Before They Were Rap Stars

Here's a second volume of Before They Were Stars, this time putting the spotlight on the first-ever (and sometimes highly-unlikely) recordings from future hip-hop stars: A pre-annoying Black-Eyed Peas! A pre-rap Beastie Boys sounding like The Germs! Ice Cube sounding like The Beastie Boys! Chuck D sounding like Kurtis Blow! RZA and GZA from Wu Tang sounding like Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince!

Before They Were Rap Stars

1 Beastie Boys - Beastie Boys [1982]
2 Ice-T - The Coldest Rap [1982]
3 Spectrum City [aka Public Enemy] - Check Out The Radio [1984]
4 World Class Wreckin' Crew [w/Dr Dre] - Surgery [1985]
5 The C.I.A. [w/Ice Cube] - My Posse [1987]
6 Onyx - Ah And We Do It Like This [1990]
7 Prince Rakeem [aka RZA] - Ooh We Love You Rakeem [1991]
8 The Genius [aka GZA] - Those Were the Days [1991]
9 A.T.B.A.N. Klann [aka BlackEyed Peas] - Puddles Of H2O [1992]

Kitschstortion

Didn't know what a Vocaloid was 'til I was sent this excellent album, but apparently it's music software that uses actual pre-recorded human voices to sing whatever you program it to sing. Which is, in this case, a festival of sentimental '50s/'60s easy-listening and soundtrack classics. It's all "sung" without instrumental accompaniment, but I wouldn't exactly call it acapella music - the voices get chopped and glitchy. The sweetness of these old songs, however, lends a real warmth that is sometimes lacking in experimental electronica. Really wonderful stuff that sounds like nothing I've heard before - Space Age pop for a happy family of robots.

It's by Kitschstortion, the chap who sent us those rare North Korean albums that we posted earlier this year. You can listen to it streaming or download it HERE. Or just grab it here:

Kitschstortion "Vague Serenade"

A. HAPPY ORGAN, B. PERRY MASON THEME, C. POPSICLES, ICICLES, D. DIAGNOSIS MURDER THEME, E. A TASTE OF HONEY, F. THEME FROM A SUMMER PLACE, G. TELSTAR, H. ZING WENT THE STRINGS OF MY HEART, I. CLASSICAL GAS, J. POIROT THEME, K. TWILIGHT ZONE THEME, L. SPANISH FLEA

Before They Were Stars!!

A 14-year-old Björk! Billy Joel goes heavy metal ! Tori Amos goes big hair '80s! Debbie Harry of Blondie in a '60s hippie band that should have been called "Bland-ie"! Nick Lowe rips off The Who! Neil Young and that superfreak Rick James in the same band!

It's all strange-but-true, some of it awful, some surprisingly great. Hey, you gotta start somewhere...

Before They Were Stars (A MusicForManiacs Collection)

01 Tony Sheridan [w/"The Beat Brothers": John Lennon, George Harrison, Paul McCartney] - Sweet Georgia Brown [1961]
02 Rory Storm & The Hurricanes [w/Ringo Starr] - America [1963]
03 Arthur Lee and the LAGs [pre-Love] - The Ninth Wave [1963]
04 The Primitives [Lou Reed] - The Ostrich [1964]
05 The Wailers [w/Bob Marley, Peter Tosh] - simmer down [1965]
06 Bluesology [w/Elton John] - Come Back Baby [1965]
07 Shotgun Express [w/Rod Stewart-Mick Fleetwood] - I could feel the whole world turn round [1966]
08 The Mynah Byrds [w/Neil Young, Rick James] - Go On And Cry [1966]
09 The Spiders [Alice Cooper] - Don't Blow Your Mind [1966]
10 John's Children [w/Marc Bolan] - Desdemona [1967]
11 Wind In The Willows [w/Debbie Harry] - Djini Judy [1968]
12 Flaming Youth [w/Phil Collins] - Changes [1969]
13 Attila [w/Billy Joel] - Rollin' Home [1970]
14 Fraternity [w/Bon Scott] - Jupiter's Landscape [1971]
15 Brinsley Schwarz [w/Nick Lowe] - (What's So Funny 'Bout) Peace Love & Understanding [1974]
16 Kilburn & the High Roads [w/Ian Dury & some Blockheads] - Rough Kids [1974]
17 Hawkwind [w/Lemmy Kilmester] - Motorhead [1975]
18 The 101ers [w/Joe Strummer] - Letsagetabitarockin' [1975]
19 Björk - Alta Mira [1977]
20 The Nipple Erectors [w/Shane MacGowan] - So Pissed Off [1978]
21 The Coachmen [w/Thurston Moore] - Thurston's Song [1979]
22 Boys Next Door [Nick Cave & the Birthday Party] - Dive Position [1979]
23 Bruce Woolley And The Camera Club [w/Thomas Dolby, The Buggles] - Video Killed The Radio Star [1979]
24 Material [w/Whitney Houston] - Memories [1982]
25 Y Kant Tori Read [w/Tori Amos] - The Big Picture [1988]

IDIOTS

*sigh*

Got this email this morning, re: CCC's "Cracked Pepper" mashup album that I posted last week:

Blogger has been notified, according to the terms of the Digital Millennium Copyright

Act (DMCA), that certain content in your blog is alleged to infringe upon the

copyrights of others. As a result, we have reset the post(s) to "draft" status.

(If we did not do so, we would be subject to a claim of copyright infringement,

regardless of its merits...You may edit the post to remove the offending content

and republish, at which point the post in question will be visible to your readers

again.  



Blah blah blah, etc. etc.  As I wrote in my original post: You're not gonna find too many mashup albums better than

this 2007 release by the UK's CCC (aka   Chris Shaw) and his helper-pal Ill Chemist.  Don't know Mr. Chemist,   but

CCC is a true mash-master.  This release is a follow-up to his   tackling the entire "Revolver" album, and is worth a

listen even for   those (like me) who are long tired of hearing any more from those   mop-tops from Liverpool.

On a technical level, it's well produced,   on-time and in-key even as some tracks juggle as many as 10 songs in

one   track.  More importantly, imaginative touches abound: how did I never   notice that Lennon swiped the

melody of "For The Benefit For Mr. Kite"   from his earlier "It's Only Love"?  Well spotted, sirs.



Weirdly enough, before his mashup career, CCC started the Monkeyman superhero hoax. 



And if you want the album (I'M NOT HOSTING IT, NEVER DID) it's easy enough to just search for "mediafire" + "ccc

ill chemist cracked pepper," so I don't know what all this nonsense accomplishes.  Sorry, all of your original

comments are gone. 

THE VILLAGE PEOPLE OF THE PHILIPPINES

Sometimes even I wonder why I so obsessively write this blog, week in and week out, year in and year out. I'll tell ya why: it's because of albums like this. The universe (or at least the recorded music of planet Earth section of it) continues to astound and delight me, and I just have to spread the word.

Yes Virginia, there really was a 1979 album by a group of Philippino men singing and acting like the Village People. Sung mostly in Tagalog, it features sumptuous full-on orchestrated disco music, a buncha guys in various uniforms singing in unison, campy humor, and non-stop party-time energy. The first song at six minutes long had me a bit fatigued and I was wondering if I should bother with the rest of it, but I did and I'm glad. The fact that a record this ridiculous even exists makes the world a happier place.

Hagibis "Katawan"

The song "Legs" seems to feature vocals from Donald Duck. And dig that poppin' bass on "Nanggigigil."

RUSSIAN HORNY CHOIR

This article sez that in the 1700s: "...in Russia a unique and bizarre custom of wind playing developed. Sometimes truth is stranger than fiction, and this would certainly seem to be so in this case. Prince Kirilovich Narishkin, the Master of the Hunt to the Empress Elizabeth, had become frustrated with the sound coming from the horns used to signal the progress of the hunt. The coppersmith on Narishkin's estate made the horns in question, and apparently no attempt towards consistency of pitch had been made. So in 1751 the prince had sixteen new instruments made which were tuned to play a D major chord. The technique of overblowing was not taught on these simple instruments, so standard practice called for a single note to be played on each horn."
It's called 'Russian horn capella' music, and, yep, as with hand-bells, only one note can be played on these giant instruments (hence the need for big groups), but you'd never guess to listen to this lovely album - it's played with such expert precision that one could be fooled into thinking it's just a couple/few musicians playing, not a large ensemble flawlessly passing notes back and forth.

Apart the peppy "Funiculi Funicula" it's pretty much standard classical classics, e.g. Mozart, "William Tell Overture," "Ave Maria," etc.

Russian Horny Choir (Concert)

I had to translate everything from Russian using the somewhat inaccurate Babelfish, and since the results were kinda funny, I just left it, making no attempt to clean 'em up.

Thanks to whoever the reader was who left a comment heppin' me to this stuff, sorry I can't remember your name/find your comment, sir!

TOYS VS ROBOTS: THE MAD GENIUS OF FRANK PAHL

UPDATE 7/25/11: album back on line

Frank Pahl is one of the most criminally underrated composers/mad scientists at work today.
And while I still maintain that "We Who Live On Land," the album he recorded with The Scavenger Quartet that I wrote about a couple years ago, is one of the best albums of the '00s, I do thoroughly enjoy a more recent album of his, "Elementary," with the trio Little Bang Theory.

"Elementary" is performed entirely on toy instruments. It's all instrumental, and wanders over a fairly wide emotional range - no cute kiddie stuff here (not that I mind cuteness). The song writing is pretty ambitious, with some fairly lengthy "suites", tho with toy instruments you inevitably have a built-in nostalgic sweetness that keeps pretensions at bay. Utterly wonderful stuff, but it's in print, available from his site and elsewhere, so not gonna post it, but I did included a couple songs off it as BONUS! tracks, included with this other excellent Frank Pahl album that doesn't seem to be for sale anywhere.

Frank Pahl and Klimperei "Music For Desserts"

Pahl sez about this 2001 release: "What can I say? This is my favorite. All tracks began with home made automatic instruments. [French group] Klimperei laid down their sympathetic magic and I mixed."

And that's something I didn't realize when I first reviewed The Scavenger Quartet album: how many hand-built robot instruments are featured in Pahl's music, mixed in with all the strange, often antiquated human-played instruments. Da man plays: "Piano, Piano [Prepared, Prepared Barrel], Organ [Binary Air Quartet, Microcontrolled Air Quartet, Hohner Organette], Clarinet, Tipple, Marimba [Toy], Cello, Guitar [Tenor], Harmonium, Euphonium, Harp [Peacock, African], Flute [Bulgarian], Trombone [Toy], Trumpet [Toy], Bass Drum, Whistle, Ukulele, Ukulele [Automatic, Buzzsaw, Binary Quartet, Family], Zither, Zither [Automatic], Percussion, Percussion [Automatic], Performer [Autoglock, Binary Doorbell Quartet, Washing Machine, Jason Ortega's Auto Chime, Double String Trio, Virtual Pet: Gerbil, Humming Choir Loop, Shrutti Box]." No, I'm not entirely sure what all that means either, but it does give you an idea of how unique this music is, without losing a melodic approachability.

ME PLAYIN' SONGS 'N' TALKING 'N' STUFF

Contributing more than 2 hours of audio monkeyshines to combat the alarmingly low levels of weirdness in our atmosphere, Greg "Spacebrother" Bishop and Yours Truly present:

Radio Misterioso 04/24/2011

includes the following ingredients:
"Plan 9 From Outer Space" intro
Marlin Wallace "Weird Weird Music" [we spend a lot of time on the show exploring the overlooked outsider musician Marlin Wallace]

talk break

Duke Errol "Back To Back Belly To Belly (Zombie Jamboree)"
People Like Us "Happy Lost Songs"
Mickey Katz "Doity Dog"
(technical difficulties)
Rusty Diamond "Skellykins"
Ralph Lowe "Munchikens"
Dee Dee King [aka Dee Dee Ramone] "I Want What I Want When I Want It"

talk break [we discuss the song-poem phenomena; cassette tapes; Yiddish culture]

Jack Blanchard "A Weird Little Christmas"
........."........ "Dance of the Living Dead Chickens"
Paul Super Apple "Intro/Apple Love"
Marlin Wallace "That Flying Saucer"
Rodd Keith "Run Spook Run"
Milton Berle "Songs My Mother Loved"
People Like Us "The Sound of the End of Music"
Joe Perkins with Jimmy Riddle "Little Eephin' Annie"
Jesse Lee Turner "The Voice Changing Song"

talk break: eephing & yodeling; Daniel Johnston & Roky Erikson; the Rusty Blanchard hit song we couldn't recall was "Tennessee Bird Walk," what normal people think is weird music; will outsider music go mainstream?; Greg sticks the mic out the window to try to eavesdrop on arguing homeless guys; Sammy Hagar abducted by space aliens]

Marlin Wallace "Thing From Another World"
Benny Bell "Everybody Wants My Fanny"
Thurl Ravenscroft "Diamond Bar"
Akeem 'The Dream' Olajuwon "The Unbeatable Dream" [I featured this record on my "Curl Activate" collection]
Marlin Wallace "Mosquiters"
Mr Fab and Spacebrother try to rap from the "Hip-Hop Prayer Book"

talk break: Francis Dec

Snatch & The Poontangs "Two-Time Slim"
The Vampires "The Whip"
Red Ingle & The Natural Seven - the wackiest song about torture ever!

talk break: albums about trees and loggers

Red Ingle & The Natural Seven: Cigareets & Whiskey & Wild Women

"America's Most Nonsensical Band"

Continuing our survey of Spike Jones-like comedic music from the 78rpm era (we've already checked out Irving Aaronson and Borrah Minevitch & His Harmonica Rascals) comes this album surveying the long, prolific career of one of the greatest novelty/oddball groups of the era, the Korn Kobblers (no relation to that Korn). During their 1940's heyday, they were a constant presence on the radio and concert circuit.

Apart from the lyrical nonsense of songs like "Horses Don't Bet On People" ("horses don't have no remource-es...") and "I'm My Own Grandpa" (a song that really does my head in trying to follow it), their musical attack was a mad riot of frantic Dixieland horns, barrelhouse piano, furious drumming and, well, look at that tricked -out washboard, festooned with "electric auto horns, siren, klaxon, doorbell, whistle, woodblock, and twenty-one auto and bicycle horns." Song styles range from hillbilly to cosmopolitan swing, from children's music to Irish dialect humor. Essential.

The Korn Kobblers


1. When You Wore A Tulip 2. Up In The Balcony 3. Myrtle The Turtle And Flip The Frog 4. Five Foot Two, Eyes Of Blue 5. I'm My Own Grandpa 6. I Can't Get Offa My Horse 7. If You're Cheating On Your Baby 8. Oh You Beautiful Doll 9. I Wish I Could Shimmy Like My Sister Kate 10. The Light Turned Green (And The Light Turned Red) 11. Drifting And Dreaming 12. Ain't She Sweet 13. Since They Stole The Spitoon 14. Trumpet Blues 15. Never Make Eyes (At Gals With Guys Bigger Than You) 16. We Got To Put Shoes On Willie 17. Horses Don't Bet On People 18. Clancy Lowered The Boom 19. Why Did I Teach My Girl To Drive 20. Dardanella 21. Don't Shoot The Bartender (He's Half Shot Now) 22. Don't Give Me No Goose For Christmas, Grandma

If you want more, hezzie.com can hook you up with plenty more CDs and DVDs.

Stairway to Gilligan's Island

To celebrate the legacy of the recently deceased Sherwood Schwartz, creator of a favorite childhood TV show of mine, "Gilligan's Island," here's another one of my childhood faves, the ingenious proto-mashup by a San Fran band, Little Roger and the Goosebumps:

"Gilligan's Island (Stairway)"



(Thanks to WFMU!)

THE EVERYDAY FILM: THE FIRST 4 ALBUMS

The Everyday Film has a new, er, "song" - for lack of a better word - up on iTunes called "Emotional Margin Call." Go buy it! After all, he (she? they? it?) gave me permission to post his first four releases here.

Music doesn't usually scare me. But as I wrote when I reviewed the first two albums:

"The Everyday Film's album "The House I Used To Turn Into" was, on first listen, one of the most disturbing things I've ever heard (and maybe on second and third listens as well.) Much of it isn't what most people would even think of as music: a vocoder-ized voice pitched way down loooooow mutters cryptic non-sequiturs, interrupted by brief shards of industrial music-like sounds. "Song" titles include: "The Boy In The Wall," "We Don't Exist Yet," "Budgeted Out The Perverted," and "A New Class of Paranoia." The final track on the short album (27 tracks in 15 minutes) is the sound of some poor soul begging for his life while Mr Vocoder Voice mumbles banalities like "relax in the sun...take a vacation...take a 'me' day..." over unsettling electronic drones. That's entertainment!
Not to scare you all off, but it can be a fascinating, sometimes funny headphone experience, and a wicked beat even turns up...A 12 minute follow up CD...seems slightly less creepy, and the song titles aren't as twisted. It'll still be dismissed as sick shit by 99.9% of the population, tho."
The Everyday Film - First 4 Albums

The Everyday Film mails CDs to my PO box from time to time, and I get the occasional email from him, but I still don't have a shred of biographical info on him , or pictures, and the return addresses have been from different states each time. I used to call him "the Jandek of electronica," but, as one of you commented, he seems to be far more reclusive than even that notoriously shy outsider. There's no longer even a website for the band, so, for now, this is the only place to get these releases. Thanks very much to The Everyday Film for letting me post these here.

New Wave Covers For Oldies Lovers - Part 2

As I wrote in PART ONE, "During the upheaval of the late '70s/early '80s punk days, there was a real changing-of-the-guard feeling that led many groups of the time to cover classic oldies from the sacred rock 'n' roll canon in an irreverent (if not downright disrespectful) fashion. One of my recent obsessions is to to collect as many of these as I can find..." And why not? It's fun, weekend/summer barbeque music for maniacs. There's even a surf music section.

New Wave Covers For Oldies Lovers, vol2

1. The Toy Dolls - Blue Suede Shoes
2. The Minutemen - Ain't Talkin' Bout Love
3. Lene Lovich - I think we're alone now [Japanese version]
4. The Plastics - Last train to Clarksville
5. Yellow Magic Orchestra - Tighten Up [These guys, featuring Ruichi Sakamoto, actually reunited to perform (at the Hollywood Bowl) for the first time in 30 years; hope they performed this one, it is absolutely bonkers]
6. Zoogz Rift - But The Picture Has A Mustache ["Inna Gadda Davida"]
7. The Fibonaccis - Purple Haze
8. Black Randy & The Metrosquad - Say It Loud (I'm Black And I'm Proud)
9. James Chance & The Contortions - I Can't Stand Myself
10. Devo - (I Can't Get No) Satisfaction
11. Sun Yuma - Subterranean Homesick Blues
12. Comateens - Summer in the City
13. Bakersfield Boogie Boys - I Get Around
14. Nash the Slash - Dead Man's Curve
15. Zoogz Rift - Walk Don't Run
16. C. Newman & Janet Smith - California Girls
17. Lemon Kittens - Shakin' All Over
18. Pere Ubu - Pushin Too Hard
19. Butthole Surfers - American Woman
20. The Better Beatles - Paperback Writer
21. The Flying Lizards - Money (That's What I Want)
22. Gina X - Drive My Car
23. Sex Pistols - My Way

THE MUSIC FOR MANIACS MORNING ZOO!!!!!!

Good mooooooorning, maniacs! Mr Fab with ya. Got the traffic report comin' right up, but FIRST, two albums by American morning radio personalities we're GIVING away to the FIRST THREE CALLERS right here on the Music For Maniacs Morning Zoo!!!! *hooting, hollering, and cowbell noises*

First up, an album from 1989 by Johhny B, big fave outta Chicago. He does it all - slick '80s pop, blues, and wild rock! He's a rebel - you won't see HIM on MTV! Gotta love that "Moo Moo" song about a guy who broke into the zoo to do it with a cow! I mean what's crazier, a perv with the hots for a bovine, or a zoo that has boring animals like cows? I can see them for free if I drive thru the country! What else they got, cats and dogs?!

Jonathon Brandmeier

1. When Friday Comes

2. You Won't See Me On MTV 3. How, How, How (The White Boy Blues) 4. Nothin' In My Mind 5. Breakin' Up Isn't Hard To Do (With Someone Like You) 6. The Moo-Moo Song 7. Country Music Star 8. Good Sturdy Woman 9. How'm I Gonna Be A Dad? 10. Makin' Love In The Aid-Ees 11. Sweet Home Chicago 12. Just Havin' Fun 13. We're All Crazy In Chicago 14. JB Reprise

Here's a more recent album courtesy of Reno, Nevada's home for country music, K-Bull. Country music song parodies, weee doggies! My fave's "Time Marches On," a pretty scathing satire of them country folk. All in good fun, folks! And that's "no bull!"

Teflon Cowchip Band "Bullfoonery"

1. JJ Got Run Over By A John Deer 2. Any Woman Of Mine 3. Frankenstein 4. Fever Blister 5. Cheese And Macaroni 6. C-H-R-I-S-T-Y 7. Girls Do

It All The Time 8. Bigger Than A Buick Regal 9. Time Marches On 10. Homeless 11. Paddle My Bum/Dust On His Bottom/Any Woman Of Mine At Christmas Time

Okay, these albums might not be that funny. As sociological documents, however, they're priceless.

Thank (or blame) frequent contributor windbag for the Teflon Cowchips!

New Wave Covers For Oldies Lovers - Part 1

My previous post featured kooky versions of punk classics, kind of the flip side of today's post:

During the upheaval of the late '70s/early '80s punk days, there was a real changing-of-the-guard feeling that led many groups of the time to cover classic oldies from the sacred rock 'n' roll canon in an irreverent (if not downright disrespectful) fashion. One of my recent obsessions is to to collect as many of these as I can find. Thank God(zilla) for this blog - this is now not just some obsessive/compulsive behavior - it's a blog post! I'm part of the New Media, not just a weirdo spending his free time making obscurely-themed cassette mix tapes! And the result: strange, funny, experimental, pop, sometimes just stoopid ridiculous, unpredictable wonderfulness - this stuff's more punk than punk.
New Wave Covers For Oldies Lovers: A MusicForManiacs Collection

01 flying lizards - sex machine
02 The Better Beatles - PennyLane
03 Devo - Secret Agent Man
04 Karel Fialka - People Are Strange05 Bauhaus - Telegram Sam
06 Silicon Teens - Memphis Tennessee
07 The Raincoats - Lola
Rolling Stones section:
08 David Bowie - Let's Spend the Night Together
09 Neonbabies - Jumpin' Jack Flash
10 Nash the Slash - 19th Nervous Breakdown
11 Polyphonic Size - Mothers Little Helper
12 Bakersfield Boogie Boys - Get off my cloud
13 The Residents - (Can't Get No) Satisfaction
14 B52s - Downtown
15 Klaus Nomi - The Twist (live)
16 Wall of Voodoo - Ring Of Fire (live)
17 Bakersfield Boogie Boys - Okie from Muskogee
18 The Dickies - Nights in White Satin
19 The Slits - Heard It Thru the Grapevine
20 Ebn Ozn - Rockin' Robin
21 Jah Wobble - Blueberry Hill
22 Drinking Electricity - Shaking All Over
23 Ronnie And The Rhythm Boys - Hey Joe


I'm pretty sure I got some of these tracks off of blogs like Egg City Radio and Mutant Sounds, so thanks to them, and whoever else needs to be thanked. Part two coming at ya soon.

MusicForManiacs Guest DJs On "Stray Pop"

Stella has been hosting the show "Stray Pop" on Los Angeles' KXLU for over 30 years, and has interviewed a who's-who of punk/alt rock royalty. So for my appearance last year, I brought up a passel of punk-related weirdness, e.g. lounge-y, and foreign/ethnic covers of punk classics, punk songs performed by children, animals "singing" death metal, and, yes, a song from "Pink Panther Punk" (an album I got from Way Out Junk). 75 minutes of such nonsense!

I had written out the whole playlist, with links, but Blogger "experienced technical difficulties" and I lost the whole damn post. I just can't write it all over again, I really can't. *sob* If, whilst listening, you don't quite catch my back-announcing and want more info on something I played, feel free to leave a comment (*shakes fist at sky*)

Mr Fab on Stray Pop

This happened back in August of last year, but took so long for me to post here cuz I had to wait to get a tape of the show from Stella and edit it 'n' stuff. Yes, a tape. Expect hiss and all that good stuff.

PYONGYANG ROCK CITY part 3

This is our third and final look (part one, part two) into the most impenetrable culture in the world - so impenetrable that even these three albums we're offering are just what they want you to hear. Who knows what's going on in the hinterlands.

Our man from kitschstortion who sent us this music from who-knows-where (I have no idea how to get North Korean music apart from actually going there) says about today's album: "All songs are versions of the unofficial North/South Korean national anthem "Arirang." Maybe so, but there's a lot of musical diversity here. Certainly doesn't sound like one song played over and over.

Korean Folk Songs - "Arirang"

1. Arirang [a ponderous waltz]
2. Yongchon Arirang [in 5/4 time]
3. Milyang Arirang [also in 5/4 time; you'd think unusual time signatures would be too decadently Western]
4. Arirang Echoed Through Jiansanfeng [cheezy disco; love those syn drums!]
5. Song of Arirang [another slow epic waltz until 4:40; then it mutates into crazy swing]
6. Chol Pass Arirang
7. Arirang of Army-People Unity [this rousing march - the sole male vox here - is what I expect Communist propaganda music to sound like]
8. Arirang of Happiness [happy indeed; this and the following songs are chirpy pop]
9. Arirang of Reunification
10. Arirang of Prosperity

If you're as fascinated by this strange, lost world as I am: "Here is another article regarding Pyongyang pop. Also, this youtube channel has a great deal of material shown on the DPRK television station (KCTV) in Pyongyang, including live performances, news reports, and... comedy shows. Note: the account holder is a DPRK apologist; there is a small and uneasily penetrated community of them online." Thanks again comrade, er, kitschstortion!

R.I.P. Wild Man Fischer

Damn, we've been losing too many strange/outsider greats lately - in the last six months or so, Captain Beefheart, Zoogz Rift, and now Larry "Wild Man" Fischer have died. Fischer was the paranoid schizophrenic Frank Zappa introduced to the world in the late '60s when he discovered Larry walking down the Sunset Strip hollering his songs at the top of his lungs. He was 66, way too young, but he had heart problems, and a difficult life.

Fun-To-Know Fact: Rhino Record's first ever release was a single of Fischer bellowing out acapella "Go to Rhino Records/on Westwood Boulevard!" Apparently he used to hang around the now-closed store all day. Would there have been a Rhino label without Fischer?

PCL Linkdump has a great post: links to the documentary about Fischer that came out a few years ago, and two whole albums for your downloading pleasure, including an early Zappa-era one, "An Evening With Wild Man Fischer", and one recorded with Smegma in 1975 when those infamous crazies were still in Pasadena in the Los Angeles area before they absconded to Oregon. When I first wrote about this post, I said that the Smegma album "features a fantastic 15 minute destruction of Gladys Knight & The Pips' "Midnight Train to Georgia."


Here's a Wild Man Fischer mashup by RIAA from the "Schizophonia Suite" EP:

Kill Your Merry Go Round: featuring Wild Man Fischer's "Merry Go Round" and "The Wild Man Fischer Story," Lou Reed "Kill Your Sons" (inspired by Reed's teenage shock therapy treatments); C Dott "Merry Go Round"

KUMBIA QUEERS

Kumbia Queers are an all-lesbian Latin American band that cover punk, New Wave, heavy metal, and pop classics in the style of Columbia's great gift to the musical world, cumbia. They change the lyrics to reflect their interests, e.g.: Madonna's "Isla Bonita" becomes "La Isla con Chicas" ("The Island of Girls") and Black Sabbath's "Iron Man" is now "Chica de Metal," that is: "Metal Girl" (or "Chick").

Punk classics. Cumbia style. With lesbian lyrics. Does it get any better?!

Well, it could get a little better. Over the course of the entire album, it's apparent that their singing is merely okay, and that they favor the same tempo throughout (some songs could use a little speeding up.) But when that "Iron Man" riff slams down, joined by Latin percussion and cheezy keyboards, all is forgiven.

Kumbia Queers "Kumbia Nena"

01 - Chica De Calendario
02 - Que No Quede GuÌeya (Grupo Bronco, a popular Mexican band)
03 - Kumbia Dark (The Cure "Love Song")
04 - El Veraneo
05 - Mis Botas (Nancy Sinatra)
06 - La Isla Con Chicas (Madonna)
07 - Chica De Metal (Black Sabbath)
08 - La China Es Cumbianchera (Ramones "Sheena Is A Punk Rocker")
09 - Kumbia Zombie

And I threw in a bonus track, this excellent mashup:

Kumbia Queers vs Beastie Boys - dj Guztavo

"I've Got To Do My Penis Thing": Mr Fab's Mania For Maniacs

I usually update this blog every few days. It's been weeks since my last post, but I think I've got a pretty good excuse: I was sick to the point of (temporary) (I hope) madness. Two trips to my doctors' office, two visits to the emergency room, a high fever that ran for weeks, delusions, hallucinations, fever dreams...welcome to hell, enjoy your ride!

This is going to sound like a joke or something, but I really was tortured one restless night by a reoccurring punchline made by comedy writer Andy Breckman on his WFMU radio show "7 Second Delay": "Is this going to be a long story?" I don't remember what the set-up to the joke was, but Breckman's voice delivering that line kept bouncing around my head like a pinball in a pinball machine. I know this sounds funny, but I thought I was going nuts. I was also tormented for what seemed like several days by a song from my daughter's favorite show, "Yo Gabba Gabba!" Excellent kiddie fare, but I couldn't get the song out of my head, even deliberately trying to replace it with another, more innocuous one by humming something else whenever the bad song came back.

Brian WIlson recorded the noise-fest "Mrs O'Learly's Cow" with the Beach Boys to replicate the sounds in his head (as he said) when he was on the verge of a mental collapse in 1966. This is an unreleased bootleg, which I prefer to the cleaner official version Wilson released on his "Smile" album from a few years back. I thought of this track often during my illness, knowing, if even for a brief period, what Wilson was going thru:

After taking medication for a headache that left me unable to sleep and clutching my head like a Joan Crawford melodrama, I suffered an allergic reaction that had me sticking out my tongue as far out as it could go. Painful, tho it probably looked kinda funny, like Gilligan after a witch-doctor put a curse on him. This was alternated with my jaw clenching down so tight I couldn't open my mouth, and had difficulty breathing. Which did not look funny. Scared the poop out of me and my wife.

At one point in the hospital I started taking off my pants. My wife asked what I was doing. I replied "I've got to do my penis thing," apparently referring to peeing in a cup for a urine test...which I had already done. Fortunately, Mrs Fab convinced me of this, and thus spared me from soiling the exam room. Once I was furiously pounding away at my iPad, then gave up my internet search. Mrs Fab saw that I had been searching for something like "zxcvcxznnx nxcvbmvcxcvv." Apparently, I couldn't find it. So I sternly asked her to tell me "the story of the sick boy." I also said to her at some point, "They're giving me three-to-one odds," and left it at that. And I repeatedly grasped at things that weren't there, then was surprised to find that I had been grasping at air. I swear I saw 'em...

This is what my wife told me, as I don't remember most of these episodes. I'd always thought of the mentally ill - those poor souls pushing shopping carts down the street, mumbling to themselves - and folks like me as being poles apart. It's pretty alarming, then, to find how quickly and easily I slid into a li'l bit o' madness. It's been over three weeks since it started and lemme tell you, am I glad to be here. I appreciate simple things like a good nights' sleep and eating solid foods. I'm not 100% percent, but, as the doctors never could come up with a diagnosis, I'm just assuming I'm getting better since my symptoms have largely disappeared.

This song Grant Hart wrote for Husker Du in 1984 for their classic "Zen Arcade" album came to mind on more than one occasion during this period: "What's going on...inside my head?!"

On the positive side, I've lost weight (The Amazing Mystery Illness Diet!) And I will one day return to blogging. See ya soon.

PYONGYANG ROCK CITY part 2

Part one of our attempt to penetrate the nearly-impenetrable culture of North Korea explored the "pop" songs of the World's Strangest Country. Today, we're getting all high-culture and whatnot, with one of the "Five Great Revolutionary Operas," "The Flower Girl."

The plot concerns a poor girl's attempt to deal with her evil landlord. Ghosts are, apparently, also involved. Supposedly written by North Korea's founder Kim Il-Jong, it was one of a series of operas "...intended to promote the communist ideology, by incorporating themes such as the class struggle against the bourgeois." Attention: cabaret singers! How catchy toe-tappers like "Covering 280 km Road after Leaving the Home Village" have not entered the standard showtune songbook, I do not know.

Mansudae Art Troupe: "The Flower Girl"

I guess I was expecting this to be more folkloric, like Chinese opera with it's clanging percussion and shrill vocals. It actually sounds pretty Broadway, all melodramatic string orchestrations and emotional music-theater vocals. Not nearly as relentlessly peppy as the pop songs. Goes down smooth, as good propaganda should.

Recently, She Walks Softly posted some amazing photos, and a link to a documentary shot surreptitiously in North Korea. Truly, some must-see viewing.

Thanks again to kitschstortion!