MP3 Downloads for the month of April

May your cup overfloweth with MP3-age.

Compiled and edited by Music/Program Director Brian Turner with contributions from Kenny G, Ken Freedman, and Mike McGonigal.

The Emeralds

Little Howling Wolf - "Mr. Power Shaker"

Tony Mason-Cox - "Pickin'"

Asin - "Itanong Mo Sa Mga Bata"

Various - "Top 40 Radio's Swingin' Soft Drink Spots of the 60's"

Coyle and Sharpe - "Dog Face"

Brian Eno with the Winkies - "Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch"

Fucking Pigs - "Best Individual Song on the CD"

Iron Knowledge - "Show Stopper"

T.U.F. - "Blue Danube"

Van Morrison - "Ringworm" / "You Say France and I Whisper" / "Have a Danish"

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Read about each of these MP3 tracks by clicking the link below...

The Emeralds
While record shopping in San Francisco last January, Station Manager Ken stumbled upon a Japan Night 2004 sampler with a few tracks from the Yokohama band The Emeralds. Within hours of playing this track on the air, a listener tracked down the band, who promptly tracked down Ken and gave permission to post this track.

Little Howling Wolf - "Mr. Power Shaker"
Baltimore noise junk mavens Nautical Almanac are behind this CDR issue of some stark, raw 45s from James Pobiega, a 6'9" Polish man from Chicago, whom in the 70s and 80s recorded and performed under the moniker Little Howlin' Wolf. While the inspiration for his namesake can clearly be heard in his gravelly voice and rib-sticking electric raw guitar lines, this stuff is all home-recorded, whatever-goes stabs at genres of all kinds from calypso to New Orleans funereal marches, sometimes overlapped in the same track while overdubbed monotonous drums patter away. Comparisons are even made to Albert Ayler (whose "Ghosts" can be ascertained in the melody lines quite often), but the drifting time signatures and overlapping ideas are purely in line with other primitive geniuses like Abner Jay (if Abner had access to a 4-track I think he would have sounded more like this).

Tony Mason-Cox - "Pickin'"
WARNING: Contains some potentially offensive language, namely the 'N' word being spoken in the voice of a "channeled" slave owner. Receiving this in the mail with a blurred photograph on the cover of a man undergoing some kind of open-heart surgery made me immediately suspect it was some kind of Cold Wave/Industrial action, but then looking on the back of the CD I was startled to see headshots of what looks like a late 50s/early 60s bespectacled middle class suit-type. That coupled with song titles like "Milk", "Dads", "If I Hurt You", "If You Hurt Me", and "Alabamy Jail" made me totally confused. And the liner notes certainly didn't help things. Tony Mason-Cox is an Australian insurance salesman whose notes verify that indeed, he refused a triple-bypass in favor of being operated on by a Philippine spiritual surgeon, while awake, in 1995 and the bloody mess on the cover was real. A  firm believer in reincarnation, the surgeon was believed to be a God-chosen medium to help heal. If that isn't enough, Mason-Cox believes that he was the medium himself for an 1800's Negro slave from Alabama, who spoke through him as he sang a capella into a tape recorder booming hymns of picking cotton and being locked in jail; the a capella recordings were then backed by a jazz band on this CD. Phew. Mason-Cox's "originals" also are totally surreal, almost like Ivor Cutler gone smooth jazz, though Cutler charms and this distresses. File under "real people" I guess.

Asin - "Itanong Mo Sa Mga Bata"
Beautiful folk-psych from this Philippine unit's "Masdan Mo ang Kapaligiran" LP from early 1970s; fabulous belting female vocal, definitely leaning towards what was going on in the West Coast USA at the same time with definitive local traditional flavor.

Various - "Top 40 Radio's Swingin' Soft Drink Spots of the 60's"
Excerpt from a very cool 2 CD set (volume 2 of a series of 2) put out by X-Static Productions (xstaticdirect@excite.com) depicting the USA advertising juggernaut at a pinnacle, flowing in a mind-numbing river of soda pop brainwashing. This obviously will appeal to nostalgia buffs as well.

Coyle and Sharpe - "Dog Face"
Previously-unreleased man-in-the-street pranksters in fine form.

Brian Eno with the Winkies - "Paw Paw Negro Blowtorch"
Rarely heard 1974 BBC session with Bri-Bri backed by a temporary rock band known as the Winkies. This song appeared in much different form on the "Here Come the Warm Jets" LP.

Fucking Pigs - "Best Individual Song on the CD"
Australia gave us not only Stu Spasm, but this tasteful little ensemble whose vocabulary may be rather limited, but heartfelt.

Iron Knowledge - "Show Stopper"
Taken from the incredible (and out-of-print) private-press funk comp "Chains and Black Exhaust" which WFMU was playing way before the rest of the crowd. Here is a total acid-proto-metal funk blast by a band I wish someone would track down and do a proper retrospective on immediately (two other bands on this comp, LA Carnival and Black Merda, have since gotten that treatment).

T.U.F. - "Blue Danube"
From a longtime fave at WFMU, a compilation of mutant takes on the Blue Danube called "An Der Schonen Blauen Donau." Warped.

Van Morrison - "Ringworm" / "You Say France and I Whisper" / "Have a Danish"
Another perennial fave around here, the infamous contractual obligation sessions Van the Man gave to Bang Records in order to get out of his contract and go to Warner Brothers. Who'da thunk that the spirit behind "Astral Weeks" was only months earlier warbling about wanting a danish on tape. Apparently these have been floating around on oddball European Van Morrison reissues as bonus tracks, but the Mad Deadly Worldwide Communist Gangster label did up a full disc of these insane songs a while back.