OUTSIDE POLAND Pt 1: THE SYNTETIC

Polish outsider music? Heck, yeah, bring it on!

Piotrek, a fine musican himself, sent us some incredible artifacts from the land of sausage and Solidarity. Today it's The Syntetic: a delightful nut who takes exisiting songs, like "Axel F," and sings his own lyrics over them: " Człowiek Widmo aka The Syntetic (in english - "Hollow Man"). This is the guy from Śląsk, who some years ago recorded funny tapes on his tape recorder for fun and for friends, and this tapes someone put into internet. And Człowiek Widmo one day become very popular. This guy was really startled but later he even had a few concerts :) I don't know if he is freak or no, but this what he's doing we can called incorrect music for sure."

The Syntetic.

"There is his opus magnum (from 2:05 he started to sing:)

He has great lyrics. I translated you fragment on this song: "Hollow Man"

He swimm on albatross

by the Egyptian sea

and he eat a sharks

and he burns like old pig

and he is invisible

Hollow Man, This is Hollow Man, this is Hollow Man, This is.

This is ungrateful man, and very bad

he is from the abyss of the darkness, of the hell

he evaporates like a water

he is invisible like a big stone

he is from the abyss of the light

Hollow Man, this is Hollow Man, this is Hollow man, this is(...)"

Someone has thoughtfully illustrated the Syntetic song "Hollywood" so us non-Polish speakers can get an idea what of he's on about:

Thanks, Piotrek!

Big Eyed Beans From Venus

Yes, Virginia, there really is a Captain Beefheart tribute band. Even more improbably, they're really good. And you thought tribute acts were all cheeseball 'classic rock' bar bands.

As the Southern Shelter guy says: "Big Eyed Beans From Venus have obviously put in tons of work (there’s really no way to half-ass Beefheart’s music)."

This Athens, GA crew even got actual Magic Band members to sit in, like Rockette Morton, who played on early classics like "Trout Mask Replica." Dig this 20 song show, recorded live, with excellent sound quality:

Big Eyed Beans From Venus 11/16/06 @ Five Spot

GONNA MAKE YOU SWEAT, MAN

Clarinetist/bandleader Wilbur Sweatman helped invent jazz, but before you start falling asleep, let me assure you that this 1918 recording of "Oh! You La! La!" is as nutty as it's title. Many many decades before hardcore punk, thrash metal, etc., this song is played like everyone's on speed, and everyones' speed is on speed. It's so crazed as to verge on incompetent, like it's all gonna fly apart at any second, but it doesn't, retaining a core musicality throughout. What else would you expect from a guy who could play 3 clarinets at the same time? Jazz music certainly used to be a far stranger, more entertaining beast then it is today. I'm including two versions, primitive early recordings being what they are. The second version, tho plenty hissy, is actually a clearer recording.

Wilbur Sweatman: "Oh! You La! La!":

Jaymz Bee & The Deep Lounge Coalition - "Sub Urban"

Following the "Shaken and Stirred" post, here's more from Canadian lounge parodist Jaymz Bee, whose 2002 album "Sub-Urban" features unlikely jazz/Broadway/bossa nova/disco covers of rap/r'n'b hits. I like this album a bit more than "Shaken" - it gets more mileage out of the concept. Like it's predecessor, it's lushly orchestrated with a gang of talented guest singers. Hearing cheezy white guys singing with a straight face about bling and bitches, and sophisticated adults singing juvenilia, will make you laff! Or at least smirk a bit. Not as jokey (or funny) as Richard Cheese, but more musical. Pick hit: the surf-a-go-go version of "Get Ur Freak On" with its interjections from some Jerry Lewis-type character, but also dig that surreal "Gin & Juice," and the campy Tony Randall-esque "Nuthin' But A "G" Thang."

Jaymz Bee & The Deep Lounge Coalition - "Sub Urban"

• It Wasn’t Me (Originally by Shaggy)
• Ride Wit Me (Originally by Nelly)
• Who Let The Dogs Out (Originally by Baha Men)
• Love Don’t Cost A Thing (Originally by Jennifer Lopez)
• Independent Women (Originally by Destiny’s Child)
• Gravel Pit (Originally by Wu Tang Clan)
• Thong Song (Originally by Sisqo)
• Get Ur Freak On (Originally by Missy Elliott)
• Southern Hospitality (Originally by Ludacris)
• Gin And Juice (Originally by Snoop Dogg)
• I Just Wanna Love U (Originally by Jay-Z)
• Nuthin’ But A G Thang (Originally by Dr. Dre
• Turn Off The Light (Originally by Nelly Furtado)
• Ms Jackson (Originally by Outkast)

Jaymz Bee and the Royal Jelly Orchestra - Shakin' and Stirred

Dig this nutty Canadian lounge parodist and his plethora of guest singers and different styles. This kinda thing was popular back when this album came out (in 1996) - is it time for the lounge revival revival?

All the songs are hits by Canadian artists except for whoever originally did "The Safety Dance," but I ain't complaining - the groovy sitars-a-go-go arrangement makes it the album's highlight. Up next: Jaymz' follow-up album covering rap/r'n'b hits.

Jaymz Bee and the Royal Jelly Orchestra - "Shakin' and Stirred"

1. The Safety Dance
2. Turn Me Loose
3. American Woman
4. You Oughta Know
5. Run to You
6. Closer to the Heart
7. Takin' Care of Business
8. Superman's Song
9. Spaceship Superstar
10. Born to Be Wild
11. Sunglasses at Night

The Most Expensive Album in History! Dan Bull's "Face"

UK's Dan Bull released a compelling rap album in 2009 called "Safe" that dealt with the excruciating life of suffering from the autism spectrum condition of Asperger's Syndrome. At the time I said "Can someone in England please put a suicide watch on this guy?"

On March 19th, his excellent follow-up album "Face" will be released, it's sole copy for sale for a mere £1,000,000. A bargain! But even if you don't want a hard copy, you can download it here for free, or pay what you want:

Dan Bull "Face"

Fortunately, he sounds in much better shape, bustin' rhymes on subjects that wouldn't occur to most MCs, like America's health care crises, for example. Life is still difficult, but as he says in the song "Medicine Ball": "What doesn't kill will not make you stronger/but at least you're going to live a little longer." The wittily-named "Portrait of the Autist" is an inspiring anthem, admitting that Aspergers' is still a bitch ("can't talk to anyone...My mind's wired a different way"), but he exhorts his fellows to "Be autistic and proud."

The music is as solid as the lyrics, with one exception: the corny "John Lennon," whose lyrics are simply strung-together song titles. Otherwise, Bull's flow is as sharp as ever, and the thing rocks from start to finish. For someone who's "mind's wired a different way," Bull makes a helluva lot more sense then most.

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.