WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Trio Pied de Poule - Café noir (video)

Recently, I stumbled upon this great video of Trio Pied de Poule singing about black coffee.

YouTube: [link]

There doesn't seem to be much about these girls on the Internets, but a little more information can be found here.

Full Dedication Alvaro (video, mp3)

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

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

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

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

Chrome Hoof - Circus 9000 (video)

I have to admit to a certain weakness for circus music and musicians performing in costumes, like good old Mr. Bungle or Les Georges Leningrad. Now the Brits have their contenders, too, here is Chrome Hoof performing Circus 9000.

YouTube: [link]

A Proposition for Robert De Niro

From markmaynard.com.

Onward, Christian Soldiers (video)

Manfred Mann vocalist Paul Jones covers the hymn Onward, Christian Soldiers. This clip is taken from the 1967 film Privilege by Peter Watkins, a pseudo-documentary set in near-future (i.e., the 70s) Britain, about a pop star whose career is controlled and manipulated by Church and State.

"Edgar Varèse and the Jazzmen" (MP3s)

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

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

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

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

The original of this tape is at Fondation Paul Sacher.

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

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

Auktyon - My Love (video)

Great video for a great song by Russian art-rock band Auktyon.

This video is from 1991, but Auktyon is still around and going to play a bunch of shows in the US in June, July, and August. Check out their website for details.

I Hate Spring (video)

A seasonal classic by Beatrice Lillie, with a modern video.

Thanks to good friend Arwulf Arwulf at WCBN for introducing me to this song many years ago.

Look Around You - Music (video)

More Info | More Videos

Sainkho on Russian TV (videos)

Digging around on YouTube recently, I found several videos of amazing Tuvan avant-throat singer Sainkho Namtchylak. Here are two beautiful songs she performed on Russian TV, and I have no clue when this was recorded, who the other musicians are, and what kind of TV show this was. Maybe one of our readers knows?

The second song follows after the jump.

Solo Banjo with Paul Metzger (video)

I recently stumbled across some recordings of Paul Metzger, solo improvisations for modified banjo and guitar. YouTube has quite a few videos of him and here is one, the first part of a longer piece performed live at Pat's In The Flats in Cleveland, OH, in November 2008.

YouTube: [link]

Chris Morris - Blue Jam Monologues (video)

I recently discovered a whole series of Chris Morris monologues from his 'ambient radio comedy' series Blue Jam on YouTube. It was originally aired on BBC Radio 1 between 1997 and 1999, and if you don't know it, just imagine a British version of Joe Frank. Here is monologue #1, "Guns".

More on YouTube: The Blue Jam Monologues

Jandek Gets Funky (Videos)

Finally, the Jandek Jam Band has arrived, April 5th in his hometown of Houston, TX. Read all about it (and see lots of photos) at Breakfast On Tour and the Houston Press Rocks Off Blog. Here are two videos of this remarkable show.

YouTube links: One | Two

Manu Delago (videos)

One of the more obscure percussion elements in the recent history of music is the Hang (pronounced "hung", sometimes also called the "Hang Drum"), a UFO-shaped cousin of the steel drum, invented and produced by the Swiss company PANArt. Here is a video of Hang virtuoso Manu Delago in a duet with Christoph 'Pepe' Auer on bass clarinet, covering the Tetris theme music.

There are many more Manu Delago videos on YouTube, with and without bass clarinet, originals and covers, and they are all worth watching. By the way, he is currently on tour in the US (with one gig in Montreal, Canada). Here is another video, the Manu Delago composition 'Ob ihr wirklich richtig steht, seht ihr wenn das Licht angeht' for 3 players on 2 marimbas. This would be hard to pull off live, but who knows...

Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing

1. Listen to the birds.
That's where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren't going anywhere.

2. Your guitar is not really a guitar Your guitar is a divining rod.
Use it to find spirits in the other world and bring them over. A guitar is also a fishing rod. If you're good, you'll land a big one.

3. Practice in front of a bush
Wait until the moon is out, then go outside, eat a multi-grained bread and play your guitar to a bush. If the bush dosen't shake, eat another piece of bread.

4. Walk with the devil
Old Delta blues players referred to guitar amplifiers as the "devil box." And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you're bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts devils and demons. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.

5. If you're guilty of thinking, you're out
If your brain is part of the process, you're missing it. You should play like a drowning man, struggling to reach shore. If you can trap that feeling, then you have something that is fur bearing.

6. Never point your guitar at anyone
Your instrument has more clout than lightning. Just hit a big chord then run outside to hear it. But make sure you are not standing in an open field.

7. Always carry a church key
That's your key-man clause. Like One String Sam. He's one. He was a Detroit street musician who played in the fifties on a homemade instrument. His song "I Need a Hundred Dollars" is warm pie. Another key to the church is Hubert Sumlin, Howlin' Wolf's guitar player. He just stands there like the Statue of Liberty-making you want to look up her dress the whole time to see how he's doing it.

8. Don't wipe the sweat off your instrument
You need that stink on there. Then you have to get that stink onto your music.

9. Keep your guitar in a dark place
When you're not playing your guitar, cover it and keep it in a dark place. If you don't play your guitar for more than a day, be sure you put a saucer of water in with it.

10. You gotta have a hood for your engine
Keep that hat on. A hat is a pressure cooker. If you have a roof on your house, the hot air can't escape. Even a lima bean has to have a piece of wet paper around it to make it grow.

The Sursiks - Little Paper Airplanes (video)

This video has a less-than-subtle Libertarian conspiracy message, but it is still pretty cool. And it features tubas! Not quite safe for work, I guess...

Taken from the Sursiks CD Christmas In March. YouTube: [link]

The Inauguration String Quartet Revealed (video)

YouTube: [link]

Aranos (Videos, MP3)

Recently, one of my favorite musicians has been experimental multi-instrumentalist Aranos, a frequent collaborator of Steven Stapleton and David Tibet. Aranos' music is extremely hard to categorize, existing somewhere between dark ambient sound fuckery and melancholy gypsy folk. Here is a track from his 2007 album Mother of Moons Bathing, a nice twisted folk tune: Aranos - New Boyfriend (MP3)

Brainwashed.com has a series of video features on their website called The Eye, one of them devoted to Aranos. He talks about working with Stapleton, living in the middle of nowhere, and there is ample footage of a concert with Aranos and Z'ev, too. Here is the video in three parts, the second and third part follow after the jump.

Part 1:

Mark Gormley - Without You (video)

YouTube: [link] | An interview with Mark Gormley: [link] | Buy Mark Gormley's CD "Audio CD": [link]

Hasil Adkins - The Great Lost Album

[UPDATE: Now with all 15 MP3s!]

A great find today on TheHoundBlog, a blog run by ex-WFMU DJ The Hound: A cassette by Hasil Adkins from the mid-90s, finally digitized to MP3 and available for everyone with an Internet connection. Here is what The Hounds writes [direct link to the post with downloads]:

It was around 1994 or 5 that Hasil Adkins gave this 90 minute cassette to Norton Records' honcho Billy Miller to give to me to play on my radio show. [...] So Billy gives me this cassette of Hasil's home recordings, no info, no song titles, nuthin', but every song is great. Some of his best work. Much better than anything on the Fat Possum LP (which captures Hasil on a very uninspired day). As far as I can tell none of this stuff has ever been released, so now it will escape, I being the one to unlock the cage and let it loose on you--the rest of the world. If you're a Hasil fan, fidelity isn't one of your great concerns, this stuff was recorded at Haze's house in the holler somewhere in the country side outside of Madison, West Virginia and transferred to cassette by Hasil himself. I dubbed it to digital using a program called Amadeus Pro (thanks to Brian Redman, for turning me on to this and teaching me how to use it, without Brian there's be no Hound). Some of the song titles I made up since, as I said, there were no titles on the tape box. [...] These fifteen tunes were chosen from a total of twenty three, so there'll be a volume two someday (all sad ballads). The great lost Hasil Adkins album, I think I'll call it Commodity Meat and other delights, or maybe How To Do The Hunch And Influence People.

If you missed the link above, the full post with all the MP3s and more pictures is here. Since the download speed is a bit slow over there, I grabbed them and put them up here, renamed and tagged.

MP3s: Waitin' For The Graveyard, Go Go Go Down The Line (Lookin' Down That Highway), Let Me Talk To You (Moo Moo Moo), Me & Jesus (Got It All Worked Out), Lee-Anne (I Wanna See You Boogie Woogie), Kill 'Em Rock, Keep On Hunchin', Way Before My Time (I Should Have Been Born A Long Time Ago), Somebody I Used To Know (and Chased Away With A Baseball Bat), Madison Boone County Blues, Old Joe, Commodity Meat & Peanut Butter, Ugly Chelsea Clinton Hunch (Feed Her Commodity Meat, Bill), Catch Me A Train, You're Too Young For Me, Reelin' & Rockin'.