WFMU's Beware of the Blog

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   

Brian Chippendale's Black Pus Live on WFMU (MP3s, Video, T-Shirt)

Black Pus is the many-armed beast of a solo project from Brian Chippendale, one of the most distinct musicians and visual artists of our time. If you're not already familiar with the sounds of Black Pus, you may recognize Chippendale's many-armed drumming style and masked mic-in-mouth vox from his duos Mindflayer and Lightning Bolt. A co-founder of the storied Fort Thunder artist collective, Chippendale still lives in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence, in a former mill building where lately he seems to be writing a new Black Pus song almost every night. So while we're wrapping our heads around 2011's Primordial Pus (Load Records) -- not to mention the limited edition CD-R series of Black Pus 1, 2, 3, 4 and 0 -- there's already a seventh Black Pus album ready to pop.

This live set on Marty McSorely's WFMU program is a special treat because, though he is a prolific musician, Black Pus doesn't tour nearly enough to quench our thirst for Pus. The set was expertly engineered by Ernie Indradat, and the interview covers recent collaborations with Björk and the Flaming Lips. Chippendale also talks about how he assembled such a unique setup, including an oscillator pedal that was originally a gift from Shinji Masuko of DMBQ. When Marty McSorely asks "What is Brian Chippendale's Black Pus?" Chippendale responds that it's reggaeton. He goes on to elaborate on a range of influences from the free jazz assault of Peter Brötzmann's Machine Gun to the unpredictable rhythms of Sightings and Black Dice (who started out as a hardcore band in Providence around the same time as Lightning Bolt).

In some circles, Brian Chippendale is known as much for his fine art, comics and graphic novels as for his music. His visual style can be experienced as part of every Black Pus and Lightning Bolt release. And, as those of you who are on the WFMU swag mailing list may have heard, Brian Chippendale designed an awesome Biker T-shirt for WFMU's marathon which begins later this month!

For more, check out the Black Pus blog, which just debuted this trippy surrealist video for "I'll Come When I Can," off Primordial Pus:

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 152

Give the Drummer Some's
Favorite Downloads from the MP3 Blogosphere

Few bloggers blitzed by the Megaupload seizure on January 19 could claim to be more devastated than the uploading wizard behind the curtain at Japanese music site the Vault. Eating prolific for breakfast, Voodooninjamunky shared, in less than three years online, a staggering 5,600 LPs.

Understandably discouraged, our hero posted the sad notice that he was retiring the blog. A few days later, though, he announced he was shifting his files over to a private bittorrent tracker, but that proved inefficient and unsatisfying, and the idea was abandoned. Now, to the delight of Japanese music junkies everywhere, it appears that Voodooninjamunky intends to continue the Vault, uploading files to a different 3rd party file-sharing service. Steps toward a reanimated blog are tentative, but the last number of hours have seen a flurry of offerings that looks a whole lot like the old Vault. (Our lead-off item below is a lovely female duo pop album posted not 12 hours ago.)

In honor of Voodooninjamunky's determination to press on, your Motherlode today presents exclusively Japanese music. (For more such magnificent sounds, check out my most recent Give the Drummer Some broadcast.)

    
Membous  ~  "Honey Chapatti"
(Blog: The Vault)

 Track #5 translates as: "Grandma Is Wating for Summer"
"Membous is a group I have been hunting for for a little while now and was shitcited to see them pop up on Rakuten for pretty sweet prices. I first heard them on one of the Benten comps a long while back. then realized that they were affiliated with the Gyuune label also and was like, yeah, I need that shit. They popped up on another comp I found from childish soup, which seems to be a bit of a spinoff from Gyuune. So now I finally have their albums, and they don't disappoint. Delicious lo-fi dual girl action with sweet mellow musical background to some cute and relaxing melodies."  (Description by VoodooNinjaMunky, at The Vault) 

Demo to London: The Handgrenades / Sponsors Story

In '79, the Handgrenades issued what would become the best UK DIY punk single not actually from the UK: their "Demo to London" b/w "Coma Dos" 45, self-released in an undetermined quantity on the band's unnamed imprint.

The single is a killer.  It was also once a source of profound mystery -- to collectors and wayward punk geeks, at least.  Omitted on the sleeve are the band's roster, their location and where they recorded their material, and the only nuggets of information profferred are a production credit attributed to Bob Levitan and the word "phonographix." Given this anonymity, and in light of the title and subject of "Demo to London" -- not to mention the otherworldly cut-up cover art, production, vocals, and musicianship (or lack thereof) -- many took the band's provenance to be London, or perhaps the outskirts of Manchester.  The flip's manic "Coma Dos" sheds even less light on the single's origin, and the listener's left with a clang-punk artifact of the highest random order, reminiscent of contemporaries like Swell Maps, the Petticoats, Desperate Bicycles, so on, so forth.

Music Blogs React to Megaupload Seizure & Cyberlocker Lockdowns

The day after last week's inspiring protest against overreaching anti-piracy laws, the US Department of Justice demonstrated that they don't need those laws, anyway.  They just went ahead and unilaterally shut down Megaupload, the world's most popular cyberlocker.  Rumor has it that similar sites like MediaFire and 4shared are under investigation and have been deleting files, while FileSonic preemptively disabled all sharing features.

As a result, much of the history of recorded sound has been made inaccessible to the public.  I'm talking, of course, about the music blogosphere.  The best music blogs aren't pirates.  They are libraries, sound archivists and music preservationists sharing recordings that would not otherwise be available.  And now sites like Global Groove, Mutant Sounds, and Holy Warbles have lost large swaths of the material they'd salvaged from obscurity.

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 151

Give the Drummer Some's
Favorite Downloads from the MP3 Blogosphere

All was copacetic during SOPA/PIPA smackdown day last Wednesday, the day of last week's Motherlode posting. Then came Thursday and bloodbath in blogland as the popular file-sharing site MegaUpload was seized and shuttered for copyright violation by the U.S. Department of Justice. The subsequent ripple effect of fear spread quickly, prompting other file-sharing sites to go dark preemptively. Meanwhile, the free and unfettered exchange of ideas and information amongst millions of legitimate Internet users has been eviscerated.

In an instant, crucial music-preservation sites like Madrotter, Mutant Sounds, and Global Groove—and the many hundreds of painstaking hours their conscientious hosts spent constructing libraries of vanishing sounds—have been wiped out. Surely, this isn't the end of the story, but it is a sickening chapter. To be continued...

 

 

    
Kwamy, Nico, Rochereau  ~  "Les Merveilles du Passé 1965"
(Blog: Global Groove)

Seront Merveilles Jamais Fin?
"Do you know that phenomena ? Some LPs can hit you instantly when hearing it for the very first time, you are blown away and think, this is one of the best I've ever heard. Often these are the ones that get boring after a while. The LP we have here today is one of the other kind, you like it instantly but it gets better every time you hear it. These are the ones that remain for ever and never ever bore. How lucky are we to enjoy this wonderful disc for the rest of our lives?"  (Description by Moos, at Global Groove) 

The Tale Of Floyd Collins (MP3)

The Tale Of Floyd Collins come to us from Arkansas native Ronnie Hawkins, who found success and fame after following Conway Twitty's advice and relocating to Canada.

In 1960, Hawkins, a cousin of rockabilly pioneer Dale Hawkins, released this long-after-the fact topical song about the 1925 death of cave explorer Floyd Collins who became trapped 55 feet underground in what is now part of Mammoth Cave National Park just outside of Cave City, Kentucky.  Collins got stuck while exploring and though rescue teams worked around the clock to try to save him, they were ulimately unsuccessful and after 14 hellish days Collins succumbed to exposure, thirst and starvation.

Ronnie Hawkins  -  The Tale Of Floyd Collins  (3:03)

WFMU DJs Pick Their Favorites of 2011 (part VII)

OK, now this is really the last edition of the series, the rest of which you can read here.  This time we've got Kurt Gottschalk and Jeffrey Davison up to bat.

Kurt Gottschalk's Top 1 Record Labels of 2011

I am a horrible listener: Fickle, inattentive, in constant need of amusement and novelty. It’s true that I would gladly listen to Prince or David Murray solos every chance I get for another 20 years, but for the most part I’m interested in nothing quite so much as something unusual. Novelty, all too often perhaps, trumps artistic merit. I’m willing to admit it.

The thirst for the fresh is hard to keep quenched, of course. It’s an upriver battle. The more you hear, the more things there are for new things you hear to sound like. So when something comes along which is both fresh and artistically stunning, I get excited.  

I’ve hosted the text and sound artist Alessandro Bosetti on the WFMU waves twice: once with his Mask Mirror project and again with the Japanese audio artist Adachi Tomomi. His 22-minute and wonderfully repetitive piece “Exposé #10” even became something of a minor and controversial hit on Miniature Minotaurs. After seeing his band Trophies – perhaps the pinnacle of his text-with-music works – I’ve been eagerly awaiting a recording debut.

When it finally came, it was on Monotype, a Polish label with which I was only passingly familiar despite the fact that they had some three dozen releases in their catalog. Become Objects of Daily Use came out in July of 2011, only a few months after another Bosetti disc, Royals, which also built extended melodies out of the cadence of repeated, spoken phrases.

My attention – ordinarily too distracted by balloons and shiny objects – was focused, and I soon found other remarkable releases from the label’s 2011 catalog, including an amazing processed drum drone piece by Lasse Marhaug and Mark Wastell called Kiss of Acid and a fantastic collection of field recording based pieces by Lionel Marchetti called Une saison.  It feels good to be this excited about a record label. But the taste, of course, is twofold bittersweet. Monotype will now not just have to continue this level of excellence but raise it to keep hold of the off-kilter carousel of my whimsy. And failing that, the bar is just that much higher for the next contender.

Alessandro Bosetti – Gloriously Repeating (excerpt) (MP3) | Trophies – This is not the same as chanting (excerpt) (MP3) | Lasse Marhaug / Mark Wastell: Kiss of Acid (excerpt) (MP3) | Lionel Marchetti: La Grande Vallée (excerpt) (MP3)

Read Jeffrey Davison's placid and psychedelic folk picks of 2011 beneath the fold...

A Trio of Wonderful and Obscure 45's (MP3's)

Today, a handful of 45 RPM records from the fringes, a few favorites of mine that might become favorites of yours. I know nothing about the performers heard here, aside from the names on the labels, and in one case, there isn't even a name on the label.

First up, a boisterous offering from someone named Ken Colby. The playful piano, the oompah tuba, the sweet accordion, and the wordless la-la-la's from a chorus of kids, what's not to love about "Ragamuffin's Holiday". The Ragamuffins of of the title are replaced by Ken's "Music" for the flip side, an arrangement  reminiscent of "The Third Man Theme" with a Marlene Dietrich chaser, titled "Cafe of Blue Mirrors".

Ken Colby with the Ragamuffins - Ragamuffin's Holiday (MP3)

The Music of Ken Colby - Cafe of Blue Mirrors (MP3)

Ken Colby A-Side (JPG) - Ken Colby B-Side (JPG)

Next up, the fabulously named "Rune Overman", with an instrumental twist number titled "Smorgasbord", which we are helpfully advised should be called "Fryksdalsdansen" in Canada. This is a Swedish record which somehow ended up on a Chicago-based label, and it's an irresistable mover with a feel that reminds me a bit of Grynet Molvig's incomparably wonderful "Johan Pa Snippen Twist" which I featured a few years ago. The flip side, no slouch itself, is the slower groove of "Beatnick Walk".

Rune Overman - Smorgasbord (MP3)

Rune Overman - Beatnick Walk (MP3)

Rune Overman A-Side (JPG) - Rune Overman B-Side (JPG)

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

Joan La Barbara Performs Cage's "Solo for Voice 45" on "Tapesongs" (1977)

    35 years after its release, Tapesongs remains one of the most stunning albums in Joan La Barbara's discography. No mean feat, given that every album La Barbara has released stands as a powerful testament to the capabilities of the human voice as not only the "original instrument," as she asserts on another album, but also the best instrument.

    The most striking of the trio of pieces on Tapesongs is La Barbara's realization of John Cage's "Solo for Voice 45," from his Song Books. La Barbara had worked closely with Cage before and had performed and worked on portions of the piece before recording Tapesongs. For the album, La Barbara decided to record the entirety of the piece. She approached Cage with the idea of recording "Solo for Voice 45" in horizontal layers; he then worked with La Barbara to distribute the 18 pages of the score into 16 separate tracks. Each track was panned into 16 individual "pieces" across the stereo spectrum to maximize "spatial movement," as La Barbara writes in her own description of the piece.

Joan La Barbara, "Solo for Voice 45" (John Cage), "Tapesongs" (1977)

    "Solo for Voice 45" is a "classic" Cage piece, taking on a new form at each performance dictated by chance operations and the singer's interpretation of the piece. The piece's pitches were derived from star maps, with its organization dictated by chance operations, utilizing the I Ching. There are numeric instructions as to how and how many times the singer should sing each note, and, according to La Barbara, the groups of pitches, "Are to be sung as fast as possible in calligraphic strokes approximating the star configurations they represent." La Barbara used chance operations herself in order to determine which phrases were to be sung with the French pronunciation of the alphabet, and which were to be sung in the English pronunciation.

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 150

 

Give the Drummer Some's
Favorite Downloads from the MP3 Blogosphere

Here we are at Motherlode #150 and it doesn't feel a day over 100. Strange to think that when we started this weekly column, your ol' miner still lived in Brooklyn, and he still had a damn job. Surely by now he's adjusted to life in the Steel City, but if he could just get someone to pay him to scour 600+ music blogs for the best free music online, he'd be well on his way toward delivering another 150 weeks of sonic spelunkery.

No worries, friends. As long as there are sites where music is presented thoughtfully and with reverence—like the exceptional African music blog Worldservice (see our lead item, below)—producing this survey will continue to be as richly rewarding as it was back in January 2009. 

 

    
Alhaja Hassanah Waziri  ~  "Oghena Iruduna"
(Blog: Worldservice)

Smooth as Corduroy
"I am puzzled about the adjective used to describe the voice of Alhaja Hassanah Waziri. "Velvet"?? Unless it is meant as a clever alternative to "rough" or "rough-edged," I am at loss for the source of this label. Maybe it is a cultural thing."  (Description by Wrldserv, at Worldservice) 

Hear 10 Secs from Every Hit Song of the '90s

1990 | 1991 | 1992 | 1993 | 1994 | 1995 | 1996 | 1997 | 1998 | 1999

I watched part of The Crow last night (yeah, just part...we had to turn it off it was so bad) and was struck by how much of a solidified, historical aesthetic the '90s already has, just as much as the '80s or the '70s are a static time capsule of cultural silliness.  Yes, it was when I saw the faux-wet goth haircut of that "Craven" guy (real subtle name there, excellent foreshadowing) that I experienced the Proustian recollection and realized that I'm no longer "becoming a man", I'm just "a man".  The time of Jnco jeans and Darias is over.  And it was a simpler time, was it not?  No 9/11, no three simultaneous wars, no economic disaster and no Snooki.  Listen to these mp3s and pine for these more pastoral days of yore.  Read along with the clips here.

Find the rest of my "Ten Secs of _0s" column here, and listen to my radio show here.  Next up is the exciting conclusion...Every Top 100 song ever!  Plus I'll release the software I used to produce these chartsweeps along with a contest to showcase your supercut on my upcoming FMU marathon premium!

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 149

Give the Drummer Some's
Favorite Downloads from the MP3 Blogosphere

In addition to producing this weekly travelogue through Freemusicstan, I also wrassle a couple of other sonic obsessions: I run a 24-hour webstream/radio channel for WFMU called Give the Drummer Radio, and I host two weekly radio programs live on the stream, called Give the Drummer Some. (The show airs Tuesdays, 6 to 7pm and Fridays, 9am to noon, ET.)

In its default mode, the stream delivers a continuous flow of the sorts of sounds presented here in the Motherlode—unusual, wide-ranging, adventuresome, groovy. In addition to the queue of tracks, the stream also serves as a broadcast channel for radio programs produced by a regular crew of DJs. For a schedule of these shows and links to their playlists and archives, go here. To listen to the stream anytime, go here.

In the next two weeks two programs will be added the the GTDR schedule. Starting tomorrow and airing every Thursday, noon to 2pm, Charlie Lewis will revive his excellent show Busy Doing Nothing. Beginning  on January 20, and airing every Friday, noon to 1pm will be rebroadcasts of mix maestro Steinski's legendary show A Rough Mix, which first ran on WFMU back in the mid''90s!

For program alerts and other info, friend Give the Drummer Radio on Facebook and follow on Twitter at @GTDRadio.

    
Yoshiaki Fujikawa & EastAsia Orchestra  ~  "Shoyoh Jurin"
(Blog: Big in Japan)

Blowing in from the East
"Very rare original Japanese progressive, improvised free Jazz Avant record from 1984."  (Random description on a Popsike page)

"This is great, Doug! It sounds like a demented version of Masada or something."  (Comment left by "Ricardo Montalban" on the playlist for my January 6 radio show.)

Ray Price

Don't let that seemingly happy and carefree countenance in the photo above fool you, friends.  Ray Price isn't a happy man, at least not if you judge him by the long string of essential honky-tonk records he made in the 1950s and 60s.

Sure, a ton of great country music comes from a place of emotional despondency, but I don't think anyone ever devoted more time, energy and talent to gloriously mournful tales of grief-stricken losers in the game of love.  So regularly and convincingly has he visited this territory, in fact, that I feel confident in assuming that Ray would understand if I described him as looking at the world through morose-colored glasses.  But it's not just the fact that he comes across as a guy who's not happy unless he's miserable that makes his best records so great, it's also the fact that they were unbelievably well-written songs, expertly played and produced, and simply catchy as all get out.

If you're not familiar with the music, it seems only decent to provide at least one complete song, so here's as good an example as any, Heart Over Mind, which can be heard in its entirety.

Ray Price  -  Heart Over Mind  (2:42)

 

Steve and Eydie! The Andrews Sisters! Rudy Vallee! The Mills Brothers! Nat King Cole! And Frankie Avalon?? It's "The Golden Circle"!!! (Exploring My Reel-to-Reel Catacombs, Volume 24) (MP3's)

Mixed in with a dozen other as yet unlistened-to tapes I grabbed from the basement a month or so ago, I found one five inch reel which certainly stood out. It contained a recording of a TV show, which I've since learned aired in November of 1959, hosted by Steve Lawrence and Eydie Gorme, titled "The Golden Circle". This show does not appear to be readily available, as far as I can tell, online or in video collecting circles. It should be interesting to those who enjoy this era of music, but it's truly "Gold" due to one moment which occurs about halfway through.

The idea was to include performers whose work put them into the pantheon of greats - Music and musicians whose records have "Gone Gold", and have sold a million or more copies. And the line-up, for the most part, lives up to the billing:

The tape recordist missed the opening of the show, so the tape starts after the opening comments, and most of the way through a performance by The Andrews Sisters, who then (after a few comments from the host) do a medley of more of their hits. Steve Lawrence then does his Bing Crosby imitation, and he and the Andrews Sisters sing "South America, Take It Away", which also includes a lengthy band interlude. Then follows the first ad (all the ads are for Oster products, and all are unfortunately cut, to one degree or another).

The Golden Circle – Segment One (MP3)

The show returns, and Rudy Vallee shows up! He does a song and banters with the hosts (It's "Kookie, Dad!"), before performing his hit "Kitty From Kansas City" with Eydie and the backup singers. I love Vallee's early records, and it's sort of sad to hear him here, either unable to sing or choosing not to, and instead, talk-singing the lyrics. After the song, Steve indicates that the grandchildren of Rudy's fans are crazy over that Frankie Avalon, who steps onstage to sing his latest hit, "Venus".

THEN the fun begins! There is some goofy bantering about how Frankie needs to learn how to handle his money, which somehow leads into the unlikely event of the night: Rudy Vallee and Steve Lawrence dueting on Lloyd Price's then-recent hit song "Personality", with the lyrics indicated as advice, directed at Frankie Avalon!

The Golden Circle – Segment Two (MP3)

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

 

Chicago Zeuhl: Ga'an

Led by drummer Seth Sher, Ga'an has gone through a few line-up changes since its inception, but each change has propelled the evolution of their proggish/Zeuhl/Italian horror soundtrack sound. On their latest LP Black Equus, their vision is put into new focus with a fantastic production job not present on past releases- revealing the depth and epic nature of the minimal, intricate and slowly evolving compositions. Lindsey Powel's powerful yet etheral vocals float in and out of Tyson Torstensen's slippery bass and monumental synth work as Sher pushes everything into a ritualistic dance of death/life.

 

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 148

Give the Drummer Some's
Favorite Downloads from the MP3 Blogosphere

If I produced this weekly column for the glory, I might have quit a hundred motherlodes ago. Much like producing a radio show, music blogging largely involves serving up solitary epiphanies for mass consumption. Sure, it's sweet to get some appreciation reflected back, but if you're not doing it for the pure pleasure of sharing, you'll probably end up disappointed.

Every few weeks, it seems, another blogger threatens to quit over not getting enough comments on their posts. It's kind of a silly dance, really: Blogger gripes. Blogger gets a ton of rah-rah messages. Blogger relents. (This melodrama played out recently at the prolific Garage Punk 66—see here then here.) Occasionally, the host really does fold up the tent, but I'm guessing the reasons have more to do with the daily grind of maintaining a well-stocked site. Speaking of which, the wonderful Oufar Khan has recently stopped posting new material, but will graciously maintain the abundantly endowed archives. For a blast from the past check our lead-off item posted at Oufar Khan back in August 2010:

    
Norman Feels  ~  "Norman Feels" & "Where or When"
(Blog: Oufar Khan)

He Who Feels It, Knows It
"Mellow soul, sweeping strings, and sweet electric keys – a stone '70s classic from Norman Feels! The album's Norman's first (of two), and is a vastly under-recognized sweet gem–the kind of record that easily stands next to some of the best male sweet soul of the time .... More sweet soul with Norman Feels' second album, still for the Just Sunshine label, and still with this heavenly Marvin-like sound—sweeping timely strings, bubbling groove, delicate horns here and there, and touches of background vocals to enrich the whole thing."  (Descriptions by Greg, at Oufar Khan)

FUN Go! America! Celebrates New Jersey, on My Castle of Quiet, 12.18.2011

FUN—as I've come to know the Philadelphia-based combo, its sounds and membership, I realize how truly appropriate the name is for what they do. FUN are able to apply clever, inventive, fresh ideas to their improvised music-making, minus all the beard-stroking and pretentious, high-minded, music-conservatory-based conceptualization and back-patting that often accompanies similar activities.

For their FUN Go! America! tour, a 50-year project that involves one performance a year, each in a different state, on the very date that that state was inducted into the Union, FUN came to New Jersey on December 18th, to WFMU's Studio B, to render two unique, smartly conceived and individually distinct long-form improvisations. The concept of the tour alone is staggering, and relies upon FUN's members having access to interstate transportation, and living long enough, to execute the mass concept in its entirety.