Alen Robin, a comic with a droll, very nasal
voice, took the Buchanan & Goodman
"Flying Saucer" concept - intercutting found
recordings with original comedy - and applied it to political speeches. His
"Welcome To The LBJ Ranch" hit the top of the pops in the mid '60s, and can be
found in approximately 84% of American thrift-stores.
The above review was taken from my review of another Alen Robin album I posted few years back, with the names of of the sampled parties changed. There is one difference with this album, tho - the groovy psych rock of Billy Mure that abruptly cuts in and out of the funny faux-interviews.
The recent news about the wack-job Elvis (and others) impersonator sending politicians envelopes laced with deadly ricin reminded me of the pioneer of this genre, Robert Alberg. When we wrote about him some years ago, he was being sentenced to five years' probation, mental-health treatment and
placement in a group home, and his album was no longer available, so I posted it. Incredibly, he's back, selling both his original collection, and a new one. And he sounds even worse than he did on his miserable first album (as you can see, he isn't looking too hot either). Still, let's hope he sticks to singing/song-writing, and doesn't go back to ricin-cooking.
An entire 20-track album performed on nothing but the much-maligned keyboards made by Casio (a company that previously had been more famous for manufacturing things like watches) might not sound too promising, but in the hands of France's master of toy- and naive-pop, Carton Sonore, the Casio is not used as a joke, or for '80s nostalgia, but is overdubbed into an orchestra of widely varying moods and textures. The Casio, of course, has a "little" sound, so Carton Sonore wisely works within its parameters to create lovely instrumental miniatures that do indeed suggest the album's name. Listen/purchase:
Over the cheapest possible drum machine, Mr. Lynn Rockwell, from parts unknown, plays and sings everything on this private press wonder from 1970. An instro version of the James Brown classic "Night Train" kicks things off with plenty of swingin' horns, followed by the sweet clarinet blowing of "Blue Prelude," which also introduces Lynn's somewhat homely but lovable vocals. Wilbert Harrison's proto-rocker "Kansas City" is remade as a finger-snappin' jazzy lounge tune. Roller-rink organ joins the fun on such songs as "String of Pearls," originally by Glen Miller's big band, now rendered here by a very, very little band. And dig that hipster jive on "Satin Doll"!
Side two's first four songs are originals by Rockwell, highlighted by the bizarre "Spiders": "I got spiders in my bathrobe, baby/there's no escape for you." Suddenly we're in a dark, remote cocktail lounge somewhere in David Lynch territory. I'm really liking the moody clarinet work on this album. Closing out the album are remakes of the country standard "Oh Lonesome Me" and Engelbert Humperdinck's "Release Me," tho I don't recall Engelbert's version having horns that wander from channel to channel for no apparent reason.
"Zombie Jamboree" has been re-upped, by request. And speaking of requests: I hate to keep asking, but does anyone have the Ruth Welcome "Zither Magic" album I posted here a few years ago? Frequent contributor windy sent me another of her albums, and my review for "Zither Magic" can pretty much be repeated here: 
This was her first album, and it reflects her then-current status as a hotel lounge performer, essentially making background music. Not as dynamic as "Zither Magic," but it's still quite lovely, boasting some ace tunes (always liked "Moulin Rouge"), and, in any case, it's an entire album of zither music. A hi-fi zither album, at that. And when was the last time you listened to one of those, eh, eh?! 
"New Skin Wine" is 11 tracks in a mere 22 minutes, but those are some pretty dramatically charged 22 minutes. The wide dynamic range of the album ranges from subliminal ambient drones and whispered vocals, to nightmare-ish noise that will have you jumping out of your skin if you're not riding the volume levels (look out, headphone wearers!) The album ends with over 2 minutes of static drone that might have you checking your stereo to see if it's grounded. 
Even tho Peter Murphy is apparently a hit-and-run driving meth-head, a kind judge has allowed his "35 Years of Bauhaus" tour to proceed as planned. But will any version of "Bela Lugosi's Dead" be any better then the free download parody found on the site dedicated to monitoring the mortality of eternally-elderly actor Abe Vigoda?
I posted this Friday, it got 22 views...and disappeared. I hope to hell it was just some technical glitch...
This sequel to my first batch of novelty rap 12" singles can be enjoyed and/or appreciated on a number of levels, depending on how funny/funky/cheesy/awful you find them. And they certainly are an '80s time capsule. But they're also a bit of a corrective to the standard rock-crit history of hip-hop, which goes something like this: "Rappers Delight" kicks it all off, Grandmaster Flash's "The Message" brings in social commentary, Run-DMC make it a legit musical form, Public Enemy and BDP bring more social commentary and, along with N.W.A., express the seething rage of young black ghetto-dwellers. Riiiight. 
2. Greg Poltrock / Rick Rumble - Mayberry Rap
I went to see a free performance by Llyn Foulkes last week (a day after I saw The Residents - can this year get any weirder?) and even tho I was a half-hour early, there was a shockingly long line around the UCLA Hammer Museum courtyard, and I couldn't get in to the show - I had to watch it on video in another room. Gol darn it! I'd seen him twice before and there was a crowd of maybe...30? What are all these people doing here at a show by a 78-year-old eccentric singing about old L.A. whilst performing on a crazy one-man-band contraption of honk horns and tuned cowbells? That's my department! 
Nac/Hut Report's new album "Angel-like Contraction Reverse" is a swell follow-up to their debut we reviewed here a few years ago, and these Europeans continue to do the impossible: make noise sexy. Brigitte Roussel's husky vocals add both melody and sensuality to the drum-less industrial sound-layering (and I use the phrase "industrial music" in it's original sense, not meaning funkless-disco-for-goths). Pick hit: "Greetings Blue, Summer 98," a fantastic mélange of electronic pulsing percussion noises, sharp shards of guitar, and languid vocals. They've made available two free songs, one off the album, and a b-side: 
Avant composer Michael Gordon of New York's popular Bang On A Can ensemble has a spectacular album that consists of nothing but drumming on wooden planks. Yep, no other instruments, just the six-man Dutch percussion group SlagwerK Den Haag going to town on 2x4s cut to different lengths. Minimalism so spellbinding that nothing else is needed. AND the CD comes in a snazzy wooden box. Buy/listen: "Timber" 
Well, why not avant-polka? Who says classical, jazz, and rock should have all the fun? Guy Klucevsek's "Polka From The Fringe" is just that, a newly released 2-disk set of originals and commisioned songs written for accordionist Klucevsek, an '80s downtown New York arty-smarty who grew up playing polkas in Pennsylvania coal-mining country. He originally released this album over twenty years ago, and the label promptly went out of business. This new version is greatly expanded, boasting a whopping 29 tracks, many written by prominent avant-garde composers like Tom Cora, Carl Stone, Fred Frith, and Elliot Sharp, whose "Happy Chappie Polka" is downright punk. Despite the heavy art credentials of all involved, it's still alot of fun. You just can't play a pretentious polka. (Tho it is a lot to absorb - took me a few listens before I finally realized how good this album is.)
Another awesome avant-accordion album comes to us from, of all places, Belarus. Pictured left, Port Mone's album "DiP" is an excellent collection of moody instrumentals sporting unusual ethnic percussion and some surprisingly funky poppin' bass. I can now say that I have listened to an entire album from Belarus (and so should you.)
Apart from having one of the all-time great album covers (pretty obvious why I snatched this one up for a mere 99 cents at my local charity thrifty emporium), The Mighty Accordion Band 's "They Said It Couldn't Be Done!" is an excellent listen. 20 - count 'em - TWENTY squeeze-boxes playing together creates a unique symphonic sound that ranges from exotica (the Les Baxter soundalike "Jungle Fever") to finger-snappin' jazz, dreamy ballads (great version of "tenderly") and swingin' big band. Pretty much everything but polka. I especially like the bizarre cha-cha version of "Swanee River." Perhaps their taking a corny old tune that no-one was playing anymore and giving it a hip new Latin spin was equivalent to all those New Wave covers of classic rock songs I posted a while back, e.g.: Devo's dismantling of the Stones' "Satisfaction." Did The Mighty Accordion Band record the first ironic cover?!
Chief mind-blower of late is "Border Towns," an album by one Nick Brooke, a young avant-composer whose new album on Innova mixes a vocal choir with a mad brew of samples ranging from field recordings, to music, to radio dj chatter. It's all meant to drop the listener into the US/Mexico border realms. The m.o. of this album actually reminds me of the KLF's classic "Chill Out," which mixed numerous samples with electronic music to create a theoretical late-night cross-country drive across the southern U.S. Good luck trying to chill out to this album, tho - it's varied, dynamic, exciting, and a lot of fun. The idea of a choir is an odd choice, but works a treat. Sometimes they don't even sing, but do things like recite radio I.D.s with a straight-face ("more music...mas musica!")
CutUp Sound is satirical sound-collage project only now coming to light, thanks to Rich at KillUglyRadio in Portland. He finally got his old pal Mr. CutupSound to go thru his tapes (some going perhaps as far back as the '80s) and put a career-spanning collection together. Lots of funny mass media/political/religious cut-ups in the Cassette Boy/Wayne Butane school of audio pranksterism, as well as some really impressive more musical tracks.
Bashful Hips is a solo electro band from Colorado whose free download album "Divorce" consists of song after sound-alike song of mid-tempo slightly-distorted synth tunes, all sung in a woeful one-note drone. Tho there's some nice musical touches here and there, e.g. the popping percussion on "Color Me Blue," I can't really say it's a genuinely good album - the songwriting seems more like diary entries than lyrics, with scant attention paid to things like rhythm or rhymes. But it certainly seems heartfelt, packed as it is with excruciating details like "mornings are now so confusing/now that I don't get to awake to the sound of your hair dryer." Over the course of a whole album, tho, it almost becomes comical. The one-note singing makes the album seem like one long song. Strangely compelling.
