WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Where's Neil?

I haven’t been to a movie in so long that I can’t remember the last one I went to. Borat, maybe? But last weekend Sluggo and I went with a friend to see W. Our friend hated it, but we thought it was okay. It wasn’t the serious documentary our friend apparently wanted it to be, and it wasn’t a point-at-the-monkey laugh riot either. I thought the music editing was brilliant, and I thought the complete absence of Neil Bush was bizarre. If all you knew about the Bush family came from this movie, you would not even know that Neil Bush exists, even though you would know about Marvin Bush, and who ever heard of him before? He never cost taxpayers $1 Billion by playing banker at the savings and loan.

I read in the Daily News that some white people may not vote for Barak Obama because they’re racists and don’t believe a black man is capable of straightening out the economy. But why not? It wasn’t black people who screwed it up. It was white Christian conservatives like George W. Bush who destroyed the entire world economy in just 8 years of unregulated “capitalism.” (And then, as soon as his white Christian conservative capitalist friends started losing money, he nationalized the banks.) It’s hard to see how a half-white Christian liberal could do any worse than that. And how come the Republicans have quit talking about how Sarah Palin’s husband is mixed-race? He’s, like, a quadra-mo or an Eski-roon or something. But you never hear about it anymore.

Today it came out that the Republican National Committee spent over $150,000 to make Palin and her family presentable for the campaign. I can’t believe they spent so much to put lipstick on that pig! They could have been using that money for Cindy McCain’s botox. Then there’s the investigation into how Palin fired the Alaska Public Safety Commissioner because he wouldn’t fire her estranged brother-in-law: The investigation committee determined that Palin had abused her power and broken ethics laws. So then she started announcing at all her rallies that she’s relieved to have been “cleared of all wrong-doing.” Somebody better tell the RNC to buy some more lipstick—they’ve got a lot to cover up.

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

The Pied Piper

Pssssst, Irwin... can you hear the sweet, sweet music? (RealAudio)

There's more than one false messiah out there.

The Charming, Grandfatherly Tenderness of Doyle Davidson (videos)

Pentecostal "mouthpiece of God" from Plano, Texas, Doyle Davidson.  Right out of a Norman Rockwell painting, isn't he?

This gentle and unassuming ol' boy triumphantly screams from the rooftops how much he loves his new wife, warmly offers kudos to a member of his congregation for that nice e-mail he sent and offers neighborly assistance to a younger congregant who looks as though he's getting ready to puke all over himself.  "The Devil and Doyle Davidson"?  Folks, the Devil is Doyle Davidson.   

MP3 Truffles: Minds Renewed

After a month long sojourn in rural New Jersey (holla, Freehold!), I'm back to the old blogamawhosits world, and frankly I'm feeling a little left behind. That internet moves fast, I tell ya, and you have to be on top of the latest meme or you'll seem, you know, UNcool. So I spent the whole day today catching up on blogs, news, sudden underground phenomenons, and sarcastic nasty commentaries - and finally I discovered what I've really been missing. THIS:

Speaking of minds renewed, how about that Sarah Palin, huh? I am really into her education platform, especially because it means that high school history lessons may be replaced by a tape of Hilton Sutton's "The U.S.A. In Prophecy". I think his reconstruction of the Great Depression alone may teach us about the root our current financial crisis.
Listen to: "I Will Destroy Them Economically", "World War 2", "Intellectualism"

If you subscribe to Sutton's revised history lesson, the most evil thing about the 70s wasn't Richard Nixon, but a young composer named Tom Wilson Weinberg. His album Gay Name Game was a direct product of the way-gay hey-day of the late 70s. His off-Broadway plays were a hit in Village, and he also wrote a little ditty called "Lesbian Seagull", which became legendary many years later as a meaningful moment for Beavis and Butthead (and Engelbert Humperdink). His second album, All-American Boy, is full of gay anthems - and an incredibly literal title track. If you like Tom's stylings, you can buy your own copy of the original vinyl recordings directly from the man himself. At only $5, how can you go wrong?  (via Waxidermy)
Work out to: "All American Boy"

If you really grooved to Hazy Osterwald Jet Set doing "Swinging London" on volume two of The In-Kraut compilations, then here's a real treat - a double album of his hits. While the trumpet sounds and composition of some songs will remind you of Mr. Acker Bilk, just stay tuned, as this album really does deliver a pounding dose of variety.
Listen to: "Tai-Weh", "New Mexico", "The Power of the Lord"
and possibly a lost Mel Brooks title: "Putz Den Schmutz Von Der Welt"

Follow the jump for some more lovely mp3 oddities from the past month or so.

The Inevitable Sophomore Slump After My Last Post

What to write about?  My bi-weekly dilemma.  What's on my mind?  Unemployment, mostly my own.  One can only stretch the term "freelance" so thin before one is actually just dicking around on Facebook all day.  What else?  This whole Sarah Palin thing.  And believe me, I hate that her name should even appear in one of my blog posts, forever tainting it.  I would never wear one of those "Not My President" buttons, as that would put Bush's vacuous mug square on my lapel every day.  Still, it's more than a little disconcerting that a doncha-know hockey-mom with a wild stare (see right) who's a Pentecostal and supports teaching religious-based alternatives to evolution could easily be our President within the next few years.  "Hurricane Sarah" herself has taken to the phrasing "Palin-McCain" rather than "McCain-Palin."  All signs seem to point to "this is not a person fit to run the country, should the President be unable to fulfill their duties."  It's even more distressing that, as America continues its descent into our own Dark Ages, after eight years of declining everything, about half of us seem to desire more of the same.  There are many who, much to my astonishment, seek (whether they realize it or not) the perpetuation of this roller coaster ride into financial, social and literal Armageddon.  I suppose they imagine that it will be they who are airlifted to heaven when The Rapture they so doggedly pursued finally arrives.  We are not simply in a dialog about which side of the political fence has more "haters," this is not some figurative discussion like "my dog's better than your dog" - ”this is the next four years of our lives at a very, very shaky time in this country's history, and how anyone with even the most meager observational powers could be more afraid of Barack Obama than the McCain/Palin ticket is hard to fathom.

Am I pleased about anything?  Sure.  I need my escapist pabulum too.  The original American big city, the city of brotherly love, finally has a great, brutally funny TV show, and has for several years - though not enough of you have been paying attention.  (You know you can TiVo On the Record w/Greta and watch it later.)  The FX comedy series, It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia, returned to the air for its fourth season on September 18.  The show centers on five amoral screw-ups, viciously self-serving individuals, capable of great self-debasement, who together run a dive bar in Philly.  It's a fluid ensemble piece that's like Seinfeld without money.  Seinfeld with hard drugs, trannies and cannibalism.  In fact, most episodes of Sunny are like a flaming ball of comedic chaos rolling down a very steep hill.  How a show that uses the word "bang" in almost every episode (as in "which one of us would you like to take you in the back and bang you?") can come across as consistently fresh and clever boggles the mind, but their formula is on a mighty roll.  Watch some of the promo clips on YouTube, since that's where you spend your life anyway.  I'll be watching every Thursday at 10 (the show is also repeated several times throughout the week.)  And yes, I'm a hater.  I hate Sarah Palin.  And football on TV.  And twins.

Related:  Take the Palin PBS poll and see the results.

If a hippie screams in the forest, does a tree hear it?

Someone tell the NY Times what their daily print run is doing to these people.

Winona Ryder, Half of Rose-Acuff, and Xmas in July Courtesy of Fear

Your eBay Auctionatrix hasn't retired.  I took a brief sabbatical so I could get the flu and move to a new apartment in a secret bunker beneath the Hudson River.  No, the two are not related.  Really.  Shut up.

Now I'm back and ready to hawk various collectible and interesting wares in an effort to separate you from your ill-earned cash, and to facilitate the delivery of that dirty money to the Freeform Station of the Nation.

I just posted three tasty tidbits to WFMU's auction page.  See here fer yerself.

Original Autographed Photo of Winona Ryder
Yay-uh!  This is a photo still from the 1991 Jim Jarmusch film Night On Earth.  In the background is an out-of-focus but still smokin' (literally, har har) Gena Rowlands.   Somehow,  we got our nicotine stained paws on this photo which was actually signed by Ms. Winona Ryder.  Holy crap, right? 

It looks like she signed it with one of those fine point black Sharpie markers.  Good choice!  (When I get all famous and stuff, I'll make sure to carry one of those around with me, too.)

Fred Rose 78rpm Record
"Don't Feel Sorry For Me" b/w "No One Will Ever Know"  This record, a special radio pressing, was released on the Columbia label.

Aw c'mon, you know Fred Rose.  He co-wrote some of the finest popular and country music classics of the 1940s with his writing partner, Roy Acuff.  Sometimes Mr. Rose wrote under the nom de plume "Floyd Jenkins," as he did for the B-side of this rekkid.

Fred Rose also wrote, with Hank Williams, some of Mr. Williams' finest and most popular songs. 

Rose is a charter member of the Country Music Hall of Fame, he is in the Nashville Songwriter's Hall of Fame, and the Songwriter's Hall of Fame.  Nice credentials!

Fuck Christmas in July with Fear
Hey Beef Baloney, there's too many of us so let's start a war with more beer.

L.A.'s finest with their ode to America's Favorite Holiday.  This very collectible 45rpm record features an unclean side entitled "*uck Christmas" and a clean side, "(Beep) Christmas" so you have something to play for the kiddies.   It comes in the original paper sleeve with the beloved stamp on it.

Yes, it's the original issue on Slash Records.  Don't venture your way to the latter half of 2008 without it.  That is, if you are the lucky highest bidder.  Act now.  Operators are standing by.

We can start a New Jersey!

My First Funeral

I could not stop gaping at the figure in the casket not moving.  The most unsettling and uncomfortable moment in my entire life.  When you’ve never been to a funeral in your entire life, either, things like "Cavemen" are no longer unsettling the way they were supposed to be before. This wasn’t Christmas Day of '79 when I was six and wouldn’t have thought anything of Grandpa Fred not waking up because he didn’t want to wake up. This is June 9, 2008, I'm 34 and gasping blankly because I can't think of anything else except somebody not waking up because they can't.  I met my wife Angie's mom Carole no more than four times but they were four cool times.  Enough that I would feel genuinely choked up when I viewed her again before the funeral.    For one thing, she was real. If she didn’t like you she was not going to sugarcoat it.  She would, in fact, wield her dislike for you straight to your face.  If she liked you she wouldn't say "Oh, it is such a great pleasure to meet you!" but you'd know if she liked you.  But she did her absolute best and raised a terrific daughter.

Nature Slaughter Scenes

So I'm not a frequent blogger, but was feeling it was time for a post...sometimes it comes to me, sometimes it doesn't. Up to the other day, it hadn't. I was in the middle of my program last Thursday, playing a piece by the Squirm Orchestra called "Nature Slaughter Scenes" and BAM!! It hit me. But I'll give you some info on the catalyst before I go into another horrific story of something else I've seen in my life that was mortifying, and I just happened to be there - don't get that reference? Check a past blog post here. Squirm Orchestra are from the Indiana/Michigan area, are a sextet, whose improv electro hand-sewn cd: Somersaults Inside Ourselves is in the WFMU new bin right now. It's finely crafted both visually and aurally; nice! OK, now for the bloody stuff, goody!

MP3 Truffles: If You Want My Potty

Before we get to this month's MP3 finds, I need to tell you all about something terrible that is happening in Colorado right now:
Cross dressers are invading the public restrooms!!! Protect the children!!!
Well, at least, that's exactly what Focus on the Family suggests in their newest PSA.

Seriously, the proposed bill is just a simple anti-discrimination act (pdf of the bill) that updates all the basic rights so that they also apply to *gasp* sexual orientation. It has absolutely nothing to do with letting people use whatever toilet they feel like, unless you very literally read "Places of Public Accommodation" to mean the shitter and not, you know, the legal definition which refers to hotels, restaurants, stores, and other public places. The religious conservatives threw a fit trying to tilt this into something way weirder than it was. And they failed, as the bill passed and was signed into law.

Music for Maniacs responds to this lunacy in the only logical manner: with a tribute to Ed Wood.

And now for some science. You may have heard Komar and Melamid & Dave Soldier's "Most Unwanted Song", a lab experiment/artistic collaboration in music, a few times on WFMU. The project has been around since 1997, but this April, Wired billed it as the most annoying song ever. Hardly.  Unwanted is way more interesting than that: a 27 minute piece featuring the most unpopular elements in musical history, including bagpipes, children, political jingoism, bossanova synths, tubas and opera rap. Heck, it almost sounds like a lost Nurse With Wound album. But far from annoying. I reserve that distinction for the Celine Dion boat song.
Listen to: The Most Unwanted Song (Real Audio archive link). This is just a taste, and you can find the whole thing on CD.
From the same project, also check out The Most Wanted Song (Real Audio archive link)
Listen to: The Most Annoying Song - Yamaha Electrone HX-1 version (via)

Space girls, Bo Diddley, Merv, the Letter People, and more of this week's MP3 finds after the jump.

The Way We Were

Does this mean he's a revisionist?

The Company We Keep?

Get out and vote, New Jersey!

Somewhere in charming Central Jersey, the driver of a mysterious white SUV casts his vote for Lautenberg challenger Rob Andrews, a referendum on Christ in Christmas, and WFMU.

In a better world, or maybe just a better head, I would not be struck by WFMU sharing bumper space with The Good Lord.  But I was struck.  Start casting 'em, mofos.

audio:
The Christian Con Man (Lee Edwards, mp3) || Jesus, He Loves LSD + Me  (Adult Rodeo, mp3) || Billy "Jersey" Jam (realaudio stream)

photo credit: Maria Stanko
central Jersey in a nutshell credit: Mike Lupica
preemptive defensive measure: you're right, it does look like the K of C sticker was photoshopped on there.  It wasn't.  You have my word.  That shadow does make me wonder what the owner of this SUV removed to make room for Christ, in Christmas, on his bumper.

The Human League (video, mp3)

According to Wikipedia, the original Human League was an "avant-garde all male synthesizer-based group from Sheffield". Johnny Rotten called them "trendy hippies" when their debut single "Being Boiled" appeared in 1978. In 1980, the original synthesizer players Martyn Ware and Ian Craig Marsh left the group to form Heaven 17, and instead of playing trendy all male hippie avant-garde, The Human League suddenly made commercially successful co-ed electro pop with a fashion sense. They did not abandon the synthesizers, though, and they were still a band from Sheffield.

Here is the original line-up covering Lou Reed's song "Perfect Day", visually accompanied by some band photos so you don't have to stare at the wall.

The YouTube link is here. I really love the original Human League, so as a bonus here is another rarity, a Peel Session recording from August 1978: Being Boiled (MP3). The only ever protest song against the mistreatment of silkworms...

Three-Way Phone Call from God (MP3)

Jerry Jordan -- Phone Call From God (13 MB mp3)
Ray Reeves -- A Phone Call From God (14 MB mp3)

God works in mysterious ways, and here's a pair of MP3s showing one of his strangest: a Christian comedy routine about an average Joe getting a phone call from The Man Upstairs. Although the concept sounds like it might be a Christian version of Bob Newhart stand-up, it's not exactly chock full of yuks (the high point is when the feller recalls what he said when he got his thumb caught in the linen closet, a joke which the canned laughter finds extremely amusing).

What struck me most about these two versions of the same routine is that they're almost exactly the same. The pacing is slightly different between the two, but Jerry Jordan and Ray Reeves deliver EXACTLY the same monologue, as if they're reading from the same script. To prove my point, here's a stereo mix of the two versions (13 MB mp3), with the recordings pretty much synced up throughout. It's sort of like a Christian version of Claude and Clyde, the McBeeBee twins from old Bob & Ray shows (if you remember them, and being WFMU listeners there's a good chance that you do).

Unbelievable Believers: Christian Song Demos

A few weeks ago, the always reliable Music For Maniacs posted a few tracks of demos from hopeful Christian artists. After the "Safe Sex Is Just a Fantasy Rap" quickly shot up to the top of my current favorites list, I decided to delve a little further and so headed over to the site where they were originally found, Those Unbelievable Believers: The Blessed Sounds of Incredible Christian Song Demos.

Within this site lay a treasure trove of religious amateur recordings (or B.S. - blessed sounds), from earnest country croonings, to Eagles songs reinterpreted, to professors proclaiming their faith, to kiddie Jesus raps, to some absolutely completely insane ramblings. All of these were lovingly compiled with hilariously sacrilegious commentary by one "Doc" (aka Deuce of Clubs). As an example of what to expect, here is Doc's handy chart of gospel demo song structure:

A) Beginning
    B) Middle
    B) Some more middle
        C) Conclusion
A) And . . . back to the beginning
    B) Middle, middle, middle
    B) More middle until you almost can't believe it, then:
        C) Conclusion . . . or:
    B) More middle—it gets hard to tell
    B) Definitely more middle stuff here, finally shading to either
A) A New Beginning . . . or:
        C) [Missing conclusion].

Follow the jump for 22 tracks of Christian demo madness!

Yogi Bear Abducted My Children!

Once nice thing about living in Brooklyn is that you're never quite sure what happen as you as you open the door in the morning. This is what greeted me earlier this week, and made me feel like I was living inside a certain terrifying kiddie film:

Is it really okay to bribe kids with cotton candy, fake superheros, hip hop, and a Sunday school that meets on Saturday? Should I have called the authorities? I also found it odd that they didn't mention the Christian religious aspect (the school is run by Bushwick-based Metro Ministries), and that they were trolling my mostly Hasidic neighborhood (Crown Heights).

Actually being at this school may be even more surreal, as it is the nation's biggest Bible Day Camp. Here's a sample of what goes on: jumpin' Jesus!

White Mic Fever!

The Inflatable Church

 

This is so moronic but, then again, so endearing to my implacable love of kitsch.  You and your boo can now get hitched in an inflatable church.  Perfect for those English, Belgian, Dutch and Spanish couples who won't be celebrating Earth Month and assembled by the European promotional structure manufacturers Innovations Xtreme Inflatables, this monstrosity is also a 2004 Guinness Book inductee for being (according to the incredibly vague search engine synopsis) "...the world's largest inflatable church in the world".  The damn organ is even inflated and they airbrushed the stained glass windows.  Could lazy be any more as lazy does? 

Like a Sect Machine: Warren Jeffs, Singer/Songwriter

Warren Jeffs, imprisoned "President and Prophet, Seer and Revelator" of the polygamy-prone FLDS Church, must be verklempt over all the baby moms dramz going down at his Yearning For Zion compound in Eldorado, TX.

Yet despite his conviction as an accomplice to rape (not to mention that crazy connubial bed his sect kept in the YFZ temple), Jeffs still knows that the way to a pastel pinafored child bride's soul is through song. Who wouldn't wanna "keep sweet" after hearing the lilting refrains of....

"Yearning For Zion" by Warren Jeffs (MP3)

(Many thanks to Joey Gardner!)

Yearning For Big Love

As a fan of the HBO show Big Love - about an LDS (Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints) splinter-group member with three wives - I was heartened to see the news this week of the government raid of a polygamist compound in West Texas. Why "heartened", you wonder? Because I have no idea when the show's coming back and the news coming out of the Yearning For Zion compound (Investigators determined that there is a widespread pattern and practice of the ranch in which young, minor female residents are conditioned to expect and accept sexual activity with adult men at the ranch upon being spiritually married to them...) should hold me over until Harry Dean Stanton once again dons the creepy mantle of Roman Grant, patriarch of the fictional Yearning For Zion ranch, Juniper Creek.