Beatles Arias

In 1966, opera singer Cathy Berberian recorded an album of Beatles covers, backed by classical arrangements.

Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to hell.

Cathy Berberian "Beatles Arias"

Regular readers of this blog will find this album frequently hilarious (love how she trills her Rs); otherwise, it can clear rooms. Berberian has extensive legit classical and avant-garde credentials - she was composer Luciano Berio's wife; John Cage wrote pieces for her. So it's not easy to dismiss this as another misguided record company Beatles rip-off. Maybe if I spoke European, I'd understand the interview included on this album which may reveal her motives.

1		Ticket To Ride
2		I Want To Hold Your Hand
3		Michelle
4		Eleanor Rigby
5		Yellow Submarine
6		Here, There And Everywhere
7		Help!
8		You've Got To Hide Your Love Away
9		Yesterday
10		Can't Buy Me Love
11		Girl
12		A Hard Day's Night 13 Interview
		Récitals
14		Introduction
15		Ticket To Ride
16		Yesterday Piano – Bruno Canino

Do Other Music Bloggers Get This Kind Of Mail?

"Hello:

Guinness World Record holder (for woman with the longest fingernails), The Dutchess, is breaking into the music industry. The multi-talented phenomenon has recently announced the debut of her rock single, “Phoenix" The song was released on YouTube earlier this summer and created a buzz..."

So sayeth her publicist. Which is why I couldn't go into publicity. The Python-esque results would have been something like:

The Dutchess: I want to be a singer.

Publicist: Okay. And what are your qualifications?

The Dutchess: I have the world's longest fingernails.

Publicist: I see...You know, if a record company is looking for singers, I doubt that the first thing they'll ask is, 'Does she have long fingernails?'

Her useless song features Miss ScaryNails' r'n'b vocal stylings over rock guitar. The video (which I bailed out on half-way thru) had me wondering: how does she do anything with those nails? It would be more interesting if they showed her going about her day, getting dressed, etc. Maybe I shoulda watched the whole video...

The Everyday Film: Festival of Emotions

One of the most enigmatic figures in music today, The Everyday Film, sent us their new "album" (11 songs in under 10 minutes) entitled "Festival of Emotions," and, on some tracks, this usually horrifying figure actually sounds like he/they might be in a somewhat better mood than usual. Maybe even in love, or some bizarre variation thereof. Elsewhere, it's the usual claustrophobic terror-tronics. A festival of emotions, indeed.

We have permission to post two tracks from it:

"The Bottom Of The World," only 39 seconds long:


"You, The Entrance; You, The Exit," an epic, at 1:39:

My Writing-Fu Skills Are No Match For This Album...

...because I'm at a loss as to how to describe it. It's great to encounter music that fits no known genre until you're the fumbling fool trying to review this 1993 release by German composer Helmut Neugebauer and his band Die Vogel Europas. But (*cracks knuckles*) here goes:

Mainly guitar and drums making a kind of fractured funk, like two Gang of Four records playing at the same time at 78 rpm...but with jazz sax that suggests a European Capt. Beefheart...er, more like a Raymond Scott/Carl Stalling cartoonish craziness...only with sampling and industrial-like sounds, but it's not industrial music, really....well, maybe in the Foetus sense, but it's kinda proggy, what with all the unusual time signatures and complex songwriting, only done more in the spirit of an exuberant Eastern European dance than some show-offy prog band...
I think I've embarrassed myself enough. But, hey, the Allmusic guy describes it as 'unclassifiable,' so there, it's not just me. He also says that "It's a classic and deserves to be heard by everybody."

Helmut Neugebauer & DIE VÖGEL EUROPAS - Short Stories


p.s.: Elliot Sharp plays on this album, I bet some of you have heard of him.

While My Pencilina Gently Weeps

"The pencilina is an electric board zither played primarily by striking the strings with sticks; also by plucking and bowing." And musical instrument inventor/singer-songwriter Bradford Reed is, so far as I know, the world's only performer on this nifty instrument. It's a credit to his songwriting that I didn't know anything about this instrument when I first heard his music - I just liked the song.

Of this 1996 album, the Brooklynite writes, "A strictly live pencilina album. For better or worse I used to have a very purist approach to recording- It must be live. A 50/50 split of instrumental and vocal tunes." Yup, no other instruments - just the one-man-band doing his eccentric thing. Songs range from slightly dissonant, possibly micro-tonal, plinkety-plunking, to actual catchy tunes. The slightly rough, unaffected singing makes Reed appear to be some sort of indie-rock Harry Partch.

Bradford Reed - "Live! At Home"

This album's going out of print, but he's got more for sale on his site. I recommend "Solo Live Songs" if, for no other reason, the excellent "She's A Rocket." And I can't believe I'm writing about someone from Brooklyn. I'm so trendy! Please forgive.

THE ENVELOPE PLEASE...

One month ago I posted a collection of artists who are making the world a more beautiful place by freely distributing songs or albums, and I asked you to vote for your favorite. Like "The X-Factor," only with good music. I might do this again, only for commercial releases, not freebies. Was one month not enough time? Anyway, the final tally is..(drumroll)...

Buttress O'Kneel - 12
Bloody Death Skull - 8
Oreaganomics - 2
Bivouac - 1
Jinnwoo - 1
Docteur Legume et Les Surfwerks - 1
all the others - no votes

Buttress O'Kneel is the winner! Take your bow, lady. Words like "mashup" and "remix" don't really do justice to Buttress O'Kneel's method - Top 40 pop crap gets sliced, diced, and tossed into a dizzying, exciting hardcore electro stew. Compared to other djs who timidly drop a Vanilla Ice acapella over a Chemical Bros instro just to move a dance floor, O'Kneel shreds copyrights with a blood-curdling vehemence. Smash the state!

Her 2000 album "Compact Scipppp" utilizes skipping CDs a la Oval to lovely effect, but after that, the kid gloves came off, and every album since then has employed the same break-core/sample attack. All her albums are free, and all are good. Dive in anywhere.

This is good timing, actually - she has a new album now out called Compop 14.6: Avant-Tarde: Tardcore that throws Bob Marley, Katy Perry, Black Sabbath, Queen and numerous others into the meat grinder, records their screams of agony, then mixes them with results ranging from toe-tappin' almost-pop to abstract glitch. Play loud.

Buttress O'Kneel - 11 albums

"We Love Bananas Because They Have No Bones"

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Debuting in the early 1930s, The Hoosier Hot Shots were one of the first, and best, novelty groups of the 78 rpm era, and if you can't figure out what they were like from such song titles as "From The Indies To The Andes In His Undies," well, pardner, there ain't much I can tell ya. Listen to me, talking like a hayseed - that's what listening to these guys will do to you. But despite their "rural" schtick, they were actually plenty sophisticated, essentially playing hot jazz with as much virtuosic flair as any fancy-pants big-city orchestra. Only funnier.

Their trademark sounds were a cartoon-ish slide whistle, klezmer-esque clarinet, superb multi-part vocal harmonies, and, quoth wiki, "...a strange, homemade instrument known both as the "Wabash Washboard" and "the Zither," played by Hezzie [Trietsch]. It consisted of a corrugated sheet metal washboard on a metal stand with various noisemakers attached, including bells and a multi-octave range of squeeze-type bicycle horns."

Hard to pick favorites, but can you really go wrong with a song called "We Love Bananas Because They Have No Bones"? And what happens to "Sioux City Sue" will interest the pain and bondage crowd. What must be a much later recording then their '30s/'40s heyday has them demolishing Elvis' "Hound Dog." Surprisingly, they play it straight on the sentimental ballad "Someday (You'll Want Me To Want You)." Tho it is pretty weird hearing the slide whistle try to make like a lonely sax solo.

Some saintly soul has prepared four short albums (10 songs apiece), w/a bonus ep of a few songs taken from YouTube vids. Albums (or just individual tracks) can be downloaded for free here:

HOOSIER HOT SHOTS

"This is the silliest music I've ever heard. A-"
- Robert Christgau

STAR TREK FAN BANDS: NOT NEARLY AS BAD AS ONE WOULD THINK

(Vote for "M4M Idol"! You've got 'til Oct. 6.)

A Klingon death-metal band. Just think about the sheer awesomeness of that concept.

"Trekkies 2" is a 2004 documentary about the most extreme 'Star Trek' fans, produced and hosted by, of all people, Bing's granddaughter Denise Crosby. The soundtrack album features some funny bits of dialogue from the film, a few soundtrack cues, and lots of entertaining fan songs. Somehow Fred Schneider of the B52s ended up on here as well. Maybe he's a Trekkie? Wouldn't be too surprising.

As for the musical acts, who pretty much only perform at 'Trek'/sci-fi conventions, Warp 11 are quite good in that Descendants/Bad Religion/Green Day-style of melodic punk. "Everything I Do, I Do With William Shatner" really is as good as it's title. No Kill I: The Next Generation (yep, that's the band's name) make a great Devo-ish New Wave ruckus. Ash Productions are two charming teenage girls. Reminding us of Trek fan history, Leslie Fish does it old school: a solo acoustic "filk" (sci-fi folk) tune. And then there's death-metalers Stovokor, who not only dress up as Klingons, but they sing in the Klingon language.And if you ain't down with that, well, pally, you have landed on the wrong blog.

I don't know much about 'Trek" beyond watching the original series ("TOS" in Trek talk) as a kid, but it's inside nature is what I like about this stuff. Fan music, like song-poems, make me realize how generic most music is. Frank Sinatra couldn't have sang about "Star Trek" (or what his favorite color is, or who he supported for President) because he had a general audience, so we just got lots of love songs since, presumably, that's a human universal. So it's fascinating to me to hear people singing passionately about something very specific. They can only exist in the rarefied world of fellow fans, or, in the case of song-poems, they just put out tiny pressings of private recordings. They don't have to worry about what the music biz (even the "indie" end of it) thinks.

Trekkies 2 The Official Soundtrack

1. Since I Was Zero - Denise Crosby 2. Beam Me Up - Fred Schneider 3. The Worst Time To Call - Gabriel Koener 4. Italy Theme - Billy Sullivan 5. Channeling Roddenberry - Karl Miller 6. Red Alert - Warp 11 7. A Girl Came - Brian Dellis 8. Everything I Do, I Do With William Shatner - Warp 11 9. We're Niners - Michael Leon 10. Boldly Going - No Kill I: Deep Space Nine 11. Extremities - Gabriel Koemer 12. Vulcan Mind-Meld - No Kill I: Deep Space Nine 13. Low Frequencies - Jason Lewis 14. For The Glory Of Qo'nos - Stovokor 15. Klingon Santa Claus - Denise Crosby 16. Life In Exile - Stovokor 17. My Rank Is Commander - Renee Morrison 18. Arkansas Theme - J.J. Holiday 19. Ever Hear Of Filking? - Denise Crosby 20. The Expendable Guy (Live) - Ash Productions 21. A Typo - Kathleen Sloan 22. Banned From Argo (Live) - Leslie Fish And Friends 23. What's Normal - Dave Smith 24. No Kill I Theme Song (Live) - No Kill I 25. Auk - Jean Whitehead 26. Tranya (Live) - No Kill I 27. Remain Calm - Allen Maxwell 28. Data And The Beta (Live) - No Kill I: The Next Generation 29. Starbase Dentist - Denise Crosby 30. We Are The Borg (Live) - No Kill I: The Next Generation 31. It's Just Good - Jon Garrison 32. Germany Theme - Billy Sullivan 33. Ethan's Aliens - Ethan Philips 34. Beam Me Up (Instrumental Reprise) - Fred Schneider 35. Lame Reality - Ward Young

"Get some haircuts on your kids! Teach 'em some decent music!"

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This nearly hour-long sermon starts off nicely enough, before we get to juicy quotes concerning: dirty stinkin' hippie beatniks! The Communist conspiracy! 15 minutes in we get to hatin' on The Beatles and rock music. "DIRTY FILTHY VILE ROCK FESTIVALS...are bent on destroying America." Hey, botanists! We learn about how rock music kills plants - it's been scientifically proven! He recites almost all the lyrics to "Back in the USSR" and "White Rabbit" ("Feed your head! Feed your head!"). He pronounces Bob Dylan's name "Bobby DIE-lin" and Phil Ochs "Phil Oh-cha," and screams about LSD. First time I've heard a preacher quoting Frank Zappa.

Communism did fall - clearly it was no match for Pastor Jack's awesomeness. Sound collagists/mashup producers...start your samplers!

sermon by Pastor Jack Hyles

His "Satan's music" page has lotsa good readin': "The Jonas Brothers—Satanic to the Core!!!," "Country Music Television (CMT) is of the Devil," and "Miley Cyrus' Supports Immoral Rights, Corrupts the Bible, and Works to Destroy America!"

(Long hair and sandals are evil? Isn't that how Jesus dressed? Damn hippie liberal...)

God bless windy for the tip.

Mexican Water Jug/Soda Bottle Folk Instruments

(Vote for "M4M Idol"! You've got 'til Oct. 6.)

A welcome recent trend in Mexican and Mexican/American music is playing instruments made out of recycled garbage. Apart from looking real cool and producing new sounds, it's another example of the resourcefulness of low income people (see also The Congo's Konono No.1, and Staff Benda Bilili.) So far as I know, there haven't been any recordings of this stuff yet, but there are a few YouTube vids featuring the Sparkletts bottle/garden hose (or PVC pipe) "tuba" and plastic 2 liter soda bottle "trumpets." I say "so far as I know" because the comments are all in Spanish and I'm just not bilingual enough to understand it all, e.g.: are there any recordings featuring these instruments? And the last video demonstrates how to make a water jug tuba - can anyone out there translate it for me? I want! Muchas grassy-ass.

First up, the border style known as norteña music. The flatulent sound of this tuba makes me laff!:



Slightly better sound quality on this tune; note the European polka beat, the mark of the norteña (Northern) style, aka Tex-Mex:



South of the border for some Coke bottle mariachi:



Judging by other videos, it seems pretty basic: garden hose or pipe, connects to bottle (e.g.: 12 oz soda bottle), connects to big jug. But - que? - this vid makes it seem more complicated:

Pierre Bastien's Musiques Machinales

It's a "Two-For-Tuesday"! On Wednesday! Here are two absolutely spellbinding albums by French composer Pierre Bastien, who, since childhood, has been fascinated with the idea of incorporating machines into music. His first experiment was with a spoon attached to a metronome striking a pan. Since then he has come far indeed, constructing Erector Set-like rockin' robots, and on his "Mecanoid" album, brilliantly incorporating (non-hip hop) turntablism. Over the repetitious rhythms of his machines he often blows cool Miles-like jazz horn. The results, on his "Musiques Machinales" album, range from the Steve Reich-like minimalism of "Chez Les Crânes" to "Marchin' Band," reminiscent of "Rain Dogs"-era Tom Waits. Scratchy fiddle and, on at least one song, what sounds like a musical saw also feature in his cabinet of curiosities. Like Frank Pahl and the Scavenger Quartet's "We Who Live On Land", gorgeous melodies such as the one on "Vipers" from "Musiques Machinales" sell these obtuse ideas. Magical. 

PIERRE BASTIEN "Musiques Machinales"

PIERRE BASTIEN "Mecanoid"

Camp Records Was Totally Gay

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The Queer Music Heritage site sez: "Almost nothing is known about the mysterious 60's record label Camp Records. They released an album and ten 45 rpm records of gay parody songs, most done with effeminate voices. I believe they were issued in the early 60's, as they all appeared in an ad in the gay magazine Vagabond, dated 1965... The artists singing most of the songs were uncredited, or with names obviously made up, like Byrd E. Bath and B. Bubba, but one name stands out, Rodney Dangerfield...This would have been very early in Dangerfield's career, as his website bio says he decided to devote his career to comedy at age 40, which would have been in 1961. But I don't think it was the comedian we know..."

This is not only funny stuff, a must for novelty music fans, but a peek into an underground world all but unknown to mainstream society at the time. Hard to believe now in this age of RuPaul, but this type of music was extremely rare - it was practically illegal. "The Queen is in the Closet" album often takes familiar public-domain melodies and sets new lyrics to them, e.g. "A Naughty-cal Tale" is based on the old sea chanty "What Do You Do With A Drunken Soldier." The 45s sometimes get into rock 'n 'roll territory. "Homer The Happy Little Homo"? "Stanley the Manly Transvestite"? What are you waiting for, you silly savages? They're all free for your downloading pleasure at this fabulous site here:

Camp Records

Don't forget to scroll to the very bottom of the page for a more recent (1980) single. I've known about this site for a while (thanks to Spacebrother Greg) but was reminded about it after recently reading John Rechy's classic autobiographical novel "City Of Night," which deals with the same underworld of hustlers and drag queens. It was a surprise best seller in the early '60s, pulling the lid off the scene, and tho some of it hardly seems shocking to modern sensibilities, it's still pretty fascinating. Rechy's genuine experiences invest the book with an authenticity that will make reader feel thoroughly familiar with this world by the end of the book. The next step in your low-life lit journey, after you've absorbed Chandler, Bukowski, et. al.

PRANKSTA PRANKSTA

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It's not about the salary, it's all about hilarity. First up, a video sent to us from reader Pseudonym Smith: "It's economics as rapped by Keynes and Hayek, and I now know everything I ever will about their ideas." Ha, yeah, me too. Listening to debating economists is like an atheist listening to a debate between a Christian and a Muslim. I'll admit that these guys do have mad flow. But are they as good as Red Shadow, The Economics Rock 'n 'Roll Band?



I was surprised to learn that there are two "chap-hop" rappers coming str8 outta England, takin' ya back to the '80s - the 1880s, that is. Last year we covered Mr. B The Gentleman Rhymer, now dig Professor Elemental. His album "The Indifference Engine" features the dis rap "Fighting Trousers," but gentlemen, please, there's no need to fight - tho they have different styles (Elemental is more of a Jules Verne adventurer-type than Mr. B's Bertie Wooster sort) they both share a love of manly mustaches, drinking tea, and sampling old 78 rpm records. Anyone who can bust rhymes over Slim Gaillard's "Flat Foot Floogie (With a Floy Floy)" (on the excellent "A Fete Worse Than Death") is a right def emcee, eh, what? I would start with the song "Penny Dreadful," as it serves as a jolly good introduction to our man.

Professor Elemental "The Indifference Engine" - listen to it streaming for free, or buy.

The Rappers Delight Club are, indeed, a delight - from their MySpazz page: "This is a musical side project for a rotating group of [Baltimore] elementary school children that I work with. This is probably the best thing you'll ever hear [True dat]...This project comes out of a "typical" daycare program. Every month we do different clubs, and the Rapper's Delight Club is just one club that I do every year...We've just finished a new track, "I Don't Wanna Grow Up...Yet", that uses Tom Waits' "I Don't Wanna Grow Up." He also thanks bands like No Age and Yo La Tengo for providing music. The kids are most definitely all right.

I have come to really hate the painful ordeal of flying, but this dope rapping flight attendant would make it easier. It's an acapella - any mashup producers want to use it? Maybe with "Leaving on A Jet Plane"?

"NOTHING QUITE PREPARED ME FOR GROUND ZERO"

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You maybe getting 9/11 fatigue right around now, and those bad tribute songs I wrote about last year won't help, but this rousing musical theater-style song should pick you right up - after all, it's by a singing telegram guy. As his website says, it's his job to make people happy ("Ask about our special Neil Diamond tribute.")

The song starts playing automatically once you click on this page (AND you can read/sing along with the printed lyrics):

Kerry Prep - "Ground Zero"

And how 'bout that Burger King ad, eh? Even more tasteless than their fries. Thanks to IVOR for the tip.

Vote For M4M Idol!!

Don't you wish all of those "[name of country] Idol"/"X Factor"-type shows had good music? Well, now here's your chance to be Simon Bowel (pictured left, on toast) - vote for any of the artists featured on this sampler of home-brew recordings. Most of these acts wrote to me asking for a review of their work, but, goshdurn it, I just don't have the time. Forgive me, bedroom maestros of the world.
But these are all FREE releases, so if you like the sampler tunes, there's often whole albums for you to download. It's really good stuff. I wouldn't subject you-all to anything I didn't genuinely enjoy, so it's gonna be a tough call. A real horse race.

How do you vote? Simply listen to the "M4M Idol" collection i posted below and then leave a comment stating who's your favorite artist of the bunch. The winning artist will get a full-length review (woo-hoo!) in a future M4M post. Yeah, I know...sorry I don't have any valuable cash prizes/record deals to offer the winners, but hey, I get hundreds (sometimes thousands) of eyeballs on this blog each day, so they are getting some exposure.

Musically, it's quite a variety show: lo-fi outsiderness, postpunk prog, campy surf, subversive sound collage, Afro grooviness, ambient/noise soundscapes, twisted electronica, some strange things resembling catchy pop songs. And then there's Jinnwoo's "Sorry Song" which "...was written as an apology from myself to the world for being such a bad and horrible creature...I recorded the piece naked, and in the rain." What would Paula Abdul think?

M4M Idol

1. Bloody Death Skull - I Miss My Homeland 2. Future's Lament 3. Holding Hands
4. Buttress O'Kneel - Exhibit W 5. Buttress O'Kneel - Darkness
6. Cutthroat convention - Warui Neko 7. Cutthroat convention - Parasite's Paradise
8. Death to the Brutes - Death Set 9. Death to the Brutes - No Love, No Ecstasy
10. Docteur Legume et Les Surfwerks - Phibes and Vulnavia, Just Married! 11. Die 1000 Wellen Das Dr Mabuse
12. Jinnwoo - Sorry Song
13. Marc Broude - For the Flies
14. Mike Colin - Fish Bulb 15. Mike Colin - The Future is Not Written
16. Moebius II - Innerstate '94 17. Moebius II - Magic Mirror
18. oreaganomics - Fallin Out Of Buildings Fallin In Love 19. Create Something to Love
20. Pompey - Bivouac Sack 21. Pompey - Candle
22. Sam Simmons - Midge
23. Skinjobs - Money in the Bank Vs. Money in the Pocket 24. Skinjobs - Sunshine

Remember, you can't complain about who won if you didn't vote!

K9 FUSION

A few years ago, I was picking up one of our dogs from the groomers, and spied a display of CDs credited to K9 Fusion. The back cover said, "10 1/2 year old mixbreed, Sven the Love Dog, plays each and every instrument on his debut album. The only exception is the drums, which are played by Sven's owner Steve Brooks. Every intense vocalization is produced by Sven, or one of his canine friends...face it, this Dog's the SHIH TZU! Enhanced CD contains a video of the making of K9 Fusion. See for yourself as Sven pounds the piano, claw-picks his guitar, and gnashes his teeth on bass strings with the ferocity of Hendrix himself." Of COURSE I bought one.

The "album" is actually only 13 minutes. The drums basically hold it down, with random plunking, plucking, and growling on top, giving it a canine free-jazz feel. Some sounds have obviously been sampled and looped to make it more "musical." My fave track "Dirty Dog Love" sports a sweet funky bass groove. Obviously it's been looped, but I find it hard to believe that a dog could come up with something like this even once. Hmmm...

Song titles include: "Sing Along With Bitch," "Snot: An Interlude," and "Star Spaniel Banner." I don't think the track "Pants" has anything to do with trousers - it's 7 seconds of a dog panting.

K9 Fusion - "Who Really Loves You"

"I WANT TO PLAY ON THAT GAYWAY..." - POSTCARD RECORDS FROM THE 1962 SEATTLE WORLD'S FAIR

"It's a postcard!"
"No, it's not. It's a record! Lemme play it"
"No, it's a postcard! I wanna mail it!"
(removing pipe:)
"Hold on kids, you're both right - these 6 postcards we bought at the World's Fair can also be enjoyed on any record-player."
"Gee, dad, that's swell!"
(Dad goes back to his pipe, nodding and smiling)
Despite the ridiculous amount of music I have, I'm not really a "collector." I'm more like a bottom-feeder, buying the stuff no-one else wants. But, while visiting Seattle some years back, I really did have to pry open my wallet and shell out $50 or so for these lovely postcard/records. It was so worth it - all six were in mint condition, never played, and they look and sound great. The artists were probably Seattle locals. I found some info on The Frantics and Frank Sugia, but as for the others, they apparently never made the national scene, or even other recordings.

This fascinating article describes some of the literally hundreds of songs written about the Space Age extravaganza known as the "Century 21" World's Fair of 1962, but I couldn't find many. Only two, to be exact, included here as bonus tracks, courtesy of the "I'm Learning To Share" and "Beware of the Blog" blogs. I've also added a song from the soundtrack to an Elvis film shot on location at the fair. (Of course, strange music fans know and love Attilio Mineo's "Man In Space With Sounds" LP, but many other blogs have already posted it.) So this is all I got so far, but it is, to quote Joe Juma, "an acme of delight."

Seattle World's Fair 1962













01 "Invitation To The Fair" - Joe Juma (a country stomper)
02 "World's Fair Seattle" - Billy Earles (Man, dig this finger-snappin' lounge crooner)
03 "Summer of '62 - Ronnie Draper and the Fordomatics (frantic banjo-driven hoedown with those white-bread folk-revival vocal harmonies)
04 "Cafe in The Sky" - Kelly Gates (Space-Age organ sounds? Now we're talkin'!)
05 "Gayway Twist" - the Frantics (this rock'n'roller is an instrumental, which, considering the title, is perhaps just as well)
06 "Come and See Seattle" - Frank Sugia Trio & Naomi (an accordion waltz for the Lawrence Welk crowd - Sugia seems to have had a fairly successful musical career, releasing an album in 1967)

bonus tracks:
Elvis Presley - "Take Me To The Fair"
Joy and the Boys - "Meet Me In Seattle"
The Lancers - "See You In Seattle"

Manic Hispanic

I love Manic Hispanic, and their Chicano parodies of punk rock classics, a la El Vez and his Mexican-ized take on Elvis. But then again, I grew up in Los Angeles surrounded by Mexican American culture. And I grew up on punk rock (some of these guys played in crucial SoCal hardcore bands like Agent Orange and the Adolescents.) So I get the jokes. You may not. But, if nothing else, this rocks, and musical pleasures are good enough.

Manic Hispanic "The Recline of Mexican Civilization" (2001)

1. Alberto's [Descendents "Der Wienerschnitzel"]
2. Mexican Tar [Johnny Thunders/Ramones "Chinese Rock"]
3. Get Them Immigrated [The Offspring "Come Out and Play"] - nice mariachi horns!
4. Uncle Chato's Garden [Bad Religion "My Atomic Garden"]
5. Brown Man in O.C. Jail [The Clash "White man in Hammersmith Palais"]
6. If the Vatos Are United [Sham 69 "If The Kids Are United"]
7. Mommy's Little Cholo [Social Distortion "Mommy's Little Monster"]
8. Bored With You Esse [The Clash "I'm So Bored With The USA"]
9. Rudy Cholo [Rancid "Ruby Soho"]
10. Lynch the Landlord [Dead Kennedys "Let's Lynch the Landlord"]
11. Brown Girl [X "White Girl"]
12. Tijuana Must Fall [Catholic Discipline "Babylon Must Fall"]

The Invented Thing Quartet

"Invented Thing Quartet...play a variety of junk, cast off and hand-me-down derived , homely, home-made instruments, noise makers, toys, tools and appliances, (with an occasional standard instrument thrown in now and then)...The band explores, interprets and performs original and cover melodies, tunes, songs, poems, stories, course thesis's, drawings, compositions, recipes and summonses on instruments which include the Lid, Plexolyn, 40-Love, Cyclodrone, Merlenspiel, Harpbladder, Tabla, Rake, Adriolian, Blender, Bad Thing, Calimba, Alligator, Short Wave, The Hinge. Various forms of ITQ have appeared at clubs, colleges, institutions, parks, museums, town halls, homes and galleries, lawns and gardens." Tho I don't know if they play anywhere outside of their native Massachusetts - I would imagine that the visual aspect of their shows must be pretty impressive.

Highlights: a devolved version of "Louie Louie" not unlike "Third Reich 'n Roll"-era Residents, and a hillbilly hoedown version (with Space Age sounds effects) of Laurie Anderson's "O Superman."

Lowlights: lo-fi sound (it's recorded live), but don't let that deter you from listening to these imaginative loonies.
The Invented Thing Quartet - "10 Years"

More info on some of their home-made instruments HERE.

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]