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Scene: outside a grimy building,
with "Blitzkrieg Bop" playing in the background. Abbott
is leaning up against a wall, wearing a sleeveless jean jacket, T-shirt,
skinny tie, fedora hat, thin wrap-around sunglasses. He's smoking
a cigarette, holding a clipboard, casually bobbing his head to the music.
C: (off stage): HEY A-BBOTT!!
(Costello enters, strutting,
wearing t-shirt, small nose ring, Mohawk, 'Mother' tattoo on his arm
and slinging a guitar to his side)
A: Oh, there you are...
C: (enthusiastic) Hey, I'm
all ready for my gig tonight! Thanks for bookin' us at the club!
A: Yeah well, how could I resist
you? You got your nice Mohawk (C brushes his hair to show it off), your
tough tattoo (C flexes his arm). You've been working on your sneer?
C: Sure! Look at this!
(mugs for the audience, pouting his lips out and clutching his guitar)
A: That's fine, that's fine.
And you have a good name for your band too.
C: Yeah... The Punk Carnations!
(laughs)
A: Yeah, that's swell...
C: We're so excited that we
actually wrote a song and learned how to play it!
A: You did, huh? You
finally wrote a song? What's it called?
C: What..?
A: The song? What's it
called?
C: I gotta think up NAMES for
my songs?
A: Oh, forget it...
C: Hey listen, I'm looking
forward to seeing all the other bands that we're playing with tonight
too! You got the list there, right?
A: Of course I do! What
kind of promoter would I be if I didn't know who was playing tonight?
Bunny & The Lakers were an extremely short-lived experimental synth band from Toronto led by
songwriter Peter Morgan. They only played live once; fortunately,
though, they recorded a fantastic LP, 'Numbers', 500 of which were pressed by Belsize/Caplan/Wymark Records in 1984.
Even though Bunny & the Lakers often get lumped in with the 'synthpunk' scene, only a couple of songs
on 'Numbers' approach anything typical of the genre. In fact, the centerpiece of the LP (the 10
minute 'Batlore' opus) shares more in common with Faust than anything
remotely redolent of 'punk'.
One of the band's two vocalists, G.B. Jones, later
went on to be in 'Fifth Column'; further on down the line, she became
a filmmaker who directed and appeared in several underground movies,
including a 'girl gang' movie called 'The Yo-Yo Gang' that came out
in 1992.
The song 'Sandy' shows all the playfulness/weirdness/noisiness of the band:
And, ok, maybe the chirpy instrumental 'Cops on Parade' sounds a little pop-punk (with 'synths'), but it's an aberration here, and has no vocals--just early keyboards and drum machine.
John Henry and Heather of the great band Static Static
are in serious legal trouble in Prescott, Arizona, and are facing 5-15
years in prison. Though I don't know all the details about what has
happened, I know they have a lot of great things to contribute to
society, and they don't deserve to be locked out of it. They go before
a judge tomorrow and their friends are trying to raise money so that
they can both have proper legal representation.
Miss Pussycat, a friend of Static Static from their New Orleans days, writes
I
have known John and Heather for over ten years. Heather has been on
tour with us to sell merch, Static Static has rocked the Spellcaster
many times and I love them both and know they have lots of other
friends that love them and would want to help out. Lesley, the drummer
for Static Static has a Paypal account to direct donations for a
lawyer.
Send paypal donations to: lesley.lesley "at" sbcglobal.net
I wrote more about Static Static (and the artist Keenan Keller, whose Static Static artwork appears in this post) here, when they played live at WFMU on my radio show "Talk's Cheap". Here's a track from that session:
So plans are under way for WFMU’s annual two-week Marathon
fundraiser, and people are already laying odds on which DJ’s show Kelly will be
co-hosting when she first says “chocolate whizzway” or “man-hungry poon trap”
or some other completely inappropriate Kellyism on the air. (Plus,
“laying odds.”) The Marathon is a non-stop party, with all the Listener
Volunteers and random DJ Co-hosts showing up at the station, and communal food
and completely legal beverages, and crazy money-raising stunts. It’s a lot of
fun, and we love sharing it with the Listeners, and we love it when the
Listeners come through and support our totally Listener-supported radio station
for another year. Except, you know, last year the economy was really, really bad, and for the first time ever
we didn’t quite make our extremely modest fund-raising goal. So I have been
thinking about other ways we can make money, and here is another one: 21st-Century
Energy Resources!
This is a really exciting and totally Green thing we can
do. Scientists and Experts—and Hippies—are all aflutter over the awesome new
urine-based hydrogen fuel cell. Here is some sciencey info about it: “Because urea's four hydrogen atoms are less tightly
bound to nitrogen than the hydrogen bound to oxygen in water molecules, it
takes less energy to break them apart: just 0.37 volts applied across the cell,
against the 1.23 volts required to break down water. Thus the energy balance of
urea-derived hydrogen could be considerably better from start to finish than
projections for other methods of obtaining the combustible gas.” And, also, you
can get methane gas from feces, and that is a source of energy, too! All we
need is to get some DJs who can pee and poo on command, like Roger Ebert’s
dominatrix, and we will be sitting on a literal pot full of gold! And there’ll
be the added benefit of finally
ending the problems with the second-floor toilet just outside Studio A! And
Kelly can say “chocolate whizzway” whenever she wants to! It’s a wee-wee-wee,
win-win-win, all the way to the bank. Although there are people who drink their own urine—I used to work with one, at the Village Voice—but I don't think anyone at WFMU would be that selfish, I think it'll be one more way we can all contribute.
Thanks for reading my
blogpost this time, and thanks for supporting WFMU. And thanks to Listener See Wolf for the fine photo of Marathon 2008, above.
Woody Allen is one of very few comedic delineations universally respected by comedy writers the world over. Held in high esteem by comedy's upper crust, the snooty savants of literature and the vast film literati, Allen is one of the few comedy titans actually considered an artist. Woody Allen's comedic acumen spans all genres. It has yet to be matched.
However, the first several years of his career are rarely discussed. It is a fascinating period. Comedy devotees swear by the recordings of his stand-up act. At the time of his 1963 debut comedy record, Woody was a smart up-and-comer who'd already logged ten years in the business. But he was far from the personality we think of today.
Most comedians early in their career involve themselves with peripheral showbiz ventures, both to make their name and to survive. Cerebral as we may think Woody Allen to be, he was in many ways no different than most struggling low brow comedians that permeated the landscape. A shill for Parker Brothers and Smirnoff Vodka. A frequent game show panelist. A propagandist for Allen Funt's Candid Camera. None of these things spring to mind when we think of the storied career of Allen Konigsberg, but they were essential activities in his formative years.
Finally...the St. Louis Metro Evening Whirl has an Internet presence! But that isn't why I'm posting.
Two comments left on this post from April of 2008 are unmitigated classics and I sure wish more concerned mothers who have run-ins with the police or family members in the slammer--which reminds me...Arizona has a crime newspaper, too, called The Slammer--would leave more hysterically verbose comments. Please--keep 'em comin!:
Commenter Amelda Walton: I am a strong black single mother
of two whom does whatever for my children to make sure they be great
citizens in society. I have a 9 year old son who has been assaulting
his teachers and peers at school. He has been suspended from school 5
times in the month of October. He bangs his head up against wall for
attention. My son has sent a little girl to the hospital as well as
pushed a little boy in the nose. He constantly runs away, I think just
about every city cop on the Southside of St. Louis has had encounter
with him. He cusses me out and has fought me several times. He is under
a psychartic,a therapist, department of mental health, children's
divison and no one seems to know what to do with him. Not mention there
has never been any real physical abuse but I was accused of abuse when
he had belt marks on his bottom. The skin was not broken. He has a dead
beat father! They say he needs a father, so if anybody no where I can
buy a father let me know! Because I don't won't NO man that likes
little boys or girls around my children or no drugdealer or no woman
BEATER! Not to mention he smears poop and urinates all over my
apartment!Yes! he just whips it out.The state of Missouri says no
spanking your child, I think this is exactly what he needs a down south
big momma spanking, St. Louis what do you think? Oh, I forgot he has
been in child mental institutions over 15 times! Now, I figure they
don't want me to spank my son because this is another black man growing
up diagnosis with ADHD who is ends up going to juve later and then to
the pen or in the grave regardless if he ends up in the pen for
murdering someone the state gets $10,000 a day for a prisoner,Why do
my son have to be that prisoner? I fear the worst already and because I
have been in every program that I possibly can enroll in for my child
they are waiting on me to hurt my son and I be faced with prison time
or if I hold on long enough, he will be faced with prison,What do you
think?
(left, Stevie Ray, waiting for his lift to last year's Mayyors set) Oi, hey, Texas, ready for thirds? After our debut show at SXSW in Austin in 2008 and our joint show with our pals at Aquarius Records from San Francisco last year, we're happy to announce that we'll both be back and once again broadasting from Encore (formerly Spiro's) on 611 Red River Street on Friday, March 19th! Two stages (one of which is the outdoor amphitheater), 14 acts, and no Metallica playing next door this time (so we dont have to worry about Lars' dressing trailer blocking anyone's way in). Liz Berg, Jason Sigal, Scott Williams, Brian Turner and Diane Kamikaze will be holding the FMU broadcast fort down starting at 7PM (Central Time), Andee from Aquarius will be there, and hopefully you as well. Once again, we've got a heady mix of the heavy, damaged, darkly, punk, weird, noisy, poppy, trippy sounds, some hometown NY/SF heroes representing in Austin, and even a full on Cambodian psych-pop dance party at night's end. Check out the lineup!
OUTDOOR STAGE (covered, rain or shine) 7:00pmLiturgy 8:00pm Speedwolf 9:00pm Iron Man 10:00pm Moon Duo 11:00pm Shit and Shine 12:00m Pierced Arrows 1:00am Dengue Fever
We will hopefully be carrying most of the sets in some part via WFMU during the evening, and like last year hope to feature posts for later download via the Free Music Archive. Check out more info on the artists after the jump, and stay tuned for more info soon! Hope to see you there!
A follow-up from my post of two weeks ago, where I related my findings upon tracking down the individual members of Philadelphia's soul-free-funk-jazz combo Sounds of Liberation, whose 1972 LP is being reissued on CD next week by Porter. My results were surprising and varied. Last time I devoted much space to Byard Lancaster's music. This time around I have some additional work by vibraphonist Khan Jamal and drummer Dwight James.
Before moving on, a quick rundown of the remaining members. Bassist Billy Mills never recorded a date under his own name to my knowledge, but he does appear on some of Khan Jamal's work. Same goes for conga man Rashid Salim, a member of Sun Ra's Arkestra on releases like the Nuits de la Fondation Maeght volumes (Shandar, 1971). Percussionist Omar Hill now makes Afro-cuban-ethno-lite-fusion which should be avoided at all costs. Monette Sudler is an excellent guitarist who has also played with Jamal, in addition to being a member of Sunny Murray's all-star Untouchable Factor group; however, her solo work tends too much toward the smooth side for me and thus doesn't really belong here in a post about free creative music.
What can one say about Khan Jamal? No two albums sound alike. Drum Dance to the Motherland (Dogtown, 1972) has had a bit of a renaissance after Eremite reissued it in 2006. It's truly bizarre, a live psychedelic-tinged improv manipulated by sound engineer Mario Falana in real time. Mostly this adds up to tons and tons of reverb enhancing Jamal's splintering vibes and glockenspiels; he also doubles with Dwight James on clarinet for some squiggly solos. The electric guitar (Sudler) and bass (Mills) are way up in front, noodling aimlessly while a background of chiming, clattering, shaking percussion (D. James and Alex Ellison) drift in and out of the mix. Oddly enough, it sounds really good, all the manipulation giving the proceedings a quasi-dubby feel, very planetary, very "sci-fi". For a completely different sound, try Jamal's Give the Vibes Some, a 1974 trio set with Hassan Rashid (drums), Clint Jackson III (trumpet on one track), and Jamal playing vibes and marimba. It has a great Jackie McLean-esque chamber aesthetic with intense rhythmic interplay. The album came out on Jef Gilson's Palm imprint, a French label that also featured the work of some great Philly musicians throughout the 1970s.
Dwight James seems to have recorded only one album as a leader, 1983's Inner Heat. It's not on CD but you can still buy the LP from Cadence for pretty cheap, about $11. James has an ear for uptempo, intricate rhythms and structures his compositions around them; any melody follows instinctively from the rhythms, whether they be jazz, latin, african, or completely abstract. It's a really forward-thinking album and it's sad James didn't record more, but as he claims on the back sleeve, "I haven't made hardly no money for the past two years, but I have been happy." The group on Inner Heat had the good fortune to be able to practice James' compositions for a solid six months, making their playing as tight as possible; cerebral, but always soulful. The "Ja Ja" cut was co-written with Khan Jamal and additionally
features Byard Lancaster (alto s.), Middie Middleton (tenor s.),
Clarence Bradley (trumpet), and Howard Cooper (b.) -- a strictly Philly
affair. (Interestingly, this track was recorded by James with a broken toe so swollen his shoe wouldn't come off--tough for a guy who likes his kick drum).
When Mike Mangino and Chris Shepard started writing music together in the late 1970s, their goal was not to develop a repertoire and play gigs, or even to perform live in front of any audience. Everything they needed was right there in Piscataway NJ: a basement full of musical toys and instruments, novelty space microphones, a TR-606 (the same "Roland" who was listed as a member of Big Black), a SH-09 (Cabaret Voltaire's favorite synth), and -- perhaps most importantly -- a tape recorder. Every Monday night, they'd write a new song from scratch. A couple hours later, the song was recorded, never to be performed again.
By 1981, this dedication to spontaneous creativity had already produced countless recordings, and the duo began releasing cassettes as Smersh via their own Atlas King label. A definitive Smersh discography may not even be possible, but this one lists more than 30 Atlas King cassettes. As these tapes traded their way across continents, Smersh developed a devoted following in places far beyond Piscataway, leading to releases on dozens of other labels from across the globe. A 15 song sampler featuring some of the many highlights from Smersh's vast discography, spanning 1983-1993, is now available from the Free Music Archive (and at right).
My obsession with Smersh began relatively recently, when I first heard the song "Sweet Little Bishop" in the WFMU library, off a 7'' released by Sweden's Börft label in 1991 (listen). Then it got stuck in my head for several days straight. My subconscious couldn't remember what it was at first, mixed it up with some bizarre Prince song. But then i remembered that mysterious Smersh 7'' -- the one that stood out amongst the other Börft stuff in the library (Swedish artists like Frak and Enhänta Bödlar, who are also uncategorizable and each worthy of their own post!). I set about tracking down as much info as possible find about Smersh...
First heard the sounds of Ata Kak via the essential Awesome Tapes From Africa blog; irresistable lo-fi dancefloor genius from a Highlife singer out of Ghana. Thanks Jesse Fischler for the link to Meudiademorte's YT post.
On my radio show this Friday I will be paying respects to Abraham Lincoln on his 201st birthday by playing Lord Buckley's heady hipsemantic version of the Gettysburg Address. To get you in the mood, enjoy His Lordship's lesser-known but still thrilling "straight" reading of the speech, from 1956: Gettysburg Address
(1) The core trio of the Ghanaian funk band Marijata got its start as the Sweet Beans—a highlife combo sponsored by the Ghana Cocoa Marketing Board. ••• (2) Hillbilly wannabes from mid-'50s Melbourne, the Trailblazers were a C&W dynamo down under. Weekly performers over Radio 3XY, some of their shows were broadcast over Nashville's WSM, the airwave home of the Grand Ole Opry. (Pick Hit: The Trailblazers version of the Hawaiian duo Kanui and Lula's "Tomi Tomi"!) ••• (3) Long before she connived to form the Gang of Four, Mao Zedung's third wife, Jiang Qing, was a movie starlet. An architect of the Cultural Revolution, Jiang was surely hostile to Western-style pop recordings like the ones on this compilation sung by stage and screen sirens of the Hong Kong nightclub circuit. ••• (4) Co-produced by Roberta Flack and Joel Dorn, Marion Williams's pop experiment from 1971 features Bob Dylan and George Harrison tunes, covers of "He Ain't Heavy, He's My Brother," "Hare Krishna," and more—all with backing from the Dixie Hummingbirds. ••• (5) The largest bamboo stalks on earth are found only on the islands of western Bali, which also happens to be home to 99% of the world's jegog gamelan orchestras. Up to 10 feet in length, the massive jegog, the lowest instrument in the ensemble, takes two people to play and creates otherwordly low-pitched resonations that you feel before you hear. It's like giving your solar plexus an enema. ••• (6) For the record, WFMU's Downtown Soulville show, hosted by Mr. Fine Wine, predated by three years this 1998 boot (made in "Luxembourg") of rare '60s soul.
At one point in our interview James Blackshaw casually stated, "I wouldn't call myself a great guitar player." He is modest and a gentleman and he probably believes to some extent that next to John Fahey or Robbie Basho or Jack Rose the term "great" carries the weight of high expectations. However, James Blackshaw is an exceptional guitar player, and an increasingly interesting recording artist as well. He is intent exploring his love and adoration for contemporary composition or new music or minimalism or whatever you would like to call it, and in the process, is broadening the scope of the 12-string acoustic guitar. Which is why people who describe his music like to use terms like "orchestral" and "symphonic." In his guitar there is drone, sustain, a church organ, bells, harmony, dissonance, silence and I think I even heard human voices.
It was a pleasure to have James at WFMU. This set was recorded in the unlikely confines of Studio A (the main broadcast studio, rather than the "live room") and that didn't seem to bother him at all. Thanks to Howard Wuelfing (and Dan Bodah) for helping to set this up, and also to Scott Williams and WFMU's unparalleled gear braintrust for engineering/equipment tips.
Today's musical selection tells the story of Bill Moore, a white civil rights protester from Baltimore who was murdered in rural Alabama in April 1963 while on a one man Freedom Walk. He was killed on the way from Chattanooga, Tennessee to Jackson, Mississippi where he planned to hand deliver to governor Ross Barnett a letter imploring him to accept racial equality and integration.
On his walk, Moore promoted his agenda by wearing sandwich board type signs reading "Equal Rights For All - Mississippi Or Bust" and "End Segregation In America - Eat At Joe's Both Black & White."
That alone would have been provocative enough to warrant concern for his safety. But Moore, a committed atheist, also pushed a cart displaying a "wanted" poster adorned with a sketch of Jesus that was captioned "Jesus Christ - Wanted for sedition, criminal anarchy, vagrancy, and conspiring to overthrow the established government."
Moore had been warned of the danger of undertaking the march by himself while carrying such signs through small towns across the deep South, but he was undeterred. On the third day of his journey, his dead body was found along the side of the road about an hour northeast of Birmingham. He'd been shot twice in the head. An arrest was made, but the grand jury neglected to issue an indictment so no one was ever convicted.
The Ballad Of The Walking Postman was written and produced by Buck Ram, a noted songwriter, arranger and producer who was also the manager of the Platters, for whom he'd written such huge hits as Only You (And You Alone), The Great Pretender, and Magic Touch.
In April 2008, a quartet of activists paid tribute to Moore by completing his march. They walked the 300 miles from Reece City, Alabama all the way to Jackson to deliver a copy of Moore's letter to the Mississippi governor. Well, that was the plan, anyway. When the marchers arrived, the governor, citing a scheduling conflict, was not on hand to accept the letter.
Top left: Master Scratch Band - Computer Break; Top right: - O'Gar - Playback Fantasy; Bottom left: Hugh Masekela - Don't Go Lose It Baby; Bottom right: Space - Running In The City
No friends? No problem! Just watch youtube clips of Giorgio Moroder, Crash Course In Science, Lectric Funk and the related videos. Pretty soon it will be four in the morning and you won't even have noticed that you were lonely and miserable, sitting in a dim room in front of a screen watching ridiculous music videos instead of interacting with the world. Thanks, internet!
In honor of the return of this Australian trio to New York, here's the full MP3 of their transcendent performance from my radio show back almost exactly one year ago (why do they keep leaving the warmth of the southern hemisphere?). For the uninitiated, the Necks hail fron Sydney, and since 1987
have utilized the piano/bass/drums format in a singular, unorthodox
fashion that has left them uncategorizable, yet critically-acclaimed
and in high demand from jazz, ambient, and avant-rock festivals. The trio of Chris Abrahams (piano) Tony Buck (drums,
percussion) and Lloyd Swanton (stand-up bass) have performed their
sprawling, dense, and tranced-out pieces in art spaces, clubs, the Sydney Opera House, and last week at Issue Project Room (where I caught the first night of a two-night stand). Issue's recording of night #1 set #2 has also been uploaded to the Free Music Archive, and is stunning; at one point it was somewhat like witnessing and hearing the ocean at work. Gentle, seashell-like percussion mixing in with sheets of other acoustic strings and keys. New Age? Someone mentioned that before the set, not sure what to expect, and in a sense there is a certain harnessing of organic, natural elements. Nature itself does seem to sit in with these guys. Overtones emerge as repetitions pick up ever-so-slowly (a normal "piece" can take an hour or more), individuals listening can hone in on certain phrases that maybe others don't concentrate on, the template the Necks present is precise, but open, and always hypnotic as any Spacemen 3 or Kompakt release. Their 2009 visit to WFMU, engineered by Irene Trudel, was a huge honor for me; getting to watch up close as the ideas rolled out and gather mass. Hope you enjoy it as well. Special thanks to Irene and Regina Greene.
This is a very weird version of La Düsseldorf's hit "Rheinita", apparently a rehearsal for the German TV show "Szene 79" with host Thomas Gottschalk (who seems weirdly out of place introducing a bunch of tripping Electro-Krautrockers.) I am not sure if this was ever broadcast.
If I had a regular show on WFMU again, and if the American government would let us play curses over the air, then I would play this song by Die Antwoord for you. And if I had been paying attention when they explained how to embed video in the Typepad thingie, I would do that, too. Except that this song doesn't have any video. In a perfect world, I guess it would.
Thanks for reading my blogpost this time, and may God bless.
Here's one of the oddest attempts to cash in on the success of David Seville and the Chipmunks that I've seen. It's a release on the Modern Sound label by Alvin & the Squirrels. The A side, "A Fella in a White Coat", is yet another riff on subjects that were all the rage in humor in the late '50's, psychiatry and insanity. The B side does away with any attempts to sound like the Chipmunks at all. In another tie in to a then-current area of fascination, it's a little slice of science fiction called "The Fliff". I think both sides are enjoyable bits of nonsense, and much more interesting than I'd have guessed they'd be, for what was essentially an attempt at a knock-off of a current fad.
This has always been one of my favorite moments in Richard Nixon history. But the Richard Nixon reaction as heard here in the second video from the Nixon Tapes is new to me and man, if it isn't even more entertaining than the incident itself!
John Henry and Heather of the great band 
