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.
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