WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Cleaning Out My Inbox

The world's ugliest dog has been located. Styggeste hund, indeed. (via b3ta)

Dschinghis Khan and Cheesy Eurodisco completionists might want another video of the band in action, this time doing their society thing with an orchestra and everything. (Realvideo clip for download, via Listener Ed)

"Put the camera down and worry about your friend." (streaming quicktime video, via fazed)

And you thought it was wet in Glastonbury? (Doh! This is Glastonbury)

Expansive art/photography site with many well known photographers and works. (via peremeny.ru)

Great page of Brazilian Bossa Nova and Samba MP3s, via Listener Zach.

How do you get extra credit from Professor Fuck? (via b3ta)

Nice street art / graffiti sketchblog.

Live in a giant coconut or create your own flying carpet. (via gizmag)

Go get lost in superbad.

Where sheep are nervous.

Don Bradshaw-Leather

Who the hell is Don Bradshaw-Leather? Not much is known about him, but his self-released LP Distance Between Us (Distance Records, 1972) is certainly one bizarre egg. It's on the infamous Nurse With Wound list of Steven Stapleton's favorite weird records, so it's no wonder that this was brought to my attention by David Late Tibet of Current 93 (and sometime NWW collaborator). David sent me a copy and described it as a strange DIY horror symphony beyond words, and it indeed is dificult to describe. There's hardly a thing about this double LP on the web besides want lists and offers for sale (it seems to be averaging around $200 for original vinyl), though rumor has it that Don was a wealthy hippie (some say a member of Barclay-James Harvest, which David refutes) who was squatting around London in the early 1970's, whereabouts unknown now. The four lengthy tracks here ("Distance Between Us" Parts 1 & 2, "Dance of the Goblins", and "Autumn Mist") are dense, swirling, and hellish tapestries of blurred instrumentation, squawking voices buried in the mix, and seemingly no layout of progression from point A to point B in various movements (i.e. it's all a giant progression, but almost like a dog chasing its tail in a mad frenzy). Tracks have the leanings of some epic Messaien pieces in some ways, though imagine Bradshaw-Leather taking his symphony and filtering it through some kind of lo-fi source like a boombox or something and then just went bananas in the post-mix. And if the front cover wasn't insane enough, he's again in Wolfman-garb on the back with a screaming topless woman. The whole sleeve package seems to be hand-cut and stitched as well. Here's a Real Audio excerpt from a recent airing on WFMU. Thanks to David for dropping this befuddling thing into our realm.

Psychedelic Christian Radio: Pastor John Rydgren MP3s

(MP3s: all 19 of Pastor John Rydgrens Silhouette radio spots are linked below the jump along with more illos that Dennis Worden's did in 1988 for our former zine, LCD.)

When Liz played Pastor John Rydgren's Rinky Dink last Tuesday, I was reminded of just how great and weird Rydgren's radio spots were, and what a strange confluence of events created the country's only Psychedelic Christian format back in 1967.

Heading into the Summer of Love, Rydgren was the crafty head of the TV, Radio and Film Department of the American Lutheran  Church. Years before the words "Jesus" and "Freak" became joined at the rib, the straight-looking Rydgren created a daily radio show called Silhouette in which he became the reassuring, resonant-voiced Hippy for God. Rydgren wrote, announced and programmed Silhouette, taking his musical and cultural cues from The Electric Prunes, Herb Alpert and the cover of Time (Is God Dead?), with a vocal delivery that was straight out of the Tom Donahue / Scott Muni / Ken Nordine school of breathy baritone radio seduction. Silhouette dropped all the counter-cultural codewords of the day into a heady mix of Peace, Love, Sex, Drugs and Jesus. Not to mention Fuzzy Guitars.

This Week in Sex

(definitely not safe for work, probably not safe for home,  basically not safe anywhere)

Insane clown sex posse. Let’s be honest: Clowns are a little scary. Sex is a little scary. Clowns having sex—well, that’s just too fucking sweet.

Go baby go! A recent study discovered that when men watch porn with other men in it, their sperm becomes more mobile.  The theory is that the risk of “sperm competition” (i.e., that  a woman may have more than one partner) jacks up the sperm count and quality. The study was done in Australia,  where I discovered that the sperm swim counter-clockwise.

Paris Becomes Land of the Dead, or an Exercise in the "Six Degrees of Separation" Theory

WARNING!! GRAPHIC GROSSNESS APPROACHETH!!  I can see the question marks over your heads already... it's really very simple. I witnessed an event on my recent trip to Paris that made me think I was in the new George A. Romero film, "Land of the Dead", or at least on the special effects lot. Oddly enough, I had just been to the catacombs - foreshadowing has never been so obvious.  On the Seine, a river known for the beauty that surrounds it, I hop on one of those giant tour boats for a spin up around Notre Dame and back to kill about an hour. It's the equivalent to the NY Circle Line. I'm on the top deck snapping pix of the bridges from underneath, the amazing architecture lining the Seine & just trying to ignore the obnoxious tourists on this vehicle. I, of course, am far from obnoxious and minding my own business. It starts to rain a bit & I go downstairs to the glass enclosed area, sheltered but still easy to take a gander at what Paris has to offer from here. There I am standing in the front of the boat next to a gentleman who I took no notice of previously (and that would change SOON) staring out the huge windows. The rain kicks up a notch and a gust of wind slams shut one of the giant glass and metal doors at the front of the boat. The tourist next to me (a middle aged asian man) turns to me with his left hand raised vertically, knuckles toward me and lets out a grunt/uhhuhhhhgh/death metal rumble sound. I look at his hand and make a similar sound back to him, definitely more high pitched, less like a death metal vocal than he did, perhaps a bit more black metal. His fingers had been cut off below the first (top) knuckle...

Rumor Mill: David Lee Roth to Replace Howard Stern

Word on the street is that commercial radio's bad-boy is going to be replaced by rock and roll's bad-boy. A nice pick, since DLR has been honing his stand-up routine for years now, earning a reputation as the Rodney Dangerfield of sex, drugs, and rock 'n roll.

Celebrate the occasion:
- David Lee Roth performs "Let It All Hang Out" (Real Audio)
- Grab the MP3 of a 3-year-old performing Van Halen's "Somebody Get Me A Doctor" from this post

"I used to jog, but the ice cubes kept falling out of my glass."
"The National Enquirer is the only paper I use for more than rolling joints."
"I won't go down in history, but I will go down on your sister."

My Commodore 64 Secret Life

I grew up with a Commodore 64 as my best friend. The C64 offered a new world to escape to from the banality of 5th grade. This is a story I always tell and people respond with a blank stare eventually uttering, "What was the point?  That's pretty stupid." So you just shouldn't bother reading this.

When I was ten I acquired a 300 baud modem. Services like Quantum Link (later to become AOL), which were primitive chatroom networks, soon lost appeal after I was repeatedly kicked off for excessive cursing. I started logging on to local BBSs (bulletin board systems) where a SysOp (one lonely guy) set up his computer to receive other users one at a time. The BBS’s featured message boards and download/upload areas. I was still involved in the real world of life, not totally ensconced in the world of computers, but I was looking for a way out, something new that would let me escape the constant ridicule of being fat and weird. Unfortunately these local BBSs were not the answer because they were usually run by old geezer hobbyists and most of the BBS members were from his close circle of friends.  On the message boards they usually talked about RUSH.

When Jack Meets Jill

As Jack format sweeps this nation’s adult contemporary radio stations with slick and snarky robo-DJ voice-overs and iPod-esque segueways, I’m wondering if Jill is on the way. What would Jill sound like?

“Sure, we’re owned by the man – but it’s ok ‘cause he buys us stuff. Jill-FM.”

Sheryl Crow - All I Wanna Do
Salt-N-Pepa - Push It

“Welcome to Jill-FM, the station that’s like listening to your own CD collection…minus the Michael Bolton.”

Avril Lavigne - Sk8er Boy
Go-Gos - We Got the Beat

“Want your horoscope? Buy more shoes. Jill-FM.”

Madonna - Like A Prayer
Gwen Stefani - Hollaback Girl

“More Jill-FM in a few minutes. It’s time to reapply your lipstick, anyway.”

Commercials

(Thanks to Evan Funk Davies for his thorough Jack-FM play-by-play, upon which this is based) 

Live! Naked! Comets On Fire!

Comets On Fire recently stopped by Brian Turner's show for a fuzzed-out, balls-out (see photo, left) performance. Witness part of the blowout live session by grabbing this video clip (avi file, 39 MB), or listen to the whole performance in all of its raging psychedelic glory (streaming MP3 or Real Audio).

Einstürzende Neueküchen

"Welcome to Einstürzende Neueküchen, a virtual cookbook of recipes contributed by the worldwide society of supporters and fans of Einstürzende Neubauten."

Including such classics as Hacke's Menemen and Blixa's Lemony Lentil Soup. Also includes links to the bandmember's official website(s) and other related projects, including the Musterhaus subscription-only experimental series of CDs.

Wear. Your. Bib.

Click. To. Stream.

Magma video clips

Sing along in Kobaian to some wild clips of French prog masters Magma in live performance. These clips (Windows Media) from 1977 are a bit grainy but still pretty hot. Listener Alan Blattberg who sent them my way points out that the non-Christian Vander drummer is eerily similar to Deputy Junior from Reno 911. There's also this bizarre 1972 outtake (also Windows) from a film where Magma make a cameo performing in a futuristic church, while the priests sit calmly looking on, only getting a little riled when Vander goes apeshit at kit near the end. Finally, a more recent clip (Quicktime) of Vander playing solo and being interviewed in French. Incidentally, their first new studio disc in 17 years, K.A. rules, and here's a Real Audio excerpt of "K.A. III" from Bill Zurat's show.

Homolka to Hollywood

The biggest headline in Canada right now is the release of convicted murderess Karla Teale, nee Karla Homolka. This story naturally, barely creates a blip on our radar here in the states, but I've been obsessed with this case for years. The first term I ever put in a search engine was "Ken and Barbie murders" for gawd's sake, only to find that the Canadian government had managed to quash the horrifying details of the crimes even online, creating early discussions about net censorship.

Leave it to Hollywood, oh excuse me, "independent film producers" to step right up with a bio-pic about Homolka and her relationship with husband and partner-in-crime Paul Bernardo called Deadly.  While I could see say, a young Dave Foley or Jude Law (if he wasn't already busy doing his Ian Curtis poses) in the role of Bernardo, I couldn't immediately think of an actress who could capture the oeuvre of the seductive and twisted Karla.

Apparently, neither could Deadly's producers, but they cast That 70's Show actress Laura Prepon anyway. Mmm-rirrght a 5'10" redhead with a deadpan alto Central Jersey accent could portray a diminutive cooing Lolita-ish Canuck killer, I don't think so. Where the heck was Elisha Cuthbert or Victoria Jackson circa 1985? This flick will drain the life out of this story faster than...oh, never mind.

Synchronized Chinese Arm Dancing

Sorry, if I knew what this style was actually called, I'd use it to describe this amazing little dance number (streaming windows media video) by a supposedly deaf Chinese dance troupe. But their ears aren't what's at issue here - it's their arms (32 of them at last count) and their 320 synchronized fingernails. It almost turns into Chinese Euro Disco at the end, but a choreographer of much wisdom pulls it back from the brink. via fazed

Shut Down Part 3

I keep saying, year after year, that this is the summer that I finally see the Beach Boys (before it's too late). It's eighty degrees, and the Beach Men are out there, tirelessly touring the globe, doing whatever the hell it is they do. And to all you purists, all I gotta say is: A Beach Boy and a half is better than none. This is not a debatable point. This is fact.

The bulldozed origins of the Wilson clan have recently been memorialized in suburban Hawthorne, CA. In the shadow of Freeway 405, sits a bronze tribute to those Wilson kids, their nutty cousin, and that next door neighbor guy. And that other next door neighbor guy. That's right–awkwardly enough, the 3-D base relief plaque sports six prospective Beach Men crowding the board. Think Beatles statue with Pete Best. Except they're all trying to hold the same surfboard. The text below the sculpture is appropriately cheesy and turgid. I've found that it helps if you read it out loud like Criswell.

Seemingly, non-feuding and non-litigious Beach Guys Brian Wilson and Al Jardine (or as my pal Wendy likes to call him, "Al Sardine") dropped by their former hood on unveiling day and belted out a couple oldies. (Anybody tape that?) David Marks also made the scene (he 's the bonus Beach Guy in the stunt Al Sardine spot). One of the one and a half of the legitimate remaining Beach Men checked in with UPI:

"Mike Love... turned down an invitation to the dedication. He told an interviewer he was too busy making a living."

I don't care what you say. I like Mike. Same way I like Ike.

A few weeks later, the humble plaque got tagged but good. The idea of twenty-four hour police surveillance has been bandied about, so you'd better plan your vacation soon. Directions to this mecca of dysfunctional surf can be found here. Spray paint (with I.D.) can be found here.

The Amazing Disappearing Indecency Issue

It's coming up on seven month's since the FCC issued an indecency fine, after a year in which they issued more fines than in the previous fourteen years combined. While I welcome this silence on one of the most burning issues of our great republic, it does make one wonder exactly what the hell is going on. Did the FCC get gun-shy when a few broadcasting behemoths (Fox and Viacom) threatened to take the Commission's illogical and inconsistent rules to the Supreme Court? Or is the FCC simply in disarray following the departure of Michael Powell? And what ever happened to the Broadcast Decency Enforcement Act, the congressional act that would've increased by ten fold the fines that stations face for uttering dangerous phrases like "Sit On My Face."

The Center For Public Integrity just issued this report which speculates that the FCC feels it has already accomplished its mission of airwave cleansing. The CPI report also has new handy-dandy charts showing the levels of fines for the last 14 years, and the most fined programs. (Bubba The Love Sponge checks in at third place.)

My own opinion, expressed in this post last March, was that both the FCC and Congress overplayed their cards in 2004, inviting constitutional challenges they might have lost (in the FCC's case) and tacking on extra censorship baggage which might have doomed the new legislation (in the case of Congress).

Kevin Martin, the new FCC head, has yet to demonstrate where he is taking this issue. He talks a much harder line than Powell did, but the Martin FCC, to their credit, has yet to take a single action on the issue. Let's hope it stays that way.

The Cable Report 07/05/05 (TV That Scared the Crap Out of Me)

In tribute to TV Land's "Greatest Made-For-TV Movies Of All Time" campaign (this week, and next, I believe), I'm firing up a Cable Report.

The Day After
The preceding parental advisories were more than warranted. I've begun to mentally compile a list of grocery store freak out scenes, and The Day After has a spendid one. Watching this again, I was knocked back by the unrelenting bleakness, the degree of bickering insanity amongst the characters, and the special FX are not too shabby - look for the signature explosion scenes in which victims are x-rayed as if part of a cartoon. Additionally, who can argue with ANY Jason Robards appearance.

V.
This mini-series did nothing if it didn't convince me that my parents were face-peeling aliens. The scare lasted weeks, and was eventually replaced by the belief that my Mom was trying to abandon me in the middle of Sears.

Salem's Lot
I'd venture a guess that some of you didn't even know! It sucks so bad now, because it was a TV movie then. Not to discredit TV movies as a whole, but you wanted scary and gory, and this is neither. To note: Salem's Lot did prominently feature Geoffrey Lewis, father of Juliette, and the ultimate on-screen sidekick. Speaking of character actors, and as such, getting completely off track here, who knows the name Michael G. Hagerty? Let's end with a nod to Michael G. Hagerty:

For years, I was hell bent on the misconception that Michael G. Hagerty was John Candy's brother. The pop-culturally semi-literate will know him as the Mike Duffy in the "AAMCO" episode of Curb Your Enthusiasm. His bio on IMDB.com reads as follows:

"Graduated from the University of Illinois. He worked at Chicago's Second City. He now lives in Los Angeles.

Often plays vendors or merchants."

Flogging a dead horse?

I Hate Horses.

We Need More Fodder For The Cannons

I had another migraine-inducing experience at the Best Buy Secaucus today. I went in looking for a new receiver (my AKAI circa-1982 has died) - thinking I'd go the whole "home theater" route - and found nothing in a black finish. Everything's silver these days. WTF? Who declared silver the new black? Silver sucks as a finish for home audio components: I want something that disappears in the dark. But I'd already been to P.C. Richard and Circuit City (skipped 6th Ave. Electronics: heard bad things) and Best Buy was my last hope of having a new system in by the evening.

As I negotiated the aisles, trying vainly to shut out the utter cacophony, I found my progress blocked by a young family playing video games on a demonstrator. I couldn't squeeze past them so I turned left at the DVD section and found myself in the "gaming" area. I'd been focused on my receiver search but was now struck by the number of game titles and the people snatching them up. It's naive but I'm constantly amazed by the popularity of video games. It's a huge industry and - like pornography - the technology is cutting-edge. The latest innovations include Wi-Fi online play with multiplayer mode allowing up to sixteen others to join you in killing everything that moves. That's because most of the multiplayer games are "shooters", involving combat of one sort or another. It might be "Sword & Sandal" battle like God Of War (Even the immortals will fear death), set in ancient Greece, or a "Black Bag" scenario like Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six: Lockdown, (You hunt down a few terrorists, blow off some heads with your sniper rifle, and use night vision to stalk each other in the dark.) or - from the same company - America's Army: Rise of a Soldier.

The tagline for America's Army" - "Our Game Developers Don't Rely On Imagination." - plays up the fact it's "The Official U.S. Army Game". At the developer Ubisoft's website, part of the description reads: Built in partnership with the U.S. Army, this game offers the most true to life Army experience, allowing you to create a soldier and take him through the high risk excitement of an Army career (does that include returning home to reduced Veteran's benefits?). Intense single player missions and high adrenaline multiplayer action build the skills of your soldier and advancing (sic) him (apparently, there are no women in "America's Army") through his career . If it sounds like that was written by someone for whom English is a second language, it probably was: Ubisoft is a French corporation, with its North American headquarters in Montreal. It's nice to know our tax dollars help a French company "...ensure the highest level of realism in any military game in existence." But if Ubisoft enlists "Real Special Forces operatives (to) consult game designers." what does the Army get in return? Just the most realistic indoctrination tool possible...

Interview with Kenny G

WFMU's Kenny G, although spending the summer in rehab, granted an interview with Repellantzine.  Kenny holds forth on various alleged theories which, in his muddled mind, excuse his on-air hijinx. Read it here.