WFMU's Beware of the Blog

The Elusive John McFarland

"...He clutches the piano ouija-board style until he finds a musical figure that 'feels good' and proceeds to play it 'til it turns into a song, grabbing a little of 'this' with his left hand and a little of 'that' with his right."

The main thing, I think, that I was attracted to during my early exploration of Martin Denny's 'exotic' period records was the 'otherness' of certain pieces, the almost total divide between the 'real' world of the late 1950's and the interior headspace of an Easter Island-like 'lost world', pregnant with mysterious pauses and sounds hard to identify. When it worked I was briefly transported, and even now, many years later, and with a much better grasp of arranging and recording they still have grains of that magic in the grooves. As much as I enjoy Les Baxter, and some of the other better-quality purveyors (not to fault, however, the occasional rock-bottom rip-off exotica lp that actually delivers some action), I've found precious few moments on wax that can get near to that strange little meta-world of Denny's. The album under discussion today is one of the big exceptions.

Here's a taste of "Provacatif / Nine Exotic Motifs" by Mr. John McFarland to whet your appetite for more after the jump -                                           Head Hunters

Kitty Wells, First Queen of Country Music

Like its southern sister, reggae music, the folkways inherent in country music songcraft tend to hold onto and remold a good melody when they catch one. The song "Wild Side of Life", by William Warren and Arlie Carter is one of the most famous examples, using the basic 1 / 4 / 5 arrangement from the Carter Family's touching "I'm Thinking Tonight of My Blue Eyes", which was itself inspired by elder tunes of course; and had already been riffed upon once since the Carters as "The Great Speckled Bird" (a now seemingly antique song on its own) by Roy Acuff. According to writer Bill Malone, the song's co-writer William Warren found inspiration for "Wild Side ... in his memories of a relationship with a younger woman, a 'honky-tonk angel, as it were, who found the glamour of the gay night life' too hard to resist".  Hank Thompson's version of the song (recorded on December 11th, 1951, with his new producer Ken Nelson) was now his first charting single since 1949, living three and a half months atop the Billboard country chart in the spring and early summer of 1952.    Hank Thompson / The Wild Side of Life

Pretty soon, down in southern Louisiana a record was cut by a young lady from Washington, Louisiana, name of Al Montgomery and prepped for release by author Jay Miller on his own Feature label. Through a quirk of fate, Montgomery never got a chance to break through with her version, as the song fell into the 'right hands at the right time' to make it the biggest thing ever.

Andy Griffith and the Darlings

Having recently lost both Mr. Griffith and Doug Dillard of the Dillards, I wanted to point to some Dillards  and other Griffith-show musics. Just some wholesome folk tunes played unpretentiously.  Hopefully this will lead you down into that shady lane of pastoral memories and thoughts. These boys led some long and full lives. They did not go gentle into that good night - they went down pickin'!

  

A Few Words From Le Sun Ra

According to Hesiod, Dreams are the children of Night, and brothers and sisters of Death and Sleep. Like these they are represented in the Odyssey as dwelling in the far West, near Oceanus, in the neighborhood of the sunset and the kingdom of the dead. Deceptive dreams issue from a gate of ivory, true dreams through a gate of horn.

"The ancient Egyptians postulated seven souls.  Top soul, and the first to leave at the moment of death, is Ren, the Secret Name. This corresponds to my Director. He directs the film of your life from conception to death. The Secret Name is the title of your film. When you die, that's where Ren came in.

   Second soul, and the second one off the sinking ship, is Sekem: Energy, Power, Light. The Director gives the orders, Sekem presses the right button.

   Number three is Khu, the Guardian Angel. He, she, or it is third man out ... depicted as flying away across a full moon, a bird with luminous wings and head of light. Sort of thing you might see on a screen in an Indian restaurant in Panama. The Khu is responsible for the subject and can be injured in his defense- but not permanently, since the first three souls are eternal. They go back to heaven for another vessel. The four remaining souls must take their chances with the subject in the Land of the Dead.

"Ears Like a Cat" / Remembering Arthel Lane "Doc" Watson

Little Arthel, who lost his sight shortly after birth, had extraordinary skills at deciphering his world by sound, which led to his daddy saying that he had "Ears like a cat". Coming up from his "55 100ths of an acre of tobacco" on the farm to his beloved stature as flatpicker extraordinaire, playing with everyone from Bill Monroe to Norman Blake to just about anyone, especially his super-talented son Merle, who was lost much too soon to us; Mr. Watson was, for my taste, one of the most lovable, charming and entertaining of all of the many early 'folk revivalists' who, for one reason or another, strove to preserve the musical Americana that was mainly transmitted orally before his time.

For me, I love to hear the man talk and tell stories just as much as sing and play them, so I'm going to spotlight Doc talking about things, and also play a couple of cuts from a rare team-up lp with Bill Monroe. Coming from a large and musical family, Watson was a hard-working man who followed his father's advice to "Try every way to make an honest living first" before turning to music as a career. And thank goodness he stuck with the music. He will be missed a lot, but lives on in the hearts and strings of many of us.

First these mp3s, and then join me for some videos after the jump.

Doc Watson and Bill Monroe : Doc's Intro / Dream of the Miner's Child             Doc Watson and Bill Monroe : Feast Here Tonight

A Charo Recital

"And you made me happier / Than Dolly Parton's guitar" (Lee Hazlewood)

"Malaguena will get you in every time." (Keth Richards)

Lately about our home here in the 'Holler full of musicians, we've been enjoying and studying all kinds of guitar playing styles, and my sweetie particularly likes the fantastic classical flamenco guitar playing of Maria del Rosario Mercedes Laura Jennifer Pilar Martinez Molina Baeza; of course we mean Charo for short. Why she would need to change such a convenient showbiz handle is still a mystery.

I suppose that it's pretty well known now that she is one of the world's top classical guitar players. She was lucky enough, after all, to study under Andres Segovia from an early age ( he taught music around her birthplace of Murcia, Espana, as a community service ). A colorful, flamboyant and outspoken personality, her musical ability is easily eclipsed by her overall showmanship. She has indeed come a long was since being brought to the states under the wing of her famous then-husband Xavier Cugat. After the jump you can find two video recitals ( from 1988 ) of the one and only Charo on the gut-string classical axe.

S.P.K. in the USA Part Two / at the Russian Center, SF CA, April 17, 1982

By the sixth number the band were settling into the cavernous, drafty, boomy Russian Center and were pressing ahead louder and louder, with more and more echoing tsunami-like basslines and gut-twisting infra and ultra frequencies. The murky, hideous and terrifying films played out continuously in the background, leaving no escape from this double-pronged assault of audio and visual extremity. At the ripe young age of twenty-one it was my first 'live' noise/industrial band experience and I was eating it up eagerly. Suddenly out of the right corner of my vision I saw in the dark that the crowd was opening, separating rapidly like a parting sea in my direction for something...something. Something which was just as suddenly arcing over my head, a long and menacing tongue of flame, shooting out unbelievably from the stage. I had never seen a group of people that large move like that in a club before. And now I knew why - we were about to be incinerated.

SPK Live at Oddfellows Hall, San Francisco, on 5-16-1981

A recent posting of the SPK Brickwerks performance video got me to thinking a bit about what was an important and exciting band for me in the early 1980's, and about the aesthetics and techniques of "Industrial / Noise" outfits at that time.  Seeing SPK live in 1982 was to be a defining moment for me artistically and socially, and I'll go into that in the part two post about "System Planning Korporation" aka "Surgical Penis Klinik" in two weeks (May 12th, 6pm EST). Unfortunately I missed the performance featured today, from a year earlier, but it was caught on cassette by my friend Mr. Rob Wortman, from whose archive I've presented several rare live tapes here on BOTB. More about this gig after the jump.

Govinda Does Michael Jackson / and About 1000 Other Music Vid Cliches

I'm afraid that nothing says Spring Has Sprung for me quite so well as recently finding this delicious clip that I had never thought to just search for by name. I saw it once and only once in San Francisco around 1993 at the house where one of my bands rehearsed. A friend there used to go around to the local east Indian shops and collect videotapes that they offered for sale. They were often sketchy, grey-market-ish editions - sometimes with more than one movie on the tape, or a mixture of stuff. Naturally, lots of folks dig over-the-top and peculiar Bollywood musical sequences, but when he showed this clip to the assembled gathering one day, we were really floored. This video really takes it to a whole ' nother level.  It was firmly stuck in my head forever, and I determined to see "It's My Challenge" again someday, but could never find it or even who the artist was. Well, of course, now with the incredibly obscure things that keep turning up online, I should have known that this less-than-rare scene would surface for me again someday.

   It comes apparently from the film "Pyaar Karke Dekho", and as I re-watched it for the first time in years I at first wasn't sure that it was exactly the same clip (although the title phrase is pretty much a clincher - I thought it might be another version), but, without spoiling it - there is a moment involving tabla drums that is absolutely stunning and when it came to that I knew it was the one - this was the image that floored all of us. And now, enjoy the wonder that is Govinda. 

 

In Memory of Earl Eugene Scruggs

To commemorate the passing of legendary and influential banjo stylist (as well as wicked guitar picker) Earl Scruggs this week at age 88,  let's play this complete Martha White Flour program from June fourth, 1953. It features one of my favorite Flatt & Scruggs numbers, "Dim Lights, Thick Smoke"  and many other pieces. You can also take a look at this same song performed on one of the episodes of their television show, and more, right after the jump.

Martha White Show

I wish I could lay hands on a pithy quote from Mr. Scruggs himself, at this short notice, but I will at least pass along this story from the autobiography of Charlie Louvin of the Louvin Brothers.  We join Charlie as he talks about their early pre-fame days on the radio, where they briefly went by the name "The Foggy Mountain Boys" (along with two other fellas):

  "The funny thing was, Lester Flatt and Earl Scruggs came up with the same name later, and when they broke up, they had a lawsuit going about who owned the rights to it. Lester thought it should be Lester Flatt and the Foggy Mountain Boys, and Earl thought it should be Earl Scruggs and the Foggy Mountain Boys. Well, one night, I ran into Lester backstage at a show we were playing together, and I said, "Lester, what in the hell are you boys doing suing each other?"

  "Well," Lester said, "Earl claims the name belongs to him because he wrote the 'Foggy Mountain Breakdown'. And I say that I came up with the name before he even wrote that song."

  "Shit," I said, "it don't belong to either damn one of you."

Vincent Price / "Hitler and Witchcraft"

WFMU Dept. of Occult Studies brings you this short essay from noted gourmet, actor and demonologist
Vincent Price. Here produced for record by Roger Karshner and written and directed by Terry d'Oberoff. It comes from the highly-recommended double lp "Vincent Price Witchcraft and Magic", a fun effort marred only slightly by the decision to add 'spooky' echo delay to Price's voice throughout the whole record. Since a Boyd Rice interview is likely coming up soon in this space, this track is a little taste of what won't be discussed in a few weeks. Enjoy a Vinnie snack:

Hitler and Witchcraft

The Muppet Show / Last Day at Elstree 1980

Here's a short but sweet look behind the scenes at Elstree Television Studios at the end of "season five" of the Muppet Show in 1980.

 

John Cassavetes / His Life and Work

Yum ! A full-length documentary about John Cassavetes, of course featuring the wonderful Gena Rowlands. I'm on vacation. Enjoy some TV for me.

 

 

Peter Cook and 'Derek and Clive's' Last Album

With some friends working on a Peter Cook / Dudley Moore project recently, my mind wandered back to thinking about the many hilarious and truly outrageous things that they had filmed and recorded over the years. Someday I'll do a long article about them but for today I just want to talk about one of my favorite comedy albums as a teenager - Derek and Clive / Ad Nauseum.  My record-buying budget was slender in those days (1979), and I recall vividly how upon seeing the new copy of Ad Nauseum in the store, with its cleverly designed cover and special screen-printed clear bag I had to have it. But as usual with my "going up to the city to buy new records" trips, this meant that some cheaper lps would be sacrificed altogether in order to get the higher-priced import vinyl (Ad Nauseum was on Virgin Records, right when they went from the sweet little painting of a virgin on the label to the more punk 'side one RED and side two GREEN' format).

Here's a (NSFW) sample of one of the few fully pre-scripted scenes from this record:       Horse Racing   

The Mystery of J. P. Rags (Guest-Starring Harry Nilsson)

Perhaps you had one in your family. It was a decade of rambling, disconnected souls seeking a way out of a button-down life. Scruffy, a bit worn-down at the heels, rather old to be "dropping out".   Hippy hoboes. Nature boys and girls. Old beatniks. In the case of the character in question today "J. P. Rags", a bit childlike, a folkie nature boy slinging a guitar, sitting on the railroad tracks to dump gravel out of a worn but stylish boot. You know that there's more to him than that. He has several stories and lives that he has perhaps walked away from. And Mr. Rags has songs about what he has learned, written in an innocent, caressing tone, hard to listen to uncynically today, but seemingly heartfelt and well-meant at the time.

Here's a song from his one and only album; and then come back and see what we've been able to find out about the elusive Rags.                                

Scruffety

Burgess Meredith, Singer / part four of four

Recently I tracked down Burgess Meredith's delightful autobiography, So Far, So Good, and was finally able to get a tidbit of information about his 1960 lp that I'm so fond of: Songs and Stories of the Gold Rush.  I've previously covered this album and parts of another one where he recites and sings at this blog, and now let's listen to the last four cuts of the batch and hear what Meredith himself had to say about the project.

Chuck-a-Luck      Here to See the Diggin's      My Government Claim      Burgess lp Outro

 

A Rev. J. M. Gates Holiday Side

Today a visit with the Rev. J. M. Gates, known for his beautifully-delivered sermons, recorded between 1926 and 1941, which vary widely in theme, tone and intensity. He can caress you on one 78 and then scare holy hell out of you on the next. He was one of the biggest-selling recording artists there ever was.

Boris Karloff and Aesopus

Today some more of Karloff's Caedmon Records oeuvre with a visit to Aesop, "...who created an independent class of stories about animals, so that in a few generations his name and person had become typical of that entire class of literature. In course of time, thanks to his plain, popular manner, the story of his own life was enveloped in an almost inextricable tissue of tales and traditions, which represented him as an ugly hunchback and a buffoon. In the Middle Ages these were woven together into a kind of romance."

The Lambeth Walk and Its Permutations

Out West with Burgess Meredith / part three

  It's sing-along / recite-along time again here in the mountains as I offer up a few more tracks of that delightful lp, so worthy of re-release, Songs and Stories of the Gold Rush (1960), with our hero, Oliver Burgess Meredith. This record takes itself just seriously enough, and goes to some trouble to create the appropriate atmosphere for the fun songs and delirious poetry. Join us for some vintage Burgess after the jump!