MUTANT INSTRUMENTS DAY

Today on YouTube they're featuring:

Mutant Instruments

"This collection of mutant instruments turns conventions upside down. Hear unique melodies from the eigenharp (woodwind + drum + piano), the matryomin (theremin + Russian doll), a multi-stringed Experibass, and electronic monome. Huh? Just watch."

We actually covered the matryomin before, and the new vid makes a further case for it's loveliness, tho that John Tesh-ish song is pretty corny. The quadruple-necked Experibass is struck with sticks, and "prepared" a la Cage with spoons stuck between it's strings, producing a fearsome industrial drone. Nice. Not sure about that eigenharp tho - it'll be cool if you can bring in your own sounds and not get stuck with their pre-sets. And the monome has a non-keyboard interface that kinda reminds me of the old kid's game Simon.

THE MOOG COOKBOOK

These guys caused quite a stir back when their debut dropped in 1996 - covers of contemporary rock hits, most of the "alt" variety, performed on vintage electronics in a '60s Space Age style, with large dollops of humor. It could have just been a gimmick that might have been funny to listen to once or twice, but the tunes were expertly played, with quite the attention to period detail. Mucho clever touches abounded, as well.

By the mid'90s, vintage Moog records had been rediscovered by the masses. (Lucky for me - I was able to re-sell records I'd bought for 50s cents for 50 dollars. Thank you, record collectors!) In fact, I saw The Moog Cookbook live at an event to honor Robert Moog himself, same show I saw Pamelia Kurstin. And yes, they wore spacesuits.

The Moog Cookbook

1. "Black Hole Sun" (Cornell) - 4:22 (original by Soundgarden)
2. "Buddy Holly" (Cuomo) - 4:13 (original by Weezer)
3. "Basket Case" (Armstrong/Green Day) - 4:04 (original by Green Day)
4. "Come Out and Play" (Holland) - 5:00 (original by The Offspring)
5. "Free Fallin'" (Lynne/Petty) - 4:15 (original by Tom Petty)
6. "Are You Gonna Go My Way?" (Kravitz/Ross) - 3:35 (original by Lenny Kravitz)
7. "Smells Like Teen Spirit" (Cobain/Grohl/Novoselic) - 5:29 (original by Nirvana)
8. "Even Flow" (Gossard/Vedder) - 4:28 (original by Pearl Jam)
9. "The One I Love" (Berry/Buck/Mills/Stipe) - 4:31 (original by R.E.M.)
10. "Rockin' in the Free World" (Young) - 5:03 (original by Neil Young)

This album's out of print now, but you can still buy their genius second one, which covers "classic rock" hits. They released a third album (that you can buy here) independently a couple of years ago that gathers up all their previously unreleased stuff and remixes they did for other artists.

"Denizens of the Deep" - Ferrante & Teicher

Art Ferrante of Ferrante & Teicher just died at age 88, following the death of his musical partner last year. And so ends the lives of one of the very first avant-pop bands. Decades before The Beatles, The Velvet Underground, Brian Eno, et.al. fused pop music with experimentation, the two pianists were crossing the aisle. The academic avant-garde was way over on this side, and the mainstream popsters were all the way on that side - two groups that scarcely knew the other existed.

But in 1950 Ferrante & Teicher went into a New York studio to start recording this album, playing short catchy piano instrumentals with whimsical titles that unlike, say, Lawrence Welk or Montavani, also used all manner of Space-Age studio effects, and a John Cage-like "prepared piano" technique, inserting objects within the piano strings to produce unusual sounds, tho they claim that they came up with the idea on their own.

They abandoned that session, but went on to record similiar albums in the '50s like "Soundproof," "Blast Off!" (courtesy of Mutant Sounds) and "Hi-Fireworks" (courtesy of Music You (Possible) Won't Hear Anyplace Else.) By the '60s they had largely dropped the weird stuff in favor of a hugely lucrative EZ career, but a half-century later they rediscovered the tapes of the 1950 sessions and finished the album you now hold in your hands (as they used to say in the days of record liner notes).

It's moody (dare I say 'ambient'?) stuff. At a mere 27 minutes long it hardly wears out it's welcome. Track 11, "The Loch Ness Monster Stomp," is a particular fave - an alternate-universe '50s sock hop classic.

Ferrante & Teicher "Denizens of the Deep"

1. Underwater Expectations
2. Things to Come at Sea
3. Whiptailed Stingrays
4. Barracudas on the Chase
5. Spinning Steelheads
6. Floating Manatees
7. Plunging Sharks & Diving Swordfish
8. Crafty Bowfin
9. At Sea Watching Voracious Piranha
10. Searching the Seas
11. Loch Ness Monster Stomp
12. Electric Eels
13. Treacherous Octopi & Devilfish
14. Manatees & Dolphins
15. Sneaky Spiny Sturgeons
16. Ink of the Giant Squids
17. Underwater Reflections
18. A Whale of an Aquarian Finale at Sea

IN A TIPSY MOOG

Two retro-techno acts have new albums out. Well, the Thelonious Moog album is new, Tipsy's latest came out last year, but I just got it, so, hey, it's new to me.

Thelonious Moog's debut was, as you might expect, jazz cats playing Mr. Monk on vintage synths. Their follow-up, "American Standard," ditches the music of their namesake for an unpredictable, irreverent romp ranging from heavy cats like Gershwin, Brubeck, & Zappa, to the EZ kitsch of those thrift-store inevitables "Alley Cat" and Al Hirt's "Java," all getting the same zany Space-Age treatment. Duke Ellington's exotica standard "Caravan" goes surf-rock (+ odd noises) and one of my fave kooky '70s glam classics, "Hocus Pocus" by Focus, gets tackled here twice. All quite silly, but played by pros, and plenty fun.

Raymond Scotts' "Powerhouse" gets the full-on wacky cartoon sound-effects treatment:

Thelonious Moog: "Powerhouse"

Tipsy made two albums in the '90s that were very well received by the Cocktail Nation for their "liquor-delic" sound: sampling snippets of '50s records and drenching them in echo and disorienting production. After spending much of this decade in commercial music production, they have finally dropped their third album "Buzzz." It still has their trademark dreamy late-night weird feel to it, but I don't think that they're using much sampling this time out. Rather, they are making original music that sounds like it's been sampled, if that makes any sense. Except for some wispy female Japanese vox, it is, like the T.Moog album, all instrumental.

This tune sounds like reggae dub from a Sid & Marty Krofft show:

Tipsy: Chop Socky

And San Francisco's theremin-driven lounge combo Project: Pimento released their thoroughly non-new second album "Space Age Love Songs" well over two years ago. I actually do not have a copy of it yet - all I can do is lamely link to a track off of it. But I mean well.

Project: Pimento: You Only Live Twice - killer version of a James Bond theme originally done by Nancy Sinatra.

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STRANGE INTERLUDES

Strange music for strange weather: As you may have heard, out-of-control fires have made it positively Satanic here in L.A. (well, more Satanic then usual): hot, a brown haze in the air, an acrid smell, and a blood-red sun, at least where I live in the Valley where I can see the flames from my house. It reminded me of a mix tape I made in the '90s that I've set about for the last few nights re-compiling called "Strange Interludes." Not exactly noir or Halloween musics, these were mostly '40s-'60s early jazz, EZ, and Space-Age pop songs with a weird, moody feel. The tracks were mostly plucked from otherwise-normal albums, like there might be a collection of soundtracks hits with one theremin tune on it, or an organ collection of pop standards with a dark exotica track thrown in between the Beatles and the Bacharach covers.

My tape was inspired by an early '60s album recorded by Lew Davies & his Orchestra for Command Records called "Strange Interlude," which you can get HERE. I loved it. Unlike your usual Command stereo hi-fi upbeat gimmickry, it was low-key, creepy, with songs like "The Witching Hour," "Old Devil Moon" and "In A Mist".

Using my old cassette as a guide, I re-recorded the songs from my thrift-store vinyl. But a number of these tracks have since been re-issued on CD so I've tried to include as many good digital copies of these songs as I could. I've also added some songs that I've discovered since I made the tape, as well.

Apart from the afore-mentioned theremins, there's also harmonicas, Phantom-Of-The-Opera pipe organs, sound effects, ondiolines (an early electronic keyboard), a capella vocal groups, and plenty of percussion (e.g.: tuned bongo drums) mixed with the usual '50s EZ lush orchestrations.

Strange Interludes

1) Johnny Kemm "Taboo" - Man, I loved this track so much, I've scoured the net looking for any info; all I've found was that he was a popular organist from Joplin, Missouri who, according to this newspaper archive (scroll down) died a bizarre death, and had "been employed as an organist by the Missouri State Hospital for the Criminally Insane"! Huh? Any Maniacs live in the area who can do some research on this guy?
2) Marty Gold And His Orchestra "High On A Windy Hill"
3) Duke Ellington "The Mooch" (Buy it!)
4) Dick Hyman "Stompin' At The Savoy"
5) John Buzon Trio "Mister Ghost Goes to Town"
6) The Four Freshmen - "Crazy Bones" (Buy it! tho this is taken from my vinyl)
7) Phil Kraus "Buffoon" (Hey, entire album posted here! I agree with Mr Purse - this is one of the best songs on it)
8) Georges Montalba "Anitra's Dance" (never expected this obscure pipe organ record to be not only in print but a collector's item for being mistaken as an Anton "Church of Satan" Levey album)
9) David Carroll - "Hell's Bells"
10) Billy May & Samuel Hoffman "I Dream Of a Past Love" (Buy it!)
11) David Rose - "City of Sleeping Dreams"
12) Dick Schory & The Percussive Art Enemble "Cloud 9" (at 1:50 or so, doesn't this sound like Kraftwerk's "Trans Europe Express"?)
13) Enoch Light and the Light Brigade, arranged by Lew Davies "Bidin' My Time"
14) George Gould - "Dark Eyes"
15) The 3 Suns "Autumn Leaves"
16) Eartha Kitt - "I'd Rather Be Burned As A Witch" (Buy it!)
17) George Shearing - "Bewitched"
18) Lionel Hampton - "Blue Moon" (Buy it!)
19) Creed Taylor Orchestra "Monster Meet"
20) The Mulcays - "Kiss Me Again"
21) Carl Stalling "Skeleton Dance" (audio recorded from a cartoon)
22) Leroy Holmes & His Orch - "Spellbound"

AVANT HOUSEWIVES & THE HISTORY OF WHITE TURNTABLISM

Two reissues in Amoeba's "Unusual/ Experimental" section recently caught my eye, tho the original recordings were so obscure that these are virtually new releases.

Ursula Bogner was "a pharmacist, wife and mother, and she was obsessed with electronic music -- an obsession that drove her to build her own studio for extensive recording and experimentation." This started in the '60s, making her yet another female electronic music explorer (see also: Delia Derbyshire, Bebe Barron, Pauline Oliveros, etc.) Her music is not as pop as the Moog stuff going on at the time, but neither is it as abstract as the atonalities then dominating academia.

I got the album out of curiosity (a German female Bruce Haack?!) but ended up really liking it on it's own terms. Some is proto-industrial (I await the inevitable remixes), some BBC Radiophonic Workshop-esque sci-fi soundscapes, and some almost pop, like this delightful opener:

Ursula Bogner: Begleitung für Tuba

Her eccentricities went beyond music, e.g.: "...a strong fascination for mysticism, esotericism, and Wilhelm Reich's "orgonomy," the psychoanalyst's bizarre late work on his discovery of "orgonenergy" or life-force."

Dennis Duck is best known for his alt-rock drumming duties. In fact, he played on the Dream Syndicate's classic "Days of Wine and Roses" album, one of my favorite '80s rockers. But history may remember him as the first recorded turntablist. A short-run cassette called "Dennis Duck Goes Disco" featuring Duck playing nothing more then records was first released courtesy of the legendary Los Angeles Free Music Society , and is finally available on cd.

A whole album of nothing but skipping records! From 1977, no less. How great is that? Though few heard it at the time, he did beat Grandmaster Flash, Christian Marclay, etc. to the punch, as those New Yorkers didn't make recordings 'til almost the '80s (tho supposedly DJ Kool Herc was cuttin' wax as far back as '73.)

There's no fancy wicka-wicka scratching that we're now used to hearing, so it's fascinating to encounter turntablism from the perspective of almost no history. True, avant-gardists like Cage had used turntables before, but usually using their own prepared recordings. Duck, however, went to the thrift-stores and used record shops and bought kiddie records, religious sermons, musical kitch, etc., prefiguring everything from hip-hop, to Negativland-like sound collages, to mashups. Again, this isn't just of historical interest - it's a lot of loopy fun.

A jazz records skips to a crazy swingin' beat:

Dennis Duck: One O'Clock Jump

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LIFE ON REGGAE PLANET

Classic ska/early reggae about space flight - that's how we celebrate the 40th anniversary of man's first walk on the Moon around here. None of that slow Rasta stuff - this collection of obscure oldies (many recorded off vinyl) is pure summery dance fun fun fun, from a culture that, in the 1960s, was developing along with America's space program. There's also one (very surreal) calypso thrown in. I wish I knew of more.

Some of the tracks are instrumentals , including - yes! - a version of the Joe Meek/Tornadoes classic "Telstar." Have no idea who Colonel Elliott And The Lunatics are, but the cartoonishly Moogy "Plutonian Pogo Stick" is as nutty as its title. Some of the names here are unknown, and some, like pioneering dj U-Roy, ska legend Prince Buster, and the Upsetters, a project of madman/studio genius Lee "Scratch" Perry, are well known, at least in Carib music circles. (most American's knowledge of Jamaican music seems to begin and end with Bob Whatsisface.)

This might seem heretical, but was the Moon landing really humanity's greatest engineering accomplishment? The Apollo missions were essentially blasting a rocket out of the atmosphere using a controlled explosion. As the people of Hiroshima and Nagasaki could tell you (the ones still alive, at least), we got good at making really big booms. And getting there could be (theoretically) worked out with paper and pencil using Newton's Laws. I know I'm oversimplifying, but it all seems a bit...crude. Of course, it's still way up there on the list, but above the Egyptian Pyramids, or the Great Wall of China? Maybe some of you techies can set me straight.

Life On Reggae Planet

01 U Roy - space flight
02 Derrick Morgan - Man 'Pon Moon
03 Moon Boys - Apollo 11
04 Owen Gray - Apollo 12
05 Colonel Elliott And The Lunatics - Telstar
06 Derrick Morgan - Moon Hop
07 The Vulcans - Star Trek
08 Don Drummond - Rocket Ship
09 Joe Mansano - Life On Reggae Planet
10 S. S. Binns - Moon Beat
11 The Fabion - V Rocket
12 Lord Christo - Trip To Mars
13 Prince Buster - Trip to Mars
14 Colonel Elliott And The Lunatics - Plutonian Pogo Stick
15 Symarip - Skinhead Moonstomp
16 The Upsetters - Outer Space

I've made some great discoveries at You and Me on a Jamboree. Check 'em out - it should keep you fans of obscure Carribean music busy for weeks.
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GRAVIKORDS, WHIRLIES & PYROPHONES

It's a durn shame that the ellipsis arts label has gone under. They produced some stellar book/CD packages. And tho I can't give you the color-illustrated book, I can give you the CD of home-made mad-genius musical instrument inventors "Gravikords, Whirlies & Pyrophones."

Compiled by Bart Hopkins, publisher of a magazine dedicated to experimental instruments, with a forward by Tom Waits, "Gravikords" is a crucial document of strange music. It's a great listen, from legends like Clara Rockmore's classical theremin, to Sugar Belly's bamboo-sax calypso, to Wendy Chamber's version of "New York New York" on the car-horn organ (which is exactly what you think it is). Covering both the semi-famous (Harry Partch, Don Buchla & Robert Moog) as well as unknown toolshed tinkers, it's an inspiring testimony to human ingenuity and imagination.

Bart Hopkins et al. Gravikords, Whirlies, and Pyrophones

Click on artist name for info

1. Excerpt From Le Bal - Hans Reichel

-->
2. Excerpt From Pacific 3-2-1-Zero - Phil Dadson, From Scrarch -->
3. Excerpt From Silence The Tongues Of Prophecy - Qubais Reed Ghazala -->
4. Luminescence - Jean-Claude Chapuis -->
5. Excerpt From In The Beginning: Etude II - Don Buchla, Robert Moog -->
6. Excerpt From Claycussion - Ward Hartenstein -->
7. Excerpt From And On The Seventh Day, Petals Fell In Petaluma - Harry Partch -->
8. Shake Up Adina - Sugar Belly -->
9. Bamboo Is - Darrel De Vore -->
10. The Swan - Clara Rockmore -->
11. Terra Zona - Barry Hall, The Burnt Earth -->
12. Naiades - Jacque Dudon

13. Instru-Matics - Ken Butler 14. Entomological Effervescence -

Tom Nunn
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15. Kindred Spirits - Sarah Hopkins -->
16. Piccadilly - Robert Grawi -->
17. Aquaknots - Susan Rawcliffe -->
18. New York, New York - Wendy Mae Chambers -->

There was a sequel (which I do not have) "Orbitones, Spoon Harps & Bellowphones." Any label heads out there want to reissue these?
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SPOOKY SOUNDS FROM SPACE 3: The Northern Sounds

The Cluster spacecrafts record the sounds of "the interaction between the solar wind and Earth’s magnetosphere." That's what creates the Aurora Borealis, "The Northern Lights," that not only look spectacular, but sound pretty cool too - like some hard-core electronics, e.g. Morton Subotnik, David Tudor, Cage, that kinda thing.

But it's also kinda scary, like "Electronic Voice Phenomenon."

Auroral Kilometric Radiation (ESA Cluster mission)

Reminds me of a brilliant bit of retro-techno by the sadly short-lived Richard Maxfield that was inspired by the nocturnal birds and insects he heard in New York City parks. As great as this piece is, it doesn't appear to be in print - I ripped this from a 1967 album called "Music Of Our Time: New Sounds In Electronic Music" that also features famous folk like Steve Reich (the first appearance of his seminal tape-loop piece "Come Out") and Pauline Oliveras.

Richard Maxfield: "Night Music"

Maxfield's obscurity is no doubt due to his brief life and career - he jumped out a window whilst on a bummer trip in 1969 at age 42. Someone reissue this man's works, please!

Earliest Known Computer Music

This article from the BBC tells the story, and has audio, of the oldest known piece of computer music, a 1951 medley of "God Save The Queen" (not the Sex Pistols song)/"Baa Baa Black Sheep"/"In The Mood." Now that's my kind of techno.

Ferranti Mark 1 computer

HAPPY ARRIVAL DAY, SUN RA

The Australian radio program The Night Air hepped me to

"The Other Worlds of Sun Ra,"

their documentary about Sun Ra, the jazzman from outer space, and truly one of the most innovative, and bizarre, figures in 20th century music. The show is in celebration of his birthday, or, as Ra would call it, his "arrival day," the day he arrived on planet Earth from Saturn, a planet noted for it's progressive jazz scene. We first wrote about Sonny here but if you're new to the unique universe of Sun Ra, the radio doc, on-line for a month, is a highly recommended overview. And if you find yourself craving more:

"Message To The Earth-Man" "...from the Sun-Man," from "The Singles" collection; this crazed vocal number was someone's idea of a possible hit single? Sun Ra really did believe in the commercial potential of his music, hence:

"There Are Other Worlds (They Have Not Told You Of)" - from the 1978 album "Lanquidity," Sun Ra's idea of an accessible funky groove album; this low-key funk song sounds like schizophrenic voices whispering in your head.

God's Private Eye - Moog solo - utterly berzerk synth/keyboard freakout.

"Outer Spaceways, Inc." - catchy tune featuring vocalist June Tyson.

On a peer-to-peer, I found a remarkable unreleased recording from the early 1970s of Sun Ra & His Arkestra performing live at Widney High in Los Angeles.

"Calling Planet Earth" - June Tyson leads the introductory call.
"Theme of the Stargazers" - another Moog massacre; recording starts off crappy, but clears up.
"Dr. Reggie Scott monologue" - someone describing the unhappy end to this show.

Yes, this Widney High is the same school for mentally & physically disabled youth that, years later, would produce "The Kids of Widney High" albums of "special music from special kids."

The Kids of Widney High - "Insects"

Can you imagine if the two groups had joined forces?

HAPPY BIRTHDAY, RADIOPHONIC WORKSHOP

BBC's Radiophonic Workshop, pioneers of electronic music & sound effects, would have been 50 years old this month if the Beeb hadn't dismantled it ten years ago. No matter - celebrations are afoot, such as plans for a boxed cd set, and:

this great article and video revealing how, among other things, a lampshade became an integral part of electronic music history.

The bad news: the recent death of the Radiophonic Workshop's Tristram Cary: "...credited by some as the father of tape music, originating tape music techniques in World War II. He’s notorious to the general public and sci fi fans as the composer of the music for the Daleks (pictured above, with pug) in Doctor Who (along with other music) — like an evil counterpart to Delia Derbyshire, who built the studio Cary would later use."

Tristram Cary "Trios" (excerpt) - from 1971; performers rolled dice to determine what parts they would play.

Bebe Barron, another pre-Moog great, also died recently. "The 1956 sci-fi thriller Forbidden Planet was the first major motion picture to feature an all-electronic film score — a soundtrack that predated synthesizers and samplers. It was like nothing the audience had seen — or heard. The composers were two little-known and little-appreciated pioneers in the field of electronic music, Louis and Bebe Barron." From the score to Forbidden Planet:

Love at the Swimming Hole - a romantic ballad
Battle With The Invisible Monster

I've always been a fan of the "Forbidden Planet" soundtrack (I taped it off the tv years ago) but have never seen any other recordings by them. Are there any? Supposedly they scored some short avant-garde films, but I couldn't find them on the YouTubes. However, you can see:

Sukho Lee of one of my fave local (Los Angeles) bands Seksu Roba, performing a boss tribute to "Forbidden Planet" to mark it's 50th anniversary on his tricked-out theremin.

And, right on time, Boston's dj BC has just released a dandy on-line remix/mashup tribute to the pioneers of electronic music called

"Art Raps"

which actually tames these notoriously abstract sounds by looping them into something approaching head-nodding accessibility, such as this take on Hugh Le Caine's 1955 piece:

djBC: Dripsody (remix)

Terry Riley, Jon Hassel, and others also get the treatment.

MORT GARSON R.I.P.

Very sad to read today that Mort Garson has died. As this LA Times article points out, Garson had plenty of mainstream success in the music biz, even co-writing a number one hit in 1963 (Ruby and the Romantics' "Our Day Will Come"), but is primarily remembered today for his bizarre '60s/'70s Moog synth records. There were lots of Moog-sploitation records being cranked out in those days, but what made Mort a strange-music superstar was his refusal to do too many cheezy remake records. Rather, like Dick Hyman and Perrey & Kingsley, he wrote most of his own material. Unlike most Moog-masters who preferred to let their instruments do all the talking, however, he also prominently featured vocalists.

"Electronic Hair Pieces" is the first album of his that I found, for 48 cents in the late '80s (it probably goes for at least 48 dollars now.) Selections from the "Hair" soundtrack done electro-stylee, it's the only Moog remake album of his that I know of. Liner notes by Tommy Smothers!

Mort Garson: Walking In Space

I think some of his best songwriting is on the "Wozard of Iz" Wizard of Oz-inspired concept album, with vocals by no less then Nancy Sinatra (recording under another name). The lyrics for this tune are a kind of beatnik anti-conformist spiel, but still relevant to today. This shouldn't work - someone who sounds like they're from the older generation trying to lay a hip rap on the kids could have been squares-ville, daddy. But it rocks.

Mort Garson: "Never Follow The Yellow Green Road"

I have a 45 of his from the soundtrack to Son of Blob (aka Beware! The Blob) that's also all-synths and rinky-dink early drum machines, but punctuated by breakdowns with screaming people, presumably being eaten by that pesky Blob.

The Blobs: Son of Blob

Garson also recorded albums with black-magic themes. I featured Mort's tune "The Unexplained" on the "Disco Sickness" collection I put together for the 365 Project. Electro-disco...in 1973? If that's not the definition of visionary, I don't know what is.

Mort Garson: "The Unexplained"

One of his albums, "Music For Sensuous Lovers," consisted of two side-long instrumentals featuring a woman's ostensibly erotic moans and groans. In a fittingly strange finale to a career steeped in strangeness, Garson's last album was music intended to be played for your plants. The record, "Plantasia," was given away by a mattress company. Okay...well, it was the '70s...

Mort Garson: Baby's Tears Blues

More Mort: Egg City Radio has six albums available here and here. Office Naps has singles he did with "The Time Zone" and "The Big Game Hunters."

He was writing music 'til the day he died: a suite about San Francisco. Let's hope it gets released.