contribution to Otis Fodder's 365 Project on WFMU's website is up today:

Elvis Tribute Song-Poems

UPDATE: Entire album now up!

TUNES 4 TOTZ Week, Day 5: Mountain Park

Mountain Park was an amusement park in Holyoke, Massachusetts that went out of business in 1987. In it's heyday, which began in the early '50s, it had a number of fun houses and "dark rides" where park-goers rode in open roller-coaster-like cars on tracks through dark rooms past weird pictures and figures and smashed through doors as pre-recorded soundtracks played. A former employee of Mountain Park saved the looping 8-track soundtrack tapes.

The low fidelity sound of the tapes, coupled with the pictures on the site of the park in various states of decay, create a wonderfully weird, melancholy atmosphere.

The Mystery Ride: This ride featured everything from bizarre monsters and dinosaurs to visions of Hell(!) but the sound was "always a mix of incessant drums and various jungle animals."

Out of This World: A sci-fi trip accompanied by '50s-sounding electronic bloops and bleeps.

Pirates Den: This poor-man's Pirates of the Caribbean "had the most elaborate soundtrack, but it never quite worked right."

Zoltan was a fortune-telling machine that played recordings of "fortunes" in a Bela Lugosi-like accent.

"Trip The Light Fantastic" Go dancing. But don't overdo it!




Much thanks to solcofn!

TUNES 4 TOTZ Week, Day 4: TWINK

We first wrote about Twink The Toy Piano Band back in Nov. '05 when Mr. Twink was taking toy pianos to new places by mixing in sampled old kiddie records. He really blasts off into the futuristic future with his new album "Ice Cream Truckin'," which features a different producer on each track, each giving the plinky-plonky sounds of toys an electronic makeover (except for the last song's unexpected blast of guitar rawk).

As the title suggests, ice-cream truck music is the album's inspiration - all titles refer to frozen treats, and the album's lead-off track is a version of the theme that plays from the Mr. Softee truck's loudspeakers, letting the kids of the neighborhood know that the ice cream man is here.

I'm not familiar with any of the mixers involved except for Ergo Phizmiz and Mochipet, but if you've heard those two loonies then you know we're not exactly dealing with some slick Paul Oakenfold-type affair. There's a wide, wild diversity of styles here, including the psychedelic psounds of "Sugar Cone," which feature not only trippy echoing toy piano, but a little munchkin alien voice crying out "Ice cream! Ice cream!"

Twink: "Sugar Cone" (produced by Don Limpio)

On the pop side, here's a top bit of techno-pop that Chuck E. Cheese should spin if they ever hold raves:

Twink: "Fizzy Peach" (produced by Rainbow Maze)

TUNES 4 TOTZ Week, Day 3: Adolescence

Here's some school marching band versions of popular favorites performed by the youth of Litchfield (MN) High School:

"She Shook Me (All Night Long)"
"Mr Roboto"
"Crazy Train"

AC/DC, Styx, and Ozzy have never sounded so, well, polite.

TUNES 4 TOTZ Week, Day 2: Ages 5-10

"Da Hip Hop Raskalz" is an album of slammin' jointz written and performed by Harlem schoolkids ages 5-10 years old. Dave Soldier, the guy who got actual elephants to play music, provided the instruments, showed them how to program the drum machines and synths, and let them do the rest. It's like grown-up hip-hop but better - instead of bitches and bling, they rhyme about dinosaurs and candy, two subjects I certainly find more interesting. They designed the cover art, too, on computers.

I especially like the trio of eight-year-old girls calling themselves Sweetness. They got the dance sensation that's sweeping the nation, a genuinely catchy bit of bubblegum. Just don't tell your dentist:

Sweetness: "Do The Lollipop"

I used to love rap, but have found it increasingly depressing since the early '90s. Ah, but Da Hip Hop Raskalz are wonderful. I hope they never grow up.

TUNES 4 TOTZ Week, Day 1: Infancy

Here's a phrase that made me snort a laugh and exclaim "Wha...?"

"Lullabye Renditions of Metallica"

And that's not all. Recently the market's been flooded with a series called "Rockabye Baby." Each album is dedicated to the music of a single artist (The Cure, Led Zeppelin, Nirvana, Green Day, among others), all played as low-key instrumentals. Chime-like glockenspiel and vibraphone, and toy piano are predominately featured, with very little percussion.

But I don't know how effective they would be as lullabies - the music of folks like Metallica and Nine Inch Nails sometimes feature jarring chord progressions and dissonant intervals that, when played "lullabye" style, sound more suitable for an "Omen"-like evil-kid horror movie soundtrack then anything you would actually want to use for lulling your beloved tots to sleep. These are quite nice, though:

"One" from Lullaby Renditions of Metallica
"Hurt" from Lullaby Renditions of Nine Inch Nails

I have no idea who's doing these, or who the intended audience is. The chill-out/ambient crowd? Novelty-loving weird music fans? Actual kids?

WE'VE HAD SOME "WORK DONE"...

...as the Beverly Hills housewives say. Do we look as young as Joan Rivers?

This October will be the 3rd birthday of this here web-log, and I was getting a little tired of the old look. The facelift is a little easier on the eyes, no? And then there's the cryptic "24" up on top with pictures of unknown objects (maps? diagrams?) to confound and amaze you as you listen to the music...

WHAT'S POLISH FOR "CREEPY'?

Here's a video clip from a 1965 black-and-white Polish film called "Salto" featuring a band playing a truly nerving-wracking instrumental piece. It starts off with a bass line as creepy as the theme from "Jaws" and, as the other instruments come in, it all becomes increasingly disturbing.

The dancers look groovy in their boss '60s suits and beehive hair-dos, but they move around like zombies performing some black magick ritual. Truly the reason why the letters "wtf" were invented.

Wojciech Kilar: Salto theme (video)

Wojciech Kilar: Salto theme (mp3) - You axed for it!