ROBOTS PLAY EXOTICA

- You got robots in my gamelan!

- You got gamelan in my robots!

Two great tastes that go great together: Gamelan Galak Tika (pronounced 'Galactica'?) & Ensemble Robot, from Boston's MIT and UMass, respectively, combine forces for 19 minutes of free awesomeness that you can download here:

Gamelan Galak Tika & Ensemble Robot: Heavy Metal

A few other instruments like violin and electric guitars join the machines and the Indonesian bells 'n' gongs for a thoroughly mysterious and wonderful sandwich spread of rock 'n' roll, island exotica, and avant-garde. Now, with added chunks of sci-fi futurism! A combo this bizarre shouldn't exist. And yet it does:

And speaking of robots playing heavy metal...

Compressorhead

are a metal band - literally - whose videos show them jammin' on Motorhead, The Ramones, and AC/DC. They do live shows, and apparently an album is in the works.

One Of The Most Famous Songs in History is Marxist Propaganda That Involves Raping A Minor: The Story of "Mack The Knife"

"Oh, the shark bites
With his teeth, dear
And he shows them
pearly white..."

Yeah, you know it, "Mack The Knife", #3 on Billboard's Top 100 Songs ever. You've heard it a million times, from Bobby Darin's #1 hit version in 1959, to countless crooners ever since. But who first recorded it?

Feel free to smack the next smug twerp who tells you "Google is your friend." No, it's not, not always, and I couldn't find the answer to that question. I knew it was written by the great German composer/playwright/anti-capitalist team of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht back in 1927 for the musical "Threepenny Opera," but that's well known. Heck, that Weimer-era Berlin cabaret style is probably more popular now then it was in the 1920s.  Tom Waits, Amanda Palmer, The Tiger Lillies, and numerous other alt/dark-cabaret performers owe much of their careers to it, and countless jazz, pop, and theater singers have been performing these songs for decades. (That's an original German 1929 poster to the right.)

So you'd think the question of who made the first recording of "Mack The Knife" would be a pretty basic one. But it gets confusing early on.  For one thing, the song wasn't even originally entitled "Mack The Knife." Nope, it was called "Moritat," a term from German folklore meaning a bad-man ballad, similar to Old Western songs about bandits and outlaws. It then became popularly known as "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer (The Ballad of Mack the Knife)." In the Fifties, it finally became known as "Mack The Knife" when it was discovered by the American jazz and theater world.

So who did it first? I went to the source, and asked the Kurt Weill Foundation, but even spokesperson Dave Stein isn't certain. He wrote me:

"I'm not absolutely sure, but it seems pretty clear that the first recording of the "Moritat" was made in December 1928 by Harald Paulsen, who played Macheath in the original production of the Threepenny Opera. Brecht himself also recorded the song early on, but my sources say that was made a few months later, in May 1929. It's odd that the standard Brecht biographies and chronologies we have here seem to make no mention of this recording, which you would expect to be a little more noteworthy. Paulsen's recording is available on a recently reissued Capriccio 2-CD set

"Die Dreigroschenoper: Historische Originalaufnahmen" (C 5061, reissued 2011, originally released on CD in 1990).

I should point out that the "Moritat" was not the biggest hit from the show in Weimar Germany; it did not become the hit song from Threepenny until much later, when Louis Armstrong's 1955 recording paved the way for so many successors."

Needless to say, Paulsen's and Brecht's versions sound little like the ones you know. With their German lyrics, oom-pah sound, and different vocal phrasing, they almost sound like different songs altogether from the later finger-snappin' remakes. They do sound great, tho - I'd take Brechts' version over many of the later, more famous recordings.

And then there's the matter of the lyrics. The famous versions from the '50s and afterwords usually use Marc Blitzstein's somewhat sanitized translation. The eye-opening original lyrics feature such lines as "And the minor-aged widow/ Whose name everyone knows/ Woke up and was violated/ Mack, what was your price?" Yikes, that's getting a bit rape-y, isn't it? Macheath wasn't just some loveable Rat-Pack type rogue, but a genuinely Bad Dude. In the eyes of Brecht and Weill, Mack was a symbol of unrestrained capitalism. This context disappeared, of course, after the off-Broadway 1954 revival of "Threepenny" became such a huge success using Blitzstein's translation. My mom even attended a performance! And I have a copy of the hit cast album, featuring a young pre-sitcom star Bea Aurthur, then still known as "Beatrice." (Hey trivia fans! A pre-Law and Order Jerry Orbach would eventually play Mack in the same production.) Darin did his version based on the Blitzstein revival, and here we are.

All of which got me thinking...I bet many of you remember the 1985 album "Lost In The Stars - the Music of Kurt Weill."  With it's fresh re-workings of numerous Weill classics and it's all-star cast, it was pretty popular in the college/public radio scene of the '80s. I liked Slapp Happy/Henry Cow singer Dagmar Krause's track so much, I then bought her "Supply & Demand" German cabaret covers record. Producer Hal Wilner, on this and other albums he organized, actually made the dreaded 'tribute album' seem like a great idea.

"Lost In The Stars - the Music of Kurt Weill" 

I added the two previously-described earliest known versions of "Moritat" to the file.

Get the artwork/liner notes to "Lost in The Stars" HERE.

1. Mahagonny Songspiel (Intro) - Steve Weisberg

2. 'The Ballad Of Mac The Knife' - Sting/Dominc Muldowney

3. 'The Cannon Song' - Stan Ridgway, The Fowler Brothers [Bruce Fowler of Captain Beefheart's late-period Magic Band?]

4. 'Ballad Of The Soldier's Wife' - Marianne Faithfull

5. Johnny Johnson Medley - Van Dyke Parks

6. The Great Hall - Henry Threadgill

7. 'Alabama Song' - Ralph Schuckett, Richard Butler (of the Psychedelic Furs)

8. 'Youkali Tango' - The Armadillo String Quartet

9. 'The Little Lieutenant Of The Loving God' - John Zorn

10. Johnny's Speech - Van Dyke Parks

11. 'September Song' - Lou Reed

12. 'Lost In The Stars' - Carla Bley

13. 'What Keeps Mankind Alive?' - Tom Waits

14. Klops Lied (Meatball Song) - Elliot Sharp

15. 'Surabaya Johnny' - Dagmar Krause

16. Oh Heavenly Salvation': Hurriccane Introduction - Mark Bingham & Aaron Neville

17. Oh Heavenly Salvation: Oh Heavenly Salvation - Mark Bingham & Aaron Neville

18. 'Call From The Grave/Ballad In Which Macheath Begs All Men For Forgiveness - Todd Rundgren

19. 'Speak Low' - Charlie Haden

20. 'In No Man's Land' - Van Dyke Parks Oh, so how's Sting's version of "Moritat"? It's really good, except for the Sting part. And if you like Tom Waits' take on "What Keeps Mankind Alive?," dig William Burroughs' version:

I'LL TAKE LAS VEGAS: A LOUNGE COMPILATION

 Back up, by request:

I'LL TAKE LAS VEGAS: A LOUNGE COMPILATION

 Plus!

 Zoogz Rift, "Torment," and "Idiots on the Miniature Golf Course."  

ZOOGZ TOOZDAY: Early Rarities

Zoogz Toozday is back, for one post - a large collection of early recordings from the late Zappa/Beefheart-inspired-bandleader-gone-punk/ comedian/ crank/ mad genius Zoogz Rift. We featured an album of Zoogz with his band The Amazing Shitheads every Tuesday for a while there, then super-awesome generous reader myxsoma laid some more on us, and, once again, he has gifted us with 3 bootlegs taken from cassettes of Zoogz and various enthusiastic cohorts chronicling his earliest recordings, some going all the way back to 1973: "The first two are apparently from his band "Zobus" which was his earlier band before the Shitheads." All 3 volumes contain text files with useful notes. Longtime sidemen Richie Hass (vibes) and Scott Colby (slide guitar) are featured. Sound quality varies, but is generally pretty good, considering.

The first folder "Zobus - the first demo - 1973" is the early stuff. In 1973 Zoogz would have been a mere 20 years old, and still in New Jersey, before he made his name in Los Angeles. If you're used to the thorny complexities of Rift's music, this stuff may surprise you - it's as much garage-rock as anything else. His style may not have gelled yet, but his attitude certainly had: the punk-before-punk "Rock 'n' Roll" has him and his bandmates howling: "I'm sick and tired of rock 'n' roll, so fuck you!" Elsewhere, there's "Jugular Vein," a Sun Ra-like freeform freakout; a latin music/Santana parody; an almost respectable bit of fusion with the not-so-respectable title "Not Drenched In Farts;" tape tomfoolery; Moog mania; and an acapella shouter, with the band exclaiming: "We've run out of ideas!" Fun, funny, and certainly unpredictable. The man was well on his way.

"Zobus 1975-1977 - Lovely Girl demo and rehearsals" is the next folder, and it's sounding better, more professionally recorded. "Would You F-I-B to the FBI" is a brilliant oddity, a Chipmunk-style novelty that turns into a circus waltz. "Tits and Ass" is cool, if a bit too obviously derivative of its inspirations: Zappa-esque lyrical crudity + Beefheartian growly vox and bluesy rock. Some of the soloing on the 6+ minute instro "Can't You See That B Can Be C Flat ?" is questionable, but is more than made up for with "Inside My Head There's A Vacuum," a live (but well-recorded) 17-minute groover from their last Jersey show before heading west. It's a downright sample-able funk-fest, with some real tasty Haas marimba solos, and spoken word nuttiness: "What do you think it's gonna be like when we finally get to California and show them our avant-garde weird music to the record companies?" "It's not gonna be any different."

"1978-1979 - Outtakes and alternates" features versions of a number of songs that did get released on a proper Zoogz album, "Idiots on the Miniature Golf Course", as well as songs that didn't make the album, inc. another version of "Would You F-I-B to the FBI", and the cowboy piss-take "The Man Who Slugged Your Mother" (did county bands ever actually use vibraphones?) No longer known as Zobus, they're Zoogz Rift's Micro Mastodons, and their playing is as tight as a drum. Loony guitarist John Trubee is now on board. Next stop: SST Records, and '80s college-rock notoriety.

Zoogz Rift - rarities

Funny (or not) - just as I was listening to this stuff today, I checked my email, and learned that Mediafire had taken down two albums from this blog. Two of those Zoogz Rift albums that I posted couple years ago.  What timing.  I'll try to get 'em back up soon.

Another Repost

By request: the absolute wimpiest versions possible of classic rock hits, "Soft, Safe & Sanitized," is back on-line.

BROWN-SKINNED MORMONS A-GO-GO!!

Lamanites? Is that what your kitchen counter is made of?  No, silly, Lamanites are the original inhabitants of North America, according to the Book of Mormon, and since Mexicans and Polynesians are brown people like the Indians, they must all be related!  Let's thrown them into the same category, make 'em wear Indian costumes, and sing cheery, cheezy, '70s variety show-type music! So someone thought at Utah's Brigham Young University, from whence this group comes.

Lots of fun stuff on this album that Our Man in Salt Lake City, windy, sent our way.  Just don't expect much in the way of ethnic authenticity. The low-budget lounge combo's instrumental backing and the singer's enthusiastic performances can get absurdly entertaining. I mean, check out the cat in the headdress to the left. That's gotta be the crooner swingin' his way thru "Navajo Baby." "The Mountains Cry Out," believe it or not, is practically surf music. And a song with a title like "The Big Mouth Frog" has got to be good, right? Right. Oddly, there's almost no overt religious content. Maybe they were hoping for a mainstream crossover a la The Osmonds.

 The Lamanite Generation

(Bless you, windy!)

THE TOILET BOWL CLEANERS

The Toilet Bowl Cleaners is a guy from Massachusetts. As I wrote last month when I posted "... 2 tracks off their album "Songs About Poop, Puke & Pee." The fact that such an album even exists is amazing; the fact that the Toilet Bowl Cleaners have many albums, all focused on the subject of human waste, and that some of the songs are actually good, is nothing short of mind-boggling. The main toilet-bowl cleaner sez that he's released 8000 songs in the last 4 years. That's kinda prolific." 

As funny and/or gross as you'd expect, but these simple, catchy Billy Joel-ish piano-driven songs are so obsessively single-minded in their examination of the more taboo aspects of human corporeality that it's kind of impressive. I almost feel like congratulations are in order. He seems to be a sane man, a regular guy, not someone you'd think were you to meet him on the street "Hey, now that's the kind of guy who would record 7 whole albums about bodily functions!"

THE TOILET BOWL CLEANERS sampler

01 Gotta Poop, Puke and Pee (Simultaneously) [Songs About Poop, Puke & Pee]
02 Happy Mother's Day (Thanks For Wiping My Bum, Mum) [Holiday Poop Puke & Pee Songs]
03 The Diarrhea Bounce Back [Still Farting, Pooping, Puking, and Peeing]
04 Scarlet Johansson Farts [Celebrities Fart and Poop (Just Like You & Me)]
05 I Pooped On Santa's Lap [Holiday Poop Puke & Pee Songs]
06 The Defecation Song [Still Farting, Pooping, Puking, and Peeing]
07 Swine Flu [I Love Poop!]
08 Peeing In The Shower [Songs About Poop, Puke & Pee]
09 Girls Don't Poop [I Love Poop!]
10 Picking My Nose [Let's Not Forget Snot, Boogers & Ear Wax!]
11 Taylor Lautner Poops [Famous People Fart & Poop]
12 Wiping My Bum With My Hand [I Love Poop!]
13 Bed Bugs [Let's Not Forget Snot, Boogers & Ear Wax!]
14 Rudolph The Red-Nosed Hemorrhoid [Holiday Poop Puke & Pee Songs]
15 Barack Obama Farts [Celebrities Fart and Poop (Just Like You & Me)]
16 Everybody Farts

Albums also available thru CDBaby.

REPO(ST) MAN

By request, the following are back up:

- Classic Schlock: a Kitsch-Ass Rock n Roll Mix

- Hollywood Stomp - Los Angeles in Song 1920s - 1940s

The FLYING DUTCHMAN - ONE-MAN BAND SHOW

How's THAT for an album cover? 

I think you can see why I picked up this private-press piece of vintage vinyl recently - it truly is a slice of authentic Americana, a peek into un-hip rural backroads (in this case, Pennsylvania Dutch country) where Ma & Pa go out on a Saturday night to the local tavern and dance to the kind of music left out of the history books, played by the sort of performer usually considered to be not worthy of critical consideration.

Recorded live, Mr. Dutchman is  clearly having a good ol' time, chatting with the crowd,  letting loose with whoops and yee-haws! on occasion. Everything that doesn't sound like a polka (even the Elvis cover) is delivered in a wave-your-mug drinking song waltz-time. And might I direct your attention to the song that features our man playing the accordion and tap-dancing (!) at the same time. They don't make 'em like this any more.  (Or do they?  I suspect that this fellow might be the same guy.)

The FLYING DUTCHMAN - ONE-MAN BAND

More Experimental Music From A 3-Year-Old Girl...

...tho I think she's at least 4 years old by now. Anyway, Stinky Picnic's long-awaited (by me, at least) follow-up to last years' swell "Cockles" has dropped, and it's even more swell. So swell, it is practically swollen, with more of dad's psychedelic minimalistic grooves and his girl's lyrics about monsters, birds, lizards (and the smelliness thereof), and, er, "bear mummies." And she can count up to 22. "...nearly 100% improvised live using loop pedals and piles of instruments." "Cat Collar" has such an ill groove that even those poor souls allergic to the charms of cute li'l girls will be nodding their heads to the shoegaze-y beat.

Stinky Picnic "Peaceful and Quiet"

Pops sez: "Indigo said we should call it "Peaceful and Quiet" so that when people hear a track like 'Brains' they'll "totally freak out"! Man, I love that girl o'mine..."  I feel ya, dad: yesterday, my daughter was singing "Old MacDonald" over an instrumental version of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." Baby's First Mashup! And she was making up lyrics about critters I don't recall being on Ol Mac's farm, like butterflies (..."with a flap flap here, a flap flap there..."). Already showing a healthy disregard for musical traditions.

A STONER'S TRIBUTE TO CARL SAGAN (Milvia Son Records Sampler)

I've passed the 1000 posts mark. And boy are my fingers tired.

On to 1001! Milvia Son Records from up in the Bay Area sent me a batch of their vinyl-only goodies, and the first thing you should know about 'em is that they've released an album by Can's first singer Malcolm Mooney. If that doesn't automatically score cool points, what will? They didn't send me that one (it sells itself, presumably), but there's other fun to be had in their catalogue of "head music" that bears little resemblance to most psychedelia or stoner rock currently being made.

Milvia Son sampler

1. Bad Drumlin Grass "All Night Long" - Bad grass? Actually, this New Wave-y tune from a 7" is made from good stuff, like synth farts and nonsense vocals. And nekkid ladies on the cover!
2. Bad Drumlin Grass  "Can Do" (excerpt) - Speaking of Mooney-era Can, I was digging this lengthy jam, the opening track to their album "The Invigorating Scent of …" and it reminded me of Can's "Yoo Doo Right." Then I checked the song title. So probably no coincidence. The song "Out on the Tracks" is an ill synth jam; the album gets increasingly jazzy/trippy, less groove-y as it goes on and the chemicals kick in.

3. Bob Frankford "O Carl" - Totally ridiculous ode to Carl Sagan sung (?) over a mangled recording of the theme to Sagan's tv show "Cosmos." I shouldn't love this, but I really do.  From the four-track 7" sampler "Just a Little Bit of Milvia Sun," which includes a pic of Dr. Carl, and a lengthy quote allegedly from the famous astronomer himself describing how great smoking pot is, e.g.: "Experiencing orgasms while high and listening to music, particulary electronic or 'psychedelic' music, is one of the greatest pleasures of my life.'  Wow, did he really say that?
4. Jaki Jakizawa " Period Fart" - All of side one of Jaki's album is super cool disco electro improv - like Giorgio Moroder goes free jazz.  I spent part of the '90s looking for anyone who was doing to synths what Coltrane did for the sax, what Jimi did for the guitar, and not coming up with much besides Sun Ra. A much-welcome approach to the synth. The flip is drum-less cosmic electronica recommended to Tangerine Dream fans. And there might still be a few of them left.
5. Old Yeller & The Pigbites - "The Wreck of the Jerome Garcia"/"Handsome Stranger" - This no-fi mess of acoustic guitars and vocals piled on top of each other makes Daniel Johnston sound as polished as Celine Dion, but some gems do rise thru the muck. ("Handsome Stranger" = Not Safe For Work.)

By the way: If you are a Can fan, the new "Lost Tapes" box set really is a treasure-trove, not just a hodge-podge of leftovers, crappy-sounding live tracks, demos, etc, as these types of collections usually are.

The Conceptual Crank-Call of "Conversations (Revisited)"

As I wrote last year: "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."

Locher's back with another epic of prog-prank, 15 minutes longer then the last "conversations," and we're not in a shopping mall anymore. Just random folks are the unwitting stars rockin' the mic here. The first couple minutes are just people saying "Hello?," but the random collisions eventually become fascinating, thought-provoking, hilarious, and, when the really ancient-sounding old ladies are talking, kinda poignant.
I could listen to this all day - but bursting into laughter doesn't look so cool at the office.

Brandon Locher "Conversations (Revisited)"

GUNS TURNED INTO MUSICAL INSTRUMENTS

Here's an idea who's time has truly come: a project called "Imagine" in which Mexican artist Pedro Reyes leads a team that takes guns donated from citizens of a county particularly wracked by violence and transforms them into musical instruments. Pistols form a guitar's body, gun barrels have holes drilled into them and made into flutes, or are arranged according to size into a xylophone, etc. The remarkable lyre pictured above is as much a triumph of visual design as musical. Go

HERE

to read/see the pics/watch the making-of vids. The video below is a 6-minute "Imagine Concierto" featuring the instruments. Yes, the music is based on the Lennon song, but even if you're sick of that tune, you must admit to how good these instruments sound, how well they're played, and just the general awesomness of the project. The percussion in particular gets increasingly sorta funky as the song progresses.

And I'm outta here til sometime in January. Much thanks to the many of you who have contributed to this-here web-log this year. Peace on Earth, goodwill towards men, and all that jazz.

SPACE-AGE SANTA

William Shatner! Theremins! Daleks! Annoying child singers!  Truly, this is what Christmas is all about, Charlie Brown. 

If we must be subjected to Christmas music every year, at least let's make it bad/strange futuristic-y sci-fi songs. Space travel and Christmas - two things that have nothing to do with each other.  So why are there so many songs about both? Maybe cuz kids love 'em both. Or because Santa's reindeer routine was a wormhole-like traveling thru space/time? Or cuz everyone gets sick of "White Christmas" after a while? Regardless, here are 24 mainly '50s/'60s songs collected over the years, stuffed into one handy stocking:

SPACE-AGE SANTA
(Is this divshare business working?)
Space-Age Santa (Zippyshare)

These tunes are mostly off hopelessly obscure 45s, but I added artist info, if any

01 Hal Bradley Orch wPatty Marie Jay - SpaceAge Santa Claus
02 Zoot, Zoot, Zoot Here Comes Santa In His New Space Suit - Tiny Tim and Bruce Haack (as previously discussed)
03 Introduction-Hooray For Santa Claus - Miton DeLugg (from the badfilm classic "Santa Claus Conquers The Martians)
04 I Cloned Myself For Christmas - Neutron 606
05 Good King Wenceslas - Douglas Leedy (from a Buchla - not Moog - album from the late '60s that's all pretty cool, but this is the stand-out track.)
06 The Go Go's - I'm Gonna Spend My Christmas With A Dalek (No, not those Go-Gos, this was a '60s British studio "group.")
07 Outer Space Santa - Lawrence Welk's Little Band
08 Santa and the Satellite - another proto-mashup from Buchanan & Goodman
09 Northern Telecom - I Want An OC192 For Christmas 
10 moog cookbook - santa claus is coming to town (time-traveling to the '90s for this nutty instro)
11 Tim Dinkins - Santa's Rocket
12 Take A Ride On Santa's Rocket - The Sounds Extraordinare
13 Bobby Helms - Captain Santa Claus (Yep, the "Jingle Bell Rock" guy)
14 Lothars - Oh Holy Night (great contemporary theremin group)
15 barry gordon - Zoomah the Santa Claus from Mars
16 The Servotron Evaluation of the Christmas Season
17 Fountains of Wayne - I Want an Alien for Christmas (more actual not-old music! From their 2005 album "Out-Of-State Plates")
18 a sonovox (a kind of '40s vocoder) version of "rudolph"
19 troy hess - christmas on the moon (singing 6 year with thick hick accent - OUCH)
20 William Shatner - Good King Wenceslas (hearing all the verses, recited in Captain Kirk's ponderous delivery, reminds me that I have no idea what the hell this song is about)
21 Scene 1 Come Rejoicing-Its The Very Best Time of The Year-Make A Joyful Noise (from a kiddie xian xmas album I found in a thrift-shop called "Christmas 2001 A Space-Age Adventure"; I actually digitized the whole thing, but, believe me, you don't need to hear it)
22 Christmas in the Stars (from the infamous "Star Wars Christmas" album; I also have this one on vinyl - featuring a young Jon Bon Jovi! - but you REALLY don't need to hear the whole thing)
23 MIT computer 1962 carols
24 Space Age Santa Claus - Gus de Wert Trio (Incredibly, a cover of track #1)

Thanks to J-Unit 1!

Avant-Cute: The Caring Babies

The Caring Babies describe themselves as "experimental, electronic" but these absurdly cute, cuddly songs ain't exactly Stockhausen. Tip-off #1: the band name, #2: the teddy bears on the cover. Their new release is 4 songs in under 4 minutes of irresistible silliness and willful innocence. Then there's the unexpected noise blast at the end, which had me asking, "What did I just listen to?"

Listen: The Caring Babies "Gold Friends"

Buy: the 7" record

Download: the song "Gold Friends." Because friendship is special.

LIKE A FOUR-MONTH-OLD SUN RA...

Buster Boris Pocket Naumoff is the youngest son of Troy Naumoff, the grown-up behind the kids noise band Electric Fence, and Troy has recorded baby-boy taking a 14-minute space-jazz organ solo. You can, and should, get it here:

 

Buster Boris Pocket Naumoff: SOLO ORGAN AT FOUR MONTHS

 

Next time someone mocks you for listening to free-improv music by saying, "My kid could do that!," politely ask: "Really?  Have they made any albums? I'd like to check 'em out..."

"...the first hip-hop album of all time to be comprised of only animal noises"

"Hello, my name is TD Cruze and I am a 20 year old hip-hop producer from Valdosta, Georgia.

I thought you'd like to know that I just released the first ever instrumental hip-hop album that contains no instruments - just animal noises."

 

Now THAT'S the kind of email I like to get. Hot damn!  What a concept. And what an execution, too - only 6 songs, but a more utterly mental release you have not heard all year. You could even dance to it, although the idea of a club full of kids dancing to sampled animal sounds is too surreal to contemplate.

 

If you couldn't handle my last post of animals "singing" christmas songs, maybe these critters will float your boat (or ark, as the case may be). Listen/buy here:

 

TD Cruze: "The Savage Beast"

 

Hey, ya cheap bastards, you say you don't wanna pay to download the whole album? Mr. Cruze is allowing me to post one free song for y'alls, the hyena-voiced "Laughing Matter," available HERE.

 

 

WE WISH YOU AN ANNOYING ANIMAL-SOUNDS NOVELTY MUSIC CHRISTMAS

My attempt to post an album a day has failed miserably after only 10 days. I blame society. No matter, for look at the goodies laid out under our tree by St Nick's filthy ne'er-do-well cousin, St. Dick. And according to St. Dick, nothing says holiday cheer better than the flatulent sounds of sampled pig snorts and grunts. One of my all-time xmas atrocities, re-upped just for you: 

The Jingle Bellies Christmas Album: POT-BELLIED PIGS SING HOLIDAY FAVORITES

We must have been awfully naughty this year, cuz Jolly Old St Dick just excreted this into our stocking:

Top Dog: Howliday Favorites In Dog (1994)

You remember Don Carlos' Singing Dogs, and their classic version of "Jingle Bells"?  Can you take a whole album of such schtick? Of course, I can - I live for this stuff, y'know.  And my daughter handed me this CD yesterday with the instruction: "I wanna doggie song." Didn't seem to bother her at all. There are some nice arrangements on here, like the swingin' jazz of the opener "Santa Claws."  The (non-christmas) gospel song "Oh Happy Day" gets new lyrics sung by a cute kid as "Oh Happy Dog." The standards are all here, from "Angels We Have Herd" right up thru "Old Fang's Whine." There's even the now-obligatory Hanukkah medley, featuring "Howlin' Nagila."

This album is the work of Craig Huxley, who started off in show-biz as a child actor, appearing in some original "Star Trek" episodes, and has been associated with "Trek" ever since, even - yes! - becoming 'the music director for William Shatner...helping to create arrangements of songs such as "Rocket Man", and "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds", according to wiki.  I now worship this guy. It gets even better: "To date, he has recorded three albums, Howliday Favorites in Dog, Slam Dunk'n Hoes and Howlin' Classics - from Bark to Beethoven. As of 2012, he is working on his fourth album, Patriotic Pooches, to be released during the 2012 election." Good to know that there's more of this stuff out there. (Although I'm pretty sure it's a different Top Dog who made Slam Dunk'n Hoes.)

ALBUM DU JOUR #10: Tiny Tim's Christmas Album

Still trying to post an album a day, to keep you-all fully loaded for when I take my holiday break.  The Iron Man of Blogging continues!

Today's album pretty much does what it says on the tin - unlike the stripped-down Tiny Tim album I posted last week, this is a big-budget, fully orchestrated work (except for one solo uke tune) that suggests that some nut thought that a modern Tiny Tim album might actually have commercial potential. This album certainly starts off as normal anything Tiny ever did, but goes off the rails eventually, as we all knew it would, with an epic version of "Silent Night" that features a pulpit-pounding sermon from a fiery "Reverend" Tim.  What the..?  Also far from silent is the incredibly bombastic 8-minute medley. The songs are the same ol' same ol' until we get to the last few tracks, when Tim finally gets to dig into his bag of old-fashioned obscurites.

His famous falsetto is still in effect on this 1996 release - shortly after this release he claimed he couldn't sing like that any more.

Tiny Tim's Christmas Album

1. Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer

2. All I Want For Christmas Is My Two Front Teeth

3. That's What I Want For Christmas

4. I Saw Mommy Kissin Santa Claus

5. White Christmas

6. The Christmas Song

7. O Holy Night

8. Silent Night

9. Medley: O Come All Ye Faithful/Hark The Herald Angels Sing/O Little Town Of Bethlehem/Amazing Grace/Throw Out The Lifeline

10. Rainbow On The River

11. Mission Bell

12. What A Friend We Have In Jesus

ALBUM DU JOUR #9: Eno: The Lost '70s Pop Album

No, this isn't an actual album, but a collection of b-sides, bootlegs, and appearances on other artist's albums from Bri-Bri's glam-rockin' heydey.  It would have made a great album, tho, for fans of the man's "Warm Jets"-to-"Before And After Science" song-oriented work, which would include, I would imagine, most of you-all at some point in your lives. I'm surprised that Eno or his labels have never put together a collection like this, seems like a natural. As he is one of the most famous/popular avant-rockers in history, you think they'd be trying to milk it they way they're doing with the Velvet Underground.

No ambient stuff here.  The Cluster tracks are certainly atmospheric, tho still actual tunes with vocals/lyrics.  The three tracks from "Peter and the Wolf" are instrumentals, but they rock - Eno going nuts on the synth, like his solos on Roxy Music songs like "Editions of You."

"Qu'ran," which sampled Muslims chanting from their holy book, was included on the original pressings of "My Life..." (I still have my old vinyl copy!) but not only was it not included as one of the many bonus tracks on the 25th anniversary re-issue, it's not even mentioned in David Byrne's otherwise thorough liner notes. Them Muslims must be scary...

Eno: The Lost '70s Pop Album

1. Seven Deadly Finns [single, 1974]
2. The Lion Sleeps Tonight (Wimoweh) [single, 1975]
3. Big Day [from Phil Manzanera's "Diamond Head" 1975]
4. Miss Shapiro                   "
5. The Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch [live, with The Winkies 1974]
6. Totalled [live, with The Winkies 1974 - a radically different version of this song would appear on 1975's "Another Green World" album as "I'll Come Running"]
7. Fever [Peggy Lee cover; live, with The Winkies 1974]
8. Baby's On Fire [live, with Kevin Ayers, John Cale "June 1, 1974"]
9. Third Uncle [w/Phil Manzanera's band "801 Live" 1976]
10. The Fat Lady Of Limbourg  "
11. Wolf [from "Peter And The Wolf" various artists inc Phil Collins, narrator: Viv Stanshell, 1975]
12. Wolf and Duck                   "
13. Wolf Stalks                        "
14. Luneburg Heath [w/German group Harmonia featuring Michael Rother from Neu!, and Cluster, from "Harmonia 76," unreleased until 1997]
15. Broken Head [from "After The Heat" w/Cluster, 1978, initially a somewhat hard-to-find import-only album in the US]
16. The Belldog                       "
17. Tzima N'arki                      "
18. R.A.F. [w/Snatch, "King's Lead Hat" b-side, 1978]
19. Qu'ran [w/David Byrne, from first pressings of their album "My Life In The Bush of Ghosts," recorded 1979, released 1981]

Thanks to pj for the artwork!

ALBUM DU JOUR #8: ...To The Ridiculous

There's just no way you can dismiss today's music scene as not being as good as that of some mythical golden-age. I have so many new releases to cover, I split them up into last months' "From The Sublime..." and today's "...To The Ridiculous." The first batch was largly instrumental avant-gardsey-ness, but this batch, tho just as experimental, is more in the whacked-out weirdo spazzy song-form end of things. Most of these albums are not downloads, but are for sale - makes great gifts! 

M4M...To The Ridiculous

1. F.K. Dreyer & Mark Recording Co. "Intro/Aries":  from the album - and, yes, there's a whole album of this - "Your Dogs Horoscope"
2. Michael McDaeth "Happy Just To Be Happy": a few tracks here from Seattle's McDaeth, and his 7-count 'em-SEVEN disk album, "The Socket Set." It's ramshackle one-man-band rock, sometimes a little too loose, sometimes dead-on in a Half-Japanese-for-the-Nirvana-generation kinda way.
3. Looping Jaw Harp Orchestra "Tuba for Klaus (Tribute to Klaus Nomi)": Vienna, Austria unleashed this mad crew of jews harps as the lead instruments, joined by the likes of steel drum, marimba, kalimba, accordion, etc.  No normal Instruments! The entirety of their latest album "Universal Language" is great. Just the fact that they dedicate a song to Klaus Nomi proves their awesomeness.
4. The Chewers "Burn It Down": Another fantastic album- I reviewed their first one, and the new one "Chuckle Change And Also" is even better; low-key Beefheart/Residents influences filtered thru a Southern low-life sensibility, with lyrics examining a side-show's worth of human grotesqueries. Get it.
5. The Toilet Bowl Cleaners "I Forgot to Wipe My Bum": one of 2 tracks off their album "Songs About Poop, Puke & Pee." The fact that such an album even exists is amazing; the fact that the Toilet Bowl Cleaners have many albums, all focused on the subject of human waste, and that some of the songs are actually good, is nothing short of mind-boggling. The main toilet-bowl cleaner sez that he's released 8000 songs in the last 4 years.  That's kinda prolific. Wanna hear 86 songs about dead animals?
6. Kitschstortion "Cutie Honey" - Another returning guest. The Kitschstortion release featured on these pages last year used the bizarre vocal synth gizmo the Vocaloid to dazzling effect. This is from the new EP "How To Have Boring Dreams"
7. Michael McDaeth "She's Just A Torso"
8. Flossie and the Unicorns "Jr. Troopers Are Go": 37-seconds of the album "LMNOP."
9. People Like Us "Seven Degrees": Another super bit of sound-collage pop from this British master (mistress?) of the form; the new one is "This Is Light Music." Sawing sound-effects (not musical saw) adds percussive zeal to samples of cheeseball '60s EZ instros, Morricone themes, and girl groups. I could leave this one on repeat for very long times.
10. 'Church On The Move' - Dad Life: I once knew a guy whose parents lived down the street from Snoop Dog in a thoroughly suburban neighborhood, far, far away from South Central LA. They'd see the infamous 'gangsta' shopping, taking his kids to the park, etc. This funny rap song about everyday domesticity really is 'keeping it real.'
11. Michael McDaeth "From the Midwest" 
12. The Electric Grandmother "Mr Clyde": Not sure if a 'sitcom-core' band is really something the world needs, but this alleged ode to Bill Cosby's character is an agreeable bit of bizarre pop.
13. The Chewers "The Fat Man"
14. Looping Jaw Harp Orchestra "Wabba Dubu"
15. Toilet Bowl Cleaners "Gotta Poop, Puke & Pee (Simultaneously)"
16. Bobby & Paul "DMT9": these guys are from the late great electronic noise band Margaret Raven.  They sent me this a year or two ago and I forgot about it.  Sorry, guys, it's good stuff!

ALBUM DU JOUR #7: Better Science Communication Through Hip-Hip

Oh Baba, Baba, why do you bother?  

The emcee behind "The Rap Guide To Evolution" and "The Rap Guide To Human Nature" is again trying to use music to hip the kids to science. Baba Brinkman has dropped a new free download EP called "The Infomatic"  in which, on the title song, he describes himself as "a cross between Christopher Wallace and Christopher Hitchens" and quotes Carl Sagan.  Sagan was denied membership in the National Academy of Sciences, and, despite official explanations, it was really because Sagan tried to do what Brinkman is trying to do - deal with the enemy.  Yes, trying to explain to the masses not just the facts (which constantly change) but the methodology behind them is like trying to explain to a fish what land is like. On the last track, "Naturalizm," even Brinkman sounds a bit frustrated.

This particular release don't have a theme, as the five songs deal with various (if thoroughly non-hip-hop) subjects like: science is sexy, reading is cool, and why global warming deniers are a buncha kooks. Which probably isn't going to get much of an audience beyond some science geeks and, well, people who read blogs like this and are looking for strange, obscure musics. You gotta love hearing a Beyonce-like r'n'b chick singing: "In the mind of a climate skeptic/science is a liberal conspiracy" as Baba drops rhymes like: "I think I'll just stick to the scientific consensus/which says that there's an upper limit of/350 parts per million of atmospheric carbon."  Get down!

Still, Brinkman's got mad flow, the beats ain't bad, and it sure beats the kids' global warming musical "Penguins On Thin Ice" all to hell.  Good luck, Baba...


Baba Brinkman:  The Infomatic

ALBUM DU JOUR #6: The Toy-Pop Sounds of Carton Sonore

The French invasion of wonderful naive/toy-pop continues with the loveable Carton Sonore (Sound Card). The three all-too-brief "Petit Themes" albums available for download are well worth the few euros/pounds/dollars/clams purchase price. Mr. Sonore sez: "It's mainly acoustic and instrumental music with various instruments, like: charango, ukulele, guitar, melodica, saw, saz, glockenspiel..."  Yes! to more musical saw.  Xylophones, ocarinas, kazoos and toys are also present. But as much as I'm drawn to unusual instruments, as usual, it's the top-notch songwriting that sucks me in - there's a dreamy, innocent-but-not-corny quality to these tunes. 

I've included a couple tracks from each album, as well as a few tracks he's made available for free in this sampler:

Carton Sonore - 9 songs

ALBUM DU JOUR #5: IT'S A HIPPIE FREAKOUT!!

Pneumershonic is a crazy old guy named Paul and his pal Matt. These New Hampshire-ites recorded an album in 1997 called "Frequencies of the Beast,"  a very entertaining collection of Paul's improvised singing/rants like "Hippie Freakout" and "Martian Girlfriend" over Matt's music. Matt wrote to me asking to link to an article written about them on WFMU's Beware of the Blog, but I wasn't going to do that cuz, well, it's already on Beware of the Blog, so why bother? But the article is 6 years old, it's an album that any outsider music fan should check out, AND he said he'd send me (and you) a CD. So I reconsidered. And it's got marimbas!  And optigans!  

 

I bundled all the separate mp3s into one album:

 

Pneumershonic: Frequencies of the Beast

ALBUM DU JOUR #4: POLLUTING THE MAINSTREAM

The Eagles!  Fleetwood Mac!  Styx! Marie Osmond! That's the kind of stuff I listen to now.  All that weird, experimental stuff - what was I thinking?  Writing a blog about music that so few people care about...what a sad lonely life I've been livin'...  Well, forget that, I'm gonna be NORMAL! And what a relief it is, lemme tell you - I'm gonna hang out in sports bars, watch "American Idol," stop listening to college/public radio and keep my dial set on AM talk from now on.  Hall & Oates!  Chicago!  Muthafuckin' ABBA!  Hell yeah, where's my pink Izod shirt and penny loafers?!

This playlist is no joke.  All the artist represented here making crazed noise, goofball novelties, flipped-out weirdness, and self-indulgent nonsense are the very same acts who made all those familiar mainstream hits (granted, including Joey Ramone here stretches the definition of 'mainstream' a bit).  See? The Beatles weren't the only superstars to have a "Revolution No.9" in them.


UPDATE 12/2/12: Now on Zippyshare, for those of you who had trouble with Mediafire  
POLLUTING THE MAINSTREAM

I was going to go into explanations about how these oddities came to be, like how that's Robert Fripp (!) playing on the Hall & Oates, how "Mother" was the only song by the Police that I loved, etc., but I think it's best for you to just listen to this and be amazed - play it for your friends and see if they can guess who's who.

1. Chicago "Free Form Guitar"
2. Donovan "The Intergalactic Laxative"
3. The Eagles "The Greeks Don't Want No Freaks"
4. Fleetwood Mac "Somebody's Gonna Get Their Head Kicked In"
5. Frank Sinatra "Reflections On The Future In 3 Tenses" excerpt (by Gordon Jenkins)

6. Hall & Oates "Alley Katz"
7. Heart "Hit Single"
8. Debbie Harry "In Just Spring"
9. James Brown "The Future Shock Of The World"
10. Marie Osmond "Karawane"
11. The Police "Mother"
12. Nirvana "Montage of Heck Part 1"
13. Nirvana "Montage of Heck Part 2"
14. Prince "Bob George"
15. Buddy Holly "Slippin' And Slidin' (sped-up version #1)"
16. Styx "Plexiglass Toilet"
17. Joey Ramone "The Wonderful Widow of Eighteen Springs"
18. Toto "Robot Fight"
19. Van Halen "Strung Out"
20. Willie Nelson "Cowboys are Frequently Secretly Fond of Each Other"
21. Abba "Intermezzo no.1"
22. Alice In Chains "Love Song"
23. Cat Stevens "Was Dog a Doughnut?"

ALBUM DU JOUR #3: Tiny Tim Plays In Your Living Room

Tim from Radio Clash asked me if I had the Tiny Tim/Bruce Haack album "Zoot Zoot Zoot Here Comes Santa In His New Space Suit." Alas, I don't - do any of you out there have this true meeting of outsider musical minds?  It's as rare as a complete dinosaur skeleton, and about as expensive. But the query did send me poking thru the Tiny Tim things that I do have, such as this extraordinary tape of some anonymous person recording what is apparently a concert for one in Tiny's apartment in Brooklyn, New York. Just a man and his ukulele - and you are there!

The first song sounds like the mic is a little too far away, and Tiny isn't quite warmed up on the early tracks, frequently consulting sheet music, but then he really gets rolling. Yes, he was a truly strange individual, his fluke late-'60s popularity resulting in as much ridicule as acclaim for the troubled troubadour. But this "Tim unplugged" tape serves as a much-needed corrective to the idea that Tiny was just some comical oddball. This is Professor Tim in action here, as much scholar as entertainer, a walking repository of obscure Tin Pan Alley, hillbilly, Broadway, British music hall, and novelty songs from as far back as the 1800s that had gone largely unheard until Tiny found their sheet music.

Comic songs like "I Used To Call Her Baby" and "When They're Old Enough To Know Better" are my faves, and I'd love to hear a complete version of "After The Ball," as it sounds like a lovely waltz. They're not all antiquities - his pals the Beatles (yep, he was that famous  for a while) are saluted with a version of "Yesterday" that doesn't sound all that different from the rest of the selections. And that's about the only song here you're liable to recognize, except maybe for Dean Martin's "You're Nobody Til Somebody Loves You," and the jazz standard "Dancing In The Dark."  To quote his first album title, God bless Tiny Tim.

Tiny Tim: Tiny's apartment, 1976 (28 tracks: complete songs, as well as fragments)