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July 02, 2009

Highlights from Wildwood, N.J. - 1994

Patent Quiz

After the unfortunate passing of Michael, everything from His favorite pill combos, to His child custody problems, to His music publishing issues, to His preferred brand of toothpaste have been dismembered, torn, and tossed into the final press to eek out any remaining dregs of data for the (us?) media vultures.

During this whole circus, you may have discovered that the guy from Toto actually wrote "Human Nature" (thanks Doron). Or perhaps you came across Michael's patent for "Method and means for creating anti-gravity illusion" (thanks Listener Colin & Ron) - PDF here, diagram below.

My buddy Dennis also sent along a few other patent documents filed by notable folks: images are below the jump, see if you can put a name to the images.

MJ_patent

 
 
 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Continue reading "Patent Quiz" »

June 30, 2009

Don Dohler Double Feature – The Alien Factor and Fiend

ALIENFACTOR-1 The Alien Factor (1978) is so archetypal of 70s ultra-low-budget sci-fi/horror that it almost seems like a SCTV parody of the genre. Loaded with awkward blocking and long snatches of blandly delivered expositional dialogue, its strength is in its simple charms: a few good ideas, some amusing characters, and enough money-shot visuals to inspire 100 great screen captures. These folks clearly worked hard on the monsters—one of which has anatomically built-in platform heels—and in general, your entertainment will come from the earnest and colorful visual effects and primitive, in-camera and stop-motion techniques. Make no mistake, The Alien Factor is eyeball-pleasin'; the title sequence alone should be canonized as some kind of holy representation of 70s goodness. If I seem to disparage The Alien Factor, it's only because Dohler's next feature goes straight to the heart of my aesthetic nerve centre. 

Fiend1 Everything that The Alien Factor may lack in sophistication is more than made up for by director Don Dohler's next movie, Fiend (aka Deadly Neighbor, 1980), a genuinely creepy, witty and highly original living-dead scenario. In the film, a mysterious alien force, an ethereal red-glowing flying thing, for reasons unknown to us, reanimates (or possesses) a buried corpse, and the combo adds up to one nasty character, an intense sadist named Mr. Longfellow. The trajectory is quite unpredictable, as our zombie pal takes over an empty house, opens a music school (!), and generally irritates his neighbors (whose somewhat banal interactions also provide their own amusing little subplot, especially as the length of the wife's hair keeps changing from scene to scene.) And oh yes, there's Longfellow's murder/sustenance rituals, which also consist of shouting and stabbing at photographs of his victims (and a lot of black candles.)

Fiend3 After Alien Factor, Dohler must have learned a lot about shot framing, suspenseful editing, and economy of dialogue, such that Fiend is elevated from being merely a visually charming, colorful oddity like its predecessor, to being an aggressively weird and disquieting horror tale. I'd also be remiss not to mention that both of these films feature a melodic, burbling synthesizer score (The Alien Factor by Kenneth Walker; Fiend by Paul Woznicki), so well done and so evocative of the time as to give me a super-warm fuzzy. See the My Castle of Quiet blog for a downloadable cinelogue audio excerpt from Fiend.

It's obvious that despite challenges of budget, Dohler and his crew worked hard to try and make good, entertaining movies, and, at least with Fiend, came pretty close to some metaphysical horror fan's ideal. Dohler is something of a legend, especially in his native Baltimore, and now I see why. Many thanks to James for the loan of the two-in-one DVD (released 2005), and for insisting that we give these bent pictures an eyeball.

Another Don Dohler film, Galaxy Invader, can be viewed or downloaded for free here via archive.org. There's also a well-reviewed and relatively new Dohler documentary, released on DVD earlier this year.

June 18, 2009

Sonic Boom, The History Of Northwest Rock From "Louie Louie" to "Smells Like Teen Spirit"

2009076181 True, I usually write about the more progressive or esoteric corners of musical obscuria, but don't pigeonhole me! I do love me a good and simple three chord anthem.  I've just finished reading Peter Blecha's new book Sonic Boom, The History of Northwest Rock, from "Louie Louie" to "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and I'm jonesing to dig through my attic to find all my old "Garage Punk Unknowns", "Back From The Grave", "Teenage Shutdowns" and other similar comps.  The book, which focuses almost entirely on the inception of rock through the mid 60s, does a great job of describing the complicated scene that brought about greats like The Sonics (whose incredible first record, Boom, is the source of the book title), The Wailers, The Ventures, Paul Revere and the Raiders and, most famously, the Kingsmen.  And, perfect for FMU fans, all of the obscure, short lived bands and the hits that never were are documented in passionate detail. 

Peter Blecha attacks history from numerous angles.  He covers the racial impact of rock and roll.  He's got insider information on the publicists and marketers who made the deals that made the hits.  He's got behind the scene anecdotes from the bands.  For instance, in one of many sections on the Kingsmen's famous recording of "Louie, Louie", Blecha reveals that during the first take, the band's manager physically forced the recording engineer out of the studio.  During the second and final take, The Kingsmen did not even know that they were recording a final take, they just thought they were running through the song for practice.  And after hearing the playback, which The Kingsmen thought was absolute crap, the manager demanded that the band pay studio fees - when the band couldn't pay, one of their moms fronted the fifty bucks!  A good investment on her part, I must say.

The book doesn't have much coverage even of the late 60s - the way Blecha treats the subject, the late 60s were a time of decline rather than explosive growth.  As easy as it is to see where Blecha's allegiances lie, there's not much reason to discount with his taste.  Sonic Boom is a par none document of the murky, little known events that bred one of rock and roll's strongest regional sounds.

June 01, 2009

"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_Varese 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

May 30, 2009

A Memory With Trip Lane Doctor Down

Dr Memory 300p 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.

Continue reading "A Memory With Trip Lane Doctor Down " »

May 25, 2009

Memorial Day, 2009

Walker_plaque We live in the Land of the Free — because it's the Home of the Brave.

I don't know much about PFC Gerald J. Walker, except what it says on the plaque (at left), which is installed over a doorway in the weight room of the Hoboken YMCA. Next month he would have turned 60. He died at 20, in uniform.

Because of the memorial's placement, everyone who stops in for a workout is reminded of Gerard Walker's sacrifice. Amid the Cybex machines, barbell racks, and treadmills, it's a haunting memento.

The Y is closed for Memorial Day, but the plaque is on duty.

Some songs for Memorial Day (all posted as mp3):

Tan Sleeve: "American Blood" (2005, courtesy songwriter Lane Steinberg)

Bo Diddley: "Ain't It Good to Be Free" (1983)

Elton Britt: "There's A Star-Spangled Banner Waving Somewhere" (1942)

Do something patriotic with your money today:

Soldier's Angels

Injured Marine Semper Fi Fund

Paralyzed Veterans of America

Welcome Back Veterans

May 20, 2009

The Ballad Of Patty Hearst (MP3s)

Hearst_al_cartwright   Hearst_sue_lloyd

Here are a couple of songs that serve as sort of a thematic follow-up to my recent post on the kidnapping of Peggy Ann Bradnick in Pennsylvania in 1966.

Al Cartwright  -  Patty  (2:31)

Sue Lloyd & William O'Donnell  -  The Ballad Of Patty Hearst (Listen To Tania)  (3:32)

Today's selections, however, concern a far more notorious kidnapping, that of Patty Hearst, granddaughter of publishing tycoon William Randolph Hearst.   On February 2, 1974 Hearst was abducted in Berkeley, California by several members of the Symbionese Liberation Army, a group of revolutionary left-wing radicals.  Members of the SLA would later be convicted of a wide variety of crimes in addition to kidnapping: first degree murder, second degree murder, possession of explosives with intent to murder and various passport crimes, among other offenses.

After Hearst participated in an SLA bank robbery on April 15, 1974 a warrant was issued for her arrest.  Along with several other SLA members, she was arrested in a San Francisco apartment in September 1975.  She was eventually tried and convicted of bank robbery and sentenced to 35 years in prison, though she served less than 2 years of that time before President Carter commuted her sentence.

By the way, I should probably apologize for the second of the two MP3s above: not only is the record in horrifically mangled condition, the song is pretty damn irritating to boot!  You've been warned.

May 16, 2009

"It's Full of Holes / It's Full of Holes..."

Boll Weevil graphic Department of Musical Project Compost Pile(s) / part 2.
Here are some floor sweepings from an experiment planned for several years: To create a bizarre and multi-artist inclusive METAVERSION/crashup of the song Boll Weevil Blues. Last year I finally did create a first attempt at melting down all of my ideas for this song into a piece, but I'm not terribly impressed with my first try (despite it's imminent release); so here are some of the raw components for you to play with to create your OWN sick remix of BOLL WEEVIL. The song has been burrowing and crawling around since 1908 and was further spread when Charley Patton recorded his first version in 1929, with the later format that we know today somewhat codified by Leadbelly in his 1934 telling of it as recorded by Alan Lomax.
Since then there are hundreds of larval re-recordings of this flexible song, and the four elements we have here are portrayed by none other than a few of my favorite people: Homer and Jethro, Walter Brennan, the 'hit' version by Brook Benton, and most especially, a sly cross-referencing of the song's lyric by William S. Burroughs, as used by Spring-Heeled Jack in their piece 'The Western Lands', of which I'm presenting an abridged version here. In original discussion of the Burroughs inclusion in our own re-do of the song, we debated about whether he 'meant' to reference the song in his repeating of the refrain "it's full of holes / it's full of holes", but knowing Burroughs and his love of cutting-in lyrics and old-timey American fragments along with futuristic and ancient materials, I think that he must have been doing this 'consciously'.
Now your mission is to take these disparate versions, plus stirring-in other covers of Boll Weevil that YOU have and enjoy to create a 'new' and unique mix of the song. If people would like to actually submit their results, drop a line here, and I'll do a future post featuring the new offspring of this old bug.Weevil Diagram

Homer and Jethro / Boll Weevil

Walter Brennan / Boll Weevil

Brook Benton / Boll Weevil

Spring-Heeled Jack / The Western Lands

May 06, 2009

The Kidnapping Of Peggy Ann Bradnick (MP3)

Bradnick_sat_eve_post      Russ_edwards_45rpm

Russ Edwards  -  Eight Days At Shade Gap  (3:13)

On May 11, 1966 17-year-old Peggy Ann Bradnick, a high school junior from rural Shade Gap, Pennsylvania got off the school bus and started walking home with her five brothers and sisters. 

Before they made it to the house, they were approached by a shotgun-toting man known locally as the Bicycle Man, in reference to his normal mode of transportation.  He took Peggy at gunpoint and warned her siblings that he'd kill all of them if they tried to help her.  With that, he dragged Peggy into the woods of the Tuscarora Mountains and disappeared.  The kidnapper, 44-year-old former mental patient William Hollenbaugh, had  spent 6 years of his life in prison and an additional 13 years in Pennsylvania's hospital for the criminally insane after being diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic.

More details (and a slew of photos) after the jump.

Continue reading "The Kidnapping Of Peggy Ann Bradnick (MP3)" »

May 05, 2009

Even Dwarfs Started Small (1971)

After years of only marginal interest on my part (plus a few more years of the DVD kicking around in my Netflix queue) I finally got around to watching Werner Herzog's Even Dwarfs Started Small. I'm an enthusiastic Herzog fan and have seen many of his films and enjoyed them tremendously, but for some reason the notion of this one had never been terribly compelling to me. An "uncompromising allegory about the consequences of imprisonment and rebellion" and a "powerful statement about the repercussions of ostracism," as the Netflix sleeve tries to convince me? Perhaps. And perhaps my hero just wanted to show little people parading around with a live monkey tied to a cross. Los Olvidados shot from waist high. Visions of a "profound nightmare." Acknowledged, Herzog did take very good care of his actors.

In the commentary on the DVD, he says that he "fear(s) chickens because they are so stupid." The word "gloom" also comes up a lot, which, when he says it, sounds like "gluume." Herzog also says, "It's not that the midgets are monstrous, and that was a misunderstanding" ... "Some of the fiercest opposition ... was from the dogmatic left, which believed that this film depicted, was somehow, ridiculing and depicting the world revolution, which was failing, and was ending in destruction and catastrophes." Watching Even Dwarfs... with the director's commentary track rolling turned out to be the least ambivalence-producing experience for me, as it often happens that I find Herzog the lunatic, Herzog the creative force of nature, to be even more interesting than his films. Either way, Even Dwarfs... is filled with some arresting and beautifully photographed images. If you've visited my full-time Web home, My Castle of Quiet, you know that I appreciate a good DVD screen capture—so here are a few of my favorites from EDSS:

EVEN_DWARFS_STARTED_SMALL-16 EVEN_DWARFS_STARTED_SMALL-17

EVEN_DWARFS_STARTED_SMALL-15

EVEN_DWARFS_STARTED_SMALL-3

EVEN_DWARFS_STARTED_SMALL-11

EVEN_DWARFS_STARTED_SMALL-6




April 22, 2009

The Dunreith Accident (MP3s)

Shady_stevens_dunreith_accident

Shady Stevens  -  The Dunreith Accident  (2:15)

Porter Wagoner  -  The Carroll County Accident  (2:51)

On January 1, 1968 two trains collided in Dunreith, Indiana about 40 miles east of Indianapolis.  In the aftermath of the wreck, local singer Shady Stevens whipped up a tune called The Dunreith Accident

The result of a broken rail, the wreck derailed 26 cars and caused a hydrogen cyanide spill.  Another car, carrying anhydrous ammonia, exploded resulting in flames shooting 100 feet into the air.  The fire spread to a trackside cannery and a nearby liquid fertilizer storage tank, which exploded blowing up hundreds of cans of tomatoes which looked like blood spots on nearby patches of snow.  Along with the cannery, seven local houses were destroyed by the explosion, but amazingly there were no deaths.

Porter Wagoner fans will recognize The Dunreith Accident, as the music was lifted directly from Porter's 1968 hit The Carroll County Accident, which has also been included here for the sake of a convenient reference. 

At least Stevens was decent enough to acknowledge Bob Ferguson's authorship of the song.  Ferguson, an RCA producer who was responsible for overseeing many of Porter Wagoner's finest records, wrote the song after noticing the sign for Carroll County, Tennessee while speeding from Nashville down to Mississippi.  After investigating, he learned that there were 13 Carroll Counties in the USA and figured that the county name would work well for the song he crafted.

Incidentally, Indiana does have a Carroll County but it's approximately 100 miles northwest of Dunreith, which is in Henry County.

April 21, 2009

Better Living Through Bad Movies - Blood Sabbath (1972)

Bs A walk into the woods is a primal human experience, like staring at the ocean. It re-connects us with the infinite and the subconscious. We feel fear, and irresistible expectation. Though real forests have finite borders, in the subjectivity of our psyches, anything can happen under the cover of the treetops—and that's part of what we love about the woods. It's a theme that's been explored by auteurs from Shakespeare to Sam Raimi, and in horror films from Equinox to The Blair Witch Project and beyond.

What might a stateless, flashback-ridden Vietnam vet find on a walk into the woods in 1972? That question is more than answered by the deliciously oddball American film Blood Sabbath, which despite its obvious lack of resources, comes off inventive, low-key, and generally well done—in contrast to the (nonetheless beloved by me) Euro-schlock horror/fantasy pictures of the same period. Blood BS_title_card Sabbath is also packed with top-shelf cult talent: David, the hapless young soldier, is played by Tony Geary, later to become Anthony Geary, and achieve global notoriety playing Luke on General Hospital (thankfully, Blood Sabbath is pre-perm); and Alotta, Queen of the Witches (yes—you read that right) is played by none other than Dyanne Thorne, world-renown for her tenure playing Ilsa in all the Ilsa movies.

Our hero David, for whatever reason, runs in terror from three aggressively playful, stark-naked hippie girls who ambush him early on in the film, yet moments later has no problem falling irreversibly and painfully in love with a mysterious lady of the lake who's wearing a very distracting wig. (As my wife put it, Yyalah, said lady of the lake, is "magical.") See what happens later in the story when David, now under Alotta's power, hungrily accepts a chalice of sacrificial blood—this clip of David's ritual-induced fever dream is most definitely not safe for work. View below or download in m4v format to have and hold.

Continue reading "Better Living Through Bad Movies - Blood Sabbath (1972)" »

April 20, 2009

Egnekn Montgomery's 8 Track Magic

250271578233 After 15 years we now have the follow up volume to Brooklyn sound artist/laminator Egnekn Montgomery's 8 Track Magic, a CD compendium of the sounds of damaged 8-track tapes. The first volume took a thrift-store Led Zep IV cartridge (purchased for a quarter), setting the listener on a sea of queasy Robert Plant warble in even more damaged mode, Page's "Stairway to Heaven" intro sounding like Jandek, a new association with the song in your head occuring through natural (or perhaps Crowley-induced mystical) playing process. Egnekn claims this new volume is less "magic" than previous, but it definitely stands as a signifier of crumbling technology that once reigned supreme, a remark on de-evolution, or even a lesson to all the Blu-Ray fans out there. Check out Egnekn (aka Gen Ken's) ATMOTW (Artist Throwing Money Out the Window) site for more info and releases.

"Going Off the Deep End" (MP3)
"Fever Down" (MP3)
"Hey Hey Number Nine" (MP3)
"I'm a Clown" (MP3)
"I Won't Do That" (MP3)

and one from Volume One:
"Lonelytime" (MP3)

April 15, 2009

You’ll Never Walk Alone

Images Twenty years ago today Liverpool was playing Nottingham Forest in an FA Cup semi-final soccer match at Sheffield Wednesday’s Hillsborough stadium. There was construction work on the main highway from Liverpool to Sheffield and a lot of fans arrived late, just minutes before the game was scheduled to start. There was a big crowd at the turnstiles, and a lot of shoving as people made their way through a narrow tunnel that led to the standing-room pens behind one of the goalposts.

In retrospect, there were a lot of things that could have been done: The game could have been delayed; the fans could have been directed into less-crowded pens; the police could have pulled their heads out of their asses. Instead, there was a perfect storm of crowd hysteria, police stupidity, and bad stadium design. 96 men, women, and children died, some by being stomped on and crushed and some by compressive asphyxiation (they remained standing, but couldn’t breathe). Meanwhile, the soccer game started promptly at 3:00 and went on as the fans were slaughtered; the referees didn’t order the players off the field until 3:06.

In the aftermath, there was the obligatory government inquiry, an inquest that failed to take into account anything that happened after 3:15 that day, and the early retirement (with full pensions) of some of the police. One of Rupert Murdoch's so-called newspapers blamed the victims.

BBC News’ UK Web site has video of some survivors today; I thought Damian Kavanagh's segment was particularly moving. And most of the memorials feature an old Rodgers and Hammerstein song from the Broadway musical “Carousel,” which for some reason has been associated with Liverpool F.C. since the early 1960s.

Thanks for reading today’s News of the Dead blog post, and may God bless.

April 13, 2009

Hope and Change in the Exhume-Me State

QuarterHarry Stonebraker was well-liked in Winfield, Missouri (population 723). Last week he was about to finish his third 2-year term as mayor of the town, was running for a fourth term, and was pretty much expected to win. And he did win, by a landslide—90%. He didn’t let the fact that he was dead keep him down, nosirree. Elaine Luck, Lincoln County clerk, said, “I figured he’d win because he seemed to get even more popular after he died, just like Carnahan.” County Clerk Ms. Luck was referring, of course, to Democrat Mel Carnahan, who was elected U.S. Senator from Missouri in 2000 after dying in a plane crash. (Carnahan defeated Republican incumbent John Ashcroft, of “Let the Eagle Soar” fame.)

Can I never cared much for Missouri when I was growing up in a much-better neighboring state, and I really grew to dislike it during the year or so that I actually had to live there. I felt weird and out-of-place, although they did have the cheapest beer I’ve ever seen anywhere (Buckhorn, $3.00 a 6-pack), a lot of pinball machines, and the Kansas City Art Institute. But that was long before Missouri opened up the electoral process to dead candidates. Maybe now I’d get along there; after all, some of my best friends are dead people.

Thanks for reading my blog post this time, and may God bless.

April 11, 2009

Stain, Afterburn, and Echo / the Aftermyth of Throbbing Gristle

Stain afterburn echo 400p
The immersion. A stinging. There is only color. No shape. No front or back, simply orbits rippling back from a central disturbance. Some lighter bodies become vapor rather than resolve into the growing hum that shoots through mass and time.

Continue reading "Stain, Afterburn, and Echo / the Aftermyth of Throbbing Gristle" »

April 08, 2009

Lou D'Antonio (1936-2009)

Lou-1980s-Froeberg Lou D'Antonio, longtime host of The Hour of the Duck, passed away on March 28 in Vermont at age 72.

Lou joined the station in 1962, six years before the advent of free-form, hosting an eclectic jazz program. When free-form was introduced by a gaggle of hippies (including Vin Scelsa) in '68, Lou (a self-described "clean-cut, preppie type") made the open-playlist transition seamlessly. He remained an iconic figure at WFMU until he retired in 1990.

Everyone in the WFMU community owes Lou a silent debt of gratitude for keeping free-form radio alive when the underground format was being overtaken by niche-casting in the early 1970s.

Drawing on his early radio heroes Jean Shepherd, Bob & Ray, and Symphony Sid, Lou evolved a warm, erudite, self-effacing, and highly entertaining style. His joie de vivre on mic was no stage persona. Lou was the same charismatic individual on the air and off.

Radio personality. Storyteller. Bon vivant. Zen sage. Family man. Actor. Athlete. Hepcat. Historian. Philosopher. Humorist. Chef. Musician. Teacher. Epicure. Diplomat. Mediator. Mentor. Lou was Fred Astaire -- he was multi-talented, did everything with singular style and natural grace, and made it all look easy.

Photos of Lou and reminiscences from staff and volunteers are being posted on WFMU's In Memoriam page, which includes a link (at bottom) to the D'Antonio family's memorial at Facebook. The first two hours of my April 8 afternoon program were devoted to Lou. An audio archive of the Duck's vintage broadcasts is under construction.

April 07, 2009

Kustom Kompilation: War Pigs

Black sabbath In 1970, Black Sabbath created what I consider to be the ultimate anti-war song.  Far from a whiny, folksy, gently phrased call to resistance, "War Pigs" is an electric nightmare, heavily drenched in gloom, placing war in its deserved, real-life horror context, and re-casting our generals (and by extension, our statesmen) as "sorcerer(s) of death's construction." The song is a perennial rock anthem, and its riff-vocal-riff-vocal call/response pattern in the verses must be familiar to almost everyone in the world.

In 2003, swollen with frustration over the new Iraq war (which continues to rage on in idiocy), I was inspired to create a compilation of my favorite versions of the Sabbath classic, as well as render a deconstruction of my own (see track 5.) The compilation was purely subjective and is not intended to be comprehensive at all, hence the exclusion of versions by Rondellus, Gov't Mule, Sacred Reich and Hayseed Dixie. Since 2003, I have added a very worthy interpretation by Cake (complete with Latin brass.) Obviously, all these versions meet my standard, but I'm especially fond of the opener, by hardcore-techno-gabber freaks Doormouse.

War Pigs, by:

Doormouse | Faith No More | PIG | Slaves on Dope | Sinistre! | Cake

Download CD insert / artwork

If you have a Facebook login, you can join the Death and Hatred to Mankind FB Group—where our discourse on this great song can continue indefinitely....

April 03, 2009

The (Xenia, Ohio) Torndado Disasters (MP3)

Tornado_disasters_45 Thirty five years ago today Xenia, Ohio was pummeled by a horrific tornado that swept through town, destroying hundreds of buildings and taking 33 lives.  The Xenia tornado was part of a larger series of tornadic activity known as the Super Outbreak, the largest series of tornadoes ever recorded.

If you saw Harmony Korine's disturbing 1997 film Gummo, then perhaps you'll recall that it was set in Xenia in the aftermath of the tornado.

Roy Baker & The Gospel Tones  -  The Tornado Disasters  (3:53)

Shortly after the storm ripped the town apart, singer Roy Baker went into the studio to record a topical song about the catastrophic destruction. 

Xenia_tornado_disaster Songs about actual events recorded by first-hand witnesses to the carnage create a kind of localized social history that captures perspectives that often are left out of standard journalistic reports.  I find that listening to such songs can be almost as illuminating as reading or watching traditional mainstream media reports.

More topical records based on actual events can be heard here, here, here, here, here, here, here, and here.

The black and white photo on right is courtesy of the Greene County Public Library.  Many more photos of the aftermath of the Xenia tornado can be found here.

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Logo Contest 2008

  • Robin Hendrickson 6 - Contest Winner!
    WFMU held a logo design contest in June, and we received an outpouring of great submissions. Check 'em out!

Guitar Face

  • Gf36
    Scott Williams' tribute to the facial expressions that squeeze those notes out of guitars.