HAPPY 100th BIRTHDAY, JOHN CAGE

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 of these shows - anyone gonna make all 24 hours of Satie's Vexations?

Classic Schlock: a Kitsch-Ass Rock'n'Roll mix

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...

Classic Schlock: a Kitsch-Ass Rock'n'Roll mix

1 Cabaret - Dee Snider ["Dee Does Broadway"]
2 We Will Rock You - Max Raabe & Das Palast Orchestra
3 Rape Me - The String Quartet Tribute To Nirvana
4 Blowing In The Wind - Robin Morris ["Orchestral Rock"]
5 Pretty Vacant - London Punkharmonic Orchestra ["Symphony Of Destruction: Punk Goes Classical"]
6 Eve Of Destruction - Mike Batt & The Royal Philharmonic Orchestra feat. Lemmy Kilmister ["Philharmania - All Time Great Rock Hits Vol. 1"]
7 Come As You Are - Gringo Floyd ["The Cocktail Tribute To Nirvana"]
8 Closer - Timur and the Dime Museum ["Songs from the Operatic Underground"]
9 White Riot - London Punkharmonic Orchestra ["Symphony Of Destruction: Punk Goes Classical"]
10 I Get A Kick Out Of You - Dee Snider
11 Billie Jean - Vitamin Swing ["Swingin' To Michael Jackson: A Tribute"]
12 Killing Moon - The Scarring Party ["Woke Up With Fangs"]
13 Debaser - The String Quartet Tribute To Pixies
14 In My Life - Ozzy Osbourne ["Under Cover"]
15 Jealous Guy - Robin Morris ["Orchestral Rock"]

(Thanks to windy for the Robin Morris, and the Dee Snider tip.)

The "fucking intense evil violent scary witch music" of Phantascist

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

REPOST-APALOOZA Pt2: Music For Weirdos

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: 

 http://musicformaniacs.blogspot.com/2008/06/music-for-weirdos.html

Tribute To Neil Armstrong

The greatest song ever about the recently departed Neil Armstrong was this '80s college rock hit by Angst, which you can listen to/download

HERE

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:

Life on Reggae Planet

Wish I had known about this one at the time, I would have included it:

(I used to be able to embed divshare, but no more.  We can put a man on the moon but we can't...)

GEORGE FORMBY JR, BRITAIN'S NOVELTY KING

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.

George Formby Jr on archive.org

One of his most famous tunes, "When I'm Cleaning Windows":

 

 

Funny, just as I was thinking about writing about Formby a few days ago, I came across this:

REPOST-APALOOZA

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:

"Strange Interludes" (creepy old EZ vinyl)

"Get The Funk Out, Punk" (post-punk funky weirdness)

"Moog Breakbeats" ('60s/'70s Moog synth funk)

"Straight Outta Ireland" (Irish mashup collection)

"Disco Suicide" ('70s disco atrocities)

UPDATE 9/6: RMI Harmonic Synthesizer And Keyboard Computer (obscure '70s electronica)

UPDATE 8/21: Rosengarden and Kraus "Percussion: Playful And Pretty" ('60s Space Age bachelor pad music)

Farwell to GYBO, The CBGBs Of The Internet...

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

SAVAGE Exotica!!

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.

SAVAGE Exotica!! A MusicForManiacs Collection
(After clicking the above, scroll down for downloading options. You may have to wait a few secs.)

Alternate (zippyshare) link


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

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.)

Listen to the Hellsongs soundcloud page.

Thanks to B'O'K!

Def Emcees Rhyming About the Civil War 'n' The Panama Canal 'n' Shit

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:

Na Style Jaa Soundcloud page

"Stairway To Heaven" Stretched To 77 Minutes

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.)

Buttress O'Kneel "Avant Retro: Post​-​Tardcore"

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:

Buttress O'Kneel "Heaven"

The Conceptual Crank-Calls of "Conversations"

Brandon Locher's "Conversations 2012" is a near-20 minute tour de force that does for prank phone calls what "The Velvet Underground & Nico" did for rock 'n' roll, uncovering unexpected depth and scope in what had been dismissed as childish nonsense.

What he basically did was call a store in a Johnstown, PA shopping mall and then did not speak. The "Hello? Hello" etc. response was recorded and then played to another shopkeeper in the same mall. Then their bewildered response was recorded and played for whoever answered the phone at yet another store in the same mall, and so on, until this game of tag went throughout the mall.

It does what a crank call is supposed to do - makes ya laff! - but there's much more going on here. It's ingeniously constructed, a well-edited piece of sound-collage, if nothing else. It's also a snapshot of corporate retail culture - jeez, the long greetings they make these poor kids say when they answer the phone! 

Then there's the fact that no-one answering the phone knows that they're speaking to a recording.  Everyone thinks that they're having a real conversation.  Between guffaws, Mrs Fab said to me that this is somewhat of an illustration of the cold-reading method that con-artists use to convince suckers that they have psychic powers, based on the fact that people generally say and act in very limited, predictable ways, even tho we like to think that we are very free-thinking, unique individuals.

Best of all - it's really funny. Listen/download here:

Brandon Locher "Conversations 2012"

Modern Purveyors Of Filth And Degradation: A New Music Roundup

So, so many albums out there! And some of them are even good!  Wish I had time to dedicate one post to each one, but due to the usual time constraints, here's another mix of recent (or recent to me) albums for Maniacs, available for purchase or free download, or both. Not much avant-heaviness this time out, but lots of summer-fun silly/strange excuses for pop music here. 

Modern Purveyors Of Filth And Degradation


1. Neon Lushell "Leave Me Alone" - these Midwesterners have recently dropped one of the albums of the year, I sez, in "Modern Purveyors Of Filth And Degradation (In A Time Of Peace And Understanding)". It moves from the Ministry-like bangin' album opener featured here, to dark ambient, surreal soundscapes, and twisted folk. "Dark music" without a hint of the usual cliches, e.g.: death-metal, Joy Division soundalikes, etc. A lot of self-described "strange" or "experimental" artists submit music to me, but most of it lacks the originality and imagination of these sick kitties.

2. Jan Turkenburg "droodle20110809[F***TheMeaningOfLife]" - Wonderful sound-collage from the nutty Dutchman who's been posting a series of similiar cut-and-paste "droodles" on the the ever-crucial PCL Linkdump.

3. Bob Purse "It's Not A Regular Day" - Shamelessly silly-but-swell novelty tune from The Many Moods of Bob, the recent debut album compiling many years worth of home recordings from the great music blogger Bob Purse. The man even does covers of song-poems, forpetessake.

4. Lydia Kavina "Free Music #1 (1936)" - From the album "Music from the Ether: Original Works for Theremin" by the grand-niece of Leon Theremin himself, and sometimes member of bizarro surf band Messer Chups. Excellent stuff - if you buy one theremin album in your life, buy this one. 

5. Ace of Clubs "Rehab Dem Bones " - a Herman Munster vs Amy Winehouse mashup collected off the internet.  You'll laff!

6. DmR of AtoZ "Get Up" - Another mashup, this takes numerous Beatles vocals and expertly drops them over the bassline to Tom Waits "Step Right Up." From the on-line collection "You Can't Mash That vol 28" (which I haven't actually heard, just this song.)

7. the archaeologist "pouvons-nous avoir un cendrier" - This album "parlez vous francais?" is based on a French language instruction tape (+ beats, music), which gets to be a bit much after a while.  Works great in short doses tho, like this yummy truffle that also throws in bits of Gil-Scott Herons' "Whitey's On The Moon."

8. Covox "Computer Love" - from 8-Bit OPERATORS-An 8-Bit Tribute To Kraftwerk

9. The Fire Organ "Little Fishes" - Quirky pop tune that's quite good despite the off-key singing; from an album ("Dumbed Out") that doesn't seem to be on-line any more. Hmm, maybe he's re-cutting the vocals...

10. Ban This Sick Filth "Powerhouse" - Raymond Scott's 1937 cartoon classic gets a boomin' remix courtesy of this offshoot of London mash-masters Celebrity Murder Party.

11. Greg Reinfeld "Pink Ballerina" - This highly prolific free-internet-album guy's latest is "Poorest Almanac That Ever Lived".

12. Hanetration "Rex" - Taking a breather from all this silliness, this is from the all-too-brief 4 track FREE! download release "Tenth Oar" of evocative, compelling ambiance.

13. Snaps 'n' Claps "Soldier Boyfriend" - Charming Casio girl-pop that may be more knowing than it lets on beneath its naive presentation. From their Feeding Tube cd-r "Greatest Hits."

14. Maladroit "Musicbox Jungle (Negrobeat Remix)" - Hysterical break-core collision of the '70s E-Z instro "Music Box Dancer" with that '90s 'Mr. Boombastic' song, as all heck breaks loose. Australians seem to be good at this sorta thing.

15. 1001 "Nieszczesliwa milosc, hej!" - This Polish gent hipped me to some outsider music from his land, and when I checked out his own stuff, I found this song, which makes awesome use of loops of people laughing.

16. Moose A. Moose & Zee D. Bird "Everywhere I Go" - If you have kids, you probably know this insanely catchy tune from the video that used to be shown often on the Nick Jr network. It's not available for sale, or as an mp3 anywhere, so I recorded it off a YouTube video and it came out surprisingly well. Do you know how many people want this?! Esp. since apparently Nick Jr has stopped showing the Moose & Zee bits. I am doing a public service! 

17. Janek Schaefer "Recorded Delivery [7" edit]" - From London comes this jaw-dropping artifact: a tape-recorder sealed in a box and mailed, which then recorded everything. "Recorded Delivery is a sound activated tape recording of parcel travelling through the Post Office system...The sound reactive dictaphone automatically edited the 15 hour journey to a 72 minute recording, capturing only the most sonically interesting elements of the journey."

18. Mari L. McCarthy "Weekend In New England" - This amateur tribute to '70s schlock crooner Barry Manilow entitled (hoo boy) "The Barry Thought Of You," sent to us by our frequent contributor windy, would be awful enough, but then on this song she goes and splices in the voice of Barry himself to create a Natalie/Nat Cole-like exercise in outsider horror.  Why, windy, why??

19. Willful Devices "Lattice XVIIb" - This 2-man-band (electronics & clarinet/woodwinds) go absolutely nuts on this track. Free-improv can be fun!

The Earliest Known Recorded Music in Existence

Yep, only three known copies of this Edison wax cylinder from 1888 exist, which would certainly make this one of the most historically prized recordings ever.  But it's also a good listen. 

The "song" heard here is an excerpt from classical composer Handel's "Israel In Egypt" sung by, to quote a note on the cylinder: "A chorus of 4000 voices recorded with phonograph over 100 yards away." Conducted by August Manns; recorded by Col. George Gouraud, foreign sales agent for Thomas Edison at the Crystal Palace, London, England, June 29, 1888.

A hundred yards away?!  At first I thought: 'a hundred feet away', the length of a football field, but no, it says 'yards.' Dang, that's far. So what does it sound like?  Pretty avant-garde, actually - the white-noise of the cylinder whirring around melded with the huge distant choir is a strange and haunting sound, indeed. Not too far removed from something you might hear on a Zoviet France or Nurse With Wound album. Knowing that these are actual voices from the 1800s adds a ghostly mystery to the experience.

Handel festival: "Israel In Egypt" - excerpt

(Courtesy of archive.org.)

"Mitt Romney, A Hero In My Mind": OUTSIDER MUSIC VIDEO AWESOMENESS

Thanks to Mrs Fab for sending me a link to this hilarious/awful home-made music video of an old guy named William Tapely singing about...I'm not really sure, even tho its title would lead us to assume it's an endorsement of the Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney. Tho it's all-too-short at 1:59, it has still left us with much to contemplate:

- The Casio-riffic keyboard stylings and cartoon-character vocals

- Dig them backgrounds!

- Someone's really going to town on the rinky-dink drum machine...hey, what the hell time signature is this song in anyhow?  I tried counting it out and gave up.

- Gibberish lyrics with no rhymes or sense of rhythm.

- Abrupt ending

Now this guy's a hero in my mind.

THE TWISTED HILLBILLY NOISE-ROCK OF THE CHEWERS

I didn't know that the American South was still producing bizarre roots-rock spazz-attacks like the Nashville combo The Chewers. By the 80's, the South seemed to be all REM and their followers, and the days of Southern-fried wack-jobs like the Legendary Stardust Cowboy, Hasil Adkins, or even Southern Culture on the Skids seemed to be gone forever.

The Chewers share The Cramps instrumental line-up - twang guitar, fuzz guitar, primitive drums, no bass - but seem to be coming more from Beefheart than rockabilly, e.g.: check the positively Vliet-y vocals on "Human Scum." In fact, you should just check out "Human Scum" anyway cuz it totally rules.

Elsewhere, they sing an acapella/finger-snapping ode to eating too many pancacks, "Who Ra" sounds like a werewolf is contributing lead vocals, and "Swamp Drag 2" answers the musical question 'What would the Residents have sounded like if they had never left Louisiana?'

It's not a perfect album: track 4 was when it finally started to get good for me, and the vocals sometimes lack spark.  But for the most part it's fascinating, unpredictable, and doesn't sound much like anything else I've heard lately.  Y'all come back now, ya hear?

Free download of the 18 track album here:

The Chewers "Every Drop Disorganized"

INFANTCORE

No, "Infantcore" isn't some new indie-rock sub-genre. It's a roomful of babies whose movements trigger electronic sounds. It took place earlier this year at the Machine Project space in Los Angeles. Blogger doesn't let you post vimeo vids, so check it out here:

Infantcore video

The man behind this, experimental compser Scott Cazan recently did something similar in San Francisco called Dogcore.  Couldn't find any documentation of that, tho.

Baby Fab was already too old to take part in Infantcore. Hey Scott, how 'bout some Toddlercore next time, eh?

MUSIC FOR A REAL TIKI THEATER

You may have heard the distressing news today that Fred Willard, a fine comic actor whose work I've always enjoyed, was arrested for performing an obscene public act at a porn theater on Santa Monica Blvd called the Tiki Theater. I used to be intrigued by the place because of the cool tiki signage, til I read about it online. Blech. Smoking crack and doing nasty things to each other seem to be what the patrons go for, not, unfortunately, imbibing umbrella drinks in a tropical environment whilst wearing Hawaiian shirts and listening to music like this 1959 gem (recorded off my red-colored vinyl copy!) from the one-man-band master of organ exotica, Korla Pandit.  It is, like much of Pandit's music (and '50s/'60s exotica in general) rich in haunting and mysterious atmosphere:

[UPDATE 7/31: New Link:]
Korla Pandit "Tropical Magic"

(After clicking the above link, scroll down for a choice of downloading options. You may have to wait a few secs.)

1. The Breeze And I
2. Blue Moon
3. Lovely Hula Hands
4. Trade Winds
5. Tabu
6. Lotus Love
7. Moon Of Manikoora
8. Strange Enchantment
9. Poinciana
10. Tango In D

Pandit wasn't really Indian, as he had always claimed, but was in fact an American black guy named John Roland Redd, a fact not revealed until after his death.  Which was quite a shock to me - I'd actually met and spoken with the man in the '90s when he was performing around town with the Wonderful World of Joey neo-lounge revue, and never doubted his story.  No-one did. He spoke to me in a soft Indian accent, and still wore the bejewelled turban that was his trademark when he used to perform daily on L.A. television back in the '50s.

So let's reclaim the Tiki Theater from the crack-heads and pervs, and put on real tiki shows. That sign's too good to waste. Do it for Korla!  Or whatever his name was!

The Garbage-Men

If I may just speak like a Rat-Pack era showbiz-type for a moment and say, "Marvelous stuff what the kids these days are doing." Especially when the kids are some Sarasota, Florida teenagers making their own instruments out of junk. Too bad they've only got one song up for listening/purchase right now, a delightfully messed-up version of Elvis' "Hound Dog," scored for cereal box-guitars, garbage drums, a saxophone made from a popcorn push toy, and the miracle of the Glass Bottle Idiophone:

http://thegarbagemen.bandcamp.com/

This interview features bits of other songs (also oldies remakes), as does this video, which includes a bitchin' version of The Surfaris' "Wipeout," as well as an up-close look at those nutty instruments:

I'd take this ramshackle version of "Satisfaction" over the Stone's any day:

But what do they use for strings?  Regular guitar strings?  And will they ever cover The Cramps?

An Opera About A Guy Who Mistook his Wife For A Hat

Michael Nyman is one of my favorite minimalist composers  - heck he invented the term 'minimalism' - and, apart from his soggy score to the film "The Piano" (his most popular work, of course) he's been a visionary pioneer in the field of experimental "alternative classical" music.  But this 1986 opera is pretty weird even for Nyman. As somewhat of a follow-up to my "athientertainment" post from last week that WFMU said "could make even an avowed athiest hate evolution," this work demonstrates the difficulty of making music about science.

It's based on the popular book by Dr. Oliver Sacks about bizarre neurological disorders. Sure, there's some great music - the melody introduced in "(That's Why) I'm Here" is excellent.  But hearing an opera singer belting out lines like "He's mistaken his wife for a haaaaaat!" is, well, odd. And kinda funny, tho I don't think it's meant to be. That's edu-tainment!

Michael Nyman - "The Man Who Mistook His Wife for a Hat"

(After clicking the above link, scroll down for a choice of downloading options. You may have to wait a few secs.)

Mr. T's Commandments

Mr. T was made for love.  And if you don't believe me, watch him push someone down an elevator shaft in the vid below.

A pre-gangsta rap star Ice T worked on this album. I wonder if Mr. and Ice are related?  They share the same last name...

Back in my '80s boyhood, me and some friends saw Mr. T at a sporting event. One of the guys went up and asked him to autograph his program.  He just wrote a big "T".

Mr. T's Commandments (1984)

(After clicking the above link, scroll down for a choice of downloading options. You may have to wait a few secs.)

1. "Mr. T's Commandment" - 4:59
2. "Don't Talk to Strangers" - 5:12
3. "The Toughest Man in the World" - 3:55
4. "Mr. T, Mr. T (He Was Made for Love)" - 3:21
5. "The One and Only Mr. T" - 4:46
6. "No Dope No Drugs" - 4:36
7. "You Got to Go Through It" - 4:27
8. BONUS TRACK! Mr. T's Commandments (Instrumental)

That's Athientertainment!

If Christian and religious music is a niche market, the pro-science/atheist music scene is practically microscopic. I bought a few CDs recently that are for sale from outlets like the Center For Inquiry and The Freedom From Religion Foundation.  Yep, they have gift shops, too.  Good timing: now that the Higgs Boson particle has been found, our ideas of physics (The Standard Model) have been confirmed, which means we pretty much know what the universe is made out of.  Pat yourself on the back, human race!

Dr. Stephen Baird of Stanford University is an actual scientist, as well as being the frontman for The Opposums Of Truth and The Galapagos Mountain Boys.  I generally find his style of music - hillbilly/bluegrass - kinda irritating, what with all them high screechy voices and plinckety-plunkety banjos and fiddles and whatnot.  But, somewhat to my surprise, I started diggin' these albums ("Darwin, Darn It!" and "Ain't Gonna Be No Judgement Day: Scientific Gospel") after a couple spins. Really well played, and it's always funny hearing technical jargon sung with enthusiasm.

The Voices Of Reason are a Los Angeles a capella vocal group, here covering/rewriting "The Hallelujah Chorus" and the old "Negro" spiritual "Joshua Fit The Battle of Jericho." I saw 'em open for Julia Sweeney's show "Letting Go of God" a few years ago.

And here's some songs from previous posts that have since gone off-line:

Anthropologist Richard Milner: "Charles Darwin: Live and In Concert" is channeling the great naturalist thu witty, upbeat original songs with rapid-fire rhymes that would give eminem a run for his money. I hear the likes of Noel Coward, Cole Porter and his admitted heroes GIlbert & Sullivan.

Dan Barker is an atheist satirical songwriter, like a one-topic Randy Newman or Warren Zevon. He's released several albums, including "Beware of Dogma."  It features "My God is in My Soul," a brilliant track by Michael Newdow, the guy who tried to remove the phrase "under God" from the Pledge of Allegiance (who has a pretty interesting CD himself). It includes samples of profane voice mail messages left by furious Christians. They're not just dropped onto music, but are ingeniously integrated into the lyrics of the mock-reverent "hymn." The result walks that hilarious/disturbing line. "Fleas" is a parody of Joyce Kilmer's poem about how I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree, blah blah blah.

Baba Brinkman (a Canadian, eh!) first appeared in these pages with his rap version of The Canterbury Tales. His album "The Rap Guide To Evolution," (available from his site) is, well, just that. It's scientifically accurate, musically solid, even funny sometimes. But dealing with biological complexities can make the songs amazingly wordy, e.g.: the finely funky song posted, set at a dinner table as our hero tries to reason with a stubbornly unscientific family. I'm certainly aware of the large number of religious creationists out there, but the feminist who says gender has no basis in science threw me for a loop. Are there still people who think like that? I thought that was a relic of '70s hippie-dom.

"A Brief History of Rhyme: MC Hawking's Greatest Hits": Stephen Hawking: brilliant physicist, considered the heir to Newton and Einstein; crippled by Lou Gehrig's disease, he speaks thru a voice synthesizer. MC Hawking: his hard-core hip-hip alter ego. So someone gets ahold of the type of voice synthesizer Dr. Hawking uses and records a buncha profanity-laden rap songs. About science. Sounds like it might be funny for maybe 30 seconds, right? Guess again Einstein, this is genius - whoever is behind this knows both his science AND his hip-hop. The debut album "A Brief History Of Rhyme" is dripping with tunes both hilarious and (I hate to say it) even sorta educational..Funny, righteous, boomin' beats. "Entropy" is a parody of Naughty By Nature's "OPP" (with another dig at Creationism thrown in), "What We Need More of is Science" peels New Age kooks' caps back, and "UFT For The MC" is The Sex Pistols' "Anarchy In The UK" with new lyrics reflecting the Hawkman's quest for a Unified Field Theory. The real Stephen Hawking is aware of this project and has given it his blessing.

Athientertainment: a MusicForManiacs mix

(After clicking the above link, scroll down for a choice of downloading options. You may have to wait a few secs.)

1. The Galapagos Mountain Boys - Walk Down In The Water
2. The Voices Of Reason - The Evolution Chorus
3. Richard Milner - Darwins Nightmare
4. Dan Barker - Fleas
5. Dr. Stephen Baird And The Opposums Of Truth - Randomness Is Good Enough For Me
6. MC Hawking - Fuck the Creationists
7. Baba Brinkman - Creationist Cousins 2.0
8. Dan Barker - My God is in My Soul
9. The Voices Of Reason - Battle 'Tween Church And State
10. Richard Milner - Why Didn't I?
11. Dr. Stephen Baird And The Opposums Of Truth - I Have Seen Evolution With My Own Two Eyes

Rodney On The ROQ vol. 4

It's the weekend!  It's summer!  It's almost July 4th!  Man, I just want some fun music right now. So let's set our wayback machine to the early '80s: we're gonna cruise around, turn on KROQ-FM, eat Oki Dogs, go to that liquor store where they never card the under-aged, drink, puke, and crank up Rodney. 

You don't need me to tell you about the legendary freeform radio dj Rodney Bingenheimer. He's often been called John Peel of America, but after seeing his bio-doc film "The Mayor of The Sunset Strip", he reminded me more of Andy Warhol - quiet, shy, surrounded by superstars but kind of in his own world.  A genuinely strange person, but, as much as anyone, helped drag American culture out of it's "malaise" (as Jimmy Carter called it). He not only played the Ramones before New York radio, he played (and interviewed over the phone) the Sex Pistols when UK radio couldn't (they were banned), and countless other alterna-stars and obscurities when the rest of commerical radio was still mired in The Eagles, Led Zep, Debby Boone and disco.  He now has a star on Hollywood Blvd.

Which is all well and good, but why this all matters to me is the fact that discovering Rodney's show (and, to a lesser extant, KROQ in general) made me a music fan.  Yep, it was (almost) as simple as that.  I liked my hippie big sister's Beatles records, the novelty music Dr Demento played, and my mom's Johnny Cash records.  But, generally, I thought modern music was mostly stupid Van Halen and Kiss nonsense. Post-Rodney, I became an avid radio listener, started buying records, talked music with my friends, reading reviews, etc... It was a thrilling time that you can't really understand unless you have ever lived in a time or place where there was little alternative culture, and suddenly, there was.  So, thanks Rodney!

Is this a nostalgia trip, where I sigh and say wistfully about how "innocent" it all was?  Hell, no. Listening to these songs again, sometimes for the first time in years, I'm struck by how decadent and depraved so much of it was. And to think that I would listen to stuff like Kim Fowley's evil-sounding "Invasion of The Polaroid People," or songs with titles like "I Want To Be A Prostitute," and it didn't faze me at all. This was my youth? When was I ever innocent? L.A. (America?  The world?) was a dirtier, smoggier, more crime-ridden,  immoral, and politically corrupt place then it is now. We thought Ronnie was gonna start World War III. And it's all in these grooves. 

In the early '80s, Rodney compiled three albums for Posh Boy records that have been featured all over the internets (Look! This nice person posted all of 'em).  They spread the gospel of the enormous SoCal scene far beyond KROQ's signal, and, thus became vastly influential to zillions of kids who maybe knew about, say, Patti Smith or the B52s but had no idea how widespread, diverse, and hardcore the rock underground had become. Here then is a theoretical hypothetical fourth volume.

What you won't find here: the famous groups, songs from the previous Rodney comps, or much hardcore punk, since that's been amply covered elsewhere (I'm pretty sure you all know what Black Flag sounds like.)  This is more like a typical Rodney show, where he'd throw in unfashionable oldies (e.g.: early '60s surf), novelties and avant-weirdness amidst the power-pop and punk. From local private-pressings to foreign imports. So much stuff that, in those pre-internet days, you simply couldn't hear anywhere else. It was difficult to find some of these records in the shops. Keep in mind, KROQ wasn't some little college station, but a commercial outlet with a strong signal and high ratings, reaching millions of people. One of those interesting moments in culture when the radical was actually kinda cool and trendy for a while.
[UPDATE 8/27/14: new download link:]
Rodney On The ROQ vol. 4

01 Let's Go to the Beach - The Gears
02 The Cramps - Do The Clam [Rodney played the entirety of a Cramps live album when he heard that Lux Interior had died.  He hadn't. Oops. But I taped the album off the radio, and discovered this great Elvis cover.]
03 The Monkey's Uncle - Annette & The Beach Boys [Rodney played '60s beach party movie queen Annette Funicello so much on his show that Red Cross/Redd Kross were inspired to write their classic "Annette's Got The Hits"]
04 Summer Fun - The Barracudas
05 Are There Any Girls Here? - Rodney Bingenheimer
06 Riboflavin-flavored, Non-carbinated, Polyunsaturated Blood - 45 Grave [This number, featuring The Germs' Don Bolles (see track 14) would get played every Halloween. Boy, was I surprised when I walked into a thrift store one day in the '90s and saw this album - I had assumed that this song was a 45 Grave original]
07 Romeo's Distress - Christian Death ["death-rock" we used to call this kinda thing, before "goth" became a popular term]
08 Velvet Goldmine - David Bowie [a "Ziggy"-era UK-only b-side; were it not for Rodney I would have had no idea that this record existed]
09 Invasion of The Polaroid People - Kim Fowley [cool music backing by Rich La Bonté]
10 The Human Chicken - The Dancing Did [I always heard Rodney calling these guys "The Dancing Dead," and thought that that was such a good band name; only when doing research for this post did I discover this band's true name!]
11 I'm in Love With a German Filmstar - The Passions [when Rodney would play this, he would say: "I AM in love with a German filmstar - Nastassja Kinski!";  a bandmate of a pre-Clash Joe Strummer in The 101ers was in this group.]
12 Robot (7" Mix) - The Plastics [This catchy bit of Japanese techno-pop is the first song I remember hearing on Rodney's show, a true wtf? moment]
13 I Want To Be A Prostitute- Alisa
14 My Tunnel - The Germs [an unreleased demo that I remember taping off the radio back in the day; this killer song didn't get an official release until the '90s.]
15 Mohawk Man - Mr. Epp And The Calculations [funny how the hardcore scene had already become fodder for parody by the time this came out in '82; features future Mudhoney members]
16 Oki Dogs - Youth Gone Mad [Ah, Oki Dogs...two weiners, pastrami, wrapped in a chili-filled tortilla; I had one for the first time in 20 years at Cine-Family's Post-Punk Junk film fest last year. SO good.]
17 Kinky Boots - Patrick Macnee & Honor Blackman [Celebrities singing badly! From the great '60s tv show "The Avengers]"
18 Are There Any Girls Here? - Rodney Bingenheimer
19 Foolish Girl - The Mo-dettes [Rodney sure loved the ladies - no shortage of female performers featured on his show]
20 Richard Hung Himself - D.I. [a few more death-rockers]
21 Death On The Elevator - Super Heroines
22 Skeletons - Inflatable Boy Clams
23 Randy Scouse Git - The Monkees [I seem to recall one night Rodney played every song the Monkees recorded...in alphabetical order]
24 American Society - Eddie and the Subtitles
25 Satan's Stomp - The Flesh Eaters
26 Lets Make the Scene -  Rodney Bingenheimer [I think a pre-hair metal Lita Ford, still a Runaway, did the music, but can't find confirmation]

I saw Rodney mc a Blondie show 5 years ago or so.  He pretty much looked the same. I might do a vol. 5, but does anyone have The Ventures version of "Surfin and Spying"?