Scott Johnson - Rock Paper Scissors

There's a lot of sampling music out there, but very few composers work it like Scott Johnson - he takes snippets of human speech, and, as I wrote when reviewing the re-issue of his classic "John Somebody," writes original music based the rhythms and cadences of conversation, and makes those voices sing.

This album from 1996 uses digital sampling (not the tape-lops of yore) of original conversations of Johnston's friends asking others for a favor. Johnson choose that device because of the quality of anxiety and pleading that creeps into one's voice when asking to, say, borrow something. He then wrote music around these voices for violin, cello, electric guitar, and synthesizer. "Air Compressor" is my fave track off the album...but why would someone need to borrow an air compressor?

The second half of the album is comprised of instrumentals that, frankly, don't do much for me. I like his sampling stuff. But it's still highly original, challenging work.

Scott Johnson - Rock Paper Scissors

MARCHING BAND VERSIONS OF BLACK SABBATH AND RUN-DMC, ANYONE?

As I wrote last year: "I propose that we officially make March 4th 'Alternative Marching Band Day.' March 4th = March Forth. Geddit?" And, thanks in part to comments left by some of you good Maniacs, I've got another batch of alt-brass band goodness for ya this year. So put on your mismatched band uniforms and go marching around the house whilst listening to more spazz-jazz/non-guitar rock/Sousa-free tubas than you can shake a baton at:

March Fourth 2012

- Boba Fett and the Americans, a Denver-based band that doesn't appear to have any albums out, but I did find a few stray things on the web: covers of the Beatles "Birthday," Hugh Masakela "Grazing in the Grass," a 'Star Wars'-themed parody of Gwen Stefani's "Hollaback Girl" called "Bootie Hunter," and Run-DMC's "It's Tricky" (tho the vox are too low - you'll have to rap your own version.)
- Hungry March Band - these alt-march pioneers started in 1997, have 4 albums out, and I've got one of 'em, "Critical Brass," from 2005. It features plenty of jazzy funky originals, and kooky kovers of tunes like Black Sabbath's "Paranoid," as well as solid originals like the one featured here, "Jupanese Ju Ju." Bonus points for covering Pigbag's classic early '80s instro "Papa's Got A Brand New Pigbag."
- The itchy-O Marching Band (pictured above) are also from Denver, but could not be more different from the comedic Boba Fett gang. The 32-person strong multi-media group somehow march with hand-held electronic instruments like synths and theremins, and have a powerfully compelling dark sound. Their debut 6 track ep features tracks like "Inferno No Corridor," a song that blew me away with its gargantuan sound, like if Glen Branca wrote for dozens of percussionists instead of guitars. Bravo!
- MarchFourth Marching Band were the Portlanders that were featured in last year's collection and gave this March 4th concept it's name. Their new album "Magnificent Beast" features no kooky kovers, tho still has a sense of humor as evidenced by the 'SNL'-skit inspired "Cowbell." Elsewhere, the album ranges from James Brown rhythms to Caribbean/Latin influences ("Sin Camiseta") to New Orleans jazz. Unlike most, they sometimes feature vocals, often of the simple, chanted variety.
- Raya Brass Band: These Balkan/Eastern European-inspired New Yorkers have produced an album of absolutely crazed, twisted melodies over rhythms as difficult as the the pronunciation of the song titles. "Dancing On Roses, Dancing On Cinders" starts off pleasantly enough with the toe-tapper "DJevadov Čoček" (that's easy for you to say) before piling on song after song of head-spinning complexity leavened with irresistible buoyancy. Your head may be ringing after listening to this, but you can't possibly be in a bad mood.
- Seed & Feed Marching Abominable: this Atlanta combo have been around since 1974, which def. pushes the timeline back, but they apparently don't have any recordings. All I could find was an interview that features some generous chunks of their music.
- The Residents never used marching bands (that I'm aware), but, as a bonus track, I've included a song ("Washington Post March") from their "Stars & Hank Forever" album that remade the marches of John Philip Sousa inna electronic stylee, complete with parade sound effects. Sorta the inverse of the rest of this collection of trad bands playing non-trad music.

The Earth Not a Globe!

There really are people who think that the Earth is flat, just like it says in the Bible, regardless of what you see in pictures from space. Obviously, those pictures were faked. By who? By...The Conspiracy, of course. I believe that the Flat Earth Society were thus the first to promote that moonlanding-was-faked nonsense.

Which brings us to Lady Blount. Wiki sez: "Lady Elizabeth Blount, wife of the explorer Sir Walter de Sodington Blount, established a Universal Zetetic Society, whose objective was "the propagation of knowledge related to Natural Cosmogony [the creation of the world] in confirmation of the Holy Scriptures, based on practical scientific investigation". The society published a magazine entitled The Earth Not a Globe Review, and remained active well into the early part of the 20th century. A flat Earth journal, Earth: a Monthly Magazine of Sense and Science, was published between 1901–1904, edited by Lady Blount."


The Flat Earth Society message board posted a song written by Lady Blount from her 1898 book Adrian Galilio; a Songwriter's Story, described as "a unique combination of prose, poetry, illustration, drama and sheet music. And now, 112 years after its publication, the Society is very proud to present 'Star-Dream', a song from Adrian Galilio, as performed by The Nordic Countess, Ingeborg and with the help of gotham from our very own TFES forums! As far as we know it has never been recorded before, so this is truly something special."

The song, a pleasant piano/violin instro (durn, no lyrics about the Flat Earth) is now off-line, so I'm a-postin' it here. Couldn't find any info anywhere on the performers Ingeborg and gotham, but there's a slightly lo-fi, somewhat off-kilter feel to this that I like.

Lady Blount "Star-Dream":

Manor Boys - Chelmsford's Most Wanted

So there's this guy Phil from Chelmsford, Essex, UK who likes making rinky-dink Casio-esque beats and throwing in seemingly random samples, and he invites this guy he knows from around town named Rich to rap over 'em, but Rich can't rap, certainly can't sing, and just tells somewhat pathetic stories of his life over the music. Together, they are The Manor Boys. The first few tracks on their one and only album from 2006 have a guys-goofing-off feel like an R-rated Flight of the Conchords. Funny, but then Phil hands the mic to Rich. And that's when it get's really good.

I feel kinda bad for poor ol Rich, but brother, I could not stop laughing. He's so honest and earnest as he reveals the details of his lowly life (his mum even appears on one track!) and lamely attempts humorous raps. Fortunately, Rich appears to be in on the joke. Most people on casual listen will think that this is all just hopelessly inept. Maniacs might find it weirdly wonderful.

Manor Boys - "Chelmsford's Most Wanted"

1		Intro
2		We Are The Manor Boys
3		Chelmsford Scientists
4		The Girl That Didn't Want To Know Me
5		Lost & Found
6		Rich Is Gay
7		I Am The Ninja
8		Richard's Child & Wife (Don't Say Nothing)
9		The Story Of Richard's Car (Feat. Richard's Mum)
10		Tea & Biscuits Interlude
11		The Return Of The Ninja
12		The Good Old Manor Boys

(I wonder how Rich is doing...)

R.I.P.: PHIL KRAUSS

Today we pay tribute to a recently deceased legend, a true musical master...Whitney who...? No, of course I'm referring to the percussionist Phil Kraus, who just died at the ripe old age of 94. Kraus played countless sessions for everyone from Sinatra to Ben E. King - yep, that's his scratching sound on "Stand By Me."

But strange music fans know and love him for his huge assortment of exotic/oddball instruments deployed on numerous albums teamed with his partner in percussives, Bobby Rosengarden. Apart from appearing together on Enoch Light's popular series of Light Brigade albums, Rosengarden and Kraus also made a number of instrumental albums their own selves, like this nutty number from 1965. "Percussion: Playful And Pretty" may indeed have it's playful and pretty moments, but it's also an exercise in Space Age stereophonic panning, and strange exotic moods. Songs like "Satan Takes A Holiday" were odd to begin with, but even more so after these two and their crew of fellow top session cats got a hold of 'em - the song "Goofus" alone features such instruments as that old circus music maker, the calliope, and something called a "buzzimba: "...a Rube Goldberg-ish contraption made up of wooden resonators that buzz daintily like a choir of horseflies when struck with a mallet. You might call it a kind of percussive kazoo." (Sounds like an African balafon, actually.) And the totally bonkers "The Comedians" really lives up to it's title - it could be a soundtrack to a classic Mexican silent slapstick.

Rosengarden and Kraus "Percussion: Playful And Pretty"

For Want of a Star
Mr. Ghost Goes to Town
Johnny One Note
Chloe
All Through the Night
Satan Takes a Holiday
Sophisticated Swing
The Comedians
Speak Low
The Continental
Carnival
Goofus

Dig the liners:

"Spruced-up Mood Music"

Remember when you pulled down all the pots and pans in your mother's kitchen and made an "orchestra" out of them? Some kids never grow out of it. They become percussionists. One thing is sure about percussion: you're bound to get a bang out of it. But don't think percussion is nothing but a noise test. This album proves the contrary. It shows that in the hands of top-rank musicians, percussive instruments have a special kind of melodic charm and subtlety, sweetness and spice. Favorite old ballads emerge with new tonal gloss - a kind of spruced-up mood music. And rhythm numbers glint with tonal laughter - the sheer fun of clinking, clopping, tingling and tapping.

Bob Rosengarden, one of America's leading percussionists, along with equally ingenious Phil Kraus, pulled together for this session perhaps the most varied and sophisticated array of percussion instruments ever assembled before a mike. If you think percussion is just drums, then listen to the vibraharp, the xylophone, marimba, bell-tree, tom-tom, maracas, gourds, scratchers, chimes, cow-bells and temple bells.

"We even rounded up a whole set of Chinese wood blocks - some 30 or 40 of them," says Bob. "Old ones, from mainland China! You just can't get those any more. And for the last number - Goofus - we've really got something rare: a buzzimba!"

A buzzimba, it turns out, is a Rube Goldberg-ish contraption made up of wooden resonators that buzz daintily like a choir of horseflies when struck with a mallet. "You might call it a kind of percussive kazoo," Bob suggested.
The rest of the orchestra (clarinets, flutes, saxes, trumpet, trombone, bass, guitar, and piano) is made up of fairly conventional instruments. Except one. Arranger Sid Cooper had found a calliope - one of those outboard organs they used to play on the old Mississippi showboats. He just had to work that in, somehow, and trundled it into the studio on a serving cart. No steamboat boiler was handy, so a small air compressor was used instead to blow the pipes.

Soon the music was clopping along, softly and tenderly like a brook with syncopated rocks in its bed. Or suddenly it sounded as if the building were under attack from a flock or rapid-action woodpeckers. For Bob and his crew, all the banging, tickling and tapping on their strange instruments was audibly a labor of love. It's also a fine stint of sheer musicianship.

FRANCIS TRAUN


© 1965, Radio Corporation of America"

Orbitones, Spoon Harps & Bellowphones

This splendid sampler of eccentric madmen/geniuses and their homemade instruments is the 1998 sequel to an album we featured here a couple years ago, "Gravikords Whirlies & Pyrophones," both compiled by Bart Hopkins, who published a magazine dedicated to experimental musical instruments. As with "Gravikords", you don't get the big, color-illustrated book that came with it, or Bob Moog's intro, but I have endeavored to link to each featured artists' site (except for Tom Waits, you know him.)

Some are well known like Waits or Aphex Twin (oh, and those 'Stomp' guys, remember them?), and some so obscure I really couldn't find much info on 'em. It all sounds good, tho - industrial percussion, ceramic woodwinds, prepared piano, frazzled electronics, beautiful-looking audio sculptures, Ellen Fullman's room-size Long String Instrument, Uakti's PVC pipe Brasiliana...there is nothing wrong with this album.

Orbitones, Spoon Harps & Bellowphones
 
1. Back To The East -ZGA
2. Heavenly Flower [Excerpt] - Colin Offord
3. Babbachichuija - Tom Waits
4. Jhala III [From Suite for Violin & American Gamelan] - William Colvig
5. Pentatonic - Arthea
6. Bucephalus Bouncing Ball - Aphex Twin
7. Dance des Fourmis [Excerpt]/Megalithe - Les Phônes
8. Tunnel of Love/Dear 3 - Peter Whitehead
9. Cosmogenesis [Excerpt] - Ela Lamblin
10. Sonata XIV [From Suites & Interludes for Prepared Piano] - Maro Ajemian
11. Waterphonics [Excerpt] - Stomp
12. Elegy for the Missing - Alan Tower
13. MotivationalMusic forPedestrians- Bradford Reed
14. Change of Direction [Excerpt] - Ellen Fullman
15. Arrumacao - Uakti
16. Grand Gallope - Leonard Solomon

Great Looking Siberian Women in Costumes (and Breakdancing To Jews Harps)

Last November I posted Tran Quang Hai's "Jews Harps Of The World" album, which resulted in two responses: one from Rich Lindsay, heppin' me to the strange tale of Bruce Hodges, master of the E.J.H. (Electric Jews Harp), and another from The Netherlands's danibal, whose entertaining jews harp + beatboxing (!) album appropriately entitled

"Ploing!"

is available as a free download, 10 tracks that fly by in 21 minutes. It boasts inventive harping backed by beatboxing that would prove difficult to rap over, sometimes resembling yodeling or Tuvan throat-singing as much as anything found in old-school hip-hop.

And that would be good enough, but the man provided a wealth of other jews-harp resources as well, proving that this odd instrument is alive and well. There are musicians playing things besides guitars, drums and keyboards. Lots of 'em. Danibal sez: "I am involved in the

International Jew's Harp Society , some info about our activities, like the international festivals which are held in different countries.

jewsharpguild.org which is very friendly american initiative with their own festivals.

Anton Bruhin - Swiss virtuoso, he has some great recordings from avant garde to swiss folk music (VIDEO)

Aron Szilagyi (son of a great jew's harp maker); he makes some cool music solo CD or with Airtist (a trio of j-harp, didge and human beatbox)

and also great fun is the one man trsh band: Antenna Tony Mono Rail

From Austria we have a crazy duo Maul Und Trommelseuche (VIDEO)

music from Yakutia (Siberia) is also very inspiring stuff. jew's harp is their national instrument played also by a lot of great looking women in costumes:



Thanks so much to danibal. Especially for those amazing Siberian babes.

Master of the Electric Jews Harp

As much as I like covering the whole spectrum of strange music, from experimental composers to thrift-store records, I am pleased that this year has begun with a bumper crop of outsider musicians, thanks to good Maniacs working to bring these musicians to the public eye and providing us with their fascinating back-stories: Bernie Sizzey, the return of John North Wright, and now, thanks to Rich from the great Kill Ugly Radio show up in Portland, the master of the Electric Jews Harp, Bruce Hodges. Rich sez:

"One evening I was looking on my local Craigslist for musical gear and I noticed an ad where a person was selling a mixer I'd been looking for, along with some guitar effects pedals. The Craigslist poster had supplied links to a CDBaby page where he said you could hear what these pedals sounded like. He failed to note, however, that it was how these guitar effects would sound if one wanted to route the sounds of a jaw harp through them. With curiosity I listened to all the samples on the album which he had entitled he EJH: Electric Jew's Harp. He was named Bruce Wayne Hodges and he’d recorded an entire CD’s worth of tunes on an electronically processed jaw harp.

It all sounded sort of the same, like outtakes from the Dr. Who theme but I was fascinated that someone would do it and it did have a certain early Electronic, Electro-acoustic appeal.

And considering that he was a local artist, it seemed natural that I would make contact with him. He turned out to be a 60-ish looking old guy who knew nothing about Avant Garde music,Noise music or anything. The only 'weird' music he knew about that he could compare himself to was Pink Floyd. He explained that he really just wanting to sound like a guitar player but could never master the instrument after many attempts over the years. He’d always had a jaw harp, or Jew’s Harp as he’s inclined to call it. Running the sound through guitar stomp boxes just seemed natural to him.When I offered that he could be considered an Outsider musician, he sort of bristled, then seemed to warm to the term. I was fascinated by Bruce and that an ordinary guy would make such weird sounds with no preconceived notions of strange music - like it just seemed natural to him, coming as if from some innate impulse.

We corresponded back and forth a few times and made plans for him to come onto my radio show on KBOO. In the intervening months leading up to the date, I got numerous emails from his then-fiancee, who apparently was acting in the capacity as his business manager. She wanted all kinds of assurances from me and demanded to know how many people would be listening, how would this show be promoted and wanted me to plug his CDBaby site.

When the event rolled around and Bruce showed up with his adult son in tow (his manager had apparently stayed home), he shocked me by telling me that he had lost all of his equipment to a pawnbroker and that he was using equipment with which he'd never rehearsed with.He spent more time getting used to the equipment, but managed to do a brief but fascinating set. Listeners were calling in, wanting to know the origin of the strange sounds over the airwaves.

The next day, his 'manager' emailed me to say that while Bruce was a nervous wreck before the show, he was energized at having been on the radio and was ready to perform live shows.I suggested that Bruce try out for No Fest, a local noise festival in nearby St. Johns, Oregon and he eventually got himself on the roster after I'd introduced him to one of the bookers. Bruce showed up with his whole family. He seemed terrified, even though he seemed to think the rest of the noise musicians made his music fit right in. I stuck around for Bruce's set (he was billing himself as B.A.T.T. now - Bang A Twang Thing) and he'd added a few more harps and was deftly switching between them like changing chords on a guitar. In this configuration, he was now backing himself with a stiff 4/4 drumbeat on a guitar processor’s drum machine preset. He sounded exactly like what he had endeavored to do in the beginning: emulate a guitar player with a Jew's harp.He did OK, though, even though the noise crowd seemed to turned their nose up at the drum beats, the many young kids and older people in attendance thought he was cool.I chatted a bit with Bruce and he seemed stoked and disappeared into the crowded festival to catch more Noise acts. I think he felt like he had found his tribe at last.

I should note that this whole time, I'd been getting emails from his wife, who insisted that any day now, Sony, Warner Bros, etc. were going to beat down their door with a contract. She wanted to book Bruce on Leno. Everything. She wanted my advice, based I guess on my expertise as an unpaid volunteer community radio programmer. She just knew rock stardom was right around the corner.I replied back to her once, telling her my take on what to expect with an outsider act and how they could at least make the most of something with such limited appeal. I told her most self-styled artists create out of the sheer love of the act and that if you produce any CDs, tapes, etc., don’t be disheartened if they end up in piles, forming coffee tables in your living room. The goal, I told her, is to have Bruce record, record, record. She wasn't having any of it. She knew that Bruce would be discovered and that he'd be making movie soundtracks, tv specials, you name it. Bruce couldn’t get a more determined manager if he paid 50% of everything he gets out of his act. She really believes in him and his strange music.

I still occasionally get emails from Bruce. His experiments where he does something out of sheer expedience - like his overdubbing himself by playing with multiple layers of self-shot YouTube videos - affirm that the man’s still got it. He’s still twanging away in his own musical world.
- Rich Lindsay"

Buy the album:
T.H.E. E.J.H.: "Hearing is Believing"

Blow your mind to these cool tunes. First one's called "Skyer":



And this one is "Shimmer":


Watch the man in action! Check his video channel, e.g.:



Mucho thanks to Rich for heppin' us to these fine, freaky phonics.

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 ."