WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Remember The Good Ol' Days?

Once upon a time in a magical place called "America" there lived a people that were never, ever sad.  Everyone had jobs.  Everyone went to church.  There were no drugs.  You waited to have sex until after you were married.  Parents never did inappropriate things with their children.  Everyone loved everyone else...unless they were commies.

Then they took prayer out of school and the country went to hell.

That's pretty much the conservative line - things USED to be better so let's do what we did back then.

Here's a good reason not to - domestic violence was such a non-issue they wrote novelty songs about it that charted in the top 10.

One year, I wanted to do a Halloween show that featured not "scary" songs, but songs that actually frightened me.  This song was the top of the list.  The subject matter (and, yes, I realized the 1948 version of what's acceptable differs from the 2009 version) is bad enough.  The song extols the virtue of beating the living hell out of your daughter when she disobeys you. Family values, I guess.  What pushes it over the edge into unmitigated nightmarish sadism is the glee and jauntiness the beating engenders.  Right off the bat, Arthur Godfrey chuckles disturbingly as the scene is painted with a girl lying on the floor trying to fend of blows. That and the HILARIOUS slapstick suggesting that Arthur Godfrey is not screwing around here.  There will be welts and bruises.

It gets worse, though.  The instrumental break with it's jokey, circus calliope conjures up the scene in A Clockwork Orange where Alex and his droogs beat and rape their victim while jauntily bellowing Singing In The Rain.  Godfrey and his band of droogs square dance around their's as he happily calls out "dosey-doe".

The whole horrible thing winds up in almost Grand Guignol fashion with the participants executing loud, sloppy close harmony while Godfrey (fake) laughs so hard that he can't even sing.  I'd be curious to know if there was a version where the girl they beat actually screamed and calmer heads prevailed.

It's almost the perfect song for a man who fired Julius LaRosa without notice on live TV.

I posted this song on my blog a couple of years back and got this comment from a woman in Montana

I listened to this on 78s in the ’50s at home and could only remember the chorus. HOLY CATZ!It’s as appalling as I remembered!

We had a short email correspondance about the song.  "It was that song," she wrote, "that convinced me to get the hell out of Montana.  Nobody there had a problem with it."

Slap 'Er Down Again, Pa (mp3s)

TV, That's For Me (mp3s)

Eunice got the school bus driver to let her off a couple of stops before home and made her way out of the land of lawn and shrub to the other side of the tracks where the hep cats dwelt.  The squares who called themselves "Mom" and "Dad" just couldn't fathom how an eight year old could be fluent in the language of cool and solid.  "Doc Pop's Jazz Shop" was a dive, no bout a-doubt it, but the heart in the place soared and flowed as smoothly and fluidly as the smoke and the smell of stale beer inside.

Nobody remembers when Two-Note Jackson took over from Doc Pop.  Two-Note just always seemed to be elbow-deep in the bar as far back as anyone could remember.  He played a mean tenor sax but, as his name suggested, he only knew two notes.  He smiled as Eunice walked through the door, nodding to the house band, who jumped to attention as quick as a quartet of hop-heads could.

"Gentlemen," Eunice greeted them politely, for she was always polite, "wind it up, motherfuckers."

TV That's For Me

Hey, Little Girl, Comb Your Hair, Fix Your Make Up (mp3s)

Maybe it's because I grew up around the heyday of feminism but the song Wive And Lovers always seemed somehow wrong to me.  I remember the confusion I felt hearing Jack Jones calling a wife (someone's mom) a "little girl".  Why would you do that?  They had those...things...that Lisa Bigalow didn't have.  Those things the woman at the pet store had that you could see because she had that macrame top and didn't mind you staring at them.  Stare at Lisa Bigalow and you'd get punched.  And her mom didn't even have that book with the word "Ladies" crossed out.

If you're here, you probably know Wives and Lovers.  If not, the five-second synopsis goes like this

Girls, if your husband fucks his secretary it's your fault.

Seriously.  No wonder Betty Friedan got pissed.  "You want me to put on makeup before you get up, cook you a full breakfast, raise the spawn, have dinner for you when you get home, clean the dishes, put out at the drop of a hat AND manage the delicate balance of speed and valium that keeps me from killing you?  Wake up and smell the coffee, Mister!"

The Anti-Aphrodisiac That Is Square Dancing (mp3s)

Lord, I feel like an old man right now. 

I'm not sure what gym class meant in other the other parts of the country but in suburban Rochester, NY in the mid-70's when you weren't playing "Kill The Queer" (aka: dodgeball), shuffling through Robert Preston's Chicken Fat or wondering what that funny feeling meant when you were climbing the massive, knotted rope, it meant square dancing.

Yes.  Square dancing.

Like Lynyrd Skynyrd, I don't mean to to put it down but I wish my gym teacher had remembered that a western New York state boy didn't need it around.  Anyhow, back then, awkward barely, pubescent kids, barely able to look at the opposite sex, suffered even more humiliation at the hands of jack-booted gym teachers everywhere by not only dancing with them, but square-dancing with them.

Square dancing.

Glengarry Glen Huck

I never liked Huckleberry Hound.  I didn’t like most of the Hannah-Barbera cartoons.  It bothered my child brain that Yogi Bear could run miles and miles and still have the same background behind him.  I had no way of knowing that animation was slouching toward the Dark Ages where a frame saved was a penny earned.  It broke my heart to watch Tom and Jerry so poorly drawn, looking as middle aged and unfunny as my parents.

But, as with Bil Keene and Family Circus, what strange, Lynchian, existential lessons lurk in Huckleberry Hound At The Fire Station?  It’s as if Mamet moonlighted for Peter Pan Records.

Huck is a loser at the beginning of the story and he’s a loser at the end of it.  Oh.  Yeah.  Should have said “spoiler alert” first.  In between, he lies, is an accessory to arson and destroys a fire truck.  Like the banking and auto industry, he expects to get treated like a hero for doing his job badly.  Unlike the banking and auto industry, he gets thrown out on his ass.

My mom always said watching too many cartoons would mess me up.  Perhaps she was right.

Download Huckleberry Hound At The Firestation

Picture Credit - http://www.gunaxin.com/

Jesus Loves "Danny Boy" But Not So Much Jews (mp3s)

Danny Boy, according to Wikipedia, started life as Londonderry Air (heh - he said derriere") in 1792, going through several changes before becoming one of the top 10 songs that people only know the first line of.  It was also recorded, as pretty much every song has been, by Pat Boone on his 2005 Dream of Ireland album. (Note: Wikipedia shows its liberal bias by NOT listing Boone as an artist who covered it).  It's not surprising the tune gets reworked frequently since it's easy to write lyrics for.

Oh FMU
We love your blogger's postings
Giving us music interesting and odd
You're our home page
We hit F5 repeatedly
And many here
Think Pat Boone is a sod

Billy James Hargis' Korean Guys and Dolls - All Of It (mp3s)

This is a Hell of an album.  I don't mean the music, so much as the process of cutting it up.  The process made me question Hargis' sanity more than I already did. 

I'm not the most organized person in the world and I don't mean to be too inside musical baseball here but editing audio is pretty straight forward.  You look for the breaks in the waveforms and what's in between is the song.  You start at the beginning and move to the end.  Vinyl complicates the process somewhat as the pops and cracks can hide the audio you want but, still, when a song stops it's pretty obvious.  Right?

Um.  Not in this case.

Take a look at the the track list.

For April Winchell (mp3s)

When I started getting into oddio, my friend Benari sent me a link to the 365 Days Project.  From there I found April Winchell.  And FMU after that.  And now I are riting for them!  (And since I'm sucking up, thanks to Derek at Here It Wow for getting me here)  April is where I first listened Little Markie and Little Marcy and cringed to Tiny Tot Calvin sing A Cowboy for Jesus.  April is the person that first introduced me to the phrase "CAUTION CHILDREN SINGING".  So let me thank her with not one christian child singing but a whole bunch of recently converted Korean christian children singing America The Beautiful with there adorable reversals of "r" and "l".

This comes off an album called Billy James Hargis' Korean Guys and Dolls.  I can find no real discrenable reason for this title.  Produced in 1970, It bears no relation whatsoever to to the stage show/movie.  In fact, there's not a single show tune on the album.  It's 60% hymns, 15% traditional Korean folks songs an 15% Americana.

Quick Quiz!  Here's the track list for side two in no particular order.  What I'm looking for is the last song on the album.  Bonus points if you get everything in the right order

How Great Thou Art
America The Beautiful
Blessed Assurance
My Jesus Thou Wilt
Battle Hymn of the Republic
He Hideth My Soul
Down in the Valley
In the Garden

I'm so tempted to post the answer tomorrow but that seems horribly unfair.  The answer is

The Pat Boone Of Evangelicals (mp3s)

Pat Boone just can't keep his mitts off other people's stuff.  In the 50's he ripped off Little Richard and other black artists to produce watered down rock and roll that white people could listen to without turning into chest-beating savages and destroying the fabric of the family and democracy.  Sound familiar?  Of course it does.  Every generation has its white sheep.  If you want to get all spiritual about it, you could argue that without the moralists there'd be no one to piss off.  And it's not just rock music that angers the moralists.  The Nose by Dmitri Shostakovich was condemned as an "anarchist's grenade" and buried in the Russian archives for 40+ years after its first performances.  Thank god, Pat Boone never tried opera and that he gave up heavy metal.

But I digress.

Pat Boone wasn't the first to rip off black artists.  Think back to the bi-polarity of the minstrel show where white people liked black music so much that they made themselves up to look like black people because they refused to allow blacks in the theater.  I remember hearing a story that Billie Holiday actually had to "dark up" for one gig because the owner thought she looked too white.  Go figuh.

And so it was only a matter of time that the amazing Rev. JM Gates got his act hacked.  Concern over copyright prevents me from posting his magnum opus, Death May Be Your Santa Claus (yes, it's as twisted as it sounds).  As a consolation, here's a YouTube version of his Hitler and Hell sermon.  You can pick up a bunch of his stuff on the marvelous Goodbye Babylon compilation.  Gates perfected the art of speak-singing (I'm sure someone coined a better term for it) his sermons racheting them up to a feverish pitch and kicking the Devil's pointy tailed ass back to Hell.

Enter Barney Pierce, "the son of a farmer and fourth of thirteen children".  I don't mean to sound too snarky here, after all, I'm pretty sure that Gates sold more records that Pierce did.  Where I'd go to find that out, I have no idea.  On the positive side, there's always some cross-over happening between cultures.  That's not to say that you should ever confuse James Brown's dancing with Mick Jagger's impression of James Brown's dancing.  Or that you should EVER play the Macarena EVER again.

The odd thing about Hell Bound Train is the intro, with its funereal organ and ghostly introductory doggerel.  From there on out, it's a straight shot to....well...Hell.  One of the charming features of the trip is the echo-chamber voice announcing the stops.  Dramatic!

Some reviews from the back of the album.

Children Of The Corny (mp3s)

What do you get when you cross monotheism with wayout synthesizers and stage mothers?  God’s Kids!

I’ve been advised by legal counsel that posting more than three of these songs might result in toxic levels of terminal cuteness for which I will be monetarily responsible for.  I’m not about to get sued over a God’s Kid.  Rather, I’m going to play the celestial bartender that gives you just enough that you’re drunk, but not drunk enough to get pulled over.

God's Kids - God's Kids

Cue the watery, funky syntesizer!  That Jesus was so funny and quirky!  And those kids are so adorable that I just wanna make sure they have the best time in Heaven that they possibly can!  I'm not sure but I listen to this (and the other songs) with the volume cranked and I was pretty sure I could hear the mother's in the background mouthing words along with their sweet little children.  But who, is that middle aged guy claiming he's a God's Kid, too.  I'm keeping an eye on him.

God's Kids - Jesus Loves

There's something theologically unsound about the opening line of this one: "Long ago, even before He made the world, God chose you and me to be his very own."  Given that the Creation Week paper work has never been released despite numerous FOI requests, we can't know if God pre-designed His course of action or just winged it.  Either way, if you're not thinking about cutting yourself mid-way through this, then you're a better person than I.

God's Kids - Won't Be's

Turn that frown upside-down, reader!  When you get up to Heaven (because, after all, you're a God's Kid too) nothing will ever suck again.  Ever.  And you'll learn that listing the good things in Heaven is better than listing all those icky Earthly things that will make your impending death such a relief - like teachers!  Or this song!  Why?  "'Cuz Jesus promised".

A New P-O-S-T By H-B-E-E (mp3s)

I’m slightly dyslexic.  It’s no big thing but it makes me a lousy speller and occasionally, like Daffy Duck, I have “pronoun trouble”, swapping “he” for “she” and “me” for you.  This is one of the many reasons that I don’t sing “So Happy Together”.  I bring this up because it makes spelling songs like “When We Are M-A-Double R-I-E-D” challenging.   And this has so much spelling it might best be called “When We Are O. C. D.”

I found this 45, backed with “Here Comes The Bride”, literally thrown on the sidewalk a few years ago.  Someone moved or got kicked out of their apartment and along the curb were dozens of sleeves for 45s.  Sadly, most of them were empty.   They promised untold riches.  I’m a big fan of retro-children’s record for the simple fact that they’re usually much more fun than the boring crap that’s put out today.  Take the line from “The Little Taxi”:

This is the way he likes to drive
Seventy, eighty, ninety-five
Fast as fire engines go
Compared to taxis they are slow

Wanna try to put that into a 21st century kids’ record?

Not all records from the 60’s openly flouted the speed limit or even tried to be modern.  I’m more than happy that I gave my kids a good musical grounding before they got swallowed up by shitty pop music.  That said, there’s a difference between playing a Jolson record and playing a record of a guy trying to sound like Jolson fifty years after the fact.  I’m pretty pedantic but I have my limits.  The folks who made this 45, however, did not.  Imagine the joy on some three year old’s face when they unwrap a 45 of songs written 60 years ago!  Even with the happy, smiling white people on the cover it’s going to be a let down.  And, despite having the flashier title, “When We Are M-A-Double R-I-E-D” is small potatoes next to the time travel anarchy of “Here Comes The Bride”.

“When We Are M-A-Double R-I-E-D” (written by George M. Cohan) starts jarringly and without warning (as, I guess, happens in most romances) with the all-male chorus who blows their musical load early (as, I guess, happens in most romances) leaving us with the male soloist and an…organ.  We’re led though the song once, then twice.  Then it’s time for the instrumental with the same organ, right?  Wrong.  The organ player is murdered, I guess, by some disgruntled piano player that should have gotten the gig to begin with.  This can be the only explanation for such a half-assed and random “scat” session.  It’s got all the spontaneity of a salt truck.  I can almost picture him glancing at the blood-soaked piano player who grins like the murderous demon he is and pulling Bob Hope #403 face, trying to remain calm.  Then, adding insult to injury, switches tauntingly over to the organ.

Then, for some reason, they throw a verse in.  I’ll admit that, after this, I wasn’t too keen for what felt like would be the dull sounding “Here Comes The Bride”.  Yawn.  If “When We Are M-A-Double R-I-E-D” was two minutes of repetition and death, how could I expect anything good to come of “Here Comes The Bride”?  I’d assumed that this was the b-side.  It turns out they put all their money into this song and it’s a full out surreal, Busby Berkeley production of pre-pubescent hopes and dreams.

You have to wondering if Emerson, Lake and Palmer got the idea for Pictures At An Exhibition from this song.  The Wedding March acts as an jarring and awkward transition between songs.  It kicks off the record and then…stops.  Just stops.  Then the girl singer launches into the 1900 mega-hit, O Promise Me by Reginald De Koven.  (I’m still scratching my head over “we’ll take our love together to some sky”.  There’s more than one?  It’s a tad surreal for 1900 but then again, Windsor McKay was drawing Little Nemo around that time and that’s one of the trippiest panel cartoons of any era.)  And then…back to The Wedding March which ends, handing off to 1910’s Let Me Call You Sweetheart.  And back to another disembodied Wedding March dead ends into the title track, Here Comes The Bride.

Here comes the bride
All dressed in white
Oh, she is lovely
With eyes shining bright

In an annoying bit of editorial malfeasance, rather than singing the “where is the groom/he’s in the bathroom” they opt for humming instead.

You’d think that once you reached the title song it would be over and you could go home.  You’d be wrong.  There’s one more iteration of The Wedding March to slog through before you get to the honeymoon which, in the case of the target audience, probably involves puppy dogs and lots and lots of ice cream before they go home to their separate houses.

When We Are M-A-Double R-I-E-D
Here Comes The Bride

Feed Me Seym...I Mean, Jesus (mp3s)

I'm somewhat forgetful.  I also have this habit of lending thing to people.  Thus, when I lose something, I can never be sure whether I left it somewhere or loaned it someone.  Thank..well...God that I digitized The Musical Harts album I found in a junk shop in Goderich, Ontario, Canada before losing it.

Remember the whole Rev. Wright debacle during the election?  In the middle of it, Wright made a speech talking about race and brought up the very apt point that in a 4/4 song most white people clap on 1 and the 3.  Most black people clap on the 2 and 4.  1 and 3 = military march.  2 and 4 = soopah-freekeh.

And what about those poor souls who are Rick James trapped in the body John Phillip Sousa?  What of those poor souls who, though no real fault of their own, cannot, let's say, externalize their soulfulness.  What of The Musical Harts? 

I'll admit that it took me a long time to understand that authentic reggae music was supposed to sound like everyone was stoned.  It's same with the current trend in rap to almost aggressively stay on the very edges of the rhythm to the point of (my) annoyance.  So, perhaps, I'm ignorant of the "style" of The Musical Harts and should keep my big trap shut.

But I don't think so.

This is an A for Effort album.  Their love and their effort leap off the vinyl as well as their Model-A Ford execution.  These folks are passionate about their music and about God.  When they sing that "ain't no grave gonna hold my body down", it's a promise.

Download Feed Me Jesus - What can you say about a gospel song that starts like the Beatles "I Saw Her Standing There"?
Download He's My Rock, My Sword, My Shield - I can't help thinking that this song (and most of the others) are just badly synced. 
Download Leave It There - And suddenly, the mystery of the Musical Harts becomes apparent when they rein it in for a gospel balled...in Swedish.
Download On the Wings of a Snow White Dove - Slow enough for plenty of guitar fills.  Let's remember that Liz Phair is not a great singer, either.
Download Let's Go Forward - What can you say about a gospel song that starts like the Beatles "Day Tripper"?  Seriously.  What's the Fab Four Fixation?
Download Faith In The Fathers - I just find noodling, tinny, whiny guitar fills annoying.
Download Dreaming of a Little Cabin - Did the sound engineer just leave our the rhythm guitar on purpose?
Download There Ain't No Grave - I'm still not sure what tempo this song is supposed to be in.  It's almost like musical vertigo.
Download Troublesome Waters - I remember hearing that, although she sang them like an angel, Pasty Cline hated ballads.  This is the perfect song for The Musical Harts.
Download Stayed On Jesus - This is not.  Although I'm slowly convincing myself that they were a lot better live than recorded.
Download Idle Hands - Seriously.  Try clapping to this one.  I dare you.
Download Dem Bones - Crank the volume.  Listen to the bass lead.  Listen the song completely change feel and tempo.

Photo Credit - http://www.bobsyouruncle.net/TNM_Guitars/tnmnewsarchive1.htm

I Was Hooked On Phonics Before Hooked On Phonics Was Cool (mp3s)

"Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?"
Some guy who used to be the President Of The United States
—Florence, S.C., Jan. 11, 2000

There's a tendency to sugar coat the past and talk about how simpler/safer/cheaper/whatever-your-issue-is-here it was back then.  Robert Klein summed it up nicely in a song called "Bring Back The 50's" recalling those sepia-tinged days when America was a heartbeat away from complete and total nuclear annihilation.  Oh, those wacky Russians with their A-bombs!  As for my generation, I wouldn't go back to the 70's if you paid me.  The dope was weak and the music sucked.  And let's not even go into Watergate.

One constant is that people like to trash public school education as if this were the first time in history that Johnny couldn't read real good.  It's nonsense, of course.  I'm not willing to go into a discussion of the history of the world in terms of underachievement and poor academic understanding ("Sir, the report clearly talked about Iraq having anti-fungals.  Weapons of moss destruction, sir, not mass destruction") but it's safe to say that every generation has had its fair share of non-readers.  Which means the every generation has had its share of companies looking to correct that problem.

Bremer-Davis Phonics was (and possibly is) one such company.  This record was one of a set of records from one of the first hooked-on-phonics outfits.  The ad above (sitting next to a 1965 Stars and Stripes article called "Seeds Of Peace In Vietnam") is creepy enough with its proto-Jack Torrence glaring murderously up at the camera without its odd word choice and italicization of "new home tutoring course drills your child in phonics...".  It's not like I don't understand what they're saying but - OUCH.

Side 1 of this 7" 33 1/3 introduces you to the various sounds and if Mrs. Davis' voice doesn't slice through your ear drums then her admonitions and exhortations might render you as hostile as the boy in the picture.  Learning reading and spelling means plenty of axioms that have plenty of exceptions.  Shouldn't you spell it "thier" instead of "their"?  A couple are thrown in here, my favorite being "Q always takes U for a partner.  Q never walks alone".

Side 2 takes us onto the "quiz" where "Mrs. Davis is going to go pretty fast" in getting you to match up the sound with the word.  "Fast" in this case means less than a second between the speaking of the sound and her answer.  To add insult to injury, she wants you to get to the point where you can "beat" her...in the quiz, that is.

The Sound Way To Easy Reading Side 1

The Sound Way To Easy Reading Side 2

Kari, What's The Time? (mp3s)

Years ago I was at the deli counter at supermarket getting some roast beef.  Some youth walked up to the counter and the following conversation ensued between the counter man and said youth

Youth:  Hey.  What time is it?
Counter Man:  'S quarter of 5.
Youth:  Huh?
Counter Man:  It's quarter of five.
Youth:  What time is it?
Counter Man:  It's quarter of five!
Youth:  What the hell are you saying?  I want to know what time it is!
Counter Man:  It's quarter of five!  Look at the clock?  See?  4:45.  Quarter of five.
Youth:  If it's 4:45 why didn't you just SAY it was 4:45?  Jesus

(Youth stalks off)

Counter Man:  (to me) Goddamn kids can't tell time without a digital clock anymore.

And it's true, for the most part.  I'm not a survivalist (not that there's anything wrong with that) but knowing your way around an analog clock is useful skill to have should the electrical grid get wiped out due terrorism or, as in the case of Arkansas and Kentucky, a snowstorm in January.  I've taught my kids analog time just as I'll teach them to drive a standard.

I don't remember when I learned to tell time.  Perhaps, like with sex, my parents just gave me a book or a record like How To Tell Time.

As I write this, I'm realizing that because of CDs my kids never had these adorable how-to records.  If it wasn't 70 minutes long and cost $16.99 then the hell with it. As I think about it further, the whole "this culture has gone ADHD and can't focus for more than a few minutes" argument falls flat on its face when you stop to consider the lowly 45 that, by nature of the medium, had a short, fixed time.

Be that as it may, let's go back to a simpler time when telling time was as easy as telling time!

Kari - How To Tell Time Side 1

Kari - How To Tell Time Side 2 

Sounds of Sanford - The Anti-Aphrodisiac (mp3s)

 

One of the downsides about doing radio at a college station is finding anything at all.  Bob Seger was NOT to be found in the Rock CDs.  Nor was it to be found in the hundred thousand pieces of vinyl.  “Seger”? No. “Bob”? No. “Silver Bullet Band”? No.  (I was looking for "K-K-K-Katmandu", if you must know.)

One of the upsides about doing radio at a college station is finding anything at all - as in the oddest things imaginable. As in - Sounds of Sanford.  As in - a full album of a 1962 evening of drag racing in Sanford, Maine.

Why?  I don’t really know.  Think about it.  Someone took the time to set up a “Presto 800 2 channel stereophonic tape recorder” and a “Neumen (Telefunken) U48a Condenser microphone” to record…a drag race.

So they could make an album.

To sell.

To people.

And someone bought it.

I understand that “fun” meant something different in 1962, especially in Sanford, Maine, but how much utility can you get from a record of drag races?  I admit that I know little about cars and not terribly much about women but (except in rare occasions) I doubt you'll get to first base asking a girl to come over to listen to Sounds of Sanford.  Still, every pot has a lid.

After I played side one, a blind gentlemen called me up to talk about it.  I know he was blind because it was the third thing out of his mouth.  “Those cars were pretty darn slow, it sounded like,” he told me, and then proceeded to analyze everything he heard and the conclusions he drew from it, most of which went over my head.  He told me that he really wanted his grandson to hear the album and if there was a CD of it.

"Um.  No.  There’s not," I told him, "but you could download it in an hour or two."

"Got no use for computers," he said pleasantly, "but thanks anyway."

Sounds Of Sanford Side 1

Sounds of Sanford Side 2