Music BY Maniacs

Since this blog comes up near the top when people search for "David Koresh music," I've been getting comments like: "Does anyone have that "There's a madman living in Waco" song that keeps playing on MSNBC? I swear that's one of the catchiest little hooks I've heard in a long while. I can't get it out of my head! I'm searching all over the web for it."

Anyone?

UPDATE 10/23/09 - Got it! Thanks to Nile for the info. My readers rock.

David Koresh "Mad Man in Waco"

I re-upped the Koresh songs on the original post. Apparently there have been a lot of songs about Koresh: dozens, heck, maybe hundreds, according to an amazing site called Waco Songs. It's an old site with not many working links, but it certainly makes for an interesting shopping list.


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YOGA FOR ZOMBIES

Yoga's a pretty wimpy name for a band, but fear not - this ain't no New Age, it's all dark, evil scuzzy guitars and spookhouse organ instrumentals, loudly recorded in grainy black-and-white lo-fi sound. The promotional materials for this album describe it as Throbbing Gristle meets death metal. Heh heh, I don't know about that, but it does remind me of Killing Joke, Chrome, The Chameleons, Kommunity FK, and other '80s goth/metal/punk bands whose names started with "kh" sounds. Tho these guys are more about ambient atmosphere then in-your-face rock.

The new album "Megafauna" is start-to-finish solid, perfect for non-cliched Halloween listening/dancing/brain-eating.

Yoga "Fourth Eye"
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The Sound of the Night Howard Finster Got Saved

I first write about Howard Finster HERE, where I described it thusly:
Although Rev. Howard Finster, a preacher from rural Georgia with little formal education whose paintings went so far as to become REM and Talking Heads album covers, may be America's best known folk artist, he also had a little-discussed musical side. The album "The Night Howard Finster Got Saved" is largely dedicated to spoken-word tracks, but there's some ace tunes on it as well. Singing in a high'n' lonesome twang, playing guitar, harmonica, and...piano, Finster's music should sound familiar to anyone who's heard the "O Brother Where Art Thou" soundtrack."

After receiving a comment asking for more last August, I looked into it and it turns out that the album is now out-of-print and pricey, so I could indeed put the whole thing up. Only I couldn't find my copy. Recently whilst looking for something else entirely, I did found my copy and here 'tis:

The Night Howard Finster Got Saved

There's much to enjoy here: Finster's old-fashioned Southern speech, his charmingly out-of-tune piano, the passionate singing. One of the spoken-work tracks, "Last Call I Had," is particular stirring, as Finster describes how he talked a suicidal New Yorker out of jumping, over the phone. But the climactic title track truly must be heard to be believed - over two different tape recordings playing two different fiery Finster sermons, the good rev. sings, shouts, whistles, whoops and hollers over the din. For 25 minutes. Absolutely mental.
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"LITIGATING REALLY SUCKS..."

"Glorious" Gloria Parker is a veteran of the Big Band era who is not only still alive and well, but plays, among other instruments, musical glasses - wetting one's finger and running it around the rims of a set of wine glasses to play melodies. She's quite amazing, a real virtuoso on her obscure instrument. I esp. dig the cool funk of "God Bless You Merry Gentlemen" from her album "A Toast To Christmas".

And that'd be cool enough. But it gets better. Much, much better.

A series of legal mishaps has led the still-feisty New Yorker to write a book entitled "Corruption Reigns in the Courtroom." Not only that, she has released, and is selling thru her website, a musical album of the same name. In a theatrical voice, accompanying herself on piano playing showtune-y music, Parker sings her chirpy, upbeat original songs. All her lyrics deal with how much she hates the American court system. Every song.

Don't have the album yet, but the four mp3s on her site (scroll to bottom of page) range from absolutely wonderful to absolutely wonderful. Haven't read her book, but I know of at least one of the legal setbacks that has caused this obsession - her co-authorship of this song:

Alan Holmes & His New Tones "Supercalafajalistickespeealadojus"

Incredibly, she lost her suit against Disney for it's use of the Sherman Brothers tune featured in "Mary Poppins." I'd be pissed, too. (Actually, Dick Van Dyke's gawd-awful Cockney accent is grounds enough for a legal action.)

She appeared performing on her glasses in the '80s Woody Allen film "Broadway Danny Rose," about a talent agent whose clients are all overlooked hard-luck novelty performers. Guess that makes me the Broadway Danny Rose of music bloggers.
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ABSOLUTELY THE GREATEST THING...

...I've heard on the internet lately: the latest (Week 119) of

Tape Findings

A private recording made in the "...late 1970's of our local zoo's carousel, whose calliope had fallen into dreadful disrepair, making for some wonderfully warbled versions of Moon River, 76 Trombones, The Sound of Music and many others." If there is a circus in Hell, this is the soundtrack. (Of course, coming from me, that's a compliment.) For example, Henry Mancini, like you've never heard him before:

dying carousel: "Moon River"

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FIVE YEARS, WHAT A SURPRISE...

...sang Bowie. Not many music blogs been around this long, have they? 650 posts! At first, knowing very little about computers, I used to link directly to other site's mp3s. I was so naive! Sorry for any bandwidth I sucked. I suck. We went from the generic look to a more custom design. Then started adding pictures, YouTube came along, then file-storing sites so I could share entire albums for free. And so it goes...

So, tell me: Likes, dislikes? Intense hates? Any life-changing events associated with this here web-log? Your band ever cover/you ever sample a tune you first heard here? Just how are you celebrating?
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SWIPING SWOPE

Whilst listening to another fine episode of The Bopst Show, I was struck by a song called "Baby" from The Phenomenal Handclap Band. They sounded like a '70s group, but it turns out that they are a new soul revival band from New York. It was the ending part of the song that stopped me in my tracks: "Hey, that's 'Swopepusha'!"

"Swopepusha" is an almost-decade old track from Poopoo Varmint, a side project of mashup pioneer Evolution Control Committee. After downloading it back in the earliest days of such activities, I played it constantly. Still do, in fact. I couldn't get enough of what sounded like a brilliantly catchy melodic bit of '60s E-Z kitsch obliterated by a blizzard of pummeling electronic beats. That catchy melodic bit? You guessed - the same tune at the end of "Baby." Coincidence? Did the Handclap Band steal it from Poopoo Varmint? But where did they get it from..?

TradeMark G., the president of the Committe, informed me that they sampled it from "...Putney Swope, an awesome 1969 movie is it. It appears the soundtrack music is by Charley Cuva, and although a soundtrack album was not released at the time of the movie, an after-the-fact soundtrack was made later (and the LP of that would make a great birthday present for me... ahem). The music's from a commercial in the movie for Go Lucky Airlines; that soundtrack webpage includes a 45-second preview of the music that ECC sampled."

Our chats on this subject led Mark to go back and remix "Swopepusha." It possibly kicks even more butt then the original, but you can get both old and new versions HERE, as well as all the juicy details abut the song and Poopoo Varmint's brief history. But I'm just gonna post the new version, with the Handclap Band song, for your comparing and contrasting pleasure. (Remember, it's the end part of "Baby" we're talking about.)

The ECC/Poopoo Varmint "Swopepusha (2009)"

The Phenomenal Handclap Band "Baby"

So, did the Handclappers swipe the tune from the "Putney Swope" soundtrack? Or maybe they are ECC fans, or maybe it's a big coincidence. Or maybe the "Putney Swope" soundtrack guy got in a time machine and stole it from the Handclap Band. Or...

Oh, and in "Swopepusha," "by the way, that's Mae West moaning in the background."
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Music for an Underground Circus

Cutting-edge composers started off the century playing with classical music traditions, then moved to electric rock sounds and electronics. But recently I've noticed (am I the only one?) how many experimentalists are drawing inspiration from years/centuries gone by, writing things like sad accordion waltzes.

Chris Butler is an unlikely pioneer of the antique-garde movement. Veteran of wacky '70s proggies Tin Huey and superstar new-wavers The Waitresses, Butler recorded a series of singles in the '90s compiled on a fine 2002 collection called "The Museum Of Me" that featured original songs recorded with everything from primitive technologies such as Edison wax cylinders and '40s era wire recorders to modern methods. He's still an alt-rock 'n' roller at heart tho, filling his songs with the kind of biting observational lyrics that made Waitresses hits like "I Know What Boys Like" so memorable.

Chris Butler "The Man In The Razor Suit" - totally killer twisted intense kinda-sorta-Delta blues, recorded onto wire; in a perfect world, this song would be as big as "Christmas Wrapping"

Chris Butler: "Thinking About Them Girls" - fun, catchy tune with Butler's voice and 12-string guitar recorded onto a wax cylinder, other musicians on jug (!), banjo, slide whistle, kazoo and spoons recorded with modern technology; as disorienting as watching, say, old footage of Buster Keaton trading lines with modern actors in a current film.

The non-antique garde songs are cool too - I like the Beach Boys-ish summer tune, and the spooky surf instro amusingly entitled "Bad Moon Over Mel Bay."

The handsomely packaged album comes with a booklet featuring photos of the tools used, and more technical information then a '50s hi-fi album, as well as 10 bonus tracks not listed on Amazon that feature the songs in various stages of construction, as well as "talking bits from a used spool of wire. I found it at a flea market. I think it dates from the Korean War era, when a NE Ohio family sat down at a kitchen table to play cards on a Saturday night..." He says he'll make a cassette tape of the entire recording for you if you write to him. Don't know if that offer still stands.

"they marry young down there"

I recently wrote about Ergo Phizmiz' amusing demolition of '90s club hits, but the astonishingly prolific British nutter has been posting plenty more free sounds, including an album described as "Instrumental music from the forthcoming 10 part Ergo Phizmiz radio-art cycle "The House of Dr Faustus." Instruments include "Harmonium, Toy Piano, Melodica, Balinese Xylophone, Messiah Box (huh?), Ukulele, Euphonium, Bagpipes, Didgeridoo, Desk Bell, Mechanical Birds, Pixiphone (wha?), Tibetan Flute, Kazoo, Autoharp" and about a zillion others.

For me, this haunting song is not only the album's standout track, but, as experimental sad accordion waltzes go, one of the best.

Ergo Phizmiz - Music for an Underground Circus

The band Piñataland are responsible for the phrase "antique-garde" actually - a Village Voice review of this intriguing New York combo described them thusly. Their debut from a few years back, "Songs For The Forgotten Future Vol. 1" mixes samples of early recordings with original songs performed on tuba (no bass!), strings, slide guitar that suggests country music without actually being country music, and, on this song, theremin:

Piñataland "Devil's Airship"

The lyrics are true stories about overlooked oddities of American history - the above song deals with the "phantom airship" scare of the late 1800s. The song sampled in the intro is a 1912 Edison cylinder called "Mysterious Moon."

They released "Vol. 2" more recently, which I haven't checked out yet. But this one's another well-packaged product: photos, historical news-clippings, sample info, lyrics. And, yes, the album features sad accordion waltzes.

OUTSIDE AFRICA

Staff Benda Bilili are a truly remarkable find - their debut album is possibly both the African and outsider music release of the year. Qualifications:

Outsider: this large group is comprised of homeless street kids and handicapped adults who live in a park. They not only feature homemade instruments, particularly a buzzy one-string invention made from wire and a tin can played brilliantly by one of the youngsters, but the disabled guys make their own wheelchairs out of bicycle tires and plastic lawn furniture. Their album was recorded live in the park using power bootlegged from a snack stand's electrical lines.

African: The Congo produced a seemingly endless parade of sound-alike soukous bands throughout the '80s and '90s. No predictable Kinsasha cliches from Staff Benda Bilili - they're all over the map, literally, from Cuban rhumba (long a Congolese influence) to American James Brown-type funk (one song finds them shouting "sex machine!") to the Carribean, e.g.: the highly energetic calypso/ska-inflected insta-classic posted here. But the junk instruments give everything a slightly alien sound, ensuring originality.

Unlike a lot of so-called "dance music," listening to this stuff make my legs uncontrollably twitch like a spastic (which, yes, sadly passes for dancing for me).

Staff Benda Bilili - Sala Mosala

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The Sound of Wonder!

India's madcap Bollywood filmi songs have become pretty familiar to Western ears lately, but India's neighbor to the north, Pakistan, apparently had their own musicals-obsessed film industry. The thoroughly delightful new comp The Sound of Wonder! highlights this weird world of '70s Moog/ lounge/cheesy/sleazy/disco.

These songs are similiar to Bollywood fare, but without the ubiquitous female voices of Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle, who seem to do every single filmi female vocal part. I didn't realize how integral those two were to Bollywood's sound until I heard this collection - I kept waiting for those high-pitched voices to come in. Instead we get a suave male singing about playboys, an apologetic female mournfully telling some fella "I am vedy sorryyyyy," and this twangy guitar/ accordian/ scat-singing nutty nugget. The funniest part is when the flatulant Moog comes in.

Tafo (feat. Nahid Akhtar) - Karya Pyar

Listen to those Amazon sound samples. See? Am I lying?!
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"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

"HERE'S A PICTURE FROM CORONER AND KNIVES..."

Al Duvall is a contemporary New Yorker with the soul of an old time American snake-oil salesmen, a P.T. Barnum of bad puns, black humor and banjo pickin'. He's the Tom Lehrer of bluegrass, cheerfully singing surreal lyrics unpredictably capable of eliciting gasps of astonished laughter.

His thoroughly entertaining album "Coroner and Knives" came out a few years back and it's contents range from almost-punk energy levels (tho all instrumentation is acoustic) to bluesy dirges:

Al Duvall "William Knave"
Al Duvall "Croaching in the Thicket"

This comes to us courtesy of dualPlover records from Australia (famed for M4M fave Singing Sadie), a label run by a guy who crushes his face into a bloody mess with glass outfitted with contact mics. Good news! The Free Music Archive has some of Duvall's tuneage available. I especially like "Where The Comet Falls" from his "Recluses Unite" album.
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AS MEDICAL AS HE WANTS TO BE

New York's Dr John Clarke put down his stethoscope and picked up a mic, spitting rhymes about how to protect yourself from the swine flu virus. It's "edu-tainment"! I recorded the music off of the video.

Dr. Clarke - H1N1 Rap

Looks like he's been at this for a while. This tune's even better:

Dr. Clarke - The Rules (Diabetes) AUDIO
Dr. Clarke - The Rules (Diabetes) VIDEO

Dang dawg, look at all these albums he's dropped! (Well, they're EPs, mostly.) The video tracks are just one minute long public service announcements, but the album's have the full-length versions. I'll be ordering some of those. Something tells me we haven't seen the last of the "Physician Musician" 'round these pages...
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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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THE SOUND OF EVIL

"Phillip Garrido who is accused with his wife Nancy of kidnapping and raping Jaycee Lee Dugard and holding her captive for 18 years in their backyard, gave two disturbing CDs to Marc Lister in 2006, according to his local newspaper.

Mr Lister, who was a client of Garrido's printing business, initially put the music away unplayed...But he has now listened to the collection of suggestive rock songs and trippy synthetic ballads apparently written by Garrido - and has discovered repeated clues to his warped sexual tastes. " So says this report, which analyzes some of the lyrics.

I found a 20 minute audio clip of Garrido's music lurking on the website of Northern California station CBS5 which I then recorded, and chopped into 4 smaller sound clips. Whoever posted this didn't include the entirety of each song, just a minute or two of each. Which is plenty, believe me.

So what does the music of a crazed religious-fanatic pedophile kidnapper who fathered two children from his victim sound like? Lightweight rock that occasionally suggests the likes of Chicago or Foreigner - and those are the best songs. A crappy demo, like countless others from not-too-talented would-be rock stars. Actually, the bouncy bubblegum that begins the second segment threatens to be a fun tune until the unappealing vocals kick in.

And that's what evil sounds like. Nothing like death-metal or gangsta rap. Just a bunch of routine Dad-rock. The songs aren't even religious, as I was expecting. Sure, the lyrics declaring his love of some "little girl" are now creepy in context, but I didn't hear anything explicitly depraved in them. If it was anyone else singing, no-one would raise an eyebrow, any more then when the Beatles (or Stooges) sang about their "little girl." Apart from some lyrics referring to his time in jail for a previous offense, there's nothing remotely dark or menacing here. They're love songs. The truly evil don't think that they're evil. He thinks he's full of love and the Holy Spirit. And Charles Manson wrote mellow folk songs, and John Wayne Gacy painted pictures of clowns.

Phillip Garrido1
Phillip Garrido2
Phillip Garrido3
Phillip Garrido4
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WESTERN SOUNDSCAPE ARCHIVE

westernsoundscape.org/

The University of Utah has this insane idea to record all non-human areas of the American West. There are hundreds of wildlife/ambient recordings up so far. Read all about it.

Right now I'm in the Alaskan Arctic tundra (Brrrr!). At least, for 11 minutes. Some of the ambient soundscapes last for over an hour. It makes for addictive listening, and from both a scientific and aesthetic viewpoint, it's absolutely crucial.

Arctic National Wildlife Refuge-Beaufort Lagoon-Tundra (060605-81)

The recordings can be detailed, but you gotta pump up the volume - the levels are pretty low.

All this Arctic stuff reminds me of Tanya Tagaq. She's an Inuit (Are they Eskimos? Or are they not called Eskimos anymore?) from far northern Canada who makes singing/grunting/beat-boxing a capella music that ranges from scary death-metal growls to orgasmic moans, sometimes coming off like Bjork choking on a whale sandwich, electronically looped into rhythmic dementia. It's supposedly based on traditional folkloric styles, but with artsy folks like Mike Patton and the Kronos Quartet guesting on her albums, I'd say she's sled-dogging off into fairly uncharted territory. In any case, it is some deeply weird stuff, even for this blog.

Tanya Tagaq - Qimiruluapik

Her most recent album has the string quartet backing, but I prefer the stark (mostly) voice-only sound of her debut. And it goes well mixed with the Arctic ambience I posted above.
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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"

I'M JUST CHILLIN'/LIKE BOB DYLAN

Was there ever a more bizarre musical moment then Bob Dylan's appearance - rapping - on hip-hop pioneer Kurtis Blow's 1986 album "Kingdom Blow"? I can't think of a more unlikely cameo off the top of my head, especially since Dylan rarely collaborates. True, hard-core punks The Circle Jerks did a tune with Debbie Gibson, but that was a bit of a joke, obviously.

Kurtis Blow: "Street Rock"
All weirdness aside, "Street Rock" is good bit of Run-DMC-esque crunchy guitar/beatbox rap.

Wouldn't it have been amazing if Dylan had appeared on these goofy, '80s pre-gangsta jams:

Kurtis Blow: Super Sperm
Kurtis Blow: Magilla The Gorilla

Look at that picture. No, it's not a war zone. It's part of New York City, one of the richest areas in the world, in the 1970s. The fact that such unwanted, ignored human beings were not only able to live in such wretched conditions, but were able to create a culture that took over the world - hip-hop - was one of the great inspirational moments of the '80s. Watching new forms of dance, music, and visual art arise from this rubble certainly thrilled me.

So I'm pretty psyched about the upcoming Old School Jams Live show at the Greek Theatre in here in LA this Sept. 13. I mean, peep this lineup: Kurtis Blow, Grandmaster Melle Mel & The Furious Five, Egyptian Lover, Afrika Bambatta's SoulSonic Force. Vocoders! Tracksuits! Jehri Curls! (Lisa Lisa, Ready For The World, and Klymaxx's r'n'b, and Peanut Butter Wolf showing back-in-the-day videos are also on the bill.)

There's been a lot of remixes and mashups of Grandmaster Flash's "The Message," but I love this mixture with a Medeski, Martin and Wood instrumental that sloooows down, then speedsuprealfast, the vocals always on time. Amazing.

Gordyboy: "Bubblehouse Message"

I recently wrote about Uncle Jamm's Army, LA's first hip-hop crew on record, and since I see that Egyptian Lover will be in the house, that gives me an excuse to post one of my all-time fave old-school joints since he was associated with the Army. This 12" single has one of the most greatest window-rattling, knock-plaster-from-the-ceiling beatz ever, coupled with funny kitschy vocoder vocals. Recorded off my vinyl; can't believe these guys have never appeared on CD.

Uncle Jamm's Army "What's Your Sign (Of The Zodiac Baby Doll)?"

Yes yes, y'all, it's like that, y'all...

The Boston Typewriter Orchestra

Does what it says on the tin: polyrhythmic percussion music with no other instruments, almost no singing, music tracks interspersed with intentionally banal office chatter ("How was your weekend?") for "Office Space"-like satirical effect. They even redact the Surfari's "Wipe Out" into "Whiteout." Funny, but with compelling rhythms.

Non-musical objects turned into musical instruments is a fascinating phenomenon. This got me thinking: when was the last time I used a typewriter? Does anyone (besides 80-year-olds?) Which makes this another fine example of artists recycling industrial society's waste.

Boston Typewriter Orchestra - "Pyramid Scheme"

MILES DAVIS AND WEEZER PLAYING VIDEO GAMES

Amidst all the hubbub over the 50th anniversary of Miles Davis' jazz classic "Kind of Blue" comes "Kind of Bloop," a brand new (just dropped last week) utterly unlikely song-for-song tribute performed only on primitive video game technology - Gameboys, Nintendos and the like. I've always enjoyed 8-bit music's rinky-dink charms, but as funny as this album can be (if you're familiar with the original), it's also amazing. These cats are blowin' mad jazz. The shimmering "Blue in Green," in particular, is a kind of dreamy '50s Space Age ballad, like what the wedding chapel on Forbidden Planet would be playing. 8-bit is, finally, real music, folks. Maybe it always was.

Ast0r - So What

This comes on the heels of an 8-bit tribute to Weezer, a band I know little about. The only song I recognized was "Buddy Holly," and I think that's probably because of the Moog Cookbooks' cover of it. Regardless, it's great stuff. Warning: 8-bit purists may be put off by vocals on some songs, and at least one track has a hard rock band arrangement that isn't cheesy at all.

Pterodactyl Squad: You Won't Get With Me Tonight
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thanks to solcofn!