WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Vinyl Finds: Mag & The Suspects - Erection/Thousands Dead (12" Maxi, 1981)

Steve M.'s house was the party house.  Through Steve and his sister J., a wildly diverse collection of disenfranchised suburban teens and twentysomethings had gathered there, some from "broken" homes, some runaways, some kicked out—others just looking for a good place to party.  This was our pre-River's Edge River's Edge, and though we never covered up a murder, we did just about everything else.  I lost my virginity under the big tree in Steve's backyard.  There were empty Budweiser cans and overflowing ashtrays all over the house, and for a while there was an "orgy room" set up in the attic (which was only moderately successful.)  I once hid in a closet in Steve's house to escape an ass kicking from a bikeless biker (for some reason, a breed so prevalent in N.J.) whose girlfriend I had slept with; I'd seen what he had done to a guy who owed him 10 bucks and I wasn't having any of it.

The inner sanctum of the house was Steve's bedroom on the second floor.  There he held court, and though the door was often locked and I wasn't always allowed in, I did eventually spend a lot of time in there, talking to Steve, who as we spoke would dole out samplings of the main feature of his room:  a staggering collection of several thousand LPs lining the walls, mostly acquired at garage sales and flea markets.  I was exposed to records like Ataraxia - The Unexplained, several years before I came to WFMU and found out who Mort Garson was.

One of the most dazzling chips off of Steve's monolithic collection was this 12" single by Mag & The Suspects, released by the very major London label in 1981, and clearly the label's singular stab at Rough Trade-style arty post-punk.  Both sides are absolutely killer, one an erotic recitation over minimalist thump, the other a deceptively carnivalesque commentary on how TV alienates us from global suffering.  This single should be at least as revered as The Normal's one-off classic "T.V.O.D./Warm Leatherette".  Right now, you can't imagine yourself humming the phrases "burning corpses are missing" or "soon, it's gonna get in, real hard" over and over, but just you wait, wait and listen.

Mag & co. released only these two songs in several formats and have virtually no Web presence.  Any biographical or "where are they now?"-style information on the band would be greatly appreciated (though to me, the record screams L.A., and would sit comfortably amongst the Posh Boy discography.)  I have never seen this record since; these mp3s are ripped from a cassette dub of Steve's vinyl.

Mag & The Suspects - "Erection"
Mag & The Suspects - "Thousands Dead"

Rock out with your whatever out

When it comes to guitars, I'm what you would call a "looker", as in I Like To Look, and "Looky, what a cool guitar". When I get the gumption once a few decades, I might even spring for one, which is what I did just yesterday for a bass. I'm not gonna talk about the bass because then it'll get ugly with me and you guitar enthusiast types out there. Yeah, if I had $2500 I'd get a Rickenbacker bass, which would mean I probably had another $2500 somewhere and I'd have to have two Rics then. Well, I don't have that kind of scratch so I got something new but affordable. In my travels around the internet browsing and gazing at guitars recently though, the proliferation of the Girly Guitar has officially saturated the Guitar Dewd Marts around the country. With brands like Luna, Daisy Rock, and the Les Paul Goddess the ladies now have the option of specially-sized and brightly colored axes to play. This apparently now raises new dialogue about our die-hard perceptions of The Rocker and the esthetic of the guitar to the body.

Reading in Someone Else's Voice

If you're like me, you hear voices when you read.  If you're familiar with the author and his or her tone, you hear a familiar voice; if not, or if the piece is anonymous, the right voice gradually develops - and it is most definitely an audible sensation.  So it can really fuck you up when you think you're reading one person's words but you're actually reading another's.  I had just such an unsettling experience earlier this week while reading this blog recap of Billy Jam's excellent live-at-the-Knitting Factory radio show from May 23rd.  I made the mistake (which I often do) of looking to see who posted it before reading it.  Liz Berg posted it, so I heard Liz Berg's authorial voice as I read it.  I missed the crucial "Billy Jam says:" way up at the top of the thing.  Hearing Billy Jam's words in Liz Berg's voice (and not knowing it), I actually felt a bit of planetary shift in my confusion - it was just all wrong!  Sure, there are probably greater distances than the one between Billy's and Liz's blogging / speaking / writing styles, but theirs still packs a disorienting wallop.  The closest comparable experience I can think of is a bad acid trip in the company of a couple who're fighting, to a soundtrack of "The Above Ground Sound of Jake Holmes".  Been there, brothers and sisters - great music, nice people, baaad trip!

Or I can share the experience.  Jump the flip to enjoy four very distinct New York newspapers reviewing one egregiously New York-identifying movie with legs as unbreakable as the presidential campaign of one New York senator.  All four reviews appear (in excerpted form) anonymously, so as to maximize your potential to confuse, say, New York for the New Yorker, or the News for the Post.  (The Times chose to remain above it all, natch.)

I hate people who use "natch" in conversation - if there's an "ersatz" to follow, then I declare this post hijacked!

Vinyl Finds: Merzbow Singles

Why do I love Merzbow's music?  Total, uncompromising sensory envelopment.  The sheer aural bombardment and crafty sonic layering of Masami Akita's finest recordings seek and destroy in the darkest corners of my psyche, wiping clean my floating anxieties and pettiest earthbound concerns.  There's simply no room left for bad thoughts.  While many a listener is sure to find this music to be one long bad thought, I (and I suspect a great many others*) find sanctuary in the bleeps, crashes, blasts and buzzes—the explosion of sound that is Merzbow.

As promised in my last post, here are some of my Merzbow singles, not all of them (apologies to those expecting the mother lode; much of my vinyl sits in storage) but the essential two I keep at the ready to listen to any time.  Masami Akita has typically demonstrated a reverence for the 7" format (especially considering his style of not-necessarily-singles-ready music) such that both of these discs are zingers that make the most of the allotted space/time.  That said, one of the singles, SCUM - Steel Cum is available as disc 35 of the Merzbox** in a presumably full, expanded form, broken out into individual tracks.  Personally, I prefer the condensed wallop of this 7".  The other, Music for 'The Dead Man 2: Return of the Dead Man' has never been digitally reissued anywhere.  Curiously, when preparing this post, I realized that both discs were release number 7 for their respective labels, and that both are pressed on see-through bright yellow vinyl.

SCUM - Steel Cum (Vertical 1991)
Side A
Side B

Music for 'The Dead Man 2: Return of the Dead Man' (Robot 1994)
Side A (Fire; Burning Building of Waco, Texas; Taxi in the Car Wash)
Side B (The Beach)

(Be careful when clicking on the thumbnails of the sleeve artwork; some images are nsfw.)
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*Just take a look at this list from OkCupid.com of "Singles Interested in Merzbow."  Quite impressive, as never once in my single years did I consider my interest in Merzbow a potential springboard to dating.

**Incidentally, Merzbox 37 is Newark Hellfire - Live On WFMU, 1990.

Hoppe-hoppe Reiter! Improved Sound Ltd. mp3s

You know the feeling.  You stumble on a local yard / stoop sale that features a lot of tasteless glassware and sweatshirts, ancient kids' toys and one thin box of records seemingly dominated by James Last and Chicago records.  That feeling is despair.  But you pulled over, so you might as well get your fingers dusty.  Then you spot an inexplicable cover featuring the upper quarters of a Gérard Depardieu lookalike being ridden, hobbyhorse-style, by a mostly naked angel-winged nymph.  Hope creeps in.  You ask how much - the answer: a dime.  Turning it over, you spot song titles such as "Leave This Lesbian World", "Don't Know Baby If You Are Safe" and "Hit'em In The Face", mismatched with the frumpiest looking set of anti-rock stars Bavaria could cough up.  Yes yes, that despair has now flipped itself into a feeling indescribable yet holy and life-giving.  If you know, you know.  If you don't, well... it's like I said to Terre T during one of my insufferable attempts to justify my coffee-snobbery: "it's like trying to explain WFMU to your grandmother".

What this thing is is the soundtrack to one of those arty lite-porn German offerings from the late-60's (1969, precisely), written and performed entirely by the band IMPROVED SOUND Ltd.  The title is "Engelchen macht weiter hoppe-hoppe Reiter" (buy it here).  You want the plot?  Here's a Google translation, courtesy listener Freddy:

"Gustl seller leads a harmonious marriage with Helene, in which sexual life is not too short.  From the time Sexrummel infected, he would like to see a sex party to organize.  Because it echoes Mitmacher not a lack of potential, a date for the orgy reported, but since Gustl gets under suspicion, to have smallpox, he must away from the big event. When thinking about his Helene because without him so everything could drive, it packs the jealousy ..."

Jump the flip for mp3s, the full cover (of which the above is a zoom), some links, and a little more info.

Gene Simmons Knows From Prostitution

On July 8, the new book by New York Times bestselling author Gene Simmons will be released by Phoenix Books. Ladies of the Night: A Historical and Personal Perspective of the Oldest Profession in the World, is Gene's take on doing it for pay. Given that money and sex are his two fave subjects (and given that he's been talking about writing it forever), the book shouldn't be too big a surprise. The press release promises an "entirely new take on a traditionally taboo topic (which) promises to spark debate."

It's hard to really argue that it's such a taboo subject, but the book will no doubt be huge, if only because Gene will devote himself to endlessly telling the world how huge it is. And to say Gene is an expert on the subject is hardly a stretch. He's the brains behind what's easily the most merchandised band in rock history, and has never made bones about his whorishness.

My Secret Garden (the weird alienated one)

I sometimes hear guys talking about how mystified they are by choices women make when it comes to a hetero partner. Frankly, even as a broad, I can offer little insight into what goes on in the minds of women myself. I just know that girls start a hell of alot earlier than you may have been led to believe when it comes to creating a sexual inner life. Add to that mix the fact that most boys find girls icky until they are almost thirteen and you've got yourself the first giant chasm in the gender gap.
As early as the age of four back in the late sixties/early seventies my preoccupation with and crushes on celebrities were a mental tsunami drowning the village of my own potential. Worse was the fact that my crushes were on personalities so incredibly unsexy to other young girls who dreamt about the classic version of Prince Charming that I could not even share during girltalk, leaving me left out of that whole female bonding thing. The endurance of each of my manias made Wuthering Heights look like a Peanuts cartoon. Meanwhile other girls flipped their crushes as quickly as they thumbed through the latest Tiger Beat. Similarly when other little girls collected 45s, I sat transfixed with my LPs stacked on the return arm of the stereo.                                                                                                            
For the sake of some (any) logic, I've lumped my pre-teen loves into three different categories. Mind you, some of the celebrities are literally shoe-horned into these groups but I'm trying make things easier for you people. Anyhoo, there are "The Nice Jewish Boys", "The Pan-Sexuals" and "The Feel Funnys".
In the first category, I give you Barry Gordon From A Thousand Clowns, one of the more influential films for me as a kid. I guess I related to Barry's geekiness. He plays Larry David's Rabbi now on Curb Your Enthusiasm. Then there's Wes Stern. You might remember him from Getting Together with that douchey Bobby Sherman, and also The Mary Tyler Moore Show, where he played Lou Grant's nephew who wanted to lose his virginity to Mary. Later I think he grew up, changed character and did it with Brenda Morgenstern on Rhoda. Scott Jacoby was the Nice Jewish Boy who played Bad Ronald, one of the greatest '70s TV-movies ever. There's quite a bit of Scott up on youtube and I still think he was pretty hot back then.
Inevitably, we come to Gene Wilder in this first group. When I finally did get a friend by the sixth grade, she and I fought over who was going to marry him first. I really resented her for this. Can I just say a million dorky girls like me were really really happy when he married Gilda Radner because we actually could relate to her just a little bit more than say, Farrah Fawcett-Majors? 

Enough already

Spitzer went to prostitutes, and McGreevey had threesomes with his driver, and Paterson had affairs and did coke, and NOW we find out Bush is into furries.

You'll Never Look at Breakfast the Same Way Again

The clip after the jump may be the most hilariously disturbing thing I have ever seen. A friend slipped this scene quietly onto a video he made for me and it changed my life forever. I have shown this video to everyone who I can force to watch it and the reaction has always been the same - beautiful howling horrors.

Enjoy! (NSFW *porn* after jump!!!)

My Favorite Movies I Won't Ever Watch

The cinematography in this music video reminds me of those weird interludes between Kids In The Hall sketches.  Shadowy Men On A Shadowy Planet did to the latter what fellow Canadians Fifth Column do to the former.  By vaguer association, I can't help thinking of a newish Blank Dogs video I recently saw.  At any rate, here's Fifth Column's video for "Like This".

I dig the yo-yo cut up stuff two minutes into the video.  Does anybody have 1985's out of print Fifth Column At The Funnel movie?  Post clips on youtube or contact me or something please!  Drawing in large part from the above music video's director, Bruce LaBruce, Fifth Column drummer, guitarist and vocalist GB Jones went on to direct a couple of movies herself.  Below you'll find trailers from Jones' films and the trailer to Bruce LaBruce's new "melancholy gay zombie" film...

Fake Beach Boys (videos)

For the first forty seconds you be may be turned off by this tone-deaf frog's croaking, but then the good vibrations start happening…

None other than Montreal’s Aut’Chose are responsible for ‘Sexe-Fiction’, a brilliant slice of sexpropriation from the fairly solid 1975 album Une Nuit Comme Une Autre.  The band did a more conventional cover too, which was released a bit earlier on a single.  Check out mp3 samples and words you might understand at the website as well as another video clip from the same concert.

Influenced in particular by Jim Morrison, singer Lucien Francoeur has had quite a bit of poetry published over the years; a few english translations are available.  But whereas Morrison croaked in ’71, this rock and roll frog (mp3)…how shall I put it…evolved as an artist.  Here’s the video for Francoeur’s 1983 solo hit ‘Rap A Billy’.

No Ifs, Ands, or Butts

Pardon me, by "Butts" I meant "Lady Butts."

The FCC recently fined ABC affiliates a total of $1.4 million for airing images of a lady's butt on broadcast TV. This particular 2003 episode of NYPD Blue wasn't the first time a naked butt was broadcast to the American public, but it may have been the first time that a pretty lady's naked butt was shown. You can watch the 42 sec lady butt scene in question, and mull over the inherent sexuality in Charlotte Ross' posterior. Then put your brain on rewind, and drum up some images of NYPD Blue's Dennis Franz, whose naked man butt was broadcast to America nearly 14 years ago without inspiring the FCC to fine anyone. Does his butt not possess a similar sexual potential?

We're dwelling on the sexuality of butts here because the FCC's rationale for last week's belated fine was that the NYPD Blue scene in question depicted "sexual organs," namely the buttocks. Sure, lady butts could be used sexually (we recommend buying us a drink before you breach that subject, cowboy), but in this particular scene, Charlotte Ross' butt was not engaged in any sexual activity. In fact, I would characterize it as a non-sexual butt, since the FCC once made a distinction between sexual and non-sexual uses of the word fuck. Contrary to this, the FCC mysteriously maintains that Charlotte Ross' butt is sexual, despite it not being involved in any sexing. Feds, pray tell: when is a butt merely a butt?

If a non-sexual lady butt is against the rules, but a non-sexual man butt aired nearly a decade earlier is ok, what does it all mean for the cartoon butts of today?

 

Follow this link for more FCC hijinks.

Photo via

John Ford Box Set is NOT Genital Warts And All.

When I saw the humongous saddle sized John Ford Box set on the floor of the office next door, I was seized by swag envy. "Ford At Fox" (link) is a 12 pound 299 dollar 21 disc box set collecting 24 films by one of the greatest directors of them all: John Ford. This is a very impressive collection - and a few of the old silents are making their DVD debut (from new restored prints too!). I am sure the photo book is beautiful as well. To keep my jealous rage in check I scanned the dark corners of the internets and discovered to my delight that 23 of the films are readily available, as well as some of the films that should be included in any box this size: The Black Watch, Men Without Women. But It is great to see the films Ford made during World War II included in this release (especially since both Ford and Fox Studio Boss Darryl F. Zanuck signed up for service)  but wait! If you want these films you need to buy the stand alone version of the documentary Becoming John Ford (link) (in the big box) to get the films The Battle Of Midway, December 7th, and Torpedo Squadron (not in the big box). 

BUT what is missing from all of the hoopla is a WWII era training film John Ford made with Otto Brower : Sex Hygiene (link) This is abstinence education 1942 style - Sexual Shock and Awe to remind the troops that screwing only leads to disfigured genitals - even today this film can inspire celibacy. You can watch this formerly classified movie on the Internet Archive (link) without spending a cent, or you can watch it right here and right now:

 

The Fetid Corpulence of Brian K. Jones

Brian K. Jones' paintings of fat men culled from the Craigslist classifieds are strangely alluring. I usually find that source material of this nature trumps any “artistic” copy because of the incredible difficulty in conveying the dense but subtle narratives of the originals. Jones seemingly started this project for shits and giggles (some of the paintings come off as one-note fat man jokes) but somewhere along the line he hit a painterly stride where he began to enjoy rendering the mounds and folds of flesh in a manner not unlike Jenny Saville albeit in a much (appropriately) cruder manner.

Name That Photo

Not to rip off Liz B's awesome caption contests, but this was just too amazing not to share.

See the actual title of the photo after the jump.   

The Lead & How To Swing It

Who doesn't like scrawny rockers in tighties. But wait a second, who is that after the jump (NSFW)?

365 Days #335 - National Safety Council Records (mp3s)

Six scratchy pop-filled 33 1/3 rpm records (to accompany a filmstrip or slides?) from the National Safety Council (in collaboration with the United States Department of Labor on 5 of the discs) from well over 50 years ago.

Open for Infection - Part 1 (8:24)
Open for Infection - Part 2 (7:31)
Image: Open for Infection

Follow The Leader - Part 1 (9:14)
Follow The Leader - Part 2 (9:34)
Image: Follow The Leader

Right Dress - Part 1 (10:23)
Right Dress - Part 2 (10:28)
Image: Right Dress

Principles and Interest - Part 1 (10:03)
Principles and Interest - Part 2 (8:53)
Image: Principles and Interest

Stop, Look and Listen - Part 1 (8:29)
Stop, Look and Listen - Part 2 (7:54)
Image: Stop, Look and Listen

Production with Safety - Part 1 (8:50)
Production with Safety - Part 2 (7:53)
Image: Production with Safety

Picked up the lot at a second hand furniture store in Oakland, California in 2005. The shopkeeper pointed to me a corner of broken down tables and chairs and cabinets that were free and on the way out the door. I took a look figuring I could always use something (or possibly restore something). It was all trash, but... looking inside a small side table cabinet I saw a box in the far back. I pulled it out and dusted it off and looked inside and there they were, these 6 records. No paper sleeves, just the vinyl and layers of dust about them. I asked the store owner how much and (bless her heart) she let me have them for free. So here they are. For two years they have been collecting dust at my home so it's about time they got shared, for everyone's safety.

- Contributed by: Otis Fodder

365 Days #314 - Pent-R-Books, Inc. - Sexual Pleasures (mp3s)

MP3:
01 Sexual Pleasures - Intro (2:18)
02 Sexual Pleasures - The Vagina (6:36)
03 Sexual Pleasures - The Breast (3:05)
04 Sexual Pleasures - The Buttocks and Anus (3:18)
05 Sexual Pleasures - Douches (2:12)
06 Sexual Pleasures - Personal Hygiene (2:27)
07 Sexual Pleasures - Menstruation (2:39)
08 Sexual Pleasures - Contraception (2:21)
09 Sexual Pleasures - Hair (2:15)
10 Sexual Pleasures - Masturbation (3:10)
11 Sexual Pleasures - Masturbation (continued) (0:58)

Here's another record in the Pent-R-Books' "Film Documentary Series".  This recording precedes "Sexual Adventures In Marriage" (featured on July 16, 2007) by a year. Check out the previous post as it has some background information on Pent-R-Books. If you need some photographic material to go along with the Pent-R-Books audio, looks like you can snag "The Photographic Manual Of Sexual Intercourse" right here!

What else?  What can I say. What more can be said... except, have fun listening!

- Contributed by: Sid Safari

365 Days #307 - Picking Up Girls Made Easy! (mp3s)

Hey there fella! Ready to make that move, but a bit shy, eh? Have no fear, picking up girls is here! Yes, in no time you too can be swarmy, gross and be that odd duck out in a social setting. Taught by super lady master Eric "you come here often" Weber circa 1975!

Check out the amazing blog Scar Stuff for more on Weber + a scan of an ad for this album and thanks to Hyde Park Records for the front and back cover images! In 2003 on 365 the Women's Clothing Store Pick Up was featured, but now you can get your groove on with the whole album (which by the way has been file shared and posted to blogs but this way it will have a permanent resting home at WFMU and UBUWEB.

And now... start seducing...

The Street Pick Up (6:00)
Love In The Library (5:11)
Single's Bar Action (6:12)
Women's Clothing Store Pick Up (6:39)
The Ballet Is A Ball (4:08)
Museum Pick Up (5:42)
Walking The Dog (5:53)
Pick Up At The Beach (5:46)

BUT HOLD ON... before you go tearing out there on these 'exercises' i'd like to share the following public service announcements from the Seventh Day Adventist Church with you...

Sexually Transmitted Diseases? (0:30)
Sexually Transmitted Diseases?? (0:30)
Sexually Transmitted Diseases??? (0:57)
Sexually Transmitted Diseases???? (1:00)
Sexually Transmitted Diseases????? (0:31)
Sexually Transmitted Diseases?????? (0:31)
Sexually Transmitted Diseases??????? (0:31)
Sexually Transmitted Diseases???????? (0:59)
Sexually Transmitted Diseases????????? (1:00)

Now who's up to performing one of the Picking Up skits in public, video it, and send it to us so we can post it to the blog?

- Contributed by: Sid Safari

365 Days #286 - Terri "Cup Cake" O'Mason - Stag Party Special #4 (mp3s)

MP3:
Side One:
01. Introduction/Des Moines (4:35)
02. Limericks 1 (0:26)
03. Mother (1:38)
04. Limericks 2 (0:26)
05. Men, One to A Hundred (2:09)
06. Limericks 3 (0:27)
07. Love Is A Wonderful Thing (2:33)
08. Limericks 4 (0:25)
09. Vitamins (3:01)
Side Two:
10. Introduction/Relax (4:12)
11. Limericks 5 (0:23)
12. The Love Affair (1:39)
13. Limericks 6 (0:25)
14. Have A Good Time (3:09)
15. Limericks 7 (0:24)
16. Triangle (1:31)
17. Limericks 8 (0:21)
18. Mademoiselle (5:15)

Fans of the 2003 365 Days Project may remember a charming song called "Cupcakes" sung by Miss Terri "Cup Cake" O'Mason. Miss O'Mason was a burlesque performer who signed a contract in 1960 with Fax Records to record for their "Stag Party Special" series of LPs. And where "Cupcakes" (from Stag Party Special Number 2) is a mere taste of her unique talents, here's a full on dessert; "Stag Party Special Number 4; 'Back for Seconds' ". The back cover proclaims, "She's back again, brighter, better, more daringly naughty than before." And from the sound of it, drunker as well.

This is an audio experience soaked in gin and smelling of smoke and Old Spice. Terri sings bawdy songs, recites bawdy limericks and tosses off bawdy words like "made", "piece", "tail" and "fairy". Plus she mentions The Russians and The Kinsey Report, so you know it's timely.

A shower may not actually wash away the sticky feeling one has after listening to this entire LP, but it helps.