WFMU's Beware of the Blog

David Cunningham's use of silence as a compositional tool

Shhhhh... please? Composer David Cunningham is perhaps the only person to ever conceive a half-way credible "answer" to the questions raised by John Cage's classic composition 4'33" (which is no small feat). Over roughly the last ten years, Cunningham has created simple, interactive installations which microphone and amplify the background room tone and unnoticeable noises of indoor and outdoor public spaces (as documented on this blog earlier here), feeding the sound of the space (quiet or otherwise) back to itself and bringing the sounds only our subconscious usually notice to the foreground - all of it mixing into a kind of undefinable loop. His latest installation A Piano in a Gallery, at Carter Presents in London, takes the concept further; feeding the unnoticeable sounds of an open gallery room back into itself, and also onto the strings of a piano placed in the gallery's center - with the sound of the space in turn kind of "playing" the instrument, which then becomes the sound of the room and so on and so on (really, inverting the process of how a piano amplifies sound). The piece runs at the space until August 6th. More info can be found here.

New Jork

Castanets, eyeshadow that just won't quit, red lady-talons, white-blond hair to match that snappy blazer... and she's just the backup coo-er.

Check out this decidedly smiley public access karaoke version of "New York, New York," featuring the talents of Nilda Reaxch and Jose Adames. [download video here, 8 MB wmv]

Originally submitted to Irwin Chusid and Michelle Boule's Incorrect Music Hour by listener Dave Fischer.

Beyond the Lip-Synch: Signing with Cindy

Back in the early 80s, an independent public television show challenged the iron grip of the Solid Gold empire. Yes, straight out of KUHT in Houston, Texas, came Signing with Cindy. In each episode, your fearless hostess reinterpreted some of the hot hits of the day (circa 1982) for the deaf and hard of hearing.

That by itself was a great and noble goal, but creator Cindy Cochran was not satisfied with just transcribing lyrics. She hit upon the brilliant idea of creating her own music videos, with choreographed dancing, costumes, and all the cliches of low budget videography. And she had boatloads of spunk to make it all work.

Thanks to NYC-area drag legend Flloyd, you can now relive these classic moments on YouTube.

Start off with a memorable hit of the era, Pat Benatar's "Hit Me with Your Best Shot" (YouTube), then marvel at her work-out to the theme song from "Fame" (YouTube). But for a real taste of Cindy magic, you must not hesitate to witness her take on the lovely Barbara Streisand dance number "The Main Event" (YouTube or download a 13 meg Quicktime file).  The film the song comes from was a lackluster boxing romance staring La Barbara and Ryan O'Neal. But Cindy and her dancers transcend even Hollywood aspirations with a knock-out performance that would not have been out of place if it were plopped right in the middle of the "Can't Stop the Music" (indeed, the thought of an all-signing Village People movie has made me more than a little excited).

Amazing as those production numbers are, it is the simplest of Cindy's performances that really touch my heart. And so it is with this performance (YouTube), the serenity which harkens back to the simpler times of misty-framed K-Tel compilation ads.

I have vague fever-dream memories of this show airing on Sunday morning PBS stations in the Denver area, but I found precious little information on Ms. Cochran in the more modern internet world. She started working with the deaf through her church group, published a rather groovy companion book, and of course encouraged a whole generation of hard-of-hearing fans to get up and boogie. Oh, and let's not forget that she inspired several fan-fiction scripts for Cagney & Lacey.

Pink Floyd / Syd Barrett Song From Demo Tape (MP3)

Here's a 1965 Syd Barrett song recorded as a demo tape with Pink Floyd before they started calling themselves Pink Floyd. It's called Lucy Leave, aka Lucy Lee in Blue Tights: download MP3

From the Pink Floyd hyperbase: Early Barrett song recorded on the first demotape late 1965. The band did not yet have the name Pink Floyd and guitarist Bob Klose was part of the band at the time. The song has not been officially released. The demo version is released with an italian book from 1996.

Thanks Spazz and RSM! RIP, Syd.

Pianoless Vexations MP3s

8 hours of MP3s recorded live at The Sculpture Center, NYC on June 11, 2006. Vexations was composed by Erik Satie in 1893 and consists of a short motif repeated 840 times. Vexations was first performed publicly by John Cage and several other pianists over the course of 19 hours in 1963. As the title conveys, artists performing in Pianoless Vexations used any instrument except the piano to perform Satie's original composition. Instruments included laptops, drums, guitar, French horn, violin, trumpet, saxophone, viola, recorder, toy piano, harpsichord, mandolin, bass, film projectors, voice, dulcimer and more  (more here). More info, photos, etc. on UbuWeb.

MP3s (approx. 20 minutes each): Randy Nordschow (laptop); Jay Sanders (guitar); Bruce Pearson (laptop); Daphna Mor, Rachel Begley, and Nina Stern (recorders); Bruce Arnold Jazz Trio (jazz); Alan Licht and Angela Jaeger (guitar & voice); String Messengers (bluegrass); Rusty Santos (rock); Amy Granat (violin); Greg Kelley (horn); Miguel Frasconi (glass sounds); Bethany Ryker (french horn); D. Edward Davis and Erik Carlson (violin & laptop); Zachary Seldess (laptop); Charles Waters and Katie Pawluk (sax & violin); Andrew Lampert and Steve Dalachinsky (film & voice); Margaret Leng Tan (toy piano); Trudy Chan (detuned harpsichord); David Grubbs (nylon-string guitar); Goddess (dulcimer & vocals); Matthew Ostrowski (laptop); Kenta Nagai (shamisen); Stephin Merritt (marimbas); Rick Moody, Hannah Marcus, and Tianna Kennedy (guitar, cello, violin).

The Complaints Choir of Helsinki (video)

What do people complain about in Finland? Well, the Helsinki Complaints Choir will sing it to you: download quicktime video, 24 megs.

Finnish artists Tellervo Kalleinen and Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen collected the pet peeves and angst-ridden pleas of people in Helsinki and then composed this choral work around the list of complaints. While many of the complaints are universal to western urban life ("Tramline three smells of pee," "Bullshitters get on too well in life," "Christmas season starts earlier every year"), many of the complaints dive deep to the heart of the Finnish soul ("Our ancestors could have picked a sunnier place to be," "In the public sauna they never ask if its ok to throw water on the stove," "Old forests are cut down and turned into toilet paper, and still all the toilets are always out of paper," and most importantly, "We always lose to Sweden in Hockey and Eurovision"). But all the complaints end with the timeless refrain of all humanity, It's Not Fair.

The Helsinki Complaints Choir premiered in March, 2006 at the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art, part of the Finnish National Gallery. via del.icio.us

Kelley Stoltz Crock-O-Dials MP3s

We' ve been huge fans of San Francisco singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist Kelley Stoltz for some years now; he's done two live sessions on WFMU that were nothing less than joyous occassions, but his records have been quite overlooked by the indie/alt-whatzit culture too for some reason we can't figure out. Oddly enough he's been bigger in Australia than his own homeland, but that's thankfully changing with some higher profile on the Sub Pop label where he's released an EP The Sun Comes Through, and a brand new full length album entitled Below the Branches and has started to bring in audiences all over the place (in fact we couldn't even get in to see him this past March at one of this stops). The music evokes some of the best moments of some admittedly popular influences, Syd Barrett, Beatles, Bowie, Beach Boys, Velvets, and some lesser-borrowed sources (Flying Nun/New Zealand pop, Neutral Milk Hotel) but Stoltz has commanded his own ground quite well. His exhuberant (though definitely moody and eccentric) pop is totally great, and for a guy with as much talent and architecture in his song structures, it's affirming to hear him opt to go the fuzzy/rough approach to keep things loose rather than head into the studio with a slick producer. In fact, one of my fave releases Kelley has out is a completely self-produced and self-recorded-at-home covers album of Echo and the Bunnymen's 1980 debut Crocodiles, rechristened Crock-O-Dials. It was a CD-R for a while, finally released on the UK label Beautiful Happiness, and here are some MP3's up on Kelley's newly refurbished site we wanted to share: "Going Up" (MP3), "Rescue" (MP3), "Villiers Terrace" (MP3), as well as one of his originals from his Antique Glow CD from a few years back: "Underwater's Where the Action Is" (MP3). You can also check out his live sessions on WFMU, the first from my show on 11/11/03 (Real Audio) where he played originals with his band, then a slew of Bunnymen covers (you don't see the raincoats and dry ice in the studio, though you can hear me running the tape of Gregorian chants on the intro!) joined by Pavement's Spiral Stairs (now of Preston School of Industry), and then a more recent session (Real Audio) on Joe Belock's Three Chord Monte on 3/27/06. Meanwhile, Kelley has gone and recorded his take on the Bunnymen's second album, Heaven Up Here and recently told me he bought a sitar which means that Porcupine is on the way too (he hasn't posted MP3s of the Heaven Up Here stuff, but you can check out Real Audio of his versions of "All I Want" and  "With A Hip"). Recently the Muldoons (a Detroit punk band comprised of a sixth and third grader on guitar with their dad on drums) played on Joe's show as well and covered Kelley's "Are You Electric" (full Muldoons session in Real Audio here), as the Muldoons' record was put out by Jack White's nephew who also did a Stoltz 7". The Detroit-SF connection continues this summer as Kelley hits the road opening for the Jack White's Raconteurs.

Drunk Guy Remix

When blathering drunk morons are interviewed on TV, you can count on WFMU to pick up the remixes.

Check out this hilarious cutup of a Brazilian news interview with an extremely wasted Linkin Park fan named Jeremias, who was arrested for drunk driving; his slovenly tirade lends itself quite well to a baile funk beat [download video, 9MB mpeg; or watch it on youtube]. Download the MP3 here.

And if you're really curious, you can watch the entire pre-remix interview with our new favorite drunk guy right here (youtube).

Thanks to listener Phillip for sending me the red alert! Props to Mike and Ken for quick conversions.

This Week in Sex: Good Dog

Sometimes I get tired of treking through the skankiest bogs of the internet, scraping the smut off my flip-flops before I can come in the house. I think I've seen a few too many not-safe-for-work saliva and slurping and nose fetish videos. This Week in Sex is all dogs, and not the furry fetish dogging kind, but the feel-good kind you hear about at the end of the news with the water-skiing squirrels. Sit. Stay.

Hoppy, the most amazing dog with no front legs, learned to walk upright like a human and doesn't feel silly at all doing it. (I'm working at a computer with no sound, so I'm just guessing from the video that the dog's name is Hoppy. It could also be Stumpy.)

Cheekies, the rat terrier who just wants to go to the naked beach, is caught up in a federal lawsuit. His owner says Cheekies is a service dog who gives him comfort at the naked beach, and the owner needs to go to the naked beach for a skin condition he developed post 9-11. And since Cheekies is not wearing clothes to the naked beach, what's the big deal?

Ranger, the driving dog, accidentally ran over a woman in Utah by stepping on the gearshift. "No one's called me," the woman's husband compained. "No one's said, 'I'm sorry we did this.' Nothing." Dude, Ranger is a not-very-good-at-driving dog, not a telephoning-to-apologize dog. And if he could call, he would say, "It was an accident."

Norman, the dog who is a metaphor for homosexuality, was born different. He moos. And he ends up on the side of a bus.

Bonnie, the "really lucky" dog, is so lucky she got shot in the middle of the forehead and left to die. How lucky is that?

Sam, the cyber-dog with a microchip implanted under his skin, helped 2 year-old Alexis find her way home. She had wandered out of the house before 7 a.m., and Sam tagged along. Cops scanned the dog, and returned both to the sleeping parents. "She's scary smart," her father said of Alexis. "She does her ABCs, and numbers and colors — half the stuff I wonder where she gets it." He added, "I'm gonna hafta put microchip in her, though — this thing with the police was a little too Cops at 7 a.m. I barely had my wifebeater on."

Curly, the barky Irish terrier, saved the life of 10 year-old Jean Stout when she had an asthma attack at her grandparent's house. Taking a page from the "little Billy's in the well" handbook, Curly wouldn't stop barking until Jean's parent's found her passed out in the bathtub. But Curly made the famous shout-out his own, barking "nyuk nyuk nyuk."

Duo, the abandoned dog with two noses, still needs a home. I think we can all identify with the statement of one of his rescuers, "Duo is not a freak, he's just unusual." Remember when Bronwyn told you about the dog with no nose? I think the dogs should move in together and share the extra nose.

Koni, Putin's dog, is being secretly fed too many treats by the press. Just because Putin is out kissing little boys like kittens doesn't mean he doesn't notice that "Sometimes, Koni leaves a room full of journalists with a very pleased expression on her face and biscuit crumbs around her mouth."

Pago, a German Shepherd who got bit by a police suspect, was choked and had his collar torn off in the brawl. Man and dog were both covered in blood when it was over, but the suspect was the only one who got Tasered.

A Bastille Day Present For You (MP3s)

To commemorate that day 217 years ago when the people of Paris stormed the Bastille and freed all seven peasants inside (thus founding the modern French nation), here's a more significant accomplishment - an album of great hook-drenched French pop - Les Innocents' 1996 CD Post-Partum:

Un Monde Parfait   |   Long, Long, Long   |   Lune De Lait

Dentelle   |   Entre Amos Et Amsterdam   |   Lesions Etrangeres

Des Jours Adverses   |   La Peau Du Grizzly   |   Raide, Raide, Raide

Colore   |   Franges En Bataille   |   Lesions Etrangeres (suite)   |   Medley

Looking Without Seeing: Inattentional Blindness Videos

An article in last Tuesday's Science Times wrote about a seminal psychology film clip called the "Opaque Gorilla Video." It's a short research film meant to test "inattentional blindness," (also known as "IB") the common human ability to look directly at something and not see it. Magicians and politicians have long capitalized on this tendency, but in the hallowed halls of science, the field of IB is relatively new, and cognitive psychologists are still debating whether it is caused by rapid amnesia (inattentional amnesia) or never actually perceiving something in the first place (inattentional blindness).

One of the tools used to test various IB theories is the Opaque Gorilla Video, which is online as an embedded java clip and can be seen here. (I could only view it in Internet Explorer on my PC - it didn't work in Firefox.) In the video, you see two groups of three people passing a basketball back and forth. In the midst  of their play, a woman wearing a gorilla suit casually walks into view, beats her chest and then walks off. In one recent study on the effects of alcohol on Inattentional Blindness, test subjects were told to count the number of basketball passes on the part of one team or the other. After watching the video, the subjects were asked of they saw the gorilla. 46 percent of the sober people saw the gorilla, meaning that more than half did not see it. Only 18 percent of the alcohol drinkers saw the opaque gorilla. (This particular study was called "Blind Drunk: The Effects of Alcohol on Inattentional Blindness")

The reason that this film is referred to as the Opaque Gorilla Video is that other IB test films feature unexpected events ("UE's") which are transparent, such as the transparent umbrella woman, it's fantastic remake, and then of course the obligatory opaque umbrella woman. All of these videos and other IB test examples can be viewed from the University of Illinois's Visual Cognition Lab demo page here. So go ahead and do your own experiment - reduce your browser size to hide the context of one of these videos, ask your friends or co-workers to count the number of basket ball passes on the part of the white team or the black team and then a few minutes later, ask a number of questions about the video, including whether they saw the gorilla or umbrella lady.

There's more information on IB on this meager wikipedia page, this overview by Arien Mack and Irvin Rock, or this article from Monitor on Psychology.

The Good Ol' Days

Here are a few public domain videos from back when life was simple and wholesome: people actually made preparations for the rapture, prescription tranquilizers didn't have such a bad rap, and yodeling your sailor boyfriend off to war was a perfectly acceptable goodbye.

"The Rapture" (mp4, 118 MB via archive.org) - Just in case you were confused about how the rapture will affect your daily routine, this film from 1941 lays it all out. I won't reveal everything, but don't expect your christian maid to show up for work that day.

"The Relaxed Wife" (mp4, 33 MB) - Jerry Lewis' infomercial doppelganger stars in this promo film produced by Pfizer in the late '50s, demonstrating how ataraxic drugs can help you manage stress.

"Chime Bells" (mp4, 6 MB) - Originally from a "soundie," this clip features Rosalie Allie yodeling her man off to the navy, and all the while maintaining a creepy permasmile.

"If I Fell" Video by Jim Price and R. Stevie Moore

This 1988 video (26 MB mpeg) comes to us courtesy of Jim Price, who was an 'FMU DJ during the period of 1976-1998.  He and NJ improviser/composer/rennaissance man R. Stevie Moore played with the video medium for the sheer joy of it, performing skits, vignettes, poignant lip-synchs to dozens of Stevie songs, and other fascinating experimentations.    

Your Semi-Annual Employee Review

{un hommage à Al Jaffee, renowned smart-ass}

1. As you understand them, what are your duties/responsibilities with the company?

-Maximize usage of "mental health" days
-Come in early, stay late, never see family
-Know what all of our clients and co-workers are up to at any given moment; have a ready answer for any random question you might ask

2. Have the past 6 months been good/bad/satisfactory, and why?

-Satisfactory, breaking into widespread good whenever you leave the office
-Good, compared to 6 months at Abu Ghraib with Joan and Melissa Rivers
-Bad, considering that I'm actually expected to show up—I got into organized crime for this?

3. What can we do to make the processes of your department run more smoothly?

-Stop bugging me
-Play round-the-clock ragga breakcore streaming radio station
-Replace rest of staff with sexy female robots

4. What sort of training would help you to perform your job more efficiently?

-Ninja training
-Train me to tolerate a steady stream of gross incompetence and inefficiency
-Train me to beat the odds at Atlantic City

5. What about advancement?  Where do you see yourself 1-5 years down the road?

-In jail for killing all of you
-Winning the lottery and getting the hell out of here
-I'd take your position, but you so enjoy the taste of client ass, I'd hate to take that away from you

World Cup Death Watch - Final Count

Headbutts notwithstanding, the most harmonious World Cup in history has ended, leaving a final body count of 78 79. The deadliest event of the entire cup took place in Burundi, where seven people died after police hurled a grenade and opened fire into a crowd of celebrants who were setting off fireworks. Burundi now stands second only to China as the country with the most World Cup fatalities. China had eleven deaths, although no new fatalities were reported there since the last update. The entire nation is reported to now be experiencing a post-Cup hangover.

But the spate of Asian heart attacks continued, even without China's participation. In Thailand, yet another fan expired of heart failure while watching the final. Tragically, a ten year old boy in England also died while watching the final, although the cause of his death is till unknown. And in Montpelier, the fifth French World Cup death was reported, when a young man was stabbed in the neck during an outdoor viewing of the France-Portugal game. In Salerno, Italy, a sixteen year old boy was killed when the car he was leaning out of (waving the flag) crashed and rolled over. And there was another flag-related death in Italy, when a 77 year old man fell while trying to attach a flag to a pole prior to the final game.

A 30 year old member of the Italian crime gang Camorra was shot to death by a rival gang members riding motorbikes, as he came out of hiding to celebrate Italy's victory in Naples. A 21 year old man in Barbados was also killed while celebrating the Italian victory, after being stabbed in the neck. An argument over the final match also prompted one Ugandan man to hack another to death with a machete. "Now I have come to finish your life. Never play with veterans. We kill anything," the murderer was reported to have said during the killing.

Old Codger Screams - 'Hey You Kids, Get Off My Half Pipe!' -- Film at 11

...It's just dawned upon me that I don't think I have bought an issue of Maximum Rock 'N' Roll since sometime in the late 80s'. The friggin' thing used to be the bible to me and all my skate buddies in high school. What other publication could make you so politically aware as well as keep you abreast on the Hardcore Punk scene in Peru? Sometime in the early 90's, I traded my (somewhat) complete collection of the mag for a stack of Hawkwind bootlegs and a bag of dirt weed sprayed with Lysol. So what I’m trying to say is I don’t really have that firm of a grip on the goings on in the Hardcore scene of 2006. All I know is whenever I do get the chance to peruse through a box of recent Hardcore 7”s, I see a severe lack of images I think should be essential to our time and place. You know, bad collages of ole G.W. mixing it up with warheads and starving children and stuff like that. All I usually see is kids in basketball jerseys and bad graffiti. It’s sort of a bummer to me, but luckily a shiny piece of tinfoil has just come out that might teach the kids a thing or two. For some reason that is still foggy to me, the Subterranean label has re-issued the complete discography of Code Of Honor, a politically charged Skatecore band from San Francisco in the early 80’s (Jesus, did I actually just type all those words out in a sentence and not bust out laughing?) C.O.H. were the perfect embodiment of the typical teenaged MRR reader of the era. Earnestly left wing kids who could lecture you on the atrocities of Nicaragua while busting the raddest christ air you’ve ever seen. Their tuneage was a pretty streamlined form of melodic thrash that didn’t offer much in the ways of cacophony or chaos…sorry Void fans. But for some stupid reason or another, their songs were infectious enough that they stick in my head some twenty years later. I can still recite both the ‘code of honor’ stated in the song of the same name (‘Never desert your comrades in need in danger or in trouble…’) as well as the declaration of revolution in ‘New Era’ (‘Take away the government and you take away the lies/Kill all the politicians and no one else will die..’) Perhaps these raging tunes will incite the youth of today to drop acid and not bombs. But most likely all that’ll happen here is oldsters like me will listen to this and sadly reminisce on endless days of skating and waiting for my Ill Repute 7” to come in the mail while ’the kids’ buy up more cone belts at the local Hot Topic. Bleech.

You Got Your Manson in My Bush

In what I'm sure you'll recognize to be an increasingly common occurence, I recently found myself just awash in Mansonalia.  It seemed like everywhere I turned, Charlie had this to say, and Charlie had that to say, and Charlie was wagging his tongue at so-and-so, and Charlie Charlie CHARLIE.  Jesus.

In what I'm sure you'll recognize to be an increasingly tiresome occurence, I recently found myself just drowning in Dubyaspeak.  It seemed like everywhere I turned, blah blah blah, and George was wagging his finger at so-and-so, and Bush Bush BUSH.  Jesus.

Hey, wait a minute!  (mp3 download, 4.2 KB) 

Listening to that thing, sometimes I honestly can't tell who's talking!  Were Charlie and Dubya separated at birth?  Listening to each man speak provides strong anecdotal evidence. The purely circumstantial similarities of timbre, accent and inflection get a boost from their shared preacherly manner - both adopt a patronizing tone, and use the lexicon of sin and Armageddon. 

Suddenly other similarities emerge: both were up to no damn good in The 1960s; both (claim to have) quit drugs before getting famous; both have acheived icon status; both have inspired t-shirt designs; both have massive messiah complexes; both have influenced artists and musicians to a degree unseen since some lonely guitar picker pricked his pinky on a rose thorn.  Here's a wikipedia page detailing a smattering of the musicians who've performed songs about (or even by) Manson.  Here's some of the art that George W. Bush has inspired.  And here's the pro-Bush art.

There is of course one big difference between these blood brothers: while they both have a nice stableful of sheep, only the big boy inspired them to murder for him; little brother had to pay for it.

("Charles Manson Superstar", upper left, by the great Joe Coleman)

UPDATE, 7/13:  Meet Witchbeam - he agrees.

"it's not unusual to have fun with anyone"

Hey, things are lookin up, my ne'er-do-well friends.  Apparently, this thing called the modern day, which just happens all by itself, as easily as a clock ticking, has landed us another fabulous 'Eureka!".  No more do we ugly Americans have to worry about carrying drugs into far away nations, that in the past locked our lame asses up indefinately.  Now with the Senator-in-your-pocket, get-out-of-Dubai-jail-free game, lifetime incarceration is just another word for "Honey, could you get Orrin Hatch on the phone?"

On May 19th, Dallas Austin (maybe his mom was a big fan of Texas), music producer from the fine state of Georgia, flew to Dubai to attend Naomi Campbell's 3-day birthday bash. Pulled over at customs, Dallas was searched and his gram of cocaine confiscated.  Initially charged with trafficking, then knocked down to possession, Austin was tried and convicted on July 4th, and sentenced to 4 years.  Yet a mere hours later he was flying home to Atlanta. 

Immediately after Austin's arrest the phones rang from Dubai to Bahrain, Washington, DC to Pakistan, involving "multiple ambassadors, a prime minister, a prince, Lionel Ritchie, the senator, and religious leaders in Atlanta". (J. Leeds & S.Waxman, New York Times, July 8, 2006)   I have to say if I was in a prison in an Arab Emirate country I would try to do better on the Vegas ladder than Lionel Ritchie;  I'd at least drop a dime to Tom Jones!

Visual Moments in Epic Rock #5: Guru Guru live on German TV

Kraut Bonanza: This year WDR TV in Germany aired a six hour (!) documentary on that country's rock scene of the late 60's/early 70's, and while all the interviews are in German, it was incredible to see real footage of bands I've only been able to visualize by their LP sleeves. Here's a clip of a live practice room take on "Electric Junk" (29MB wmv file) from the great Guru Guru (studio version found on their 1971 record Hinten), showcasing in crystal-clear fashion the monster-riffic trio of Mani Neumeier (drums, gong, vocals), Uli Tripte (bass) and the appropriately-named Ax Genrich (guitar) in full freak flight. Despite the looseness of the playing, the falling-apart hiss of Genrich's gnarly amp, and extended, sometimes meandering pathways of their songs, Guru Guru's playing was also super-tight with total conviction and direction from start to finish; their ability to hypnotize and bury you with massive jams set them apart from fellow cosmic-travelling brothers like Can and Neu, they weren't quite proggy as Amon Duul 2 nor as metallic as the Scorpions. More clips coming soon, thanks Listener Marcus!

When Will the Watermelon Hit the Ground?

I spent the 4th of July weekend tooling around the Smithsonian American Art Museum/National Portrait Gallery in Washington DC. (link) Both have been closed for renovation for the past six years, and thus I was easily swept up by the opening weekend excitement. I took a few pictures and jotted down a few notes – I figured it would be a simple task to compose a blog-ode of sorts to these amazing museums, but, well, the very first piece I chose to write about sent this post careening in a totally unexpected direction!

Winslow Homer painted the Watermelon Boys in 1876. It’s an anti-pastoral masterpiece fit for the final days of Reconstruction. But what exactly is the Obtuse Bard (as Homer was known to his pals!) saying? On the one hand we have a clever reversal of convention – this time it’s a lazy white boy whose consciousness barely extends beyond his mandibles! And while the African Americans in the picture do possess poise and grace – that stare into the distance suggests an awareness of a long time coming before Blacks and watermelons can publicly coexist free from prejudice and stereotype.

A long time indeed! Today the juxtaposition seems just as charged as in antebellum times.  Just this spring controversy erupted over a Washington State Math test that asked students to calculate what happens after Condoleezza Rice hurls a Watermelon off the top of the Federal Building (link).

It’s one of those questions that only leads to others.

Like: what was George Pal thinking when he created the racially charged cartoon ‘Jasper and the Watermelons’? Mr. Pal protested that he meant no offense but the cartoon was banned anyways – You can watch this 1942 oddity thanks to YouTube. (link)

30 years later Washington DC  broadcast personality and community activist Petey Greene asks perhaps the most important question of all: How do you eat a Watermelon? Watch him demonstrate and pontificate in this truly bizarre clip from his 1970s television show (link)

As I said, this post went a bit off track –I hope I have not ruined the Watermelon for anyone – It certainly makes for a fine summer snack. And if you find yourself in DC make sure you visit the museums.