OUTSIDER MUSIC : ART OR EXPLOITATION?

I received an interesting comment on the John North Wright post, and, as it is not the first such comment we've received here, I thought I'd not just let it hide as a post comment, but turn it into a post of it's own, as I believe the commenter probably speaks for many, and I'm sure some of you would like to chime in as well.

radioman said: "I can see the appeal of this kind of stuff, yet, at the same time, it feels almost as if one is back in the 1700s, laughing at the inmates in the asylum. In some respects, that guilty feeling is ameliorated by knowing that, since he's dead, he isn't aware that we're poking sticks though the bars of his cage.

Keep up the good work. Sort of."

I responded: "Hi radioman, I understand your ambivalence towards this kind of outsider music, but I, and plenty of other readers of this blog, really, genuinely appreciate the honest nature of this kind of music - it challenges the idea that "real" music (music suitable for review/criticism) is only made by professionals who are often only interested in making it in showbiz, becoming stars, glorifying their egos, etc. As opposed to the likes of Wright who appear to have more pure motives. As Lee Ashcroft wrote in the Bernie Sizzey post, they make music because they HAVE to.

Sure, there may be a freak-show aspect, but it's deeper than that - I find it fascinating to peak into the brains of those who are otherwise invisible to our homogenous culture. Also: These people have often been lonely and alienated throughout their lives, and it means a lot to them to have people finally listening to them.

Hearing someone come from out of left field and approach music from a completely fresh, unaffected perspective can be a delight, in contrast to the predictability of "normal" music, even in the so-called alternative world. There's no denying that it can be a little disturbing at times, but it can also humanize the kind of people we might otherwise turn away from.

That's a lot to chew on, ultimately making it all a lot more rewarding than tossing another coin into Lady Gaga's bank account."

Thanks to radioman for forcing me to sit down and spell out the philosophy of this here web-log!

HELLVIS

Amy Beth is an Elvis impersonator who sounds NOTHING like Elvis. She does, however, make a great cat-being-run-over-by-a-steamroller impersonator. And if she does indeed have her own band, they do a great impression themselves - of cheezy drum-machine karaoke backing tracks. "Heartbreak Hotel" like you've never heard it before. You've been warned:



My ears, my ears! Hey masochists, buy a whole album of this stuff. What, you want more?!? Here's a dog of a "Hound Dog," complete with canine noises:



Don't blame me! *points finger at windy*

"America's Most Unsophisticated Band!"

UPDATE 2/2/12: I removed the "Turkey In The Straw" video and replaced it with "Colonel Corn" because it's not only better, it's really just totally great.*

Freddie Fisher & The Schnickelfritz Band were a fun, nutty novelty band from the 1930s, pre-dating Spike Jone's debut in 1942, and if their music has a familiar sound to readers of this blog, they should - most of the members left band leader Fisher and formed the Korn Kobblers. A nice person has posted an album of Fisher & Co. songs of wildly-varying sound quality, but hey, it's free, so who can complain? Gonna have to find an album by these guys. For further study...

Freddie Fisher & The Schnickelfritz Band


Colonel Corn-Freddie Fisher by redhotjazz

*"really just totally great" - how's that for good writing? Pulitzer Prize, here I come!

The Crumbling AntiMusic of BuboTucoTumbo

Bubo, Tuco & Tumbo are one and the same, making inexplicable instrumental (with vocal gibberish) thoroughly obscure music that is by turns, annoying, fascinating, grating, compelling, always highly original, and frequently rewarding. They exist in that rarefied world of abstract esotericists like Zoviet France, or Nurse With Wound.

I literally have no idea how most of this music was made. It's not jazz, tho it sounds improvised at times, and doesn't sound especially electronic - there's an organic hands-on feel to these steadly-thumping rhythms that just go shambling on along like some Rube Goldberg device (perhaps machines were used?) as all manner of hard-to-identify mystery sounds create dense, odd textures; it's self-described as "Totally Free - SoundAndFormDeconstructor -CrumblingAntiMusic."

It's a hugely prolific project - when I was first contacted, 12 releases were up and I see some more have been added, but much of it is of a visual nature. And like our old pal The Everyday Film, I've been given not a shred of explanation or biographical information. When I asked, they replied:

-You should create your own opinion about these lines.
It's better if you first listen to all the albums.

-I have no web space other than mail.
Bubo/Tuco/Tumbo is my temporary project.
I am a painter; took a long break away from other projects earlier this year and devoted some time to creative areas in which I have no natural talents, skills or knowledge.

Material that arrived to you, was created between March and August 2011.

-Bubo/Tuco/Tumbo is only the soundscape for an art catalog which is now nearing completion and will be totally free, just like Bubo/Tuco/Tumbo vibrations – this material is in no way intended for marketing but is meant as collective property.

-BuboTucoTumbo of Humal/Animan Collective

All free downloads, all available here:

BUBO - TUCO - TUMBO

The first batch:
I started with album #1 and wasn't sure if I'd continue - it's mostly in the Hafler Trio/Derek Bailey school of plunk-and-scrape improv that doesn't do much for me. But the final 3 tracks really got me, and I continued to find some really good stuff scattered throughout, e.g.: "Reverberatordog" on album #5; the first couple tracks on #6, an album that features lots of amusing jibbering/chattering; and what are those sounds on #7: porn on one track? Monkeys on another? It all makes the Residents sound like Air Supply. "APOPHENIANIMALS" on #8 is really good, tho it doesn't need to be 19 minutes long.

#9 is called "THE BEST OF TUCO," and they ain't kidding. The whole thing's pretty solid - start with this one.

The second batch (all album titles named after lines from "The Good The Bad & The Ugly" for some reason):
"TUCO -1- A" is a pretty interesting album, tho I can't tell if it's on-line anymore. It, like, "TUCO -1-B" feature some atonal Jandek-like guitar thrumming (I like tracks # 134 and 139). Much of "TUCO - 2 - A" sounds like hitting guitar strings with drumsticks, except for the last track, the ghostly disembodied voices of track # 152. And since that album also seems to be off right now, check it out in all it's 15-minute glory:

TUCO -2- B starts with industrial drones and silences, ends with string instrument scraping. I like #156. "TUCO -3- B" is nothing but noise tracks, all exactly 1:15 long. Didn't like.

That's as far as I've got. Along with some lovely artwork, they've added some new albums since - anyone want to check 'em out and leave a comment? Color me intrigued...

John North Wright is STILL Outasight

As I wrote back in '06: In 1995, The Phoeniz (AZ) New Times received a demo tape from one John North Wright. The tape began with the growly voice of a middle-to-senior aged man announcing, ""Hi, I'm John Wright. Uh . . . all these songs are copyrighted 1985, words and music by myself. Uh, conceptually, they form the songs for a, uh, rock video opera I have written in my mind. It's set mostly in Hawaii and the Orient. It's called Teenage Volleyballers." What follows is an interminable tuneless guitar & voice meditation on, yup, teenage volleyballers, with little to say about them except that they're "out of sight."...Obsolete slang, hilariously inept music, and a generally creepy pedophile-ish aura all come to together to create the stuff of outside-music legend.

John North Wright Soundcloud page

Wright was an anti-Semetic paranoid conspiracy-theorist and Dylan-influenced singer songwriter (tho he blamed Dylan for telepathically stealing his woman) from Port Huron, MI (he pronounced it "Port Urine") and left this world back in '04, but thanks to the good people at Hott Lava, 15 songs (and possibly more to come) are now up for free listen/download. All the old 'hits' are featured, like "Teenage Volleyballers" and "Down In The Land Of Evil" which, as I wrote in a Wright update, has something to do with Satan's, er, "schlong." Some great new tracks have been added - "I'm On Medication" really is as good as its title. Outsider essentials.


I'm On Medication by johnnorthwright

The Musicalness of Dan Ellsey

Hyperscore is software originally intended by its creators at MIT's Media Lab as a toy for children - they would draw and paint on the monitor and music would result. But then Media Lab's Tod Machover introduced it to disabled folks like one Mr. Dan Ellsey of Boston.

Quoth this LA Times article: "Born with cerebral palsy and unable to speak, he (Ellsey) was forced to communicate with a clumsy headset that pointed to letters to spell out words. He had little control of his body movements. He was in his early 30s, had never been more than five miles from where he was born and seemed doomed to spend a cocooned life in the hospital.

The Media Lab scientists designed a more refined headset for Ellsey that not only inspired him to compose (he turned out to have interesting musical ideas) but even allowed him to perform by controlling tempo, loudness and articulation. He blossomed, and Ellsey, while still a severely affected cerebral palsy patient, has become an active participant in the Hyperscore program, performing, making CDs and teaching other patients."

You can listen/buy his album "Masterpiece," featuring such interesting song titles as "My Musicalness" and "Our Musically":

HERE

So what's it sound like? Like instrumentals using synthetic versions of familiar sounds (strings, piano, drums) in unfamiliar ways - it all sounds a little off-kilter, like a drunken jazz band playing songs that unexpectedly lurch from part to part, then stopping in their tracks to repeat a passage over and over - not in a Minimalism sense, more in the needle-stuck-in-groove sense. The un-relaxing song "Relaxation" has an insistent snare drum relentlessly pounding away irregular rhythms. My fave on the brief (17 minute) collection is the accurately-named "Thrilling Trills." Music of no known genre.

DEB DOES KENTUCKY

Had a request from a reader in Morocco (!) for a few albums originally hosted by the late, great site Bellybongo. Tho I don't have albums by Lynn Rockwell or The Trilogy (anyone?), I am glad I had this little wonder. Deb Hyer played ramshackle one-man-band versions of late '60s/'70s easy-listening hits on garage-y guitar, sleazy electric organ, and one-note duck-quack sax. And then there's his singing - he may have been from Kentucky, but his sense of pitch was all over the map.
Actually, the crude arrangements really improve the sappy nature of these songs, bringing them somewhere in between the punk raunch of The Modern Lovers or ? & The Mysterians, and the outsider chaos of The Shaggs. On "Bridge Over Trouble Water," however, it all just completely collapses. "Pain is all around"? He ain't kidding!

Comments to the Unusual Kentucky blog tell us that Hyer was a prolific lounge entertainer in his day, and he recorded another album called (gulp) "Nashville Streaker." Tho we still don't know why he was named 'Deb.'
Deb Hyer "One Man Band "

1. One Man Band
2. If I Had a Million
3. Too Late To Turn Back Now
4. Baby Dont Get Hooked on Me
5. Proud Mary
6. till I Meet You
7. I Believe In Music
8. Bridge Over Troubled Water
9. Joy To the World
10. Rock and Roll Lullaby
11. Someday
12. Help Me Make It Through the Night

(ALMOST) 2 HOURS OF MUSICAL ECSTASY!

TAKE NOTE! Update your address books, because in a month or so, my only email address will be:

mrfab3@hotmail.com

Yep, hotmail - the first email address I ever got, back in the 1900s. Remember the days? Horse-drawn wagons...gals in bonnets...barn dances...how we got those barns to dance I'll never understand (boom-tish!). Anyway, I'm getting rid of hosting my own bandwidth - everything's blogspot, mediafire and divshare from now on. Will save me plenty of $, so if there's anything you want to download from the old days, do it now. Otherwise, write me/leave a comment, and I'll re-up on divshare or sumthin.
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Last week was my 6th appearance (I counted!) guest dj-ing on legendary weird-ologist Greg Bishop's show Radio Misterioso, and Greg thinks it might be the strangest one yet. He has posted it for your listening/downloading pleasure:

Music For Maniacs on Radio Misterioso

"Plan Nine From Outer Space" intro

talk

EJH (Electronic Jew’s Harp) "Skyer" [thanks to Rich from Kill Ugly Radio]
David Leibe Hart "Ring Out The New Year" [from new Best Of cassette]
Stock Hausen & Walkman "Index"
Jean-Jacques Perrey "Crazy Crow & Daffyduck"
Mel Blanc "Daffy Duck's Rhapsody"
Mel Blanc "Daffy Duck drug PSA"
Bernie Sizzey (Solitaire) "Smokin' and Trippin' Song"
"The Hippie Revolt" film ad
Ben Colder "The Love-In"
Lothar & The Hand People "L-O-V-E (Ask For it By Name)"
Rascal Reporters "Freaks Obscure"
Lalo Schifren "Be Happy Again (Jingle of the Future)"
Longmont Potion Castle "Rec Center"
The Korn Kobblers "The Light Turned Red"
Duangdao Mondara & Chailai "Muhammad Ali (Black Superman)"

talk

"Space is So Startling" (original London cast recording): "Sleep on! /Millions of years ago /Why worry? /It would help a lot to squat"
Twink The Toy Piano Band "Tough Cookie"
Messer Chups "Voodoo Man"
The Spotniks "Rocket Man" [see the video we were talking about HERE]
William Shatner "Rocket Man" [not the well-known video version, but a new studio remake]
"Space is So Startling": "The world can be one family/Space is So Startling"
Bill Cosby "Sgt. Peppers Lonely Hearts Club Band"
Ted Mazio Percussion Group "I Didn't Know What Time It Was"
D.A.F. "Die Fesche Lola"
Shoji Tabuchi "Orange Blossom Special"
King Kennytone & His Top Toppers "Sussy Twist"
Bogard Brothers "I'm In Love"
The Hathaway Family Plot "Means of Production"
Ace of Clubs "Rehab Dem Bones" [Amy Winehouse vs Herman Munster mashup]
David Leibe Hart "That Girl" [previously unreleased tune from new Best Of cassette]
Department of Crooks "Plan Nine From Las Vegas"
Hoosier Hot Shots "Etiquette Blues"

talk


"Thank you for your very kind attention."

Bernie Sizzey: Music For Shock Treament Lounges

Today's post is a big one, but this is a big discovery: a prolific outsider artists' complete works now available for free download. Meet Bernie Sizzey (aka Bernie aka Solitaire): mental patient, transvestite, drug user, coprophiliac, and, more importantly, singer/guitarist/keyboardist/ lo-fi home recorder and songwriter for 30 years now of everything from instrumental ambient space-rock, to unrepentant lysergic trip-outs, to confessional ballads detailing his life in catchy, upbeat songs that are never feeling sorry for themselves. He hasn't been dealt the best hand in life, but you won't hear him complain. (Well, unless maybe he runs out of pot.)

He was discovered by electronic/experimental musician Lee Ashcroft, whom some of you mashup fans may remember as "Mixomatosis." Lee writes:

"I have my friends at Colchester Arts Centre to thank for introducing me to Bernie's world. It was 2005, years before I'd heard the term "outsider music", and I went to see Matt Elliott from Third Eye Foundation live. Leaving the venue I walked past a table full of hand-made CD-Rs. Stained by tobacco and cannabis smoke and leaves, they each bore the name Bernie Sizzey. Bernie was nowhere to be seen but, after being told the Arts Centre was the only reliable place to find these discs (a fact that remains to this day - you won't find him on Bleep.com), I was told to "help myself". Few others did.

This was raw, powerful music. Through the haze of psychedelia, it seemed that one man had encompassed pop, rock, trance and hip-hop into a single, unique sound. At one moment he could be rapping about the Avon lady, the next singing a ballad to his mother, who put her son up for adoption mere days after giving birth. He had made his life an open book, and channeled his demons into some of the most exciting music I'd ever heard.

I wouldn't meet him for another four years. Arts Centre staff had told me he could often be found sitting on a wall opposite the centre, behind the local Mercury Theatre, wearing ill-fitting women's clothes and drinking special brew. And sure enough, walking through town one day, there he was. So excited to discover he had a new fan, he hastily put together a box-set of his entire repetoire from 1981 to 2007. Knowing this box-set, 'Be Kind, I'm Cute', was released in an edition of precisely two copies, I offered to put the contents online.

Finally, after two years of ironing out the myriad glitches present on the discs (some the result of poor-quality audio leads, others the result of the aforementioned drug leaves), I placed the entire collection, including materail released since, onto Bandcamp. Why am I doing this? Because this needs to be heard. All outsider art is important, because it avoids all commerical thought process. Art is often defined as something which lacks a genuine purpose. Outsider art has a purpose, if not for its audience, then for its manufacturers. It's art that exists not because it wants to, but because it NEEDS to.

Bernie's music is vital, and deserves to be heard. I consider it a real priveledge to be able to share it with the world, because I know that whatever problems Bernie faces in his life, knowing his music has an audience is something he can take a lot of comfort, satisfaction and pride in. No amount of money can achieve that.

Lee Ashcroft, January 2012

PS. Matt Elliott was unavailable for comment."

---

The following text is edited from emails and transcripts from Bernie:

"Hello Mr Ashcroft. Testing, testing, hello Mr Ashcroft and the nice guy, kind guy that wants to do this (that's you Mr Fab!)... I dont understand what a blog is, see? um... right. Biography. Born 28th April 1964. I was adopted nine days later by a couple, Mr Henry and Barbara Sizzey. I used to live up Layer Road, my mum was born up there. My dad used to live in Ipswich, then to Langham. Um, that's my dad, my adopted dad. I'll tell you about the social work slags later but um...

Yeah, adopted when I was nine days old. My mum and dad were really good people. They brought up three of us children. We were all other people's children that they brought up. We grew up with an Alsation, Sheena, and then Max when Sheena died. Lived in Brightlingsea, although actually... my mummy never wanted to know me. It will remain nameless. Don't really know if I want to see her. She got rid of me once. Don't really know... anyone if... if I could stand to get rejected by another human being again like that. But my mum and dad brought me up.

Oh yeah, the social workers, they said you can look up your blood family, which I gave them the name of, and they said "but you can't look up the Sizzey family, 'cos they're not blood related, and you couldn't do that. It would be against the law," and I said "up yours, social worker"...

Yeah, um, got hurt terribly by a woman. My first girl really, up the Colne High School up there in Brightlingsea. I think it's called the Colne Community College now, or something. I went there... started there in 1976...I asked a woman... gave her a letter and stuff... that girl in my class, in my form room... if she'd um, we could like get it together. She was really posh and that, and big arse and stuff, and... you could have cut the atmosphere with a knife for the next three years. Didn't tell my mum. My mum said "did you go out with her?" and I said "yeah." But I said "she don't wanna meet you" and stuff. So I lied blatantly to my mum and kept everything in after that really.

Later, I had some good friends around me though, and uh, but later I got into, like, a bit of coprophilia and scat and stuff in the local bogs [toilets]. I could even get a few... TICs with washing lines and stuff and a few shoplifting in Woolworths. Couple of Clash tapes and things, and Buzzcocks and that. They used to keep them in the cases in them days! Ha ha!

Anyway, moving on from that. I did have a girlfriend about a year later when i was 13. 13, 14. Carol. She was a bit plain for me. She's a nice lady and... went back to school after the summer and she weren't there. Apparently she'd move on, anyway. I took it pretty badly, after the other girl as well, who'd turned me down. And um... really things took a bit of a nose dive after that. Always had a sick note for school. Always had a sick note for sport, and that. I hate sport.

Cut a long story short: About the age of 15, started playing guitar. Picked up my sister's one. It was nylon. I put steel ones on it which cut into the neck, but it still worked. I learned how to tune it to itself, and... I still don't keep it in proper, classical tune because they're all up themselves. Tune it how I want. Anyway... started having a group called Rohan. AJP, who's on 'Reel to Real', I think he's a radiotherapist now up there in Peterborough...Haven't got a lot by them anymore, all the tapes have got lost, but I have got the two songs off 'Reel to Real' that I done with AJP...They used to say "don't bring Bernie," you know, because I was obviously so strawn away and that, and dirty and that, that they just didn't want to know. So that was the end of Rohan.

Aged 16, got into Severalls. By the age I was 21, I'd already had ECT [electro-convulsive therapy aka electro-shock]. Had ECT on my 20th birthday! 21st April 1984, we all know what I was doing that morning. Getting a taxi, a paid taxi into Severalls... we was very poor though, so we got a... hospital taxi took me there.

Realistically, it was just drugs, drink, special brew. Not many girls. Couple of lays, but no actual girlfriends until I started making my music. This doctor, this psychiatrist just turned my guts so much that I felt I had to write her a few love songs, to be cute to her, and tell her she can always kidnap me, keep me in a cupboard and kill me. "How much is it?" So I made a few songs, then when I wrote 'Beacon' on 'The Game so Far', sent it to all the neighbors, hey bingo, Vanessa said she loved it. Rest of then 'til now's been history. I've been loved. I've learned how to communicate. I really love that girl Vanessa. And just recently I've got Bandcamp... and Lee's been absolutely fantastic.. you (you Mr!), you kind man, good for you. If you ever need anything sucking, come this way. I mean... I didn't mean that! I mean... if you ever need... ah, bottom."

--------
And that, I believe, marks the first offer of oral sex I've received on this blog. And it's about time! Anyway. Ladies and gentlemen, with no further ado, may we present:

The Complete Works (So Far) of Bernie Sizzey

Where to begin? Lee recommends the "Flux Transmissions" album, and I'd add his sampler "Hippie Scat." "Flux" contain gems like "Dream-Conduit," and the winning bubblegum of "Spinning Top!!" "Scat" is packed with hits like his insanely catchy and funny "Smokin' and Trippin' Song," the 1:30 long should-be-garage-rock-classic "Her Favourite Rubbish," an ode to a "psychedelic Avon lady in the sky...", and "Friends Forever," a great bit of space rock disco - imagine Chic covering Hawkwind. The lyrics to "Slave Shuffle" hints at the darkness in his life ("am I just a basket case/not fit for the human race?") even as the New Wave synth-pop music sets toes happily tapping.

It is these older recordings, sometimes released under the name "Solitaire," that are the most intensely personal, lyric-driven tunes, written in an informal, off-the-cuff manner, as if an uninhibited neighbor stopped you on the street to tell you what happened to him today and to share old stories. Pick hits from "Bit By Bit": "Days," "Garden" (a tribute to his recording engineer!), and "Squeeze," and from "The End Of The Game": "Moonshine Man" (about his dealer), and "Hippie Scat," which details the stupendous amounts of chemicals he ingests. Which leads to this chicken/egg question: did his mental problems/hospitalizations result from his drug use, or are the drugs a way to help him cope?

More recent releases such as "Hard-Wired," the pointedly-titled "Music For E.C.T. Lounges," and the more dance-y "Dementia Praecox" are mostly instrumentals in the Pink Floyd/Tangerine Dream school of head music. Recording quality, tho still a bit lo-fi, is definitely improving.

Much thanks to Lee for allowing us the opportunity to be the blog that gets to introduce Bernie to the world. As Bernie says, "Have a nice trip!!"

THE AUDIO COMPOST OF J fm

"Compost" is the aptly-titled 16 minute free download mini-album courtesy of of Nova Scotia, Canada's J fm. He grabs samples of pop music detritus, throws 'em in a grinder and makes hazy lo-fi audio mulch. Fans (like me) of the L.A. Free Music Society's woozy tape-loop shenanigans from the likes of Tom Recchion and Dinosaurs With Horns will dig this. Mr. J fm sez: "i just record onto a tape from my sp404, i carry a solid lil dictophone around and grab samples anywhere i can, everything's game. those sounds get treated, trashed and put into a shape on the sampler." Download it from the Divorce label website

HERE

This video for the non-album track "Frozen Frisbee" utilizes a David Blaine 'Street Magic' VHS tape:

HAPPY NEW WEIRD

Oh, my overflowing in-box! Now that I'm back from vacation, I simply MUST tell you about:

- Yrs truly, Mr Fab, will once again be spinning all the platters that matter for that internet host with the most, Spacebrother Greg, on his Radio Misterioso program this Sun. Jan 8th, 8:00 PST on killradio.org: two solid hours of as many strange sounds as we can cram in, including lotsa stuff I haven't posted here.

- RIAA's last (?) ever album "The Wonderful World of Sound" is now available for free download. 21 big hunks of mashup/sound collage goodness.

- The Amazing Australian Sound-Effects Bird can do more then say "Polly Wanna Cracker" - he can imitate stuff like power tools, water dripping, and a truck backing up. Made me laff!

- Bastiaan Maris' Large Hot Pipe Organ plays music by shooting fire thru tubes of different lengths; a 2 track ep is available that I'll have to track down, but 'til then, here's the monster at work:



- "Sin-atra" is a heavy-metal tribute to Frank Sinatra. Uh-huh. And it works about as well as you would expect, with results ranging from "actually, this is kinda cool" (Dee Snider's "Kashmir"-inspired version of "It Was A Very Good Year") to "train-wreck" and/or "hilarious" (pretty much the rest of the album). Members of Anthrax and Cheap Trick, among other metal stars, appear. Listen HERE for, if no other reason, proof that the world may have lost it's collective mind.


Thanks to windy & Whizzdumb (sounds like some old show-biz team!) for the tips.

Exotic Sounds of Tiki Gardens

Here we are, back from vacation, ready to...go back on vacation. So let's warm up these darkest depths of winter with one of the most expensive exotica albums ever. Yep, this one goes for hundreds of dollars on ebay, and I have no idea why. For one thing, it's not a music album so much as a tourist souvenir record, complete with nerdy narration. As such, it's a fascinating time-travel back to '60s kitsch America, but the one-man organ band ain't exactly on the order of Les Baxter's complex arrangements (tho Princess Carloa's "Hawaiian Wedding Song" is beautifully sung). Tropical birds, waterfalls, ocean waves, and a volcano also make guest appearances.

Florida's Tiki Gardens was built in 1963. Alas, it was sold in 1990 and demolished - just before the tiki revival.

Exotic Sounds of Tiki Gardens
includes: "Torch Lighting Ceremony," "Selected Sounds of Tiki Gardens," "Polynesian Fantasy Theme Song ."

Worst Christmas Album Of The Year...

...is by the Stone Temple Pilots guy Scott Weiland. Listen to it streaming here (if you dare).

The first song had me thinking that he just might pull it off, but then...it was hard to listen to "I'll Be Home For Christmas," which you can listen to/download

HERE

without spitting out my eggnog in laughter. The absurd crooner vibrato and wavering pitch of the former rocker/junkie/jailbird is backed by "sophisticated" orchestrations, pseudo-calypso, cheezy Casio drum-machine lounge, and even the whitest kind of Jimmy Buffet-reggae. Won't knock out Dylan's xmas atrocity as 'worst holiday album ever by a rocker,' but Bob does now have some serious competition. Merry Kissmyass!

Elvis with Buddy Love with Elvis with...

The Elvis Experience with Buddy Love is a curious bit of Elvis-iana from Spain. Apparently it's yet another E impersonator, but one that raises a number of questions: why does he go by the name Buddy Love, the name of a Jerry Lewis film character? What's with that picture (taken from his MySpace page)? Is he doing a Buddy Holly impression on "True Love Ways"? And why does he start this CD-R (presumably sold at shows) with four obscurities, then a Peggy Lee cover, instead of Elvis classics? Maybe those songs where big in Spain. "Edge Of Reality" is totally great, tho, it shouldn't be obscure - this late-period b-side from a forgettable film had me seeking out the original (see vid below). Would go well on a psychotic-themed playlist with Porter Wagoner's "Rubber Room" and The Cramps "Can't Find My Mind."

Buddy's accent and not-entirely-complete grasp of English does come thru on the slower numbers like "Fever," where he sings lines like: "fever started out ago." And on "Viva Las Vegas" is he singing "Fever Las Vegas?" Weird how he doesn't do many of the famous songs - I had to use an internet lyrics search to find what some of these songs were called, and I thought I had a fairly good grasp of The King's career. Guess I don't know as much about him as I thought...and I've even been to Sun Studios, Graceland and his childhood house in Tupelo.

The Elvis Experience with Buddy Love

01 Pocketful of Rainbows
02 It Hurts Me
03 Young and Beautiful
04 Edge Of Reality
05 Fever
06 Flaming Star
07 Are You Lonesome Tonight
08 Memories
09 Forever My Darling
10 She's Not You
11 Rubberneckin'
12 True Love Ways
13 Separate Ways
14 Viva Las Vegas
15 My Boy

And if anyone wants to buy me a Christmas present, holy crap, check THIS out - it's the female Eilert Pilarm!



Thankyouverymuch, windy.

YOUR COMPUTER DYING: THE REMIX

Jeff Kolar's "Start Up / Shut Down" is a free 'net-label two-track single creating solely from: "Window and Macintosh operating system event sounds. This project features remixed material sourced from Microsoft Windows (3.1, 4.0, NT, 95, 98, Me, XP, Vista, 7, 8) and Macintosh OS (10.0 Cheetah, 10.1 Puma, 10.2 Jaguar, 10.3 Panther) operating systems."

The glitchy abstract electronica of "Start Up" certainly doesn't sound like anything you would expect to hear coming out of computers, unless you threw a bunch of 'em into a full bathtub and recorded their dying screams. "Shut Down" is really nice, a sci-fi drone-fest - easy-listening music for robots.

Mr. Kolar is the man behind "Other Voices," the sound piece made from homemade radios we wrote about earlier this year.

Jeff Kolar's "Start Up / Shut Down"

New Wave Covers For Oldies Lovers - Part 3

Like I said: "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." Part 1 and Part 2 of this series have been two of my most-downloaded collections, so here's a third batch - with suggestions from some of you - of wild 'n' wooly '70s/'80s devolved covers ranging from hardcore slammers to New Wave synth nerdiness to art-damaged tune destructions. You'll probably recognize a few famous things here, but there's plenty of obscure-but-great ripped-from-vinyl rarities as well. Weirdly enough, there are not one, but two electric violin-based tracks here: Walter Steding, and Nash The Slash. And, seriously, when was the last time you listened to the Plasmatics?

Put your hands in your pockets and commence pogo dancing...NOW!

New Wave Covers For Oldies Lovers - Part 3

Elvis section:

1. Dead Kennedys "Viva Las Vegas"
2. Walter Steding "Hound Dog" [Robert Fripp on guitar]
3. John Cale "Heartbreak Hotel" [live, with possibly Brian Eno, Kevin Ayers, Mike Oldfield)
4. Judy Nylon "Jailhouse Rock"

5. Frank Sumatra And The Mob "Telstar"
6. The Plasmatics w/Lemmy "Stand By Your Man"
7. Nurse With Wound "Antacid Cocamotive 93 ["The Locomotion"]"
8. Brian Sands "Baby You're A Rich Man"
9. Dictators "I Got You Babe"
10. Hüsker Dü "Love Is All Around ["Mary Tyler Moore Show" theme]"
11. Talking Heads "Love Is All Around" (live) [The Troggs]
12. Pure Hell "These Boots Are Made For Walking"
13. Ronny "If You Want Me To Stay"
14. The Plugz "La Bamba"
15. Brian Eno "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"
16. Nash the Slash "Dopes on the Water" ["Smoke On The Water"]
17. Implog "On B'way"
18. Hüsker Dü "Eight Miles High"
19. Plasmatics "Dream Lover"
20. The Stranglers "Walk On By"
Thanks to those of you who suggested some of these.

BIZARRO CLOWN JAZZ

Jazz legend Charles Mingus needs no introduction, and if you don't know the name of writer Jean Shepherd, you probably know of his works, e.g. the 1983 film "A Christmas Story." None of which will prepare you for this 12 minute hunk of twisted circus jazz and dark humor, the kind of spoken word/music surrealism that Joe Frank does, but this is from 1957. From Mingus' album of the same name, prepare thyself for..."The Clown":

T.V.O.D.

I can think of no better way to spend seven-and-a-half minutes then with this stupendous stop-motion animation/sound & audio collage by Los Angeles' Janie Geiser. Like if one of Joseph Cornell's shadow boxes was animated by the Brothers Quay:



Halfcast Podcast, who made all those bee-YOO-tee-ful outsider-music videos for us last month, have returned with a hilarious Yuletide chestnut featuring the late, beloved Wesley Willis. Merry Christmas!



The use of the also late, great Del Rubio Triplets in the Wesley Willis video prompted me to revisit that magic moment from their appearance on the Pee Wee Herman Christmas special:



Ah, the Del Rubios. I miss 'em. Saw at the old Rhino Records store late '80s. They were well into their 60s at the time, in their trademark miniskirts and gogo boots, and were so chatty and friendly they spent half the time talking to the crowd. Actually, when I saw Wesley Willis in the late '90s he also spent half the time doing other things besides playing music. It was at the Luz de Jesus Gallery, to promote his show of identical-looking pictures of Chicago cityscapes, as obsessively repetitious as his music, and in lengthy stretches between songs, he'd grunt things like "kick a camel's ass," and have girls come up from the audience to head-butt him. Good night, sweet prince(esses).

"I HOPE YOUR BIRTHDAY IS AS SPECIAL AS YOU AAAARE!"

Gnarboots are a completely ridiculous band from Central California that play a variety of styles with a surprising amount of skill, considering the fact that they're a buncha immature smart-asses who take nothing, including themselves, seriously. A stance I support in theory - the problem is that sometimes amusing oneself doesn't always translate into amusing others. This album, however, is a loveable mutt that I liked even better on second spin. The Dead Milkmen of a new generation? Sayeth they:

"...it is a weird album and we are a weird band. We have a bunch of birthday songs on there (including a hardcore punk song) as well as a cover of the Kelly Family's "Aint gonna pee pee", a cover of the Christian band Lust Control's anti-masturbation song, "The Big M." There's a ska song about Joey Lawrence, punk songs, electronic songs, hip hop songs, and other weird things." I like the old chacha record samples. And it's all free!

Gnarboots Happy Birthday

1. Birthday 2
2. Doggy Door
3. The Big "M"
4. Interlude
5. Fantasy
6. WE.R.ALL.GNARBOOTS
7. Special Day I
8. Ain't Gonna Pee-Pee My Bed Tonight
9. Today Is My Birthday
10. Nerds
11. Interlude
12. I Want To Be Joey Lawrence
13. You're So Rude
14. Birthday 3
15. Monica Birth
16. Police of Fashion
17. Special Day II
18. Welcome to my Birthday Party

FUN WITH SUN BOXES

Fayetteville's Craig Colorusso doesn't "compose" music so much as build gizmos that allow Mother Nature to write her own jams: "Sun Boxes are...twenty speakers operating independently, each powered by the sun via solar panels. There is a different loop set to play a guitar note in each box continuously. These guitar notes collectively make a Bb chord. Because the loops are different in length, once the piece begins they continually overlap and the piece slowly evolves over time."

The loops-of-different-lengths approach reminds me of Eno's "Music For Airports," and there is a similar meditative effect with this music. The ambient sounds of nature (the beach, insects, etc.) are a crucial component - these are, quite literally, field
recordings. I first listened to this stuff Monday morning after a crazy Thanksgiving weekend (complete with a live "Yo Gabba Gabba" concert and thousands of screaming toddlers!) and it was as nice as dipping into a warm bath. Aaaah...

Listen or buy:

Sun Boxes Seven Inch

or listen to a continuous stream.