Unfortunately the number 'ate' and the letter 'eye' have completely stopped work!ng on my laptop. So, as you can see, the regular 'ate' cool th!ngs on the !nternet has been downgraded to seven th!s week unt!l my computer gets f!xed.
The Merv Gr!ff!n Show w!th guests Andy Kaufman, N!ck Nolte and L!nda Lav!n
Zeb & Cous!n Easy - Low Budget Country Comedy Van!ty LP
A Look !nto the Future That Never Was
Joe D!magg!o battles M!ckey Mantle for Game Show Supremacy
From the great, exceptionally weird Tin Pan Alley song-poem label, and just a few months late for the 50th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, today's offering is Phil Celia with his rendition of "If Butch the Rough Barber Man Shaves Castro".
I love a lot of Tin Pan Alley records (including one about paying taxes, which I previously featured here), and had to have this one the second I saw it, even though it appeared it might be too warped to play (that is the source of some of the surface noise you'll hear). It turned out to be playable on one of my turntables, and now the world can hear it.
The flip side, "Oh, Sing a Song of I-O-WA", is a fun listen, too. I particularly enjoy the really high notes sung by a soprano at the very end of the record, coming from a singer whose presence on the record had not been evident, up until that point. This also may be the only song-poem record I've ever heard to feature a trombone solo.
I share more song-poems, weekly, here, but thought this one was a fit for this venue.
Phil Celia - If Butch the Rough Barber Man Shaves Castro (MP3)
According to Hesiod, Dreams are the children of Night, and brothers and sisters of Death and Sleep. Deceptive dreams issue from a gate of ivory, true dreams through a gate of horn.
The spirits of the departed, too, so long as they are not in the kingdom of Hades, have the power of appearing to the sleeper in dreams.
Later poets call dreams the sons of sleep, and give them separate names. Morpheus, for instance, only appears in various human forms. Ikelos, called also Phobetor, or Terrifyer, assumes the shapes of all kinds of animals as well as that of man: Phantasos only those of inanimate objects.
Today we serve up half of this round, black inanimate object, known as DL 9062, specifically the delicacy presented on side two: Three dramatic readings from Edgar Allan Poe as performed (with no directing credit) by James Mason, with creepy and dramatic organ stylings by Buddy Cole, who no doubt wore an Inverness cape for the occasion.
Rather than wax eloquent about Mr. Mason or the dear Mr. Poe, let us simply enjoy the delicious tones of his words as read by a master appreciator of same.
A larger copy of the full cover art for this gem is found HERE.
And the MP3s on display are:
The Tell-Tale Heart
Annabel Lee
Silence
Happy Hallowe'en All!
(photo by the junes, CC by)
On Wednesday, February 6, 1974, a party was held in Houston, Texas. Perhaps this party was in honor of Mrs. Harry D. Wilson (AKA Olivet Toadvin Wilson), or perhaps she was just a guest who was in attendance, and who was encouraged to play the piano for 40 minutes or so.
Regardless of the details, her performance was captured on tape, given way too much echo (perhaps in an effort to simulate stereo), and pressed into records for family and friends. A simple cover (the back is blank), a just a bit more information on the label itself gives one all there is available to know about this recording.
Mrs. Wilson clearly knew quite a few old timey songs, and may even had been quite the pianist in her younger days. If I understand the conversation correctly, she was the composer of a few of the instrumental pieces she played. Her performances here display a knowledge a variety of styles, although age appears to have affected both her memory and some of her ability.
I don't mean that as criticism - I found this album to be greatly enjoyable and even inspiring - she clearly loved to play, and those around her loved to hear her play. And the places (beginning about half way thruogh the first side) where Mrs. Wilson and others sing with her playing are magical.
I hope I can still play and sing when I'm in my golden years, and that someone thinks enough of those abilities to have me entertain at their party.
Special thanks to my pal Stu for having found this album for sale and pointing me in its direction.
1.) Mrs. Harry D. Wilson - A Party - Side One (MP3)
This Thursday Elizabeth Clare Prophet (aka Guru Ma), the former leader of the bizarre new age doomsday cult Church Universal and Triumphant (CUT) aka The Summit Lighthouse, died at the age of 70 in a nursing home in Bozeman, Montana, after suffering from Alzheimer's disease since 1998. The Summit Lighthouse was started in 1958 by Mark Prophet in Washington, D.C. He later married Elizabeth, they moved it to Colorado, and she took over the leadership after Mark's death in 1973. Under the name Church Universal and Triumphant they eventually moved to California in 1976, and finally to Montana in 1986, where they bought a 12,000-acre ranch just north of Yellowstone Park. Being convinced that the end of the world was near, they built a 756-person underground bomb shelter in a pristine alpine meadow and stocked up on firearms. When everyone assembled in the bomb shelters on the date of the predicted apocalypse on March 15, 1990, nothing happened, and eventually CUT members started to lose faith in the prophetic abilities of Elizabeth Prophet, and left the church in droves.
"Just like real life..." Another live slice of radio history from October fourth, 1970, as we re-live the second half of the episode: I Could Always Shoot Him With the Camera, as presented by the Firesign Theater in the white label version of their delirious Dear Friends series.
The tracklist for the second side (my recorded-off the-radio version is missing the last sketch)----
1 Orson Welles bit 2 Punter's Girls 3 Sound effects war 4 Fresh chef 5 Sex jail 6 Sex movies 7 W.C. Fields 8 FDR and Hitler 9 PP's The Mutt and Smutt Show
Someone would be wise to release all of the Dear Friends shows that exist in a new edition. The group themselves might not be too thrilled with their old material and airchecks, but there are so many brilliant and telling moments when hearing them riffing and supporting each other live on the air that these recordings really deserve a wider audience, as well as just being dissected and savored by the many existing fans of their work. It would file nicely alongside of Goon Shows on the radio and other such classic fare. Or perhaps some lucky collector who owns all of these records would be kind enough to post them all on their blog at high quality...ha ha ha..."dream on, laughing boy!"
Enjoy this little dollop of live surrealism.
Billy Jam sez:
In the first part of this series
(posted a week ago) I included an MP3 of people on the streets of Jersey City
speaking on their knowledge (or lack thereof) of the origins of the name of New
Jersey. This time I am including an sample of what the folks I stopped on the
streets of St. Hélier in "old" Jersey had to say when quizzed on
their knowledge of New Jersey (MP3). I am also including my new favorite old Jersey song which sums up so perfectly the unique
and special place that is the small island of Jersey, Hedley Le Maistre's
"Jersey, Mon Vie!" (MP3).
Friday, October 2nd's WFMU live remote broadcast (during
Doug Schulkind's timeslot) from Jersey's capital of St. Hélier during the Channel
Island's 2nd annual Branchage Film Festival was an amazingly wonderful event to
be a part of, and a rewarding one on many levels. First off it was a really
great idea of the festival's director Xanthe Hamilton to link "old"
Jersey with New Jersey via WFMU - something she presented to a receptive FMU
station manager Ken Freedman about five months ago, and whose concept grew in
scope since. And secondly for the dialog it began between the two Jerseys - one
which we hope to keep going on the air here at WFMU. Expect to regularly hear
"Jersey Bites" on Friday afternoons during the new WFMU Fall/Winter
season which kicked into effect Monday, October 12th.
If you missed last week's broadcast it is archived -
in playlist and audio forms - here, and
includes a wide variety of guests getting on the FMU airwaves to share insights
on the island of Jersey; a place that may only be 45 square miles in size but
is incredibly rich in culture and history. A British Crown dependency the
Bailiwick of Jersey, as it is officially known, is 100 miles south of England
and lies only 14 miles west of the coast of Normandy, under whose rule it was
once governed.
The WFMU remote show guests included Philip Malet de Carteret whose ancestors - several centuries ago - owned the land now known as the Garden State and were the ones responsible for giving New Jersey its name. The interview I conducted with him at his historic manor in the parish of St.Ouen (Jersey is divided into parishes, not counties) ran a lot longer than the segment included in the remote broadcast. Hence snippets of it will be played over the coming months on the air. Same for the organic Jersey dairy farmer Ian Mitchell, who was a live guest during the October 2nd remote but whose farm I visited the following day (see video below) and recorded more footage about the Jersey cow (a highly intelligent & unusally friendly animal) and its rich dairy product.
People Like Us says:
It's the end of the Summer Season and so time for DO or DIY to unplug the ethernet cable, give the ol' modem a bit of a dust and take the next season off. But before we go we haven't forgotten that it's somewhat a tradition to make a downloadable collection of the best of all things avant retard for your ears and eye-pods, you lucky people - complete with downloadable artwork. So here it is. I always say there's nothing like art, and this is nothing like art.
Do or DIY - "Awful Fun" (zip file: MP3s and artwork)
Separate Files:
Artwork (PDF)
Track 1 (MP3)
If you're anything like me, then this cutie's album Person Pitch really made your summer 2007 something a little more magical than it would have been without it.
Using only a couple of exquisitely-picked loops and a shitload of very specific reverb, Panda Bear (a.k.a. Noah Lennox a.k.a. 1/3 or so of Animal Collective) creates small but very detailed worlds of songs that take you somewhere Brian Wilson might have gone if he had only stuck to the good kinds of drugs and understood the internet.
If you're already familiar with the work of tha bear, the live set, recorded and broadcast during All Tomorrows Parties just a few weeks ago, will sound very much like what you heard on the album, but with a lot more fun insight and deep-diving into the sparklies, yelps, and high-impact loop layering technology that make the PB experience exactly what it is.
Download a free MP3 of BROS courtesy of the FREE MUSIC ARCHIVE.
Expertly mixed by Rob Christiansen as part of WFMU's live broadcast from ATP (more recordings here). Photo by heybelinda = Creative Commons by-nc-nd
Under the pretext of drug control suppressive police states have been set up throughout the Western world. The precise programming of thought feeling and apparent sensory impressions by the technology outlined in bulletin 2332 enables the police states to maintain a democratic facade from behind which they loudly denounce as criminals, perverts and drug addicts anyone who opposes the control machine. Underground armies operate in the large cities enturbulating the police with false information through anonymous phone calls and letters. Police with drawn guns irrupt at the Senator's dinner party a very special dinner party too that would tie up a sweet young thing surplus planes.
"We been tipped off a nude reefer party is going on here. Take the place apart boys and you folks keep your clothes on or I'll blow your filthy guts out."
We put out false alarms on the police short wave directing patrol cars to nonexistent crimes and riots which enables us to strike somewhere else. Squads of false police search and beat the citizenry. False construction workers tear up streets, rupture water mains, cut power connections. Infra-sound installations set off every burglar alarm in the city. Our aim is total chaos.
Loft room map of the city on the wall. Fifty boys with portable tape recorders record riots from TV. They are dressed in identical grey flannel suits. They strap on the recorders under gabardine topcoats and dust their clothes lightly with tear gas. They hit the rush hour in a flying wedge riot recordings on full blast police whistles, screams, breaking glass crunch of nightsticks tear gas flapping from their clothes. They scatter put on press cards and come back to cover the action. Bearded Yippies rush down a street with hammers breaking every window on both sides leave a wake of screaming burglar alarms strip off the beards, reverse collars and they are fifty clean priests throwing petrol bombs under every car WHOOSH a block goes up behind them. Some in fireman uniforms arrive with axes and hoses to finish the good work.
William S. Burroughs / The Wild Boys
(photo left: Abbey Braden) It was most rewarding to see that All Tomorrows Parties gave Portland OR's Grouper (AKA Liz Harris) the larger room for her September 12th set from Kutsher's resort in the Catskills; the glacial, elegant movements of her solo performances (armed only with guitar, voice, and FX) were befitting of a past-its-prime ballroom where the spectres of 1950's-1970's entertainment loomed large. That and the fact that a large room's acoustics were perfect for her; in front swirling projected images Harris projected murky, oceanic melodies, lumbering overtones and dreamlike drones, all a seemingly symphonic creation all at the hands of one person and a guitar. It sounded very controlled yet completely vague and very much non-digital sounding. Surrounded by this, you feel completely transported by these dense yet never-overpowering clouds of sound, always distant, but directly connected your cortex in a way I think even My Bloody Valentine could not quite accomplish with their live barrage last year. Comparisons to Arvo Part meets Throbbing Gristle are definitely accurate; there's an epicness about Grouper's music that never quite releases its sense of foreboding while at the same time aims to sooth the soul.
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WFMU broadcast a good portion of the weekend from All Tomorrows Parties, and we're uploading new performances every day to this blog and the Free Music Archive's ATP collection. Grouper's set was recorded somewhat simply for broadcast by Jason Sigal, a basic mix and room mic is really all needed to capture this. |
Their Saturday, October 12th set at stage 2 of ATP was the first chance I've had to check out the post-2006 lineup of the band, with 80's mainstays King Buzzo (guitar/vox) and Dale Crover (drums) actually merging their band with Big Business (Coady Willis on second drums, Jared Willis on bass). To say they slayed would be an understatement, and in all truth this is the only band that could have one of its members perform in a Snuggy and not lose one fraction of heaviness. We've got two approved MP3s from the set: "Zodiac" and "Kicking Machine" engineered during WFMU broadcast by Scott Konzelmann.
Earlier this month, WFMU brought an all-star crew up to Kutsher's Country Club for the second annual NY installment of the All Tomorrow's Parties festival. For everyone who missed the live broadcast,
we'll be archiving many of them for on-demand listening on WFMU's blog
and Free Music Archive, starting this week. We've lined up a post a day
from the likes of Deerhoof, Deerhunter, Atlas Sound, The Melvins,
Grouper, Akron/Family, Black Dice, the Dirty Three (w/ Nick Cave!), and
more surprises await.
Let's
start things off with the 16-person Caribou Vibration Ensemble, which
featured Marshall Allen of the Sun Ra Arkestra for this special
festival performance. The heart of Caribou is Dan Snaith, a Canadian
mathematician, who started his musical project back in 2000 under the
name Manitoba. Following the success of the 2003 album Up In Flames,
"Handsome Dick" Manitoba of the Dictators claimed ownership over the
name Manitoba and threatened legal action. Snaith decided to change his
name to Caribou "while on an LSD trip with friends in the Canadian
wilderness" (source).
Caribou sounds a lot like an LSD trip in the Canadian wilderness, led
by a mathematician with a PhD and a penchant for laptop IDM. Snaith has
taken an increasingly organic approach to live performance leading up
to the formation of the Vibration Ensemble.
Taking the stage at
the Stardust Ballroom on Sunday September 13th, the Vibration Ensemble
included every musician who has ever been a part of a Caribou live
performance -- from frequent collaborators like John Schmersal (Enon,
Brainiac) and Kieren Hebden (Four Tet), to the one-off special
appearance of the legendary Marshall Allen (current leader of the Sun
Ra Arkestra). All-in-all, the ensemble includes four drummers, a
5-piece horn section, and a choir to bring every thunder and peak of
Carbou's music to vibrant life. Engineer Rob Christiansen did a
fantastic job mixing this set, we hope you'll enjoy these four
selections (after the jump):
Continue reading "ATP-NY 2009: Caribou Vibration Ensemble w/ Marshall Allen (mp3s)" »
Here's an album capturing the sounds and events one might have encoutered if one attended USC during the 1970-71 school year.
I've heard plenty of high school and college year-in-review albums, but few have sounded like this one.
The A-side is a montage of sounds from around the campus during the school year. Even if I'd attended, I suspect I'd have found this production frustrating, because of the way it jumps from event to event, never explaining anything and never containing a complete recording of any one event, either. There are things captured here that I'd love to know about. If I'd been at the school that year, and hadn't been at an event captured here, I'd really want to know what I'd missed.
On the other hand, this is fairly well done, as a montage, and it reminds me of some of the montage work done by Nurse With Wound, among others, and with its recurring use of the song "Moments To Remember", I'm reminded of a particularly enjoyable Negativland "Over the Edge" CD. I do have to question whether the song "Moments to Remember" would have possibly connected on any level with college students in 1971, though.
If anything, the second side, while also an interesting listen, is even more frustrating. it captures the sounds of a music festival held at the school - presumably a yearly event. And it appears to have been a lengthy and wide ranging event, based on this sampling. But again, that's what we have here - a sampling. We few exceptions, these are excerpts from individual performances, with no information as to performers, and no ability to hear from beginning to end any but a couple of these songs.
I really wonder what the performers thought - if they found out they would be on the album, and then listened to it, and discovered that their four song set had been boiled down to 90 seconds out of one four minute song. As with the first side, there's some interesting stuff here (as well as some... not so interesting stuff), and I'd have liked to have heard it all the way through.
The album came in a mostly plain white sleeve, with two fascinating little bits of text on the front cover (at the top and bottom) which are scanned, below. The labels are also fairly plain, but I have scanned them, as well.
1.) USC album - Montage (Side One) (MP3)
2.) USC album - Songfest '71 (Side Two) (MP3)
Cover Scan One - Cover Scan Two - Label Side One - Label Side Two
The BASSOONCORE movement in the early 1990's consists of a short list of little-known bands and foremost among those is CHOTCHKE (1993-1998), who began life as a six-piece and went on through fluctuating memberships and styles to record a lot and release a little. During the construction of their unusual musics the band would record day after day of long and amazing improvisations, often sounding like arranged pieces, stretching and utilizing the multi-instrumental talents of its members and often spotlighting its talented bassoon specialist Carrie Barclay. To the eternal chagrin of the band, the finished, polished studio versions of songs and the ever-changing sets used during tours and gigs rarely reflected the madness and majesty of the long and involved improvs created in the warm coccoon of the practice space. Anyone who has played more than twice a week with a group and tried to write music this way will empathize immediately. For one thing, re-playing inspired improvs tended to squeeze the 'life' out of them, and they never quite satisfied like the originals. Recently, while listening to the fantastic "Complete Jack Johnson Sessions" by Miles Davis I was tickled to hear that super-lineup grappling with many of the same issues, they come up with an amazing collection of sounds and riffs, and on the second and subsequent takes the piece begins to bend in all kinds of different directions, not always as satisfying as the first take.
Today I will present the first in a series of studies of the unedited studio noodling of Chotchke, in various lineups and configurations. For instance in this first long six-part improvisation, taken from a ten-part 45 minute jam, the bassoon player is on a saxophone, and I believe plays guitar on the second stand-alone piece "F-Sharp Song/Blue Shorts". I enjoy hearing new ideas coalesce instantly while the members are playing, and crazy segues happen while the band is in motion. Let's get in the Wayback machine and slip into the groove.
Continue reading "Chotchke : In the Rehearsal Studio, pt 1" »
