MAS & HOPE: Words and Music For the Now Generation

Imagine if the Shaggs wrote songs for a christian Mrs. Miller...

Some years ago, I posted a few choice cuts off this mind-boggling private-press release that my brother found in a thrift-store, writing:

"Love...Wider Than The Ocean" is a 1972 private pressing by Mas & Hope Kawashima, two Japanese-Americans who sing and play their own hymns on side one. This one's ["the Road of Life"] my fave, clunky rhymes over primitive piano...
Though perhaps not as charming as "The Road to Live," this tune ["Demonstrate, Demonstrate your Faith" - advice for the student protesters] is of interest for it's sheer ineptness: ham-fisted guitar, lyrics that don't scan - I literally cannot make either rhyme or reason out of this one.

Side two finds them massacring the classics - in Japanese.

Quothe the liner notes: "Following the trend of the current Jesus Movement, these new, original songs express the feelings of young people searching for something to believe in and to hope for. The words and music are written for the Now Generation with their concerns for love, pollution, ecology, war, racial tensions and frustrations of living in a technological age." 
 The address listed on the back cover: 666 (!?!) NW 4th Ave., Ontario, OR.

By request, I've recorded the whole thing, and side one really is wonderful - nine nutzoid tracks of female warbling, low (and I mean really low) fidelity guitar and/or piano music, and charmingly amateurish songwriting. Side two features a different (male) singer, is all in Japanese, and except for the swell "Ode To Joy," I don't recognize the songs.  I think they're mostly hymns.

Mas & Hope Kawashima - "Love...Wider Than The Ocean"

There is no info on the 'net about this album. Mas & Hope were married and were reverends working with Japanese-American churches, mainly in Northern California, but otherwise I could find no info about this or any other musical projects they might have had.

The OTHER Singing Ricin Terrorist

The recent news about the wack-job Elvis (and others) impersonator sending politicians envelopes laced with deadly ricin reminded me of the pioneer of this genre, Robert Alberg.  When we wrote about him some years ago, he was being sentenced to five years' probation, mental-health treatment and placement in a group home, and his album was no longer available, so I posted it.  Incredibly, he's back, selling both his original collection, and a new one.  And he sounds even worse than he did on his miserable first album (as you can see, he isn't looking too hot either). Still, let's hope he sticks to singing/song-writing, and doesn't go back to ricin-cooking.

"Purple Amethyst," available thru Amazon and iTunes, is ten "songs" of lethargic, monotone vocals; obsessive/compulsive lyrics (about sand, beaches, rocks); and atonal guitar "playing" that makes Jandek's sound like Eric Clapton.  Need I tell you that this is outsider-music gold?

Robert Alberg: "Quartz Creek"

As he is back to selling copies of his first album, I'll just post of couple of tracks from it:

Robert Alberg: "I Want To Fly"
Robert Alberg: "Walking Alone On The Sand"

The videos of Alberg's young protege, Kevin Curtis, are striking in their banality - he's just some guy singing over karaoke tapes, occasionally adopting ludicrous fake mustaches. He gets paid to do this stuff?  Jeez, I could do that. Curtis needs to get together with Alberg, so he can learn a thing or two about originality.  They could cover "House of the Ricin Sun."  Or Johnny Cash's "Five Feet High and Ricin." I got a million of 'em , folks!

RETARDED UMPIRE

Baseball season has officially begun, so let's pay tribute to America's Pastime the MusicForManiacs way:

Deranged Umpire - "Umpire's Call"

Deranged is right: a free download of some guy in a Cookie Monster growl exclaiming nonsensically about how happy he is to be at a baseball game, even enthusing about the food ("Clap for the food court /clap, clap...The foods and the beverages/clap, clap") over a low-rent synth that does sounds like a ballpark organ, if the organist was all goofed up on cough syrup.  It just goes on and on for 7 minutes, with no rhyme or reason. Will profoundly annoy most people.  Made me laff!

Lynn Rockwell - One Man Band

Over the cheapest possible drum machine, Mr. Lynn Rockwell, from parts unknown, plays and sings everything on this private press wonder from 1970.  An instro version of the James Brown classic "Night Train" kicks things off with plenty of swingin' horns, followed by the sweet clarinet blowing of "Blue Prelude," which also introduces Lynn's somewhat homely but lovable vocals. Wilbert Harrison's proto-rocker "Kansas City" is remade as a finger-snappin' jazzy lounge tune. Roller-rink organ joins the fun on such songs as "String of Pearls," originally by Glen Miller's big band, now rendered here by a very, very little band. And dig that hipster jive on "Satin Doll"!

Side two's first four songs are originals by Rockwell, highlighted by the bizarre "Spiders": "I got spiders in my bathrobe, baby/there's no escape for you." Suddenly we're in a dark, remote cocktail lounge somewhere in David Lynch territory. I'm really liking the moody clarinet work on this album. Closing out the album are remakes of the country standard "Oh Lonesome Me" and Engelbert Humperdinck's "Release Me," tho I don't recall Engelbert's version having horns that wander from channel to channel for no apparent reason.

This album comes to us courtesy of Jaouad, our only known Moroccan reader.  Where my North African peeps at?!

Lynn Rockwell - One Man Band


Much thanks to Jaouad.

Llyn Foulkes, King of The One-Man-Bands

I went to see a free performance by Llyn Foulkes last week (a day after I saw The Residents - can this year get any weirder?) and even tho I was a half-hour early, there was a shockingly long line around the UCLA Hammer Museum courtyard, and I couldn't get in to the show - I had to watch it on video in another room. Gol darn it!  I'd seen him twice before and there was a crowd of maybe...30? What are all these people doing here at a show by a 78-year-old eccentric singing about old L.A. whilst performing on a crazy one-man-band contraption of honk horns and tuned cowbells?  That's my department! 

Hey, I get to be an old punk-rocker now: (snearing) "I was into Llyn Foulkes before anyone.  All his fans now are poseurs."

I guess the fact that the prestigious Hammer Museum is in the midst of a career retrospective of Foulkes' paintings had something to do with it.  Or the awesome tremendous influence of this blog, as I've written about him before.  Yeah, that's probably it. So while much verbiage is being spilled about his visual art, his music only gets mentioned in passing.  Okay, this is my department: he's crazy brilliant, starting with his instrument building - his 'Machine' is huge and heavy, not the usual guitar w/harmonica holder/cymbals on the legs kinda one-man-band. He's a tremendous performer, skillfully honking out the 'horn charts,' grabbing drumsticks and playing melodies on cowbells and a xylophone, blowing free-jazz on a hose, rubbing his foot along a bass guitar on the floor as his other foot hits various drums and cymbals.

And he's a good songwriter.  Original tunes are a rarity in this gimmicky field, and Foulkes' memories and observations of Los Angeles (and his own foibles) are a perfect match for his swingin' tunes, inspired by the big-band and Spike Jones records of his youth. The Jones influence is prevalent not just in the tuned cowbells, but in the funny sound effects that punctuate the songs, lightening up the sometimes morose nature of the lyrics. His singing's okay, but has a rough charm.

It looks like his sole release from 2004 has vanished, so I'm giving you-all not only its original contents, but 5 more recent performances, audio recorded off various videos. All origs, except for a cover of Hank William's "Your Cheating Heart."

Llyn Foulkes and his Machine - Live!

HER TEENAGE DREAM ENDED, YOUR NIGHTMARE HAS BEGUN

At first listen, "reality" show star Farrah Abraham's album "My Teenage Dream Ended" is striking in it's ineptitude: lyrics possessing neither rhythm nor rhymes, one-guy-on-GarageBand music, and hideous abuse of Autotune on tune-less "melodies."  It's really quite awful!

But this is no talentless bimbo's attempt to be a "diva" - it's a soul-searching autobiographical concept album.  Like any genuine outsider artist, Abraham seems to be incapable of putting on the masks and personas of show-biz pros, and uses the album like any other angst-ridden teen would use their diary.  And as the star of a show about being a single teen mom, I would guess she has even more angst then most teens. For one thing, there's that name: Farrah Abraham.  Yeesh, what kind of name is that, a cross between a '70s sex symbol and an Old Testament prophet? She had one strike against her from birth.

Yes, at times it is jaw-droppingly horrific, in a "how-the HELL-did-this-get-released?" kind of way, but it's also sad, hilarious, utterly sincere, and in it's own musical universe. An album that all (and probably only) outsider-music fans would appreciate.  Clicky, if you dare:

"Caught In The Act"
"On My Own"

A Miserable, Depressing Album About Divorce - Happy Valentine's Day!

Bashful Hips is a solo electro band from Colorado whose free download album "Divorce" consists of song after sound-alike song of mid-tempo slightly-distorted synth tunes, all sung in a woeful one-note drone. Tho there's some nice musical touches here and there, e.g. the popping percussion on "Color Me Blue," I can't really say it's a genuinely good album - the songwriting seems more like diary entries than lyrics, with scant attention paid to things like rhythm or rhymes. But it certainly seems heartfelt, packed as it is with excruciating details like "mornings are now so confusing/now that I don't get to awake to the sound of your hair dryer." Over the course of a whole album, tho, it almost becomes comical.  The one-note singing makes the album seem like one long song. Strangely compelling.

Bashful Hips "Divorce"

The FLYING DUTCHMAN - ONE-MAN BAND SHOW

How's THAT for an album cover? 

I think you can see why I picked up this private-press piece of vintage vinyl recently - it truly is a slice of authentic Americana, a peek into un-hip rural backroads (in this case, Pennsylvania Dutch country) where Ma & Pa go out on a Saturday night to the local tavern and dance to the kind of music left out of the history books, played by the sort of performer usually considered to be not worthy of critical consideration.

Recorded live, Mr. Dutchman is  clearly having a good ol' time, chatting with the crowd,  letting loose with whoops and yee-haws! on occasion. Everything that doesn't sound like a polka (even the Elvis cover) is delivered in a wave-your-mug drinking song waltz-time. And might I direct your attention to the song that features our man playing the accordion and tap-dancing (!) at the same time. They don't make 'em like this any more.  (Or do they?  I suspect that this fellow might be the same guy.)

The FLYING DUTCHMAN - ONE-MAN BAND

SPACE-AGE SANTA

William Shatner! Theremins! Daleks! Annoying child singers!  Truly, this is what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown. 

If we must be subjected to Christmas music every year, at least let's make it bad/strange futuristic-y sci-fi songs. Space travel and Christmas - two things that have nothing to do with each other.  So why are there so many songs about both? Maybe cuz kids love 'em both. Or because Santa's reindeer routine was a wormhole-like traveling thru space/time? Or cuz everyone gets sick of "White Christmas" after a while? Regardless, here are 24 mainly '50s/'60s songs collected over the years, stuffed into one handy stocking:

SPACE-AGE SANTA
(Is this divshare business working?)
Space-Age Santa (Zippyshare)

These tunes are mostly off hopelessly obscure 45s, but I added artist info, if any

01 Hal Bradley Orch wPatty Marie Jay - SpaceAge Santa Claus
02 Zoot, Zoot, Zoot Here Comes Santa In His New Space Suit - Tiny Tim and Bruce Haack (as previously discussed)
03 Introduction-Hooray For Santa Claus - Miton DeLugg (from the badfilm classic "Santa Claus Conquers The Martians)
04 I Cloned Myself For Christmas - Neutron 606
05 Good King Wenceslas - Douglas Leedy (from a Buchla - not Moog - album from the late '60s that's all pretty cool, but this is the stand-out track.)
06 The Go Go's - I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek (No, not those Go-Gos, this was a '60s British studio "group.")
07 Outer Space Santa - Lawrence Welk's Little Band
08 Santa and the Satellite - another proto-mashup from Buchanan & Goodman
09 Northern Telecom - I Want An OC192 For Christmas 
10 moog cookbook - santa claus is coming to town (time-traveling to the '90s for this nutty instro)
11 Tim Dinkins - Santa's Rocket
12 Take A Ride On Santa's Rocket - The Sounds Extraordinare
13 Bobby Helms - Captain Santa Claus (Yep, the "Jingle Bell Rock" guy)
14 Lothars - Oh Holy Night (great contemporary theremin group)
15 barry gordon - Zoomah the Santa Claus from Mars
16 The Servotron Evaluation of the Christmas Season
17 Fountains of Wayne - I Want an Alien for Christmas (more actual not-old music! From their 2005 album "Out-Of-State Plates")
18 a sonovox (a kind of '40s vocoder) version of "rudolph"
19 troy hess - christmas on the moon (singing 6 year with thick hick accent - OUCH)
20 William Shatner - Good King Wenceslas (hearing all the verses, recited in Captain Kirk's ponderous delivery, reminds me that I have no idea what the hell this song is about)
21 Scene 1 Come Rejoicing-Its The Very Best Time of The Year-Make A Joyful Noise (from a kiddie xian xmas album I found in a thrift-shop called "Christmas 2001 A Space-Age Adventure"; I actually digitized the whole thing, but, believe me, you don't need to hear it)
22 Christmas in the Stars (from the infamous "Star Wars Christmas" album; I also have this one on vinyl - featuring a young Jon Bon Jovi! - but you REALLY don't need to hear the whole thing)
23 MIT computer 1962 carols
24 Space Age Santa Claus - Gus de Wert Trio (Incredibly, a cover of track #1)

Thanks to J-Unit 1!

ALBUM DU JOUR #10: Tiny Tim's Christmas Album

Still trying to post an album a day, to keep you-all fully loaded for when I take my holiday break.  The Iron Man of Blogging continues!

Today's album pretty much does what it says on the tin - unlike the stripped-down Tiny Tim album I posted last week, this is a big-budget, fully orchestrated work (except for one solo uke tune) that suggests that some nut thought that a modern Tiny Tim album might actually have commercial potential. This album certainly starts off as normal anything Tiny ever did, but goes off the rails eventually, as we all knew it would, with an epic version of "Silent Night" that features a pulpit-pounding sermon from a fiery "Reverend" Tim.  What the..?  Also far from silent is the incredibly bombastic 8-minute medley. The songs are the same ol' same ol' until we get to the last few tracks, when Tim finally gets to dig into his bag of old-fashioned obscurites.

His famous falsetto is still in effect on this 1996 release - shortly after this release he claimed he couldn't sing like that any more.

Tiny Tim's Christmas Album

1. Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer

2. All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth

3. That's What I Want For Christmas

4. I Saw Mommy Kissin Santa Claus

5. White Christmas

6. The Christmas Song

7. O Holy Night

8. Silent Night

9. Medley: O Come All Ye Faithful/Hark The Herald Angels Sing/O Little Town Of Bethlehem/Amazing Grace/Throw Out The Lifeline

10. Rainbow On The River

11. Mission Bell

12. What A Friend We Have In Jesus

ALBUM DU JOUR #5: IT'S A HIPPIE FREAKOUT!!

Pneumershonic is a crazy old guy named Paul and his pal Matt. These New Hampshire-ites recorded an album in 1997 called "Frequencies of the Beast,"  a very entertaining collection of Paul's improvised singing/rants like "Hippie Freakout" and "Martian Girlfriend" over Matt's music. Matt wrote to me asking to link to an article written about them on WFMU's Beware of the Blog, but I wasn't going to do that cuz, well, it's already on Beware of the Blog, so why bother? But the article is 6 years old, it's an album that any outsider music fan should check out, AND he said he'd send me (and you) a CD. So I reconsidered. And it's got marimbas!  And optigans!  

 

I bundled all the separate mp3s into one album:

 

Pneumershonic: Frequencies of the Beast

ALBUM DU JOUR #3: Tiny Tim Plays In Your Living Room

Tim from Radio Clash asked me if I had the Tiny Tim/Bruce Haack album "Zoot Zoot Zoot Here Comes Santa In His New Space Suit." Alas, I don't - do any of you out there have this true meeting of outsider musical minds?  It's as rare as a complete dinosaur skeleton, and about as expensive. But the query did send me poking thru the Tiny Tim things that I do have, such as this extraordinary tape of some anonymous person recording what is apparently a concert for one in Tiny's apartment in Brooklyn, New York. Just a man and his ukulele - and you are there!

The first song sounds like the mic is a little too far away, and Tiny isn't quite warmed up on the early tracks, frequently consulting sheet music, but then he really gets rolling. Yes, he was a truly strange individual, his fluke late-'60s popularity resulting in as much ridicule as acclaim for the troubled troubadour. But this "Tim unplugged" tape serves as a much-needed corrective to the idea that Tiny was just some comical oddball. This is Professor Tim in action here, as much scholar as entertainer, a walking repository of obscure Tin Pan Alley, hillbilly, Broadway, British music hall, and novelty songs from as far back as the 1800s that had gone largely unheard until Tiny found their sheet music.

Comic songs like "I Used To Call Her Baby" and "When They're Old Enough To Know Better" are my faves, and I'd love to hear a complete version of "After The Ball," as it sounds like a lovely waltz. They're not all antiquities - his pals the Beatles (yep, he was that famous  for a while) are saluted with a version of "Yesterday" that doesn't sound all that different from the rest of the selections. And that's about the only song here you're liable to recognize, except maybe for Dean Martin's "You're Nobody Til Somebody Loves You," and the jazz standard "Dancing In The Dark."  To quote his first album title, God bless Tiny Tim.

Tiny Tim: Tiny's apartment, 1976 (28 tracks: complete songs, as well as fragments)

Music For Saw Blades, Wood Planks, and Rolling BBs Around in a Dish

 I am woefully behind in heppin' you-all to the latest and greatest releases awaiting your cold cash. I have so many samples of new releases that I'm splitting them into the avant-classical/experimental/electronic/weird-instruments genres (today's batch) and the novelty/outsider/wacko pop/rock end of things (next post). From the sublime to the ridiculous.

Our universities are still producing music majors who move into composing, teaching, conducting, etc. and labels like Innova and Ravello are still promoting them. I have no academic music background, but this collection of the latest works from composers far beyond the classical mainstream sounds great to me. Not exactly chilled/ambient, but, as it's mostly instrumental and often atmospheric and emotional, great stuff for waking to in the morning, or for evening's contemplation with a cocktail. Tho we start off with  a bit of a bang:

1. David Kechley "Design And Construction - III. Cross Cuts": Percussion!  The aptly-named "Colliding Objects" album features not only pitched percussives, but just about anything else that can be struck with a stick.  The title track "requires marimba, cymbals, large drums, tam tam, pitched gongs, crotales, woodblocks and exotic bells." The piece featured here utilizes circular saw blades, and wooden planks cut to different lengths.

2. Andrew Violette's "Sonatas For Cello and Clarinet" is as moody as it's cover - tracks with names like "Mournful Bells" offer truth in advertising. The piece also boasts such non-standard classical music oddities as a cha-cha, but what really grabbed me was the dreamy piano that came in at 1:30 of "Grazioso leggiero." It's what I imagine Alice's trip to Wonderland must have sounded like.

3. McCormick Percussion Group "With Intensity": Awright, more percussion! The title piece of the McCormick's new album, "Concerti for Piano with Percussion Orchestra" is 15 minutes of variations on an oddly sentimental, but gorgeous melody. It's as old-fashioned as you can get for a piece for piano and nine percussionists. Part one is included here, but all three movements are, well, sublime.

4. Jeffrey Weisner's album "Neomonology" is bass-ically just upright acoustic bass. "The compositional process for Armando Bayolo’s 'Mix Tape' began with Weisner sending a mix of his favorite tunes to Bayolo, who then reworked them with pop and rock favorites of his own." I can't tell what the original sources are (maybe they were changed due to copyright issues?) but I dig this. It could have been the bass part to something out of Glass' "Einstein On the Beach."  Elsewhere on the album, Weisner delves into micro-tonal territory.

5, 7. We now move completely out of any recognizable musical traditions with two short excerpts from Ulrich Mertin & Erdem Helvacioglu's "Planet X." Were this the '70s, the concept album about the arrival of a mysterious planet of hostile aliens would have been told with corny lyrics and a histrionic singer. Fortunately, today we get pure abstract electronica, along with something called a GuitarViol.

6. The title track of Yvonne Troxler's "Brouhaha" album, features violin, cello, and ball bearings being rolled around in three glass bowls. Cool! Elsewhere, Troxler and the 11-person Glass Farm Ensemble work their strings, horns, electric guitar and, again, plenty percussion into a variety of pleasingly dissonant (possible micro-tonal) shapes, inspired by the noise of New York City, and, on another track, meteorites. The meteorite piece is a good 'un, sounding like it's performed entirely on pitched plastic cups. Lots of variety and invention - one of my fave albums of this bunch.

7. Barry Schrader's "The Barnum Museum" is, like "Planet X," an electronic concept album, and this concept is so rad that the booklet that comes with the CD is at least as interesting as the music - a phantasmagorical visit to PT Barnum's 1800s "museum," where every room in the enormous mysterious building contains another enigma, or seemingly real-life myth, from mermaids to flying carpets, to things best left unexperienced. Behold! The Chinese Kaleidoscope.

8. Harry Partch's "Bitter Music" is one of my Albums Of The Year - a 3-disk collection of the legendary gay/ homeless/ hobo/ micro-tonal musical instrument inventor/ writer/ outsider /genius (phew!) It's mostly spoken-word, but hey, it's the journals of a Depression-era hobo "riding the rails" - illegally hopping on freight trains criss-crossing the country in search of work, all the while virtually re-inventing music. Reading from his journals is KPFK radio presenter, and founder of the Micro-Fest annual music festival John Schneider, who also plays some mean guitar, custom-made to Partch's bizarre specifics. This is one of the more musical, as opposed to text-heavy tracks: Just in time for winter, it's "December, 1935 - Night. Four black walls."

M4M Sampler: From The Sublime...

I have just done your holiday shopping for you. You're welcome. Coming soon: 'M4M Sampler: ...To The Ridiculous'

Wild Man Fischer: "Wildmania!"

Paranoid schizo/sometimes homeless outsider legend Larry "Wild Man" Fischer sang the first ever release on L.A's pioneering maverick indie label Rhino Records, "Go To Rhino Records" in 1975, when Rhino was still just a record store, not yet the music-biz monster it would become. A version of that song is included on this 1977 album, the first LP Rhino ever released. And this Thursday here in L.A., Beyond Baroque is hosting a 2nd Annual (there was one last year, why was I not informed?!) Wild Man Fischer Pep Rally, which promises "live readings, performances, and rare film clips." Not sure what that's all about (readings?), but it's free.  Doubt I'll be able to make it, so if any of you-all do go, I expect a report, all right?

The late, great Fischer is in a good mood here. Parts of this album were allegedly recorded in the stands of Dodger Stadium during a baseball game.  Hmmm... Tho there's some crude rock backing on a few songs, many of these songs are sung acapella, just the way Frank Zappa discovered Fischer in 1968 when he was walking down the Sunset Strip hollering his songs at the top of his lungs. The 2-disk album that resulted, "An Evening With Wild Man Fischer" (never digitally re-issued) can be found elsewhere in blogland. In '75, Fischer hooked up with crazed pre-punkers Smegma for an awesome album, available HERE courtesy of PCL Linkdump. Then came the Rhino era - after this release Fischer hooked up with those wacky "Fish Heads" kids Barnes and Barnes for some excellent late '70s/'80s albums. Most of Wild Man's stuff seems to be out-of-print.  Actually, a lot of that wacked-out early Rhino stuff is OOP - we may have to focus on 'em in the future. So much weird music out there, and I am but one man!

Wild Man Fischer: "Wildmania!"

1. My Name Is Larry

2. Jimmy Durante

3. I Light the Pilot

4. Josephine

5. Do the Wildman

6. I'm a Truck

7. Sir Larry

8. Who's Your Favorite Singer?

9. Go to Rhino Records

10. Handy Man

11. Disco in Frisco

12. Do the Wildman (And Other in Dances)

13. I'm Selling Peanuts for the Dodgers

14. I'm the Meany

15. Wild Man Fischer Impersonation Contest

16. Guitar Licks

17. What Do You Think of Larry?

18. Young at Heart

19. My Name Is Larry (Reprise)

The Country/Eastern Music of Shoji Tabuchi

If you are a good, decent person, you will not laugh at a Japanese guy sincerely trying to sing American country hits.  The Dalai Lama (or Adam Yauch, were he alive) would probably comment that, hey, can YOU sing in Japanese?  Could YOU come over from a country with a radically different culture than the US and master a foreign music style? Could you, like, learn to play the koto or some shit? 

Well, obviously, I am not a good, decent person - I LOL-ed out loud upon hearing poor Mr Tabuchi sing "make loom in your heart for a flend." And you probably will, too, ya sick bastards. The debut album of this collection of country (and a couple easy-listening) hits by a Japanese fiddle player/singer does, at least, feature slick backing by Nashville pros to maintain some semblance of musical quality.

The night I was ripping this from vinyl I was musing aloud to the missus about how could this album have been released, by a major label, no less (ABC/Dot), and she suggested that it might have been a deliberate ploy, like the tax scam in "The Producers."  Which reminded me of record biz sleaze-bag Morris Levy. Otherwise, I have no explanation for the existence of this album.  But, hey, Tabuchi is having the last laugh on us - he's had a long-running show in that Vegas for old folks, Branson, MO.

 Shoji Tabuchi: "Country Music My Way"

A1 Orange Blossom Special

A2 Put Your Little Hand In Mine

A3 Uncle Pen

A4 Love Letters In The Sand

A5 Devil's Dream [instrumental]

B1 Lovin' Girl

B2 The Words Mean The Same

B3 Make Room In Your Heart For A Friend

B4 Time Changes Everything

B5 Somewhere My Love [instrumental]

This has been another wonderful Windy contribution.

Don Wardlow: The King of Casio Country

 

Here's something unique: a serious, heartfelt tribute to funnyman "Weird Al" Yankovic, performed by one guy on an electronic keyboard + drum machine (a Yamaha, actually, not a Casio), recorded onto hissy tape.

 

Don Wardlow is a blind, middle-aged Southerner who has uploaded over 150 songs onto his YouTube channel, mostly covers of country-western oldies. It's all pretty charming, but his originals are special - as technically crude as any outsider music, but genuine and sincere, and surprisingly catchy at times. "American Idle," a commentary on jobs being sent overseas and his own resulting unemployment, sports an excellent earworm of a chorus: 



 

Dig the Latin drum machine groove on another sad-but-true tale from Wardlow's life, about his "Miami Girl," "A song about a girl I dated from 1991-95, with an emphasis on her habit of spending everything I had."

 

There's lots more that I haven't had a chance to check out yet. Come on, Don, lay some mp3s on us, daddy-o!

 

Country Music For Fat, Unpopular People

Meade Skelton is an outsider musician from Richmond, Virginia whose album  "They Can't Keep Me Down" mostly deals with his struggles with weight, and how no-one likes him, e.g.: "I Love To Eat (And It Shows)" and "It's Hard To Love Yourself (When Everybody Hates You)". He feels left out of the music world, loves mom and God, and doesn't like sleazy, degenerate rock 'n' rollers or too-cool hipsters (e.g.: the song "Proud To Be A Square").  His lightweight electric piano-driven songs lean towards the slick, commercial side of country music, and when he stays within his vocal range, he actually has an okay voice, tho hardly worthy of his own Elvis and Sinatra comparisons. Trouble is, he doesn't always stick to his range.

This album, so I'm told, is strongly influenced by Laura Branigan, of all people. Remember her, she did that "Gloria, I think they got your number" song?  Supposedly "Beautiful Lady" is a reworking of Branigan's "Solitaire," adding new lyrics about (of course) being fat and unwanted. 

There is some weak singing here and the songwriting occasionally gets terrible indeed, so it's easy to laugh at this guy, but there is also pathos in "They Called Me Porker," about the taunting he endured as a child. And some pretty smooth session musicians keep it all sounding almost respectable.

On "Songs of Love" he goes lounge - it's an album of mostly amateurish covers of standards, e.g.: "My Funny Valentine," but includes some originals, like the stalker-ish ode to actress Nicole Kidman, "Nicole, Will You Marry Me?" Wow, is this one a head-scratcher. Kidman may want to consider a restraining order. An unnerving yodel/voice-cracking vocal style pervades this album, and the stripped-down production reveals his uncertain piano playing. Oh, my ears! If "They Can't Keep Me Down" has you feeling sorry for the poor sap, "Songs of Love" will make you want to join the haters.

Skelton has gained somewhat of a reputation on the internets thru his relentless self-promotion, often going by other names, claiming on message boards to be a "fan" of Skelton with a "need for Meade!" when it's pretty obvious that it's Skelton himself. Some are annoyed by this behaviour, others amused. But that's what's great about him - he has unwavering faith in his talent, and maintains an upbeat attitude towards life. No whiney goth or sensitive singer-songwriter stuff for Meade - despite the unfortunate circumstances of his life, he keeps a grin on his face.

He has some albums that he's selling independently, and since they're in print, I'm only gonna take a couple/few songs apiece from these two abums (the only two of his that I have).

Mead Skelton Sampler

1. Beautiful Lady
2. What's So Great About Rock N' Roll?
3. Your Old Hay
4. Nicole, Will You Marry Me?
5. My Funny Valentine

Want to hear more? 'Course you do!  Preview his albums on iTunes. And join the Mead Skelton Fan Club while you're at it! 2215 Floyd Ave., Richmond, VA 23220; (804) 359-0219.

UPDATE 9/24/12: We heard from the man himself: Meade would like you to know that he has a new album, likes and is influenced by Laura Branigan but not on this particular album, and does not go around spamming boards under assumed names. So there. I stand corrected.

From one of his other albums, here's the "hit" single, "Hipsters Ruin Everything":

The Greatest Things I've Ever Seen

The greatest thing I've ever seen (lately) is this excerpt from "Multiple SIDosis," a famous short from 1970 by outsider filmmaker Sid Laverents that was just posted on-line two weeks ago. Laverents uses ingenious home-brew technology to create a cinematic one-man band performance of the bouncy tune "Nola" on such instruments/noise-makers as the metronome, ukulele, banjo, ocarina, jews harp, beer bottles, pipes, and cymbal, while sometimes inexplicably dressed like Mickey Mouse. Restores my faith in humanity. 

There are full-length versions of "Multiple SIDosis" on the YouTubes of poopy quality.  This is just a minute-and-a-half, but it looks really good:

 

The other greatest thing I've ever seen lately is a large Japanese avant-jazz band who, for reasons known only to them, dress up like shrimp, with glow-in-the-dark eyes. I'll just let you think about that for a moment...

 

They're called Autopsy Report of Drowned Shrimp (sure, why not?) and there is, lucky you, a number of live vids up of their skillfully performed music, which ranges from percussive-heavy tribal grooves, to trippy noise drones, to something that resembles funk/jazz, all mixed with inscrutable ritualistic theater: 

 

 

 

The other other greatest thing I've ever seen happened a couple of weeks ago, when I was emerging from a subway station on my way home from work: A black man dressed like a lady in a hot-pink skirt and a short-haired silver wig was standing around, which, in itself, is not so unusual around here.  But then, then, when a Mexican mama and her two kids walked by, the kids ran up to the ladyman shouting: "Gaga! Lady Gaga! Gaga!"

 

To a man. 

 

A black man. 

 

S/he smiled and waved at them, as I quickly walked to the parking lot trying to stifle my explosive laughter.  And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is why living in L.A. rules. Think they see stuff like this coming from work in Missouri? They probably just see, like, Walmarts 'n' shit. I should keep a camera on my person at all times...

Modern Purveyors Of Filth And Degradation: A New Music Roundup

So, so many albums out there! And some of them are even good!  Wish I had time to dedicate one post to each one, but due to the usual time constraints, here's another mix of recent (or recent to me) albums for Maniacs, available for purchase or free download, or both. Not much avant-heaviness this time out, but lots of summer-fun silly/strange excuses for pop music here. 

Modern Purveyors Of Filth And Degradation


1. Neon Lushell "Leave Me Alone" - these Midwesterners have recently dropped one of the albums of the year, I sez, in "Modern Purveyors Of Filth And Degradation (In A Time Of Peace And Understanding)". It moves from the Ministry-like bangin' album opener featured here, to dark ambient, surreal soundscapes, and twisted folk. "Dark music" without a hint of the usual cliches, e.g.: death-metal, Joy Division soundalikes, etc. A lot of self-described "strange" or "experimental" artists submit music to me, but most of it lacks the originality and imagination of these sick kitties.

2. Jan Turkenburg "droodle20110809[F***TheMeaningOfLife]" - Wonderful sound-collage from the nutty Dutchman who's been posting a series of similiar cut-and-paste "droodles" on the the ever-crucial PCL Linkdump.

3. Bob Purse "It's Not A Regular Day" - Shamelessly silly-but-swell novelty tune from The Many Moods of Bob, the recent debut album compiling many years worth of home recordings from the great music blogger Bob Purse. The man even does covers of song-poems, forpetessake.

4. Lydia Kavina "Free Music #1 (1936)" - From the album "Music from the Ether: Original Works for Theremin" by the grand-niece of Leon Theremin himself, and sometimes member of bizarro surf band Messer Chups. Excellent stuff - if you buy one theremin album in your life, buy this one. 

5. Ace of Clubs "Rehab Dem Bones " - a Herman Munster vs Amy Winehouse mashup collected off the internet.  You'll laff!

6. DmR of AtoZ "Get Up" - Another mashup, this takes numerous Beatles vocals and expertly drops them over the bassline to Tom Waits "Step Right Up." From the on-line collection "You Can't Mash That vol 28" (which I haven't actually heard, just this song.)

7. the archaeologist "pouvons-nous avoir un cendrier" - This album "parlez vous francais?" is based on a French language instruction tape (+ beats, music), which gets to be a bit much after a while.  Works great in short doses tho, like this yummy truffle that also throws in bits of Gil-Scott Herons' "Whitey's On The Moon."

8. Covox "Computer Love" - from 8-Bit OPERATORS-An 8-Bit Tribute To Kraftwerk

9. The Fire Organ "Little Fishes" - Quirky pop tune that's quite good despite the off-key singing; from an album ("Dumbed Out") that doesn't seem to be on-line any more. Hmm, maybe he's re-cutting the vocals...

10. Ban This Sick Filth "Powerhouse" - Raymond Scott's 1937 cartoon classic gets a boomin' remix courtesy of this offshoot of London mash-masters Celebrity Murder Party.

11. Greg Reinfeld "Pink Ballerina" - This highly prolific free-internet-album guy's latest is "Poorest Almanac That Ever Lived".

12. Hanetration "Rex" - Taking a breather from all this silliness, this is from the all-too-brief 4 track FREE! download release "Tenth Oar" of evocative, compelling ambiance.

13. Snaps 'n' Claps "Soldier Boyfriend" - Charming Casio girl-pop that may be more knowing than it lets on beneath its naive presentation. From their Feeding Tube cd-r "Greatest Hits."

14. Maladroit "Musicbox Jungle (Negrobeat Remix)" - Hysterical break-core collision of the '70s E-Z instro "Music Box Dancer" with that '90s 'Mr. Boombastic' song, as all heck breaks loose. Australians seem to be good at this sorta thing.

15. 1001 "Nieszczesliwa milosc, hej!" - This Polish gent hipped me to some outsider music from his land, and when I checked out his own stuff, I found this song, which makes awesome use of loops of people laughing.

16. Moose A. Moose & Zee D. Bird "Everywhere I Go" - If you have kids, you probably know this insanely catchy tune from the video that used to be shown often on the Nick Jr network. It's not available for sale, or as an mp3 anywhere, so I recorded it off a YouTube video and it came out surprisingly well. Do you know how many people want this?! Esp. since apparently Nick Jr has stopped showing the Moose & Zee bits. I am doing a public service! 

17. Janek Schaefer "Recorded Delivery [7" edit]" - From London comes this jaw-dropping artifact: a tape-recorder sealed in a box and mailed, which then recorded everything. "Recorded Delivery is a sound activated tape recording of parcel travelling through the Post Office system...The sound reactive dictaphone automatically edited the 15 hour journey to a 72 minute recording, capturing only the most sonically interesting elements of the journey."

18. Mari L. McCarthy "Weekend In New England" - This amateur tribute to '70s schlock crooner Barry Manilow entitled (hoo boy) "The Barry Thought Of You," sent to us by our frequent contributor windy, would be awful enough, but then on this song she goes and splices in the voice of Barry himself to create a Natalie/Nat Cole-like exercise in outsider horror.  Why, windy, why??

19. Willful Devices "Lattice XVIIb" - This 2-man-band (electronics & clarinet/woodwinds) go absolutely nuts on this track. Free-improv can be fun!

"Mitt Romney, A Hero In My Mind": OUTSIDER MUSIC VIDEO AWESOMENESS

Thanks to Mrs Fab for sending me a link to this hilarious/awful home-made music video of an old guy named William Tapely singing about...I'm not really sure, even tho its title would lead us to assume it's an endorsement of the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Tho it's all-too-short at 1:59, it has still left us with much to contemplate:

- The Casio-riffic keyboard stylings and cartoon-character vocals

- Dig them backgrounds!

- Someone's really going to town on the rinky-dink drum machine...hey, what the hell time signature is this song in anyhow?  I tried counting it out and gave up.

- Gibberish lyrics with no rhymes or sense of rhythm.

- Abrupt ending

Now this guy's a hero in my mind.