I SWEAR IT'S NWA

Someone with alot of time on their hands has taken the entirety of NWA's "Straight Outta Compton" and removed everything but the swear words: "Explicit Content Only." A refreshing contrast, I suppose, to the Christian conservative groups who rent out movies with all the good parts chopped out.

"F--- Tha Police" in just 42 seconds - and this is the longest track on the album. Perfect for these attention-deficient times.

DAVID HASSELHOFF RAPPIN' ABOUT PENGUINS

Yes, the actor. Yes, he's rapping. And, yes, the song's about penguins:

Pingu Dance

This is big in Germany. I have no explanation.

JOHN LENNON'S NEW SONGS FROM HEAVEN

Linda and Gerald Polley are a middle-aged couple with their own religion, Spiritism. They're from North Dakota, a part of the world not known for new music - until the spirit of John Lennon contacted them. John is still writing songs that the Polleys channel, then record at home, singing and performing on portable keyboards. The once-famously peaceful and broad-minded former Beatle now writes songs (sometimes in collaboration with J.S. Bach or Frank Sinatra) that support President Bush and condemn homosexuality. Their latest collection, "Songs From Beyond 2," has a few .wav files on-line that I converted to .mp3 (so don't say I never did anything for ya!). Linda usually sings lead.
"Hussain's Butt Song" John Lennon says we're gonna kick Saddam you-know-where.
"We Love You Michael" John knows Jacko would never hurt anyone.
"Springtime" Gerald sings this ode to Lennon's widow Yoko Ono.

Unfortunately, Yoko won't allow them to release an album, so most of their songs are unrecorded, though many lyrics are available on their website. Hopefully, one day we'll get to hear "Listen to the Angels/When they talk on election day/They know that Al Gore musn't win."

PETER SELLERS LOVES THE BEATLES

RIAA's keeping them mashups comin': "She Loves Junior": Late, great comedian Peter Sellers performs The Beatles "She Loves You" over The Go! Team's "Junior Kickstand." Hi-energy silliness.

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By request, more from French New Wave/bossa nova lounge lizards Nouvelle Vague, here covering PiL:
This is a lovely "This Is Not A Love Song"

BRIAN WILSON - "ADULT CHILD"

I'll be gone for week, so I made a whole album available here:

Brian Wilson "Adult Child"

Brian Wilson had been removed from the Beach Boys after 1966's "Pet Sounds" album due to his mental problems, but he never stopped writing and recording music. This unreleased album was recorded in 1976/1977.

It's a thrilling, if bewildering work. Wilson appears to be a complete innocent, as the album title would suggest, and says exactly what is on his mind, relating to the listener the most important things in his life without a trace of show-biz affection, as in the jaw-dropping opening lines to "H.E.L.P. Is On The Way," a song named after his favorite health-food store. But then he'll offer lush orchestral versions of oldies like "On Broadway," and "Deep Purple," a funky version of a folk song ("Shortnin' Bread") and Beach Boy Mike Love will join him to sing the creepy "Hey Little Tomboy." However, the concluding song, "Still I Dream Of It," a gorgeous ballad that did see eventual release, shows a skilled tunesmith completely in control of his songwriting facilities, even if his mental ones were questionable.

Although "Smile," the album that was meant to be the follow-up to "Pet Sounds," did eventually get a re-recording and release in 2004, "Adult Child," as well as another Wilson solo album "Sweet Insanity," remain unreleased. Capital Records no doubt considers them to be too eccentric for the mass market. There's no sign they'll be coming out soon. Still, I dream of it...

THE HAMBURGLERS: HAPPY MEAL

Today marks the 50th anniversary of the opening of the first McDonald's restaurant, and to commemorate this momentous occasion, we offer you highlights from The Hamburglers' brilliant on-line album, "Happy Meal." The anonymous beat-burglers remix music and dialogue from a '70s publicity campaign:

"Krokrock": McDonald's chairman Ray Krok on lead vocals.
"So Now You Know, So Thank You" hip djs: spin this.
"We Want A New Theme": music sounds like The Captain and Tennille's "Love Will Keep Us Together;" Krok says, "We're dead!" And he is.
"Straight Jackin'": Ronald goes gangsta; samples from "JD's Gafflin'" from an Ice Cube album.
"Dildonald": obliterates the sources into pure abstract glitch.

BRITISH KARAOKE HELL

The UK's Cheekyboy DJ's at an English pub that features karaoke nights, and provided us with some interesting snippets. The two 8-year-old girls singing Brittany Spears is cute, but watch out for versions of songs originally done by Harry Belafonte, Enrique Iglesias, and Nickelback. The ending is particularly noteworthy - a demolition of Sinatra's "My Way" by "...a local booze-hound called Shaz famous for exposing herself in public and doing incredibly rude things with heineken bottles.. he he I liked the bit where just before singing she says 'shall we share' (the mic) and then follows that up with 'dont matter we share dicks anyway.' what a classy bird!!"

"Bad Karaoke Week 1"

MICHAEL JACKSON: THE STRIPPER

London's internet-music hooligan DJ NoNo was featured in the very first post of this 'ere blog with his eminem vs polka mash-up, "Just Lose The Accordians." He returns with a new, all-too-topical mix of Michael Jackson singing "The Way You Make Me Feel" over that bump'n'grind standard "The Stripper," performed here by Joe Loss. It's musically clever, but the image it conjures up of Jacko doing a striptease is both disturbing and hilarious...

"Stripper Jackson"

THE ROLLING SCABS

Who knew there were so many late '80s pre-teen punk bands with "scab" in their name? We covered Human Skab yesterday, and today it's The Rolling Scabs, who were basically two 12-year-old boys from the San Francisco area. Their story sounds too bizarre to be true: their adult guitar player was a retarded mental patient who played so poorly he's turned down in the mix; their drummer went by the name Tony Fag; they played with bands like Naked Raygun and Frightwig; recorded a 7" of made-up-on-the-spot songs live at Berkeley's punk haven Gilman St. Project; and lead singer Giuliano "Scab" Bourbon died at age 15 after an "elevator-surfing" accident.

Don't believe me? Listen and learn, my friends:

"We're The Scabs" It's basically Iggy & The Stooges' "Now I Wanna Be Your Dog." Only now it's about scabs.
"My Mom Smokes Pot" Sublime's big hit "What I Got" drew some lyrical inspiration from this one.
"Around The World in 80 Seconds" They visit The Great Wall. In Japan.

HUMAN SKAB

The year: 1987. The place: Washington state. The parents of a 10 year old boy called Human Skab release a cassette of his original compositions like "Mining The Radiation" and "We Need To Destroy The USSR."

The year: 2005. A remastered version of the tape will be released on CD this October thru Family Vineyard Records. It's to be called, "Thunderhips and Saddlebags." They're remastering a recording of a boy yelling into a portable tape-recorder?

And why shouldn't they? This acapella tune is just made to be sampled/remixed:

"Dead Baby Blues"

AMERICA, WE STAND AS ONE

Just what is it about "Star Trek" that makes non-musicians want to try their hand at music? Shatner, Nimoy, Nichelle Nichols...and now add to the list Dennis Madalone, a "Trek" stunt coordinator whose jaw-dropping music video one-ups his "Trek" cohorts by creating visuals as stunning as, say, Shatner's version of "Mr Tambourine Man." Click to watch here:
"America We Stand As One"



"Mr Fab, are you OK?"

(turning away) "Just...got something in my eye..."

COMPUTER SINGS METALLICA

386dx are a Russian group who play "Synchronized text-to-speech and midi synthesis" which basically means it programs computers to play songs like Metallica's
"Enter Sandman," and Nirvana's
"Rape Me"
They wear their computer keyboards on a guitar strap so they can rock out live. Funny, since the computerized vocals and electro sound essentially neuter once macho rockers into robotic stiffness. Party on, HAL.

BAR-B-Q POPE

DAMN - spent all weekend fruitlessly looking for my copy of David Peel & The Lower East Side's 1972 classic "The Pope Smokes Dope." Instead, we'll honor the passing of the Pontiff with a lovely 1983 number from a band at least as drug-addled and wacked-out as Mr Peel & Co., Texas' legendary Butthole Surfers:

"Bar-B-Q Pope" Sing along!
"I wet my pants last night
I woke up so happy
They shot the Pope!
They shot the Pope's ass!"

Rest in peace, Your Holiness...

THE HAPPY ELECTROPOP MUSIC MACHINE

As many of you are no doubt aware, Jean-Jacques Perrey is a pioneer of electronic pop music whose delightful mid-'60s collaborations with Gershon Kingsley can still teach these young techno types a thing or two. Years (decades?) before sampling, Perrey would spend untold hours cutting and splicing wacky sound effects tapes into loops that would provide the song's rhythmic backbone. Though well into his 70s, he recently announced his plan to record a new album in collaboration with Seattle-based early-electronic instrument collector/songwriter/all-around wacky guy Dana Countryman. Dana's done some great Moog stuff himself like "Cocktails In Space" for the on-line comp "Two Zombies Later," but he's put his own album project on hold so he can work on the Perrey thing. (His own album will feature guest appearances by other Moog-masters like Dick Hyman.) The sound samples got me salivating in anticipation:
"Harry's Rag"
"Chicken On The Rocks"

The album title? "THE HAPPY ELECTROPOP MUSIC MACHINE."

THEREMINS THEREMINS THEREMINS

The absolutely critical Thereminvox.com website, dedicated to all things theremin, has a fantastic mp3 library chock-full of rare historical recordings of what's been called the strangest musical instrument ever invented. Most of it's the spooky mood music you'd expect, but what is one to make of things like:
"Sinners" by a rock'n'roll combo known as Freddy And The Hitch-Hikers. Recorded around 1961, it's one the first (the first?) rock records using electronics.
"So Attracted To You" Quoth, "A great spooky cha-cha tune from 1959 by Herbi Silvers and his Orchestra. This song features Leon "Herbi" Silver on vocals and saxophone and his "Silver Belles"." Dr. Samuel J. Hoffman, the man on the theremin here, was possibly the most widely known and recorded thereminist ever, appearing on American national TV shows like "Tonight" with Johnny Carson, recordings with everyone from Les Baxter to Captain Beefheart, and countless mystery/horror/sci-fi film scores. There's a treasure-trove of his stuff here.

And this concludes today's history lesson. Questions?



Oh, come on now, can I see some new hands?

THOSE DARN ACCORDIONS!

San Francisco's six-piece accordion-slinging zanies name-check Myron Floren (Lawrence Welk's accordion-wielding polka-meister) as they cover Grand Funk Railroad's '70s cock-rocker "We're An American Band" thusly:

"We're coming to your town, we make annoying sounds, We're An Accordion Band!"

Gimmicky for sure, but darn those accordions, it's fun headbangin' stuff.

MAN, DIG THAT CRAZY JESUS

Here's a little Easter egg for ya, courtesy of Tommy George, a Big-Band music veteran, songwriter, and, later in life, TV writer ("Starsky & Hutch"!). But recently he recorded a self-released album of swingin' Big-Band original gospel tunes called "Jesus Saves, Jesus Swings!," full of professional-sounding finger-snappers like "Jump For Jesus," and "Tore Up From The Floor Up," that praise the Lord in hipster slang.

"He Ain't Here" is an upbeat reading of the story of the Passion and Resurrection in which George cheerfully sings, "They gave him to the soldiers/to be beaten and to be scourged!" There's a million Christmas songs, but we finally now have an Easter classic.

And if you cats were diggin' that, here's a new dance called the "Jesus Jive."

(But isn't "jive" another word for nonsense...?)

NEW WAVE BOSSA NOVA

"Nouvelle Vague" is supposedly the French translation of both the terms "New Wave" and "bossa nova." And that pretty much sums it up. French electronica musicians/producers Marc Collin and Olivier Libaux's debut as Nouvelle Vague (to be released soon in America on Luaka Bop) reimagines punk classics into an EZ-cheezy cocktail mix. The Dead Kennedys, The Clash, and Pil are among the old anarchists flown to a beach in Brasil, as an ooh-la-la female singer seductively croons their old hits. I know, lounge versions of rock oldies is an oldie itself by now, but these are some clever arrangements. Witness their take on The Cure's "A Forest," or XTC's "Making Plans For Nigel." Aaaah...

TRADITIONAL AFRICAN PUNK ROCK

Konono No. 1 started off as a group playing traditional music of their native Congo, Africa, decided to experiment with electronics to amplify their sound, and then things got weird. Most African music is either acoustic traditional, or slick modern pop, but Konono No. 1 (are there more?) have a hard, noisy sound and berserk energy level the likes of which I've never heard before. The poor but resourceful crew cobbled together home-made microphones and speakers, resulting in a distortion-drenched sound, and fashioned percussion instruments out of pots, pans, and auto parts, as can be seen on the Crammed Disk Records website. The traditional instrument the thumb-piano is hand-held - small metal rods are plucked with the thumb to go "boing" - but when played loud and distorted sound more like an electric guitar. Songs like "Lufuala Ndonga" come off like a band of witch doctors playing Ministry covers. (Three minutes in the fun really starts.)

Ears stopped ringing? Then check out "Paradiso," which answers the question: What would it sound like if Carlos Santana took speed and was limited to only 8 notes?

THE RETRO-TECHNO SOUNDS OF CHIP MUSIC

There's a whole school of music that shuns cutting-edge electronic instruments or computer programs in favor of the kind of primitive 8-bit technology found in video games or '80s computers like the Commodore 64. The C64 was sold between 1982 and 1993 and was one of the biggest movers in home-computer business history - more were sold then all the Macs put together - so nostalgia is certainly a factor, but "chip" composers are also drawn to the challenges and inherent fascination of trying to make music with such rinky-dink sounds. The Micro-Music website has lots of tunes you can download, and they don't all sound like Pac-Man soundtracks. Some are hip-hoppy, some suggest reggae dub, some rock'n'roll, but I doubt you'll hear anything better than Duff Fader's

"Chuck-da-8bix" 

Glitchy Rich took a rap acapella from the same time period (a 1987 Public Enemy classic), electronically processed it and wrote some new 8-bit tunage as backing. If we must have an '80s revival, may it sound like this.