WFMU's Beware of the Blog

The First International Sex Opera Band - Anita (MP3s)

Supposedly only sold through sex shops in Amsterdam during a short time at the end of the 60s, this is a truly bizarre psychedelic freak-out of an album. There isn't too much information about it out on the net, but apparently it is rumored that this was recorded by members of the popular Dutch rock band Sandy Coast. It is probably impossible to find the original vinyl, and I bet it would sell for a fortune if it ever popped up on eBay, but here are the MP3s, just in time for your next sex opera party.

The First International Sex Opera Band - Anita MP3s
Anita's First Appearance (Part 1)
Anita's First Appearance (Part 2)

Oh, and despite the title this is safe for your kids, your office, and the FCC, if you don't mind to expose them to the occasional heavy breathing, moaning, and screaming, plus a hefty dose of deranged psychedelia...

RIP Rashied Ali (video)

Five days ago, one of the greatest jazz drummers of all time, Rashied Ali, died at the age of 72. Here is an interesting short interview with him, apparently recorded from some Croatian TV broadcast.

YouTube: [link]

Frances Baskerville, Singing Psychic - Songs From The Beyond (MP3s)

Frances Baskerville, also known as the Singing Psychic, might be known to long-time WFMU listeners from the Incorrect Music show or from Irwin Chusid's book Songs In The Key Of Z. Here is her (second?) album Songs From The Beyond in MP3, in all its clairvoyant lo-fi glory.

MP3s:
01 The Grassy Knoll
02 A Whale Of A Tale
03 Love On A Hill
04 Miracles
05 The Vegetables Song
06 Come Step In My Space
07 Heaven's Highway
08 Dream Walk When You're Hot, You're Hot
09 Angel Talk
10 Dangerous Tools
11 Children Of The Street

If you want to know more about how a lumber truck hit her and unleashed her psychic powers, about Fran's psychic detective work, and how she found more than 5000 missing children, you can listen to an interview with her on the "Judy Joy Jones Show".

Bendaly Family - Do You Love Me? (video)

This is it, the best Kuwaiti beach music video of all times, shot in 1978. The song is "Do You Love Me?" by the Lebanese Bendaly Family. (The site is all in Arabic, but it has lots of Bendaly MP3s.)

YouTube: [link]

Pneumershonic - The Mark of the Beast (video)

This is a shortened web version of Mark Jasper's documentary The Mark of the Beast about outsider musician Pneumershonic, grabbed from YouTube.

You can read more about Pneumershonic and download his album Frequencies of the Beast, in this earlier post of mine. If you want to obtain the DVD with the whole documentary, your best bet would be to contact Matt Jasper via the MySpace page.

Die Trip Computer Die - Flowerball (MP3s)

It is always hard to describe music which doesn't fall into any known genre, but let me try anyway: Die Trip Computer Die sounds like a bunch of space aliens on acid with a sampler and various old records and sound effects. One of the myriad offshoots of DIY punk band The Homosexuals, this trio of Lepke Buchwater, Xentos 'Fray' Bentos, and Ted Barrow, is one of my favorite bands no sane person has ever heard of. Their discography is quite messy, a wild mix of a few official releases and numerous mysterious CD-Rs and MP3s on various Internet sites. The album "Flowerball" is one of those unofficial releases, and the scant resources I found on the Internet indicate that it was originally a CD-R not on any label. Here are the MP3s, listen at your own risk:

01 System of the Tortured
02 Gestations
03 A Bad Idea
04 In Bed With 1000 Priests
05 Seductive Song of War
06 Messrs Smirkett & Bloat
07 Fink Drummer
08 Chief-Inspector Kickback
09 Contains Psychological
10 Goodbye Again
11 Every 'Why' Is A 'How'
12 The Naked Statue
13 Roll, Frankie Roll
14 A Short Film About Gas
15 Flowerball

By the way, this album has been played on WFMU a few times on Tony Coulter's show, most recently here.

Wing does MJ (MP3)

I don't know if it had anything to do with Michael Jackson's cardiac arrest, but just before the King of Pop died, famous New Zealand singer Wing released her 16th CD "Beat It", featuring herself holding a baseball bat on the cover. Here is what you need to know about her and this most recent album, the official album notes from CDBaby (where you can get the whole CD).

Beat It is Wing's 16th CD and includes lyrical songs most requested by her fans -- at concerts in the US and UK during 2007 and 2008, and for delivery by her popular "live singing over the telephone" service. Wing the singer is admired by fans throughout the world for the passion and joy she shares through her CDs and performances of popular songs. With a unique voice and an ever-widening repertoire, Wing loves singing and she lives to sing. Her goal is to sing beautiful songs as they should be sung, and she spends 3-4 hours every day working towards this goal. Her singing teacher helps Wing work on her current repertoire, and helps to choose the songs for the next CD. A New Zealand resident, Wing's CDs have earned her an international cult following. She is a regular guest on radio shows and television celebrity guest and entertainment shows, and has appeared on programmes as diverse as TAB Sports Cafe (New Zealand), Rove Live (Australia) and the animated television satire show South Park. Her live performances have ranged from New York's Blue Note night club and San Francisco's famous Castro Theatre to old folks homes and hospitals to university gyms, private parties and corporate gigs. Wing's CDs are proudly manufactured in New Zealand by Media Technology.

Finally, here is the song you've all been waiting for: Wing - Beat It (MP3)

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