WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Abe Burrows Sings? (MP3s)

Here's a set of records I've known for as long as I've known what a record was. Abe Burrows was a writer, humorist, radio performer, and much more (including being the father of James Burrows). In 1950 or so, he released a set of four 78's (and, apparently, a 10" 33 RPM album, too) under the title "Abe Burrows Sings?". My parents bought it shortly thereafter, and it was the sort of thing that received frequent plays (and frequent references to it in conversation) in our house. 

If and when I come across this collection I will post a scan of the cover, but for now it's hidden somewhere amongst my parents' things in the basement. Some time ago, I made MP3 copies of all of these songs, though, and offer them here for your enjoyment.

I love all seven of these songs/skits (one being a two-parter) to varying degrees - "Boulder Dam" and "The Gypsy's Violin" are favorites. But there are great little jokes sprinkled throughout, really funny set pieces (particularly in the Boulder Dam record), and just a great, winning way with the whole presentation. I'd be surprised if these weren't a big influence on Tom Lehrer. (And at least a couple of these songs were reworked for use by the Muppets, a fact that I find fairly mind-boggling.)

Abe Burrows later released another 10" 33 RPM album, which featured a song called "The Girl with Three Blue Eyes", and which is also somewhere in that basement of mine. It's also got some fantastic material, which I'll share here when I come up with it.

Bob

1.) Abe Burrows - Brooklyn (MP3)

2.) Abe Burrows - The Gypsy’s Violin (MP3)

3.) Abe Burrows - Lopin’ Along (MP3)

4.) Abe Burrows - Sweet Memories (MP3)

5.) Abe Burrows - Boulder Dam, Part One (MP3)

6.) Abe Burrows - Boulder Dam, Part Two (MP3)

7.) Abe Burrows - Upper Peabody (MP3)

8.) Abe Burrows - Sea Shanty (MP3)

Wing does MJ (MP3)

I don't know if it had anything to do with Michael Jackson's cardiac arrest, but just before the King of Pop died, famous New Zealand singer Wing released her 16th CD "Beat It", featuring herself holding a baseball bat on the cover. Here is what you need to know about her and this most recent album, the official album notes from CDBaby (where you can get the whole CD).

Beat It is Wing's 16th CD and includes lyrical songs most requested by her fans -- at concerts in the US and UK during 2007 and 2008, and for delivery by her popular "live singing over the telephone" service. Wing the singer is admired by fans throughout the world for the passion and joy she shares through her CDs and performances of popular songs. With a unique voice and an ever-widening repertoire, Wing loves singing and she lives to sing. Her goal is to sing beautiful songs as they should be sung, and she spends 3-4 hours every day working towards this goal. Her singing teacher helps Wing work on her current repertoire, and helps to choose the songs for the next CD. A New Zealand resident, Wing's CDs have earned her an international cult following. She is a regular guest on radio shows and television celebrity guest and entertainment shows, and has appeared on programmes as diverse as TAB Sports Cafe (New Zealand), Rove Live (Australia) and the animated television satire show South Park. Her live performances have ranged from New York's Blue Note night club and San Francisco's famous Castro Theatre to old folks homes and hospitals to university gyms, private parties and corporate gigs. Wing's CDs are proudly manufactured in New Zealand by Media Technology.

Finally, here is the song you've all been waiting for: Wing - Beat It (MP3)

Victor Flick, and the British Invasion of Sesame Street

Today's posting deals with two subjects dear to me heart: The ersatz, fake-o, bogus, unlicensed 'cover' album' (for kid's, in this case) on a 'knock-off' or low-budget label; and the work of legendary guitar specialist, composer, conductor Vic Flick.
  Mr. Flick's guitar artistry on dozens of hit singles and lps is well documented, but his work as a composer and conductor somewhat less so.
I discovered Flick's foray into the world of Sesame Street in 2002 whilst compiling Muppet/Sesame material for a music project. A collector pal brought over his latest Sesame record score and not only was it obviously unlicensed but credited Vic on the cover--a must-listen!

Nouvelle Vague Live at WFMU - hot vidz!

Oh my gawd, y'all, when these people were in Love Room, it was all I could do to keep myself from reaching through the glass and gently stroking their faces as they sang.

The two sexiest voices in English-speaking Frenchpop, covering Sex Pistols, Violent Femmes, Depeche Mode, and Talking Heads....DANG!

Listen to the whole show here.

Thanks a zillion to Aldona Watts and Raymond Park for doing the video.

2 MORE VIDEOS AFTER THE JUMP!

Nouvelle Vague's new album "NV3" will be out in September.  It features guest performances from Martin Gore (Depeche Mode), Terry Hall (The Specials), Ian MacCullough (Echo and the Bunnymen), and Barry Adamson (Magazine).

Ponderosa Stomp at Lincoln Center NYC

Don't even think of missing the one and only Ponderosa Stomp next week. It's the swingin'-est, funkiest, rockin'-est musical entertainment show ever put on anywhere at anytime. It's only great. And it's blasting into New York City for three crazed nights of soul, rockabilly and swamp pop and most of it will fly out over the WFMU airwaves!

For the uninitiated, in the past decade the Stomp has been responsible for celebrating the legacies and careers of the unsung heroes of rock & roll, soul, garage, swamp pop and the unnameable (i.e.: Legendary Stardust Cowboy). What began as a hobby for organizer Dr. Ike Padnos and his Mystic Knights of the Mau Mau has exploded into a multi-faceted musical, cultural and educational juggernaut. And it's a hell of a lot of fun. This ain't no schlub oldies show--this is the real deal. If you can, see this in person. As a backup plan you can listen to most of it on the radio. In either event, prepare to have your world rocked.

Here's what you need to know:

July 16th (Midsummer Night's Swing):
Ponderosa Stomp: The Get Down
(broadcast live on Music To Spazz By Thursday July 16th 7-11pm)

* William Bell - a principal architect of the Stax/Volt sound.
* The Bobbettes – girl group known as the ‘Harlem Queens’ known for their hit, “Mr Lee”
* Bo-Keys - authentic, greasy Memphis soul stew w/ Stax Records stars
* Harvey Scales - a hard-hitting soul man, writer of  "Disco Lady" and “Love-i-tus”

July 17th (Midsummer Night's Swing):
Ponderosa Stomp: Best Dance In Town
(to be aired on Music To Spazz By Thursday July 30th 8-11pm)

* Joe Clay - New Orleans’ proto-rockabilly genius, appeared with Elvis
* The Collins Kids – 50’s TV faves, this brother/sister duo features double neck guitar pyrotechnics
* Deke Dickerson & The Eccofonics - the nitro-charged country and rockabilly specialists
* Carl Mann - Sun Records artist had his first hit with Nat King Cole’s “Mona Lisa”

WFMU/Barbes Cumbia night TONIGHT at The Bell House w/ DJ Rob W

<--Los Destellos, featured on the Barbés Records compilation The Roots of Chicha: Psychedelic Cumbias from Peru

The worldwide cumbia resurgence is overflowing the WFMU bin, with records focusing on old and new. Check out Soundway's Panama! 2: Latin Sounds, Cumbia Tropical & Calypso Funk On The Isthmus 1967-77 (pop-up), Lucas Luisao's "Bounty Caderas" (pop-up) off Vibration Sound's Nuevacumbia - Le Nouveau Son De Buenos Aires, and Uproot Andy vs. ODB (pop-up) from DJ/Rupture's Mudd Up podcast. More Chicha from Beware of the Blog here.

So it seems fitting that WFMU is joining forces with Barbés Records tonight for an evening of Cumbia at the Bell House in Brooklyn. Rob Weisberg of Transpacific Sound Paradise will be DJ-ing in between sets by Very Be Careful (Los Angeles) and Chicha Libre (Brooklyn). The event won't be broadcast live, so make your way out to The Bell House!

More info about the music from WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Listen to Very Be Careful spinning records and chatting live with DJ/Rupture on Mudd Up last year.

Listen to Chicha Libre's "Six_Pieds Sous Terre" (mp3) from ¡Sonido Amazonico! (Barbés Records 2008)

Listen to DJ Rob W's spotlight on Zizek, an Argentinian collective who just released ZZK Vol: 2, a killer follow-up to last year's Cumbia Digital vol. 1. (This show also featured a great live set from Cordero!).

If you like what you hear, hope to see you tonight!

Cumbia! Cumbia! With VERY BE CAREFUL & CHICHA LIBRE
Sunday July 5th, 8:00pm
@ The Bell House [149 7th Street, Brooklyn, NY (map)]
Adv. Tickets:  www.thebellhouseny.com

A Bunch Of Bleeping Nonsense

"Bleeping" as in "I've got a bunch of new bands for you today that use lots of insane bleepy sounds", not "bleeping" as in "fucking".  This isn't the fucking radio, why would I censor the headline?

All the same, I oughtta warn ya that the video on the right is a bit NSFW.  Both are from Computer Jesus Refrigerator, a San Antonio based duo of grind/noise/gore/bleeping nonsense.  I've been enjoying their songs for months now, but recently noticed that the band has posted a whole slew of awesome music videos on their Myspace.

Kania Tieffer was brought to my attention by her new CD in the FMU new bin, alongside a few other releases from the very nutty French label Le Vilain Chien.  Hyper, ADDified, amateurish ditties reminiscent of Felix Kubin, OCDJ, and a cat walking across a keyboard.

Kania Tieffer - Parc à Thèmes

El G has released approximately 9999,999,999 tapes and CDRs over the years.  Often noisy but with definite pop sensibilities.  The below MP3 is from the "Armelle" 7", also out on Le Vilain Chien.  Really beautiful song, worthy of Radiohead.  Check the official website.

El G - Armelle

Rainbow Arabia sounds pretty exotic and possibly foreign, but it's just some hyper-musically-educated white folk from Cali.  Not that there's anything wrong with white folk.  Check the live set with Trent.  I think they're touring with Gang Gang Dance soon.  Apparently they're big or something.

Rainbow Arabia - Holiday In Congo

The Fairbanks, Morse Song (MP3)

 Here's a little red 45 which I've always gotten a kick out of, not only because, like so many other bits of advertising, it uses America as a way to sell the company name - in this case, Fairbanks Morse Engine, which is still in business today - but also because of the focus on the phrase "free enterprise" which is a particularly unmusical phrase to use in a song.

Bob

Jerry Coyle and the Nelsonics - America...Land of Free Enterprise - The Fairbanks, Morse Song (MP3)

45 Label (JPG)

Full Dedication Alvaro (video, mp3)

I first stumbled across Alvaro Peña-Rojas (probably better known as ALVARO - The Chilean with the singing nose, and former collaborator of Joe Strummer in The 101ers) on the Nurse With Wound list and finally managed to get ahold of a CD copy of his mind-blowing 1977 solo debut album Drinkin My Own Sperm. Now some German filmmakers (Hans Kotter, Jochen Hägle and Christian Zschammer) made a documentary about Alvaro, who is living in Konstanz, Germany, and still going strong. Here is the trailer for Full Dedication ALVARO, with English subtitles.

There is no DVD available yet, and all the screenings are taking place in Germany, but I am sure it will make its way around the world eventually. For now, here is one of the tracks from Drinkin My Own Sperm as MP3.

MP3: Alvaro - Palido Sol (MP3, featuring Cathy Williams)

Also, don't forget to check out the live set Alvaro did on Brian Turner's show in 2003: [ Playlist | Real Audio link ]

70's Celebrity Anti-Drug PSA's pt 1

With 'celebrities' of sorts on the mind, and perhaps muddled somewhat by extreme Heartland-style heat, I'll present the first seven of many Anti-Drug PSAs that I enjoy. There are 29 more of these mainly music-industry celebs that I'll get to later on, as well as the Mel Blanc ones, which I've been saving for some special occasion. Whatever that'll be. These files are from a cassette I made of the lp of radio-only PSAs, one of many interesting albums lying around KZSC in 1982. Upon basking in many of these at a time, one is always impressed at how carefully the 'bad/troublesome' drugs are segregated by the various personalities involved, as well as the ones recorded while apparently high, which kinda dulls the message a bit. I think actually many of these folks sounded loaded whether they were or not. The Peter Yarrow psa in particular is an old favorite. His seething anger and the final death threat are such a treat. Jon Anderson also steps up in this set with a nice little rambling and almost incoherent 'warning'.

Paul Williams     Jackie Wilson     Johhny Winter     Bill Withers     Peter Yarrow     Jon Anderson     Jesse Colin Young

Free Music Archive (in the) news (MP3s)

The Free Music Archive, a new collaborative project from WFMU and friends, has almost doubled in size since launching in beta this April. With nearly 10,000 curated mp3s, there's a lot to scope out, which is one reason I've been relatively absent from Beware of the Blog recently. Well, I'm back with this weekly feature that aims to highlight some "hot new added". Of course I'd rather just highlight everything, but you can keep tabs on that yourself by subscribing to the FMA's Recently Added RSS feed. Or follow us on twitter. Anyway, let's see...

Fellow curator KEXP is adding new tracks as I type, and I just had to re-post this, from Portugal's progressive kuduro group Buraka Som Sistema: Sound Of Kuduro/Luanda-Lisboa (Live at KEXP) (mp3)

Climax Golden Twins stopped by ISSUE Project Room last week, and brought some Sublime Frequencies videos with them to boot. If you're kicking yourself for missing out on the show, at least there's this archive of the CGT set (follow the link for the mp3).

The world's greatest insurgent country label, Bloodshot Records, shares promo tracks from the likes of Andre Williams, Dex Romweber Duo, and Jon Langford/Sadies/Waco Brothers. They've also curated a selection of archival recordings from their Bloodshot Revival series, like this 1960 song by The Sundowners - It's My Way (mp3)

Doncbruital did an excellent write-up of Montreal's Grand Trine, who originally released the warped anthem "Monochromatic Youth" (mp3), on cassette. Read more about them via the FMA here.

Podcaster Macedonia spotlights a world of hip-hop and electronic goodies from California to Budapest. Check out "With Or Without You" (mp3) from a free EP by Opio of Souls of MIschief, and "Funny" (mp3) by Hungarian artist Suhov via the BudaBeats label.

..and hey! The FMA was recently covered in The Wire, and in Billboard Magazine (where Vivian Girls were featured alongside Mudboy!?!?). Here are some other nice write ups that you can read on the internet:
The Portland Mercury called the FMA "incredibly awesome". Portland OR is also home to curator KBOO
CNET | Paid Content | Pitchfork | The Daily Swarm | and an in-depth g-chat interview by Rhizome Magazine

WFMU & Barbés Records present: Cumbia night at The Bell House, July 5th (mp3)

WFMU and Barbés Records are joining forces to present two of North America's pre-eminent cumbia bands: Very Be Careful from LA and Chicha Libre from Brooklyn. They'll be joined by DJs representing both old school and digital cumbia.

Cumbia became popular in Colombia in the 50s, and its mix of indigenous and African rhythms quickly spread to the rest of the world. In the 70s, Peruvians introduced psychedelic electric guitar and renamed the music Chicha, while Mexican musicians added rock drums and synth to create Sonidero, and Argentineans introduced the Keytar to create Cumbia Villera.
    In the past 5 years, a worldwide cumbia resurgence has infiltrated rock, hip-hop and electronic music. From Monterey's rebajada to Buenos Aires digital cumbia, young musicians are recycling their grandparents' music and launching a global musical rebellion.
 
VERY BE CAREFUL (pic L, live in Japan, via myspace) is a homegrown Los Angeles band that plays Colombian Vallenato music. They keep the music rootsy with the use of a traditional instrumentation of accordion, guacharaca, bass, caja vallenata and cow bell. They have the drive, energy and overall attitude of the best punk bands, which has helped them gain and retain a faithful audience whose dancing owes more to pogo than it does to cumbia.
    Very Be Careful has performed at clubs and festivals all over the world. They come to NY only once a year, so dont miss them!
    Listen to Very Be Careful spinning records and chatting live with DJ/Rupture on Mudd Up last year.

CHICHA LIBRE (pic R) play Peruvian chicha music, a style that is loosely inspired by Colombian accordion- driven cumbia. It incorporates the distinctive sounds of Andean melodies, some Cuban influence, psychedelic rock, and the modern sounds of surf guitars, farfisa organs and wah pedals.
    Chicha Libre is a Brooklyn-based Franco-American group that has toured all over the US, and they're becoming popular in Peru, the birthplace of Chicha music, where the band has appeared on various magazines and tv shows. They have been invited to play a series of concerts in Lima this fall, with legendary Chicha band Los Shapis.
   Listen to "Six Pieds Sous Terre" (mp3) from ¡Sonido Amazonico! (Barbés Records 2008)

Cumbia! Cumbia! With Very Be Careful & Chicha Libre
Sunday July 5th, 8:00pm
@ The Bell House [149 7th Street, between 2nd and 3rd Avenues, Brooklyn, NY (map)]
Adv. Tickets:  www.thebellhouseny.com

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Vol. 21 (MP3s)

Give the Drummer Some's
10 Favorite Downloads from the MP3 Blogosphere
(see Comments, below, for helpful info about downloading)

Fame Studios piano hero Barry Beckett died last week at the age of 66. Lucky for us, Beckett found himself smack dab in the middle of countless critical sessions over the course of his five-decade career in music. Beckett's contributions to recordings by Aretha, Dylan, Percy Sledge and many others are legendary, but the Miner will forever appreciate him for producing Eddie Hinton's Swamp Soul classic "Very Extremely Dangerous," which Capricorn released in 1978—and then promptly went out of business.

Capricorn's demise was just one of a long string of hard-luck happenings that doomed Hinton, himself a vital Muscle Shoals sideman, who toiled on the back line for years before finally stepping out with his Beckett-produced debut. (It was Hinton who had convinced Beckett to come to Muscle Shoals in the first place, despite his friend's hankering to head to Nashville.) Though he had no chance in hell to live as long, Hinton would've turned 65 two days ago.

 

Eddie Never Failed to Leave It All on the Pavement
Eddie Hinton  ~  "Very Extremely Dangerous"
(Blog: My Blog Too)

Throat Singing, Animal Imitating, Jews Harping
Sarymai Urchimaev  ~  "Altaian"
(Blog: Chenehuby)
[password=PaeOnia]
From the album: Jelmeigen Sagal (mp3)


Peyote Popsters
Pop Music Team ~  "Society Is a Shit"
(Blog: Música Ácida)
[password=mza-acid.blogspot.com]
From the album: Oda a la Chica Fresa (mp3)


[7 more very extremely wonderful records, after the jump]

Tobie Lurie: Word Music

Here's yet another all-time winner of an album found at the late great Skokie, Illinois fundraiser known as the ALS Mammoth Music Mart, which I've written about here. Tobie Lurie, who is not only still in the poetry business, but has gone into other artistic endeavors, reads his poetry, with a variety of accompaniments, as well as multiple vocals, at times. He now goes by Toby Lurie, although judging from his signature on this album, he did back then, too, leading to the question of why the album is credited to Tobie Lurie.

I'll mostly let the back cover text and the material itself do most of the talking here, but will point out that this album was one of many of my prized odd spoken word albums which were on a bottom shelf in my basement, and therefore bore the brunt of a recent flood, as you'll notice when viewing the front and back covers (the lower part of the back cover, featuring other albums on this label, was basically destroyed, so I haven't copied it here). Also, I particularly enjoy the second track, "Unawareness", but I have no doubt others will find just as much (or more) to enjoy in several of the other tracks.

Bob

1.) Tobie Lurie - Conversation (MP3)
2.) Tobie Lurie - Unawareness (MP3)
3.) Tobie Lurie - Love (MP3)
4.) Tobie Lurie - Fugue and Variations (MP3)
5.) Tobie Lurie - I (MP3)
6.) Tobie Lurie - Waltz (MP3)
7.) Tobie Lurie - Oh Lord (MP3)
8.) Tobie Lurie - Uptight (MP3)
9.) Tobie Lurie - One Boy Has Died in the War (MP3)
10.) Tobie Lurie - Simple Logic (MP3)
11.) Tobie Lurie - Climb On (MP3)
12.) Tobie Lurie - Revolution (MP3)
13.) Tobie Lurie - Nonsense (MP3)
14.) Tobie Lurie - Dow Chemical Jones (MP3)
15.) Tobie Lurie - Mantra (MP3)
16.) Tobie Lurie - Goodbye (MP3)

Front Cover (JPG)
Back Cover (JPG)

A Child's Garden of Noise

In June 1994, Drone Records released probably the least droney item in their catalog to date with the nutty single for children "A Child's Garden of Noise".
Always one of my favorites of the things I co-produced and engineered while with Big City Orchestra (now celebrating their 30th anniversary),
the first pressing, on clear vinyl, sold out in about a month and so a second edition on candy yellow with lovely red center was put out.
Since the originals ran at 33&1/3rd we knew the fidelity would suffer a bit, and so years later I finally got around to transferring the original tapes to CD. Thus the mix of Side One of the record presented here is not the exact same as on the record.
I had always wanted to hear the huge amount of bacon cooking/record surface noise that I'd wallowed in while making side one in a 'clearer' format.

Friend Brook Hinton had been meaning to use the title for years, and graciously let us release ours. What can ya do- it's a phrase I'm sure many have kicked around. I should mention the awesome vocal work of six-year-old Annie X on much of side two. Which I'm not gonna play, but check it out anyway.
Also included today is a bonus unreleased track from the same sessions using an American history record we all loved. Oh, yeah, and there's also the wonderful first edition covers- all different on both sides, all of the fronts drawn by children and the backs done in our studio using vinyl and rub on letters tediously applied in the dead of night by das.
Hoping your young'uns enjoy it---this is one of my few posts suitable for children- so run with it!

A contemporary review is here.
the MP3s:       A Child's Garden of Noise
                      The Santa Fe Trail

WFMU Archives: a Real Audio-free Future

Beginning July 12th, WFMU's new archives will no longer be available in 20k Real Audio, and this change will affect archive listeners on a dial-up connection. Going forward, all new archives will be available in the higher quality 64k AAC+ format, which sounds fantastic with our new Pop-Up Player. If you listen to our 128k MP3 archives, fear not, no changes are being made in that dept.

How will the change affect your archive listening? (Read more)

If you have DSL, cable, or a T1 internet connection:
For Pop-Up AAC+ archives to work, Javascript must be enabled (info here) and you need Flash Player plugin 9 or higher. Pop-Up archives can only be played inside your web browser (they load in a pop-up window, try one out here). You can still listen to our 128k MP3 archives using external programs like iTunes or Winamp (although these archives expire after 4 weeks, as they have done in the past).

If you have a dial-up connection:
Due to the higher quality and higher bit-rate of our new archive format, your internet connection speed will not be able to accomodate archive listening going forward. Rest assured that we will continue to offer our live streams in Real Audio and Windows Media, at bit-rates appropriate for dial-up connections. All of WFMU's Real Audio archives prior to July 12, 2009 will remain available on our website for your listening pleasure, but new archives going forward will no longer be offered in Real Audio.

ISSUE Project Room: NYC Soundwalks 6/7/09

ISSUE Project Room, Brooklyn's progressive non-profit performance space, has put together the most interesting walk-a-thon we've ever heard:

 On the afternoon of Sunday June 7, a group of visionary artists will lead sonic excursions throughout New York as part of a rare live sonic arts experiment — the ISSUE Project Room Soundwalk-a-thon — a fundraiser and collective public inquiry into the connection between urban space and our collective sonic imaginations.

You can sign up to...
* Bang a Gong for Issue with Swans co-founder and WFMU's favorite drummer, Jonathan Kane.
* Walk through the Brooklyn Botanical Garden contemplating the simulated sound of tinnitus with Anthony Coleman.
* Explore the sounds of Gowanus with Marc Ribot.
* Join a game of urban "telephone" -- the Tin Can Telewalk -- led by Marie Evelyn and WFMU DJ Kurt Gottschalk

There are 20 options to choose from, but you don't just have to pick one! You can experience them all in the disruptive We would like to run past all your walkers, opposite their direction, while screaming songs walk led by friends of the station Flaming Fire. And if you won't be able to attend, you can pledge your support to those who can.

...Speaking of ISSUE Project Room, have you heard their recent contributions to the Free Music Archive? Here's a recent highlight from James Blackshaw, live at ISSUE Project Room on March 7, 2009 excerpt (MP3)

Check out IPR on the Free Music Archive for Meg Baird's set from that night, along with IPR-curated audio from Elliott Sharp, Arthur's Landing, Stars Like Fleas, Carlos Giffoni & Okkyung Lee, Alex Waterman, Arthur Doyle, Teeth Mountain, and much more.      (photo via Urban Zen Sound Meditation and Labyrinth Walk  led by Eric A. Dah)

Adventures in Not Really Getting It (MP3's)

 I collect budget label collections of then-current hit songs from every era, on albums, 45's and 78. More than a few of them, particularly Beatles covers, have been shared here and on other sites. The HIT record label which ran from around 1962-68 or so was probably the most endearing, but the genre flourished from the early '50's until at least the early '70's. There was even another little flareup of cover records in the '90's, as labels started pushing radio-only hits, with no commercial singles.

Most of these are good mostly for a laugh, if that, but today I'd like to share three which I think cross over into the land of the deeply odd, with one of them having a lyrical error which is spectacularly weird. All three demonstrate the inability of those behind these labels to "get it" when it came to Rock and Roll.

First up, from the Hollywood Label, is a version of Little Richard's "Keep a Knockin'", the original of which I consider one of the most powerful records ever made. The hamfisted attempt at the opening drums here is a perfect introduction to the overall performance, in which the singer repeatedly sings a line wrong: "Too bad you love me, and you can't come in", then offers (at the 1:49 point) one of the weakest rock and roll screams imaginable.

The other two songs are from the Tops in Pops album pictured above. The real killer here is their version of "Jailhouse Rock", which features a singer who shouts his way through the thing, over a clunky band (I really like the guitarist sliding down to the note on the verses). But the amazing moment here is when the singer sings a few mistaken words in place of "I sure would be delighted with your company" (about the one minute mark), replacing "company" with something that wouldn't have been allowed on the radio in the '50's or the '60's, and possibly not the '70's.

I've also included the same album's version of "Wake Up Little Suzie", because I got a kick out of the fact that they apparently couldn't figure out the key guitar lick (which isn't hard to play at all).

Bob

1.) Unknown - Keep a Knockin' (MP3)

2.) Unknown - Jailhouse Rock (MP3)

3.) Unknown - Wake Up Little Suzie (MP3)

Album Cover (JPG)

"Edgar Varèse and the Jazzmen" (MP3s)

Today's post is something I stumbled upon in the dark and dusty corners of the Internet, a tape recording of composer Edgar Varèse conducting a workshop of Jazz musicians in the year 1957. Here is the original announcement of the MP3 release of these tapes.

Edgard Varèse conducts a workshop with jazzmen Art Farmer (trumpet), Hal McKusik (clarinet, alto sax), Teo Macero (tenor sax), Eddie Bert (trombone), Frank Rehak (trombone), Don Butterfield (tuba), Hall Overton (piano), Charlie Mingus (bass), Ed Shaughnessy (drums), probably John La Porta (alto sax)... We don't know who is on vibes...

It might be the first free jazz recording (totally unissued) of History of Music. Varèse might have influenced jazzmen or was he only aware of what was happening on the jazz scene? No matter of the answer, it's a bomb, as this music is 3 years earlier than Free Jazz by Ornette Coleman! We also know Charlie Parker wanted to study with Varèse in autumn 1954 but the composer flew to Europe to conduct Déserts. When he came back to New York in May 1955, Parker had already died. We also know that Varèse used to listen to John Coltrane at the Village.

Between March and August 1957, these Sunday jam-sessions were followed by arranger George Handy, journalist Robert Reisner, composers James Tenney, Earle Brown and John Cage, choreographer Merce Cunningham. The organizers were Earle Brown and Teo Macero who will become Miles Davis' producer among others. Varèse used certain extracts of the workshop for his Poème électronique.

The original of this tape is at Fondation Paul Sacher.

Please excuse the crappy audio quality, it is the best we have.

MP3s: 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07 | 08 | 09 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19

A Memory With Trip Lane Doctor Down

A lot of comedy groups have flung open the mind's ramparts over the years and many have coerced this writer's style and approach but few like the Firesign Theater and littler still like the mad fresh improvisation done on their live radio programs in 1970 and '71.