So what's the big deal about scientists claiming that they think they've found the Higgs boson particle? It was the missing piece of the Standard Model of physics, and now that it's been (hopefully) found, it means that our general understanding of how the universe works is correct. So that's pretty awesome. Let's celebrate by listening to music made by taking the mathematics of it all and assigning each number a musical value. The result is a very peppy tune for piano, bass, marimba, percussion, and xylophone sounds.
I find it kind of hard to believe that a sub-atomic particle sounds like a lounge mambo, but, hey, I'm no physicist. (And if sub-atomic particles really do sound like lounge mambos, well then the universe is far more wonderful than I ever imagined.) It's not very long - only about 2-and-a-half minutes - but the boson is a pretty small particle.
This is not the first time we've featured music from the CERN/Large Hadron Collider posse. Four years ago we wrote about the "Large Hadron Rap," and back in '06 we covered the first band on the web. Brooklyn? Austin? Feh! The CERN scene is where it's happenin', baby.
(This is still the only music blog with a 'science' category, right?)
"Dear Mr. Fab, Good day! I'm a reader of your blog and an ardent lover of exceptional music. For the past year, I have been on a relentless search for a very unusual band, and I am hoping that perhaps you could help. In short, about a year ago I chanced to hear two short songs that have haumted me ever since. The music was simple, strange, like a primitive Velvet Underground, with the words sung in a depressive monotone. It was definitely the lyrics that caught me the most, deadpan honest and sad, like a suicide note set to music- somewhat in the vein of Jandek. I wasn't able to catch the name of the band, but the primitive truth of it definitely fit the criteria of 'outsider' music. Despite a wide and varied knowledge of music, and a year of searching, I've yet to find them- my only hope is that by some chance another connoisseur will have been lucky enough to know of them. Is there any chance that you know the band I'm talking about? I seem to remember the lyrics were something like 'Everything I felt in life was someone else's bad joke', with the chorus 'All I wanted was a place in the sun.' This was the kind of music that changes your life, and I would be eternally grateful for your help in this. Thank you, and please keep up the good work.
Best regards, Z. Colombino"
I wrote back: "Your description of the music/singer sounds like Beat Happening, but I don't remember any really depressing songs of theirs like that, the lyrics don't ring a bell" and he replied: "Yeah they are very reminiscent of beat happening, definitely similar to the twee-pop school musically. I've come to realize they defy classification- for any similarity they have with another band, they're completely different in ten other ways. If I had to guess the era I'd say late 70's-80's...I'd thought maybe Edinburgh post-punk at one point? Orange Juice is another very similar band."
Meade Skelton is an outsider musician from Richmond, Virginia whose album "They Can't Keep Me Down"mostly deals with his struggles with weight, and how no-one likes him, e.g.: "I Love To Eat (And It Shows)" and "It's Hard To Love Yourself (When Everybody Hates You)". He feels left out of the music world, loves mom and God, and doesn't like sleazy, degenerate rock 'n' rollers or too-cool hipsters (e.g.: the song "Proud To Be A Square"). His lightweight electric piano-driven songs lean towards the slick, commercial side of country music, and when he stays within his vocal range, he actually has an okay voice, tho hardly worthy of his own Elvis and Sinatra comparisons. Trouble is, he doesn't always stick to his range.
This album, so I'm told, is strongly influenced by Laura Branigan, of all people. Remember her, she did that "Gloria, I think they got your number" song? Supposedly "Beautiful Lady" is a reworking of Branigan's "Solitaire," adding new lyrics about (of course) being fat and unwanted.
There is some weak singing here and the songwriting occasionally gets terrible indeed, so it's easy to laugh at this guy, but there is also pathos in "They Called Me Porker," about the taunting he endured as a child. And some pretty smooth session musicians keep it all sounding almost respectable.
On "Songs of Love" he goes lounge - it's an album of mostly amateurish covers of standards, e.g.: "My Funny Valentine," but includes some originals, like the stalker-ish ode to actress Nicole Kidman, "Nicole, Will You Marry Me?" Wow, is this one a head-scratcher. Kidman may want to consider a restraining order. An unnerving yodel/voice-cracking vocal style pervades this album, and the stripped-down production reveals his uncertain piano playing. Oh, my ears! If "They Can't Keep Me Down" has you feeling sorry for the poor sap, "Songs of Love" will make you want to join the haters.
Skelton has gained somewhat of a reputation on the internets thru his relentless self-promotion, often going by other names, claiming on message boards to be a "fan" of Skelton with a "need for Meade!" when it's pretty obvious that it's Skelton himself. Some are annoyed by this behaviour, others amused. But that's what's great about him - he has unwavering faith in his talent, and maintains an upbeat attitude towards life. No whiney goth or sensitive singer-songwriter stuff for Meade - despite the unfortunate circumstances of his life, he keeps a grin on his face.
He has some albums that he's selling independently, and since they're in print, I'm only gonna take a couple/few songs apiece from these two abums (the only two of his that I have).
1. Beautiful Lady 2. What's So Great About Rock N' Roll? 3.Your Old Hay 4. Nicole, Will You Marry Me? 5. My Funny Valentine
Want to hear more? 'Course you do! Preview his albums on iTunes. And join the Mead Skelton Fan Club while you're at it! 2215 Floyd Ave., Richmond, VA 23220; (804) 359-0219.
UPDATE 9/24/12: We heard from the man himself: Meade would like you to know that he has a new album, likes and is influenced by Laura Branigan but not on this particular album, and does not go around spamming boards under assumed names. So there. I stand corrected.
From one of his other albums, here's the "hit" single, "Hipsters Ruin Everything":
The excellent Neon Lushell album that I wrote about recently was my first clue that strange things are afoot in Iowa. Turns out that it was just the tip of the iceberg: Dubuque experimental music maven Bob Bucko Jr. (aka BBJr) sent me a shoebox's worth of cassettes (and one vinyl), as well as a couple of 'zines, that all make a persuasive case for the Iowa experimental music scene. None of it sucks, much of it's exceptional.
You've got yer "A" list music cities that might be major (New York, LA, Berlin, London) or towns with smaller populations that, nonetheless, boast outsized musical reputations (Athens GA, Austin TX, Sheffield UK). And then you got yer "B" cities that no-one's paying any attention to, tho they have folks just as creative as can be found in any of the big boys. Dubuque falls into the latter - noise, ambient, drone, improv, rock, found sounds, all get thrown in the blender whilst steadfastly avoiding cliches. Mr. Bucko has prepared a sampler cd for free download for y'alls:
This collection starts off with a track that resembles "rock" music, before moving into thoroughly unpredictable territory by such artists as Implied Consent, Dead Man's Lifestyle, Distant Trains, and more from BBJr. Instrumentals predominate, veering from crunchy distortion to chilled electronics, sometimes both. BBJr's "At The Bar" recalls '70s cosmic Moog records; Aisle's "crest, fallen" could be one of Nurse With Wound's abstract, but humorous collages, with Chipmunk-y vox over unidentified sounds. The Floating Cave track is an ominous drone that really did make me feel like I was in a deep, dark cave. And Aural Resuscitation Unit's"Dubbing An Arab" isn't the reggae remix of The Cure that one would expect from such a title; it does sound like a (heavily processed) skipping record that might be the Cure, but who can tell? Whatever it is, it's 16 minutes of trippy amazing-ness.
Some of my fave stuff from this scene is only for purchase, like this one:
Well worth the mere few bucks it costs for BBJr's fascinating loop-driven sound collages. The industrial-strength funk of "Time is Something" is also worth your pennies. And another band not included on this cd are the Glimmer Blinkken, whose downtown New York c. 1981 sound comes closest to "normal" music.
The history of the scene outlined in the "Ruix" 'zines reveal that many of these cats come from a typical metal/rock background. So how did they end up here? To quote from the zine's new blog: "Like most river towns,Dubuque is teeming with personality, and its residents utilize the cultural vacuum of the midwest to great effect. Without an academy to report to or the bored shrugs of scene- conscious youth to deflect, folks in Dubuque have cultivated a diverse portfolio of artistic expression." Do scenes like this exist all over? Is there some crazy stuff in, say, Missoula, Montana that I should know about?
The greatest thing I've ever seen (lately) is this excerpt from "Multiple SIDosis," a famous short from 1970 by outsider filmmaker Sid Laverents that was just posted on-line two weeks ago. Laverents uses ingenious home-brew technology to create a cinematic one-man band performance of the bouncy tune "Nola" on such instruments/noise-makers as themetronome, ukulele, banjo, ocarina, jews harp, beer bottles, pipes, and cymbal, while sometimes inexplicably dressed like Mickey Mouse. Restores my faith in humanity. There are full-length versions of "Multiple SIDosis" on the YouTubes of poopy quality. This is just a minute-and-a-half, but it looks really good:
The other greatest thing I've ever seen lately is a large Japanese avant-jazz band who, for reasons known only to them, dress up like shrimp, with glow-in-the-dark eyes. I'll just let you think about that for a moment...
They're called Autopsy Report of Drowned Shrimp (sure, why not?) and there is, lucky you, a number of live vids up of their skillfully performed music, which ranges from percussive-heavy tribal grooves, to trippy noise drones, to something that resembles funk/jazz, all mixed with inscrutable ritualistic theater:
The other other greatest thing I've ever seen happened a couple of weeks ago, when I was emerging from a subway station on my way home from work: A black man dressed like a lady in a hot-pink skirt and a short-haired silver wig was standing around, which, in itself, is not so unusual around here. But then, then, when a Mexican mama and her two kids walked by, the kids ran up to the ladyman shouting: "Gaga! Lady Gaga! Gaga!"
To a man.
A black man.
S/he smiled and waved at them, as I quickly walked to the parking lot trying to stifle my explosive laughter. And THAT, ladies and gentlemen, is why living in L.A. rules. Think they see stuff like this coming from work in Missouri? They probably just see, like, Walmarts 'n' shit. I should keep a camera on my person at all times...
When I created and posted "Rodney on the ROQ Vol 4", a reader commented: "This is one of the greatest compilations ever created by man, woman, or beast." So there! I probably shouldn't try to top that, but a super awesome reader named L9 sent me the Ventures/GoGos collab song "Surfin' and Spyin", thereby making a follow-up necessary. So, once again, here's a sampling of (for the most part) rare, obscure punk, power-pop, synth, novelties, oldies, reggae, and experimental oddities that legendary freeform radio DJ Rodney Bingenheimer used to play in his 'late '70s/'80s heyday on KROQ Los Angeles. Lot's of non-lp 7" singles/EPs here.
Took quite a bit of doing trying to track down some of these tunes that I remembered fondly from my youth but had seemingly dropped off the face of the earth. (The Untouchables tune, in particular was a real bee-yatch to find.) But, no matter, here 'tis - Radio as it should be!
01 Longarm - Wall of Voodoo 02 Want You - The Bangles [They used to be good, really!] 03 Little G.T.O. - Rodney and the Brunettes [Rodney himself sings (sort of) this surf oldie] 04 Surfin' & Spyin' - The Ventures covering, and joined by, The Go-Gos 05 Shes Fallen in Love With a Monster Man - The Revillos 06 Beyond and Back (Live) - X [From "The Decline of Western Civilization" soundtrack, I believe] 07 Helium Bar - The Weirdos 08 Beer - Unit 3 And Venus [feat. 8 year old lead singer!] 09 Too Young To Date - D-Day [There was a lame censored version of this song, as well] 10 California Paradise - The Runaways [in a Runaways doc film from a few years ago, Kim Fowley revealed that Rodney would cruise the Starwood club where he dj-ed to recruit future members of The Runaways by approaching young girls and asking them if they played an instrument] 11 Kookie's Mad Pad - Edd ''Kookie'' Byrnes 12 Sit on my face Stevie Nix - The Rotters [Rodney said that he had to get special permission from station management to play this naughty tune] 13 Janitor - Suburban Lawns [Where in the world is Su Tissue?] 14 Shoulder Pads - The Fall [Rodney would play this song, then offer his assesment of '80s fashion by opining: "I like this song, but I don't like shoulder pads!"] 15 Vox Wah Wah ad - feat. The Electric Prunes 16 Blues' Theme - Davie Allan & the Arrows [theme to the classic '60s biker-sploitation flick "The Wild Angels"] 17 The General - The Untouchables 18 Punky Reggae Party - Bob Marley & The Wailers [co-written by Lee "Scratch" Perry] 19 Anything, Anything (I'll Give You) - Dramarama 20 Disneyland - The Eyes [feat. future Go-Go Charlotte Caffey] 21 Springtime for Hitler - Mel Brooks [Rodney would say that every time he played this, some girl would call up to complain; he never stopped playing it, tho] 22 Pay To Cum - Bad Brains 23 I Hate The 90's - Rodney & The Tube Tops [another single featuring Rodney's vocal , er, "skills," this one featuring Thurston from Sonic Youth] 24 Porpoise Song (theme from "Head") - The Monkees [Rodney's traditional closing theme]
'Twas requested a while back that we re-post this extremely obscure bit of '70s electronica, but - alas! - the file was lost. Sorry for the delay, but many thanks to kind reader Aaron for sending us this.
Tomorrow, Sept. 5th, would have been John Cage's 100th birthday. Perhaps the most monumental figure in experimental music history, Cage and his legacy are being explored all over the world right now - tho, we here in L.A. can crow that we birthed the guy. The pieces on this album do go back to his early years, 1939-1943, to be exact. And what wonderful pieces they are, ranging from prepared pianos - pianos with stuff stuck on the strings - merrily plinkety-plunking away ("Amores"), to what could be African tribal music played on kitchen implements ("Double Music," featuring fellow California maverick Lou Harrison), to the haunting female vox of "She Is Asleep." "Imaginary Landscape no. 2" is scored for "tin cans, conch shell, ratchet, bass drum, buzzers, water gong, metal wastebasket, lion's roar and amplified coil of wire." It's all performed with verve by fine French folks the Helios Quartet.
Cage's conceptual breakthoughs were still a few years down the road, but, on a purely musical level, these works clearly established him as a stunningly original talent. His place in history was already assured, and this was just the warm-up.
John Cage:Works for Percussion(1991) Second construction [1940] (7:29) Imaginary landscape no. 2 [1942] (5:22) Amores [1943] (9:43) Double music [1941] (4:39) Third construction [1941] (10:06) She is asleep [1943] (11:40) First construction (in metal) [1939] (10:03)
New to Cage? There are a number of other great albums out there (that I won't post here because they are either in print or shared on other blogs) that I highly recommend:
"Indeterminacy" (1959) - Zen stand-up comedy; this is where Laurie Anderson got her schtick.
"Williams Mix" (1953) and "Fontana Mix" (1958) - deftly edited sound collages, ages before sampling/hip-hop/mashups, etc; and far more complex.
"In A Landscape" - more early works for gentle pianos; ambient music starts here (bonus points for, on one track, using a toy piano)
"Radio Music" (1956) - does what it says on the tin - performers "play" radios, and no other instruments.
There's plenty more, but that's off the top of my head. So...how are you celebrating? Getting together with friends to put on 4'33" ? I'll try to make it to one ofthese shows - anyone gonna make all 24 hours of Satie's Vexations?
Musical artists are still trying to mix rock'n'roll with theater, classical and easy-listening musics - why?
Look at this playlist - no, your eyes are not deceiving you. Dee Snider of metal legends Twisted Sister really does have a new album out of showtunes, Lemmy from Motorheard really is crooning with an orchestra, and, yes Virginia, there really are entire albums out there with names like "The Cocktail Tribute To Nirvana" and "Swingin' To Michael Jackson."
Some of this is done with humorous intent, e.g. Max Raabe's tongue-in-cheek Berlin cabaret remakes, and Timur and the Dime Museum's and The Scarring Party's opera/cabaret covers of Nine Inch Nails and Echo & The Bunnymen are actually pretty cool (that Timur dude sounds nuts.) But otherwise, ya gotta wonder: who (besides me and windy) are buying these albums? Like all those string quartet albums - there's millions of 'em...
The Butthole Surfers, early PiL, The Birthday Party, Pere Ubu, Flipper - heck yeah, I used to love those loonies puking up free-form psychedelic chaos. Some of the best '80s college rock, tho doomed to commercial oblivion, and unlikely to be inducted into any Rock 'n Roll Halls of Fame. A style revived, and expanded upon, by North Carolina's late Phantascist, described by former member Boogie Reverie thusly: "...we terrorized the white-bread squeeky-clean 'indie rock' scene in Chapel Hill for a good couple of years, all the while taking loads of acid, setting stuff on fire, throwing raw meat, performing nude and getting kicked out of clubs. Miss those days! ... Our albums are a bit more on the arty/exploratory side, while our live recordings are fucking intense evil violent scary witch music (no joke, we actually scared people; it became an issue)."
Lucky you, he gave us all their recordings to post. The Diamanda Galas influence listed below is for real - the female vocalist really does sing opera style! There've been no shortage of noisy guitar and free jazz bands over the years, but throwing opera vox into the mix has got to be a first (and if there are more, I'd love to hear 'em). Anyway, Boogie Reverie lists the contents as follows:
"Phantascist was - Sara Bloo - vocals, alto sax, percussion Julion S. - bass, cello, percussion Boogie Reverie - guitar/drums [at the same time!], keyboards
----
'Wouldn't You Like To Know' - Our first record. It's kinda rough, playful, ugly, noisy. We were obsessed with Sun Ra, Diamanda Galas, Throbbing Gristle, Sun City Girls, The Birthday Party, and The Cows. Tracks 3 and 8 are accompanied by our friend Tom on keyboards. ["Great Freight" is my pick hit off this album - great bass line grooves along, as an opera singer loses her marbles.] 'Phantascist Live 2-19-2010' - This is a twisted raw performance we did at a house show in Chapel Hill when we started to break into the local noise/industrial scene. It was right after we recorded Wouldn't You Like To Know. The sound quality is poor, but it's a fairly accurate representation of what we were like live. [It does indeed get a bit spooky.]
'Gratitude' was our second record and really is just one 45 minute live jam divided up into three epic tracks with freaky sound-collages weaving in and out of the music. It's meandering and noodly; not everyone's cup of tea, but it's my favorite of our two albums. It just gets weirder and weirder as it goes. At this point we were moving away from the noise-rock/punk influences and were going for a more epic post industrial jazz sound." [Fave part is 2: starts off groovy with bass melody + jazz sax skronk til the 7 minute mark when it goes into overdrive; love the bass that comes in around 10 minutes]
---
To both files I've added a song from Boogie Reverie's new solo album, "Hip New Wavicle of The Unscene Star." It's "pop," not improv/noise, with song styles ranging from wonderfully retarded spazz rock to almost Beach Boys-ish vocal harmonies.
Phantascist1 - "Wouldn't You Like To Know," + 1 Boogie Reverie song
Phantascist2 - "Gratitude" "Live 2-19-10" + 1 Boogie Reverie song
Had another re-post request, this one for the awesome 4 disk collection "Music For Weirdos", compiled by reader Chris Swank (hey Chris, haven't heard from you in a while, where ya at?) Have at it, kids:
Unless y'all know of any others? I just re-upped my collection of fantastic, irresistibly groovin' '60s/'70s ska/rocksteady/reggae/calypso space songs that I compiled in '09 to commemorate the 40th anniversary of man 'pon moon:
He was a goofy-looking bucktoothed little guy who sang funny songs with titles like "Swimmin' With The Wimmin" in a high, thin voice, while playing something called a 'banjolele' (a cross between a banjo and a ukulele.) He was also Britain's single most popular entertainer in the late '30s.
Many dozens of George Formby Jr's cheerful, clever, sometimes naughty double-entendre (i.e.: "With My Little Ukulele in My Hand") songs have been put up for free download to archive.org by some kind soul, and apart from being essential listening to fans of vintage novelty music, it's also a peek into the style of music hall entertainment that the typical Brit enjoyed back in the day. Whether performing live, acting in films, or recording, Formby was massively successful and influential to generations of British funnymen, from Benny Hill right up to Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer, even if the suggestive nature of his songs led him to sometimes be banned by the BBC.
I've had a number of requests to re-up oldies, but with mediafire deleting my stuff, and Massmirror annoying some of you, I've decided to go back to Rapidshare, knowing full well that some of you haven't liked it much in the past. Maybe they're better now? Options are dwindling, so hope this will do.
So sorry for that wait, but - at last! - here are your requests:
Was quite surprised to read the announcement earlier this week that GYBO is going off-line, after 10-and-a-half years of being the internet home of the mashup. When I joined GetYourBootlegOn in '03, I was just happy to have someplace to put my sound-collagey things that I'd been making for years to a tiny cassette audience - indeed, the first tune I posted was recorded back in 1992. The public awareness of "illegal music" was minimal, at least here in America. Negativland was well-known to the college-radio world, The Tape-Beatles and John Oswald had made some waves in avant circles, and hip-hop mix tapes were being sold under finer urban music counters. There were a few other, more obscure things, but that was about it. In the early days of GYBO, everyone was at least slightly familiar with everyone else. It was a small world.
I never expected much to come of this, but our small crew of 'net buddies soon found ourselves under the pop culture microscope, getting radio airplay, setting up club nights, being interviewed, getting pro deals. GoHomeProductions even quit his day job and went on to remix the likes of David Bowie and got his Blondie/Doors mashup on an actual Blondie hits album; Phil'n'Dog's "Doctor Pressure" boot (short for "bootleg" in mashup talk) also got an official release and went all the way to #3 on the UK charts; movie producers came a-callin' (I did stuff for an Antonio Banderos film called "Take The Lead" that, alas, went unused); Video game makers came for their "DJ Hero" game; San Fran's Bootie club opened "franchises" all over the world; hell, DJ Earworm even did mixes for the opening ceremonies for the recent London Olympics, even tho he's American. Yet GYBO never lost it's warm, clubhouse feel, and always welcomed newbies.
So why quit now, now that the word "mashup" is being entered into the dictionary (used in fiction and computers, as well as music), now that mashups have spread far beyond GYBO, to YouTube, to Bandcamp, to tv commercials, etc? Scottish producer/dj McSleazy, GYBO's founder/director, fears new UK laws that have thrown suckers in jail for illegally disseminating copywritten material. Granted, this was over copies of "Star Wars," for sale, which is not like freely distributing goofy little songs, but still, he doesn't want to take the chance. Like CBGBs, however, GYBO may be gone, but there are now zillions of cats 'n chicks out there doing what it's original denizens pioneered.
Here's a mix of some of the classics from the early years, roughly 2002-2005, massively popular tunes that most GYBO regulars would recognize - among other delights, you will hear Queen going ska, eminem go ragtime, Dubya rockin' the mic, Madonna vs Sex Pistols, Dolly Parton sing Led Zep, and every song in the world that features whistling. Almost every artist represented here was one of the "big names" of the scene. Most of these tracks still sound great, with all of the humor and inventiveness of avant-'tarde music at it's finest. I'll probably do 1 or 2 more volumes - it was way too difficult to narrow down the must-haves to just one disk's worth, and a lot of this stuff is no longer on-line - I had to pull out the old shoeboxes of CDs to rip these babies.
GYBO's Greatest Vol 1 (After clicking the above link, scroll down for a choice of downloading options.
You may have to wait a few secs.)
01 Gay Muppet Bar - Phil'n'Dog 02 Billie's Spirit - McSleazy 03 We Will Ska You - Bitter Sound Foundation 04 Dance To The Velvet Underground - Dunproofin' 05 Smokey and the Yeah - Pheugoo 06 Stripper Jackson - DJ NoNo 07 Socialist Catholic Mutilation - poj masta 08 Blowin' in my Mind - totom 09 Safari Love - Loo & Placido 10 "Music Mash-ups Make the Mainstream" - CBS news 11 Ray Of Gob - Go Home Productions 12 Whistler's Delight - DJ Riko 13 50 Bluebells - Faither of E-Jitz 14 Imagine a Walk on the Wild Side - rx 15 Dr. Who on Holiday - Dean Gray [aka Party Ben and Team 9] 16 Marshall's Been Snookered - Freelance Hairdresser [aka Soundhog] 17 Love will Freak Us - Dsico 18 A Hidden Forest - Gordyboy 19 Stairway to Bootleg Heaven - DJ Earworm 20 My People Feel That Way In The Morning - The Kleptones
This collection of '50s-'70s sultry, steamy, jungle moods taken from 45s or otherwise-non-exotic albums is all I feel like listening to lately - day after day of triple-digit heat (with a dash of humidity thrown into the cocktail) has us all wilting here in L.A. Sitting by the ocean, Mai-Tai in hand, listening to this lovely music sounds really good right now.
You'll notice some big stars not known for exotica here, like Bo Diddley, The Ventures and Link Wray, all famed for their pre-surf guitar rockers; crooners Nat 'King' Cole, Sammy Davis Jr, and Frank Sinatra; and jazz divas Anita O'Day and Pearl Bailey. There's also plenty of hopelessly obscure regional acts who never made it past their local tiki bar. This isn't all Martin Denny-type cocktail lounge stuff, either - zippy ukulele instros ("Lover"), Jamaican rocksteady ("Angie La La"), goofy novelties ("Watusi Wedding," Tobi Rix) and at least three Hammond/pipe organ tracks are included here as well. The common denominator is that it's all music designed to suggest, to quote from Sammy's percussion-charged version of Cole Porter's "Begin the Beguine," "...a night of tropical splendor...".
Most of this is recorded off my thrift-store vinyl, but thanks are in order to the late, great site Bellybongo for "Quiet Village '67" and the amusingly x-rated version of "Jungle Drums" and to toestubber.com for the radio ad. "Tiki Hut" is an excerpt I made off of the "Teenage Diary" album posted by Otis Fodder's (who has a new blog) 365 Project, hosted by WFMU's "Beware of The Blog," from whence also comes the excerpt from "Seduction." And, of course, thanks to Bettie Page.
1 Tiki Hut - "Teenage Diary" 2 Quiet Village '67 - Theophile & Bernard 3 Poinciana - Ethel Smith 4 An Occasional Man - Anita O'Day & Cal Tjader 5 Kiki - Link Wray & The Wray Men 6 Caravan - The Nat King Cole Trio 7 Call Of The Jungle - Carl Stevens 8 Sassa Boumbit - Uele Kalabubu 9 Moon Over Manakoora - The Ventures 10 Seduction! (Act Two - Scene One) - Gregg Oliver and Lois Cooper 11 Jungle Drums - Sound Of X 12 My Shawl - Xavier Cugat-FrankSinatra 13 Brazil - George Wright 14 Haiti - Pearl Bailey 15 Wow - Russ Garcia 16 Islander - Kampus Kinsmen 17 Island of Lost Girls/Nice Girl radio ad 18 The Japanese Temple - Bobby Christian 19 Jungle Fever - Creed Taylor Orchestra 20 Accessory demo-Surfer Control - Concert Organ Co. 21 Lover - Perry Botkin 22 Angie La La - Nora Dean 24 Siboney - Desi Arnaz 25 Watusi Wedding - Hugo And Luigi 26 Bali Hai - Jesse Crawford 27 Uska dara - Tobi Rix 28 Begin the Beguine - Sammy Davis, Jr.
Hellsongs are a Swedish band who have gotten amazing mileage out of the strategy of covering classic heavy metal songs in an EZ style reminiscent of late '60s/early '70s sunshine pop bands like The Mamas and The Papas, or baroque poppers like the Left Banke. They're up to five releases and counting of arranging the works of the likes of Black Sabbath, Iron Maiden, Guns 'n' Roses, and Van Halen for horns, strings, piano, acoustic guitar, and low-key Claudine Longet-like female vox. Alice Cooper's "School's Out" gets downright bubblegum, and Twisted Sister's "We're Not Gonna Take It" drifts along nicely as a stately waltz. This could be played as a quick joke, but it's so artfully rendered that the unexpected results are often quite lovely. I came for the novelty, and stayed for the music. (But then again, I love all that Free Design kinda stuff.)
Na Style Jaa are a hip-hop crew out of Lansing, Michigan who claim to be fed up with the usual cliched subject matter of most rappers, so they started writing songs that "focused on a point in history, although it is usually done in a fun and interesting way." Okay, I'm with you. "For example our song 'Party at the Panama Canal' has a central idea that, since the panama canal took 10 years to build, there must have been a huge party to celebrate, so get the whiskey and the beer." Say what?
They don't claim that this is educational "Schoolhouse Rocks" kiddie stuff, tho I suppose that it could be used for that purpose. And it's not usually explicitly comedic, tho it can be kinda funny hearing sincere, factually accurate songs about Fort Knox, lumberjacks, earthquakes, Woodstock, The American Civil War, and, yes, The Panama Canal, while still trying to keep it gangsta (in a white-bread kinda way). Beats range from really good to okay. "Call Me Maybe" doesn't seem to have anything to do with their concept - it's just tasty pop music.
I doubt that Na Style Jaa (pronounced "nostalgia") are going to hit Kanye-like levels of superstardom with this approach (and dressing up as Abe Lincoln won't help either), but I certainly wish 'em the best of luck.
Not crazy about all their stuff, but ya gotta love a song called "Electric Toothbrushes" that actually is about exactly that. Did you know that electric toothbrushes have been around since 1956? You are now that much smarter. Listen/download here:
Buttress O'Kneel is the Australian madwomen who won our "M4M Idol" contest last year, and "Avant Retro: Post-Tardcore," her latest mashup/sound collage on-line album, continues her winning streak. She rarely just drops an acapella from one song over someone else's instrumental, and when she does, as in the 48 second Guns 'n' Roses vs Jane's Addiction "Been Caught", it's all-too-short. Many tracks seems to have at least 4 sources fighting to be heard. Other strategies include: creating amusing dialogues between the songs (dig Grandmaster Flash's back-and-forth with the B52s on "Jungle Rat"), pounding the likes of The Buggles and Rick James into breakcore submission, and glitching up a song into abstraction a la John Oswald's Plunderphonics ("Mother Nature's Mulch"). And what's not to love about a song with a title like "She Blinded Me With Shatner"? Pick hit: "Running For Party Leader." (And bonus points for elsewhere sampling nutty Rhino Records parodists Big Daddy.)
All of which makes her other new recordings so surprising: they are as chilled and meditative ("spiritualy-themed," she sez) as her usual stuff is violent and confrontational. She has recently uploaded a series of extremely-slowed down remixes (for lack of a better word) to archive.org. Stevie Wonder's "Superstition," the theme song to 'The Neverending Story' (at a never-ending 102 minutes long), and Queen's 'Bohemian Rhapsody', among others, have been streeeeeeetched to great lengths. The results are not the monotonous drone-fests you'd expect, but beatiful ambient music. My fave of the bunch is "Heaven," which elongates Zep's "Stairway To Heaven" to 77 minutes and 7 seconds. When Robert Plant's vocals show up at around the 9 minute mark, they are surprisingly legible - you can make out some of the lyrics. This track was even apparently actually played at a church service, but the sometimes spooky results are as ghostly as they are Gregorian. Free listen/download here:
I find it kind of hard to believe that a sub-atomic particle sounds like a lounge mambo, but, hey, I'm no physicist. (And if sub-atomic particles really do sound like lounge mambos, well then the universe is far more wonderful than I ever imagined.) It's not very long - only about 2-and-a-half minutes - but the boson is a pretty small particle.
