WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Les Reines Prochaines (mp3s)

[ Several MP3 files below the jump. ]

It is not easy to find good bands which have been around for a while, but have never been played on WFMU. If you manage to find one of those, you can add 10 points to your hipster credentials. Today it is my turn.

Les Reines Prochaines are an all-women multilingual feminist band from Switzerland, the country most famous for inventing the holes in cheese. It is a bit mysterious to me why you need feminists in a country that already gave women the right to vote in 1971, but whatever. (And since 1991 they are even allowed to vote in local elections in the canton of Appenzell Inner Rhoden.)

Founded in 1987 by Teresa Alonso, Regina Florida Schmid, and Muda Mathis, The Future Queens started out only with a synthesizer and their voices. In 1988, Pipilotti Rist and Fränzi Madörin joined in, and after several changes the current lineup consists of founding member Muda Mathis, Sus Zwick, Fränzi Madörin, Michèle Fuchs, and Barbara Naegelin. Over the years they have added more instruments, and apart from music and performance the members have been very active in other forms of art as well.

One reasons for their low profile in the USA might be that they have never performed here. Their only North American tour to this date, in 2005, consisted exclusively of Canadian gigs. They also don't seem to have an American distributor for their CDs. So here are a few of their songs as MP3, to whet your appetite for more (and hunt for expensive imports or browse the file-sharing networks). Even though the recordings do not capture the hilarity of their live performances, they stand well on their own.

Flushing Out My Inbox

Another hot dog falls victim to a bad trip: download mpeg video, 10 megs, or youtube it.

Equal time: Millbrook youngsters sing the praises of (then still legal) LSD, as does a pretty British gal (youtube links)

Jazz on Bones: X-Ray Sound Recordings. Thanks Trent!

Martial music is piped into the Pyongyang Metro system. mp3s here - follow the music link.

What Sound Looks Like, when applied to cornstarch, when used to levitate styrofoam and when cheese eating surrender monkeys use it to make water dance. (youtube links) Thanks Bryce!

A page dedicated to the history of the World War One Two anthem, Lili Marlene, with versions by Marleen Dietrich, Perry Como, Zara Leander, the Hogan's Heroes gang, Sinatra and more. Unfortunately, it's all in realaudio format. Here are two other Lili Marlene pages: 1 | 2

And while we're on World War Two music, How the Nazis Gave Us Disco.

Oddly appealing music video by Peter Bjorn and John (youtube)

The Ten Stupidest Utopias.

More meat-based headware and 100% kosher-for-Passover wallets.

Lots of mp3s from Hong Kong, Macau and Singapore, circa 1964-1969. Thanks Moonshake!

Urinal politics.

More German cover versions than even I want to know about on the Germans Under Cover blog. Thanks David and Doron!

The Church of the Future, a video remix of The Phil Donahue show by Javier Alberto Morales and John Michael Boling, with music by Jerry Goldsmith (The Omen): Download Quicktime video, 29 megs.

Artwork of pro-British Paramilitary Groups Irish Republican Army.

Imagining the Tenth Dimension. Let me know what happens. I didn't make it past seven.

Les Paul's pirate radio station. Thanks Trent!

Fun in the Workplace images by Michael Durham:

 

 

 

 

Voices From The Great Beyond: EVP MP3s

Some people hear crosstalk coming out of their toaster and start cursing their next door neighbor's cheap portable telephone. Other people (like Thomas Edison) hear the same thing and are convinced that it's Aunt Millie reaching out from the other side. I count myself in the first category, but in honor of World Hearing Voices Day, here are a batch of Electronic Voice Phenomenon (EVP) recordings from one of the granddaddies of the field, Latvia's Dr. Konstantin Raudive. These are the MP3s of the flexidisk which accompanied Raudive's 1971 book, Breakthrough: An Amazing Experiment In Electronic Communication With The Dead:

Breakthrough, Side One   |   Breakthrough, Side Two   |   Unidentified EVP Recording

These MP3s are fairly noisy, but what do you expect - these are ghosts talking here.

In his defense, Edison never claimed to actually record voices of dead people, but he did reportedly try to build a device which accomplished this. He merely theorized that it might be possible. The now burgeoning business of EVP was born in 1959, when a Swedish artist and filmmaker, Friedrich Jorgenson recorded the faint voice of his dead Mom while trying to record bird songs in the Swedish countryside. Raudive took his cue from Jorgenson, and brought academic credentials to the field, having studied with Jung and taught at Sweden's University of Uppsala (yes, the namesake of WFMU's former owner).

The rest is...paranormal history? Or electronic interference? You decide. Even Joe Meek was onboard with EVP. (OK, that's not exactly an endorsement you can take to the bank...)

Here is more than you ever wanted to know about EVP from wikipedia and here is the Skeptic's Dictionary's entry on those voices in your tape recorder's head.

Follow the jump for some of the notes that accompanied Raudive's MP3 recordings.

Today is World Hearing Voices Day

September 14th is World Hearing Voices Day. To mark the occasion a University of Manchester team is launching an investigation, based on recent research that suggests hearing voices in your head isn't a bad thing for some people. (link).

Researcher Aylish Campbell said: "We know that many members of the general population hear voices but have never felt the need to access mental health services; some experts even claim that more people hear voices and don't seek psychiatric help than those who do.

"In fact, many of those affected describe their voices as being a positive influence in their lives, comforting or inspiring them as they go about their daily business. We're now keen to investigate why some people respond in this way while others are distressed and seek outside help."

To learn more about the recent Dutch studies visit the Hearing Voices Network (link) or check out the exhaustive list of resources available at the Hearing Voices Movement Wikipedia page (link).

How to ruin a monumental recording

Bury the haunting 1970 vocal under a garbage scow's worth of New Age crap and retitle it "Parallelograms 2005." Then compound the embarrassment with a stock-footage psychedelic Straight-to-YouTube video.

The problem with the original recording was — er, what exactly?

Mike Patton on All my Children

And somewhere, Chuck Mosely clenches his fists with rage.

[Download .mpg file] (4.6 MB) Or YouTube it.

You might want this MP3, too.

Via Jon Solomon

The Real Fake News Hall of Fame

No, not "fake news" as in Comedy Central - that stuff is real compared to the phenomenon of VNRs, Video News Releases - video promos disguised as news and happily disseminated by local and network news teams too lazy to do their jobs. The Center for Media and Democracy studied the use of VNRs on TV news for ten months and they've compiled 36 examples on this page. The great thing about this page is that you can watch the original VNR, and then watch how it was incorporated by the TV news team, often using a local anchor to re-voice the exact text that was submitted on the original VNR. Here is more on the Center's work on real fake news. Thanks Steinski!

Open Post #1: It Wasn't Even Stupid Anymore

I closed down the WFMU Message Board yesterday, after seven years of posts that were at turns informative, infuriating, fascinating, perplexing and mundane. But as trolls, sock puppets and spambots took over, WFMU staff and listeners fled from the space and in the end, as Listener Paul put it, "It wasn't even stupid anymore." As overdue as the closing of the board was, it made me sad anyway.

So until we figure out the best way to re-launch an open online forum for listeners, I will throw up an open post on the blog from time to time. Feel free to post a comment on the question at hand or on any other topic related to WFMU, it's music, programming, radio or FMU culture.

Today's question: What's your suggestion for revamping the WFMU Message Board or alternatively, is there some other online forum we should try instead?

Oh Dudley, You Chameleon!

What if Dudley Moore actually did moonlight as the little sweater guy in Air Supply?  Here's a completely filthy mp3 serving as the audio counterpart to that conjecture, and to the separated-at-birth-style photo to the left:

Air Supply, with Dudley Moore "Every Woman in the World" (4.8M)

That's Dudley's alter-ego Derek, who performed filthy drunken improv with Peter Cook's alter-ego Clive; if you're unfamiliar with Derek & Clive, read up! (ext link)  I also hear it told round some parts that Dudley's film series of lovable alcoholic rich bastards (who often wear the same sweaters as that guy in Air Supply) are ripe for reevaluation.  I'll have to get back to you on that...

Sensei Rebel's Archive Picks of the Week (September 4, 2006 - September 10, 2006)

All MP3 and RealAudio links are streaming links from the WFMU Archives.

Rock And Roll
Ollie Byrd - "Cum On Feel the Noize" RealAudio from Brian Turner's show, September 5, 2006

International
Toumane Diabate's Symmetric Orchestra - "Boulevard de L'Independence" RealAudio from Maria Levitsky's show, September 6, 2006

Experimental
John the Dog, Bigmouth the Duck, Yuuhi the Crow, Pe the Goat, Booby the Pig, Sexy the Cat, Nyuu the Cow - "Scorching Savanna" RealAudio from Do or DIY with People Like Us, September 4, 2006

Dance
Unsound - "Devote Your Life To A Lost Cause" RealAudio from This Is the Modern World with Trouble, September 7, 2006

Ambient
Tim Hecker - "October" RealAudio from Evan Muse's show, September 6, 2006

Hip-Hop
Kenn Starr - "If feat. Asheru & Talib Kweli" RealAudio from Coffee Break For Heroes & Villains with Noah, September 4, 2006

Fave Song of the Week
Tortoise - "The Source of Uncertainty" RealAudio from Maria Levitsky's show, September 6, 2006

Solid Gold Dancers vs Hot Gossip

Those of us of a certain age (okay, in our 30s) remember spending our formative years fantasizing about what was lurking beneath the spandex of those incredibly sexy Solid Gold Dancers. As the most exciting part of Solid Gold, they commanded the airwaves with their weekly pop music countdown from 1979-1988 (though the dancing heyday ended in 1986, when most of the dancers quit the show).

But wait, you say you grew up across yon ocean in England-land? Well, then in that case you probably had the same exciting thoughts about Hot Gossip, the dance troupe that scandalized the average televison viewer and launched the career of Sarah Brightman.

Thanks to the seemingly omnipresent YouTube, you can now relive those Solid Gold and Hot Gossip moments, which have previously been locked tightly in the vaults of your memory.

Adventures in Amplitude Modulation - Part 26

The geek that I am, when I found out we were invited to join our in-laws for a few days at a beach house rental on the Connecticut coast at the end of August, I wasn’t so much looking forward to sun and sand and seagulls. I was thinking more about the DXing possibilities.

Having a huge body of water at your backdoor is typically a fine place to set up a shortwave set to snatch wandering radio waves bouncing unobstructed from beyond the horizon. While this wasn’t exactly the open ocean, it was Long Island Sound, and it all seemed rather promising. However, from moment I powered up my Degen that first evening I began to realize that this quaint little cottage was NOT going to be the dream radio shack I had hoped it might be. Oh, the reception was pretty good, that is for the stations that were strong enough to overcome the WORST RF noise I’ve think I've ever had to deal with. I'm not kidding when I tell you that it was the worst chorus of buzzing and bleating across the shortwave dial that I’ve ever heard throughout an entire house. And the deck and yard were no better.

The problem? Technology of all sorts in every room. Every light in the house was on a dimmer switch, which are notoriously RF noisy. And entertainment gadgets were everywhere, even a TV (and video equipment) in the bathroom. Not only that, but these beach houses are crammed together on the sand, and I suspect most were loaded up with electronics and gizmos. Hell, from the deck I could see that the people next door had a monstrous billboard-size TV blasting living color chase scenes up on their wall.

Fortunately, the AM band wasn’t so rudely affected by the inadvertent roar of high frequency broadcasting. So, the dial scan I offer in this post is medium wave reception from my first night there (August 28, 2006). I was near Bridgeport, with a nice view of Long Island across the way and waves crashing just a few feet from the stilts supporting the deck. Actually, sitting right on the coast of a continent provides a lot of excess noise as well, but the roar of the sea can easily be overcome with a set of headphones and doesn't affect the recording.

I was determined to overcome my RF predicament without sitting out in a parked car again, and later that weekend I walked down the beach away from all the gadgetry and recreational housing and recorded a somewhat eventful shortwave scan or two. However, after a couple hours of having a sea wind of twenty miles an hour or so blast you in the fact gets a little tiring after a while, and eventually got a little impatient sorting out faint signals. If I have time I’ll sort through those recordings and see if they are worth offering here as well.

Pretty Ladies And Food Plus The Appetizing Concoctions Of Paul Nudd

I am a sucker for a pretty lady adorned with a headful of candy and strawberry preserves smeared across her face. Aesthetic bliss!

Will Cotton (left) paints beautiful photo realistic pictures of women lounging around on cotton candy and wedding cakes, sometimes dipped in chocolate. He also has a stunning series of almost abstract landscape paintings of melting ice cream and lollypops.

Kristen Gerbert(right) has a massive collection of photos on Flikr of pretty ladies getting sloppy with food and cupcake sprinkle cosmetics.

For your extra pleasure here is the prettiest lady of them all, Leona Anderson crooning about her Limburger Lover (mp3...from the brilliant LP Music To Suffer By)

I am obsessed with this photo I found on the avant-garde fashion site Foto-Decadent of women bathing in noodles.

Here! are some photographs of a 100 lb. woman eating a very large hamburger! And of course we can't leave out Sonya Thomas- The Black Widow Of Competetive Eating!

And if that doesn't wet your appetite, let me introduce you to Chicago artist Paul Nudd. Nudd creates disgusting concoctions out of eggs, fingernails, and all manner of slop and throws it into a crockpot to film it slowly boiling over. I might be a bit off on the exact process but the result is fascinating and, uh, dare I say?  ...beautiful.

Enter the Acme Novelty Library

Courtesy of the Fantagraphics blog, it's the moment you've all been waiting for*: an eBay auction to have the winner's likeness show up in a cartoon drawn by Chris Ware, illustrator of note (and not just for his WFMU T-shirt design, pictured here). This is your chance to hang out with the likes of Jimmy Corrigan, Rusty Brown, Quimby the Mouse, and other depressing yet lovingly illustrated cartoon characters!

Chris will also send you a signed copy of the comic, "but only on the proviso that the person in question doesn't get mad or otherwise grow to despise me if their likeness is construed as satirical, incorrect, unflattering or in any way unliterary." So I guess Andy Breckman need not apply. (Image from Megan's frabtabulous WFMU wallpaper post.)

*If, in fact, you have been waiting for the chance to appear in a Chris Ware comic.

RSS Feeds for WFMU Archives and Playlists

Here are three new toys straight from Kenzo's workshop to your RSS reader - three new RSS feeds that automatically list the last fifteen published WFMU playlists, Realaudio archives or MP3 archives:

Last 15 WFMU Playlists: http://www.wfmu.org/playlistfeed.xml

Last 15 WFMU MP3 archives: http://www.wfmu.org/archivefeed/mp3.xml

Last 15 WFMU Realaudio archives: http://www.wfmu.org/archivefeed/real.xml

Flipper

I saw Flipper this past month at North Six. I wasn't disappointed, though I have to say the openers Pissed Jeans completely killed and you should go anywhere you can to see their action. I mean, any band whose singer describes their sound as the music equivalent of a toilet flushing is already near and dear to my heart, but these gents deliver a good brainflossing ala mid-era Black Flag and most certainly Stickmen With Rayguns. What also kills: these MP3s of Flipper live on KALX in 1981 during the Will Shatter days. Man. Hold onto yer hats, everybody. "I Saw You Shine" (MP3), "Way of the World" (MP3) "Nothing" (MP3), "Shed No Tears" (MP3), "Life Is Cheap" (MP3), "Love Canal" (MP3), "Ha Ha Ha" (MP3). Some vintage visual misanthropy on You Tube here, (also check out the interview with Mordam's Ruth Schwartz) and it looks like someone popped some of that recent North Six show up as well. Can we get Generic back in print now? (Pic: Neil Motteram)

This Week on eBay

Volunteer Wendy says:

Did you know you can have eBay automatically deliver a weekly list to your email of the items WFMU is auctioning?  YES!  List us as one of your "Favorite Sellers" and you'll never have to miss out on some weird record or interesting book.  wfmu_auction is our handle.

So here's what's up this week.

The Amazing New Electronic Pop Sound Of Jean Jacques Perrey CD
Do you think he's the better half of Perrey and Kingsley, or are you stuck on "Popcorn?"  If so, get your head outta the buttery bucket and check out Jean Jacques' 1968 release (reissued on CD by Vanguard).  He influenced about a kazillion musicians with his Moog-y ways.  Not only is this electronic music fascinating, it's also very much fun.  Aren't you having some sort of party soon?  Whatever music you planned to play at your party is woefully inadequate compared to this CD.

Eyeless in Gaza - SunBursts In b/w Lilt of Music 7"
Martyn Bates + Peter Becker = this experimental, synth-based, post-punk duo.  Remember when "independent music" actually meant something?  Well, Eyeless in Gaza, formed in 1980, were that.  They explored all sorts of musical styles, from music for films to "forceful, savage" songs.  Sounds
kinda hot, doesn't it?  Anyway, they split up for awhile, and according to their website, they've recently gotten back together to play some gigs in England and other non-USA places like that.  Wherever you may be, WFMU will ship this 7" to you, as long as you are the highest bidder and you pay us.

E: Reflections on the Birth of the Elvis Faith - John Strausbaugh
Yes, it's a BOOK.  You can read it while you listen to WFMU.  Fans of the New York Press will no doubt recognize associate editor Strausbaugh, who also penned "Rock Til' You Drop: The Decline from Rebellion to Nostalgia," "Alone With the President," and his latest, "Black Like You."  This one was published in 1995, and is all about the - don't laugh - Elvis Faith.  Yes, in the realm of crackpot cults, this one at least plays decent music.  Strausbaugh treats the subject seriously, viewing it through the lens of American studies, anthropology, and sociology, amongst other popular Liberal Arts majors.  It's not a dry, academic tome, nor is it a condescending geek show.  It's a great read, so read it.

German Cassette Underground 1979-1983 (mp3)

After posting a compilation of Berlin underground music from 1979-1983 a while back, today's offering will be an even more obscure bootleg of German minimal synth stuff from the same time period. The LP Kassettentäter (Cassette Offender) apparently first surfaced on the German eBay site, containing tracks from various rare tape releases. It was itself released in a limited edition of 100, and so it was no surprise that it sold (and continues to sell) for insane amounts of money. But let me not go into the ethics of bootlegging, since I know that you would rather listen to the music than reading moralistic rants. Here it is, as usual in MP3 format:

4172 - Steig den Luis Trenker | Der blaue Traum - Lebkuchen | Duotronic Synterror - 190 Stunden | Georgie D - Die Kunst wird mal durch Abschlachten gross | Der künftige Musikant - Stummel | Reinheit des Herzens - Paris hat 7 Brücken | Steff-GBH - Die feige Sonne | Ewig + 3 Tage - Keine Angst vor '84 | Militanz - Paul = fort | Hessen ganz gross! - Unter der Achsel | Sugalo - Heiliger Vater Staat | Co-Mix - Irrwitz | Täglich - Neue Art | Lorenz Loren - Honecker in Cambodia

I have zero information about the artists on this compilation, but you might want to know the following: Luis Trenker was a famously tacky Austrian mountain climber and filmmaker, Erich Honecker was the famously obtuse East German head of state from 1971 to 1989, and Paris is the name of two Wisconsin towns with a combined population of more than 2,000. Furthermore, the problem with the current electronic music scene is that they don't use Casio synthesizers anymore.

Back To School

At the risk of getting all Jean Shepherd here, I can remember the dismal feeling of going back to school, getting up at 7AM the only radio station my clock radio got in inexplicably played Terry Jacks' wrist-slit anthem "Seasons In the Sun" without fail every single morning. It was like some cruel DJ was deliberately doing this for some unknown reason. Well, time to return the favor: imagining waking up to this song, "(Now It's) Back To School" (MP3) by one Cal Hayes. Thank you to Scott Soriano, whom I can always count on to email me with stuff like this. Good times.

Escuche! at Stonehenge

Our brothers of Circle represent in Wiltshire with the finest in FMU-wear.