WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 175

 

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

Being a true-blue union man, your Miner is off to fulfill his contractually mandated vacation time. Trust me, he'd rather remain in his underground perch, pickaxing his way through the cultural substrata on your behalf. (And besides, it's about 50 degrees cooler down there!) This will be the last Motherlode for a few weeks, so it'll be up to you to work out your own time-eviscerating activity. I hear you can poke around the Internet and find thing or two to do. Stay hydrated!

 

Chiemi Eri & Tokyo Cuban Boys  ~ Chiemi's Folj Song Collection
(Blog: Jenny Is in a Bad Mood)

Chiemical Attraction
"Eri rarely sang traditional Japanese themes, so the album reviewed here is a rarity. This was accompanied by the Tokyo Cuban Boys, who were obviously a big band that played Latino issues. Formed in 1949, was one of the first formations to introduce the mambo in the country of the rising sun. In the 70 concerts offered by different parts of the world as the USSR, Mexico and Cuba itself. The band dissolved in 1980. This big band serves as a support group for showcasing Eri and gives brilliant luster to compositions."  (Google Translate version of description by Roberto, at Jenny Is in a Bad Mood )

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 174

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

I did something the other day I virtually never do. I sold a record. And I didn't just sell a record, I parted with a treasured slab of vinyl for a fairly ungodly sum. Making the situation all the more head-scratching, I (1) never even put the album up for sale, and (2) gave away every track on the album over four years ago in a post right here at Beware of the Blog. (A music nut searching for the record stumbled on my post and made me an offer I couldn't refuse.)

Over a lifetime of hunting for music and enjoying it deliriously, the notion of letting go of any record has been anathema. I sold one particular disc at a college LP swap thirty years ago, and it still burns me to this day. But life in the digital age is apparently changing me. (Not to mention being unemployed in the digital age.) With good-quality MP3s and a fancy scan of the covers in hand, what really is the big deal about holding onto the real McCoy?

 

Larry Storch  ~  Reads Philip Roth's Epstein
(Blog: I'm Learning to Share!)

Storched Earth
"In Larry Storch's enactment of Epstein, Philip Roth's prose is accurately animated. Professionally, Storch is a comedian—a limber, pungently accurate performer. He is a familiar at most of the country's major night clubs, and has created wide-ranging characterizations on television, and increasingly, in the movies. But Storch, like most original comedians, is not limited to surprising an audience into laughter. Through learning his craft, he has learned how thin and fragile the boundaries are between laughter and aggression, between laughter and insecurity. He is, in short, an actor, and in his reading of Epstein, he has done justice to the measure of Epstein the man as well as to the depth of the pit he has diligently if unwittingly dug for himself."  (From the liner notes by Nat Hentoff)

Your Primer on the Supercut

One of my favorite things about the internet is that it encourages serious academic discussions about cats playing pianos.  ROFLcon III happened in early May and I just got around to watching a good panel discussion on the Supercut - which is, put shortly, a comprehensive and thematic video montage.  The coiner of the term, Andy Baio, and three notable supercutters go over their own work, themes of the supercut and the future of the supercut.  Very nice!  The video is in four parts, with examples taking up the first half-ish of things.

One point of contention from this supercut obsessed blogger - in part IV, the panel seems to agree that the supercut has run its course as an expressive medium.  Disagree!  Andy Baio's own Supersupercut is a fantastic example of the use of automation in supercuts.  My Supercut-O-Matic software is another example of the power of automation to create thematic montages.  Google is now able to crawl through videos and pick out clips of cats.  Open source Music Information Retrieval frameworks like MARSYAS can automatically identify specific facets of songs.  In the near future, computers will automatically find LOLLY content for us and compile it, putting even the aggregation website editors out of work.  I do also think that interactivity will be introduced into supercuts, so that users can move freely through categorized media rather than watching a linear video clip.  But hey, maybe I'm crazy.

Certainly the panel doesn't give a very good history of the supercut.  The earliest historical example they give is Christian Marclay's "The Clock".  If the panel weren't all male, perhaps they would've mentioned Dara Birnbaum's 1978 cut-up of Wonder Woman transforming.  To venture a challenge to the internet, here's what I'm calling the earliest supercut - the amazing, brilliant 1965 collage "Argh!" by Folke Rabe and Jan Bark.  Listen here and do tell me if you know an earlier example of this concept.  I only recently found ARGH! and I'm completely transfixed by its prophetic beauty.

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 173

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

Your Miner has just moused in from the coast and boy is his index finger tired. A neat bit of international blogtrotting this week has culminated in a gorgeous mosaic of OOP records both far and flung. Most thrilling of all is the latest master post from Likembe maestro John B. who has added to his rich archive of Biafran offerings. (See the lead item, below.) Music loving doesn't get any better than this. Enjoy!

 

 

Various  ~  Biafra: Birth of a Nation
(Blog: Likembe)

Land of the Rising Sun
"Birth of a Nation is propaganda, and I don't mean this in a pejorative sense. It was issued by the Biafran government in an effort to influence public opinion in the outside world, especially the United Kingdom, main supporter of the Federal Government in Lagos against the secessionists. In 1968, when it was released, the Biafran cause had already for all intents and purposes been lost, although this wouldn't be apparent for some time. Still, it's of considerable interest not only to historians but musically, as it contains some nice highlife tunes. Listened to in sequence the album sounds like something recorded off a shortwave radio broadcast in the wee hours of the morning, history in the making.  (Description by John B)

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 172

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

In addition to writing this weekly Motherlode and hosting a twice weekly radio show, I also manage a 24-hour online radio/stream hybrid hosted by WFMU. Called Give the Drummer Radio, the stream started two years ago as a scheme to able to continue broadcasting my long-running WFMU program after I moved away from NYC to Pittsburgh. Once I established that I could air my own show live on the stream, I began inviting other DJs and music obsessives to present their programs on the stream as well. Give the Drummer Radio now boasts seven different programs and more are on the way.

When human-powered programming isn't airing on the stream, its default mode is to play a continuously expanding library of adventurous recordings from all genres, regions, eras and contexts. To hear Give the Drummer Radio at any time, click here. To see the schedule of program airing on the stream, click here.

I maintain an mailing list for the stream. Recipients receive email alerts when programs are going live, as well as a weekly newsletter that includes programming info and links to blogs with great downloads that are not published in Mining the Audio Motherlode. If you'd like to get on the mailing list, send a request. Additionally, you can like the stream on Facebook and follow it on Twitter.

Tenjo Sajiki & Singers Three  ~  Rojin Tanteidan to Garigari Hakase no Hanzai
(Blog: Japanese Old Prog/Psych Rock)

Bavarian Bop
"The record that was issued in 1972 as a collaborative work between famous drama collective Tenjo Sajiki leaded by Shuji Terayama and group Singers Three. All lyrics were written by Terayama and music was written by Makoto Wada - an artist (worked with Tadanori Yokoo), composer, director and experimentator. Actually the disk material were compositions for two Terayama's and Wada's drama performances: for the first,  The Crime of Debuko Oyama (yet from 1967-68), for the second - Shadow Thief on famous comics motives. It belongs to rock music very indirectly - mostly it is a mix of a few old styles: European cabaret with a tart taste of decadence, pre-war jazz in Louis Armstrong vein, bright country with a merry banjo and Japanese theater."  (Description [translated from Russian] by Day D)

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 171

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

I've never considered myself a record collector, because collecting is something you do with inanimate objects. No, for me, pursuing treasured slabs of vinyl is more like an act of emancipation, freeing the music to live in a home where it can't possibly receive more love—mine. Unless you're still stuck on having the "actual object," record hunting is now an entirely different enterprise in the blog-diving era.

No longer must you relentlessly haunt yard sales, scan auction lists and soil your thumbs flipping through dollar bins on used-record store floors. Now, all you really need to do is load up your RSS reader with the ever-proliferating number of top-flight music blogs and then sit back and let the rarities and must-haves come to you. Even better, let the Miner do it for you. To wit, today's happy haul...

Various  ~  Frankfurt Allstars
(Blog: The Boogieman Will Get Ya!)

Bavarian Bop
Another rare artifact from a bygone era which is not much documented or even known outside of Germanic countries: German Fifties Modernist Jazz. "Vier Temperamente" is a four part-piece, each part featuring a different soloist: 1 has Emil Mangelsdorff, 2 has Albert Mangelsdorff, 3 has Dusko Gojkovic, and 4 has Joki Freund. Rare and essential document of Europe’s unique mid-'50s Jazz. Outstanding soli.  (Description from Boogieman)

Print Fiction

Print Fiction is an online exhibition curated by artist Michael Alfred Seibert.

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 170

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

Three weeks after sharing Soul Safari's posting of the Percy Sledge rarity Soul Africa, I'm thrilled to link to yet another unknown bolt from the blue, Electric Jive's stellar offering of a Timmy Thomas LP recorded live in South Africa in 1978. (See our first item, below.) History hasn't placed Thomas's 1972 anthem "Why Can't We Live Together" on the same iconic pedestal as Marvin Gaye's "What's Going On?," but then, history hadn't heard this mind-blowing performance by Thomas of his plea for racial harmony before an adoring audience in Apartheid-riven South Africa.

The recent resurfacing of the Percy Sledge and Timmy Thomas recordings inspired me to produce this broadcast of my radio show, Give the Drummer Some, featuring American soul and jazz artists performing on African soil.

Timmy Thomas  ~  Live in Africa
(Blog: Electric Jive)

Tell Me Why, Tell Me Why, Tell Me Why
It is a good time to revive that anthem that made Timmy Thomas so special to millions of South Africans. Milner Park Stadium, Johannesburg in December 1978 was an edgy place for thousands of black South Africans to sing songs like “Why Can’t We Live Together” at a live concert. The song again became a big hit on the eve of South Africa’s first democratic elections in 1994. For many, the song still holds relevance today, in South Africa and elsewhere in the world.  (Description from Chris Albertyn, at Electric Jive)

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 169

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

Week after Mother-loving week, I use this space to share some of the spectacular free-album downloads I find online. But this effort isn't just about getting cool music for free, it's about the thrill of discovery and the stupefying joy of stumbling upon some life-changing sounds that only moments earlier you had no idea existed. Miraculously, the joys and thrills come for the most part at no cost, but not always.

For a little change of pace, I'd like to dedicate today's Motherlode to a few generous music bloggers who, in addition to posting a steady flow of rarities and gems, found the time, resources and chutzpah to produce some magnificent reissues. There are four releases of African music here, two from South Africa and two from Ghana. Each one is a stunner and well worth a little—gasp!—cash.

Various  ~  Township Jive & Kwela Jazz
(Blog: Soul Safari)

"It’s official folks! Soul Safari is proud to announce the release of our first compilation in collaboration with the  International Library of African Music (ILAM), Grahamstown, South Africa. All titles on this compilation have been handpicked from the ILAM Archives and have been professionally mastered and restored from the original 78 shellac discs. The track listing represents a wide variety of styles from the golden era of jive and kwela, originally released on small independent record companies like Gallotone, Hit, BB and New Sounds.  Zulu jive, Sotho vocal, accordion and violin jive to name a few style. The compilation features a few rarities by the big names obviously but presents mostly obscure material that has never been heard since the day of it’s original release. Truly music treasures from a long gone past."  (Eddy De Clercq, at Soul Safari)

Memorial Day Reflections with Reverend Bruce Howard…. SPEEEEAAAK

Memorial Day, a day to reflect on the nature of man, the nature of war, the nature of sacrifice and what the cost of freedom really means. In this modern era where every thing about an individual is sliced, diced into micro tuned categories I would probably call myself just a hermenaut with intense and passionate Christian leanings. The church gets a bad rap these days, with clowns like Pastor Charles Worley, new Vatican scandals, etc. Yearning for a  shining light in murky faith Spectrum Spools' John Elliot tipped me to perhaps one of God's greatest voices, Reverend Bruce Howard, a man who lives the words of 2 Timothy 4:17: But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the world might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. Or something, I honestly don't know. Where I see faith and redemption, others see totally BERKO. I'm used to it. In another life I could see myself as one of Reverend Bruce's silent goth krewe, in the shadow of his greatness.

More Bruce

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 168

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

Under almost any circumstances and conditions, radio is to be exalted—except when some imbecile driver plows into your wife on her bike while fiddling with the freaking dashboard tuner (as happened yesterday evening). If every damn citizen would just let WFMU implant cranial receiver pods like we planned, accidents like this could surely be avoided. Best thing to do is stay safely indoors and just download all the damn day. That's all I've got to say.

 

Various  ~  Sorrow Come Pass Me Around
(Blog: Serpent Spirit)

Seriously Holy Grail
These riveting, heartfelt performances, recorded by ethnomusicologist David Evans in Georgia, Mississippi and Louisiana, were released on the Advent label in 1975, then reissued, briefly, by Japan's P-Vine in 1991. [This astounding collection was shared at the late, lamented Holy Warbles in 2010—and the post was linked to here in Motherlode #83. I removed a link to that post due to claims that this OOP record was to be imminently reissued. Two years later, with no reissue in site, download links for Sorrow Come Pass Me Around have popped up at numerous blogs and I feel comfortable acknowledging that fact here.]

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 167

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

For this soultacular edition of the Motherlode, your miner has unearthed a quintet of rarities, classics, favorites and long-ago posted gems whose download links are miraculously still working. Stop whatever it is your doing (including reading this) and slurp up these treasures straightaway. It's chicken soup for the soul lover's soul.

 

 

Percy Sledge  ~  In Soul Africa
(Blog: Soul Safari)

Sledge Hammers It
"Not an easy album to track down, I must agree but last February luck was on my side as I went digging into a hospice shop in the Eastern Cape. Between all the nicks and nacks and lots of broken tracks and poor old vinyl,  there it suddenly was; Percy Sledge in Soul Africa, music from the soundtrack recording. It’s actually a film about the soul singer touring South Africa in 1970. Most of  Percy’s worldwide hits can be heard, although live creates another vibe, another energy. Most of all it contains two really funky tracks, unusual James Brown -type-o-sound like “Soul Fire” and the groovy, funky instrumental “The First Time.“ Percy and his band getting down!! And  ’Soul Fire’ is perpetrated by the true Zulu spirit, with tribal chanting in a steaming 7 minutes version. Can you feel it?!!"  (Description by Eddy De Clerq, at Soul Safari)

[Note: Only three of the LPs tracks have been posted so far. Keep your ears to the grindstone on this one.]

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 166

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

Don't sleep on the stellar selections in this all-African edition of Mining the Audio Motherlode. I was all set to lead off with another brilliant effort from Guinea's 22 Band (see below for links to three LPs from this magnificent outfit), but then the bottomless oasis that is Oro bubbled up a stunning bit of Cameroonian funk and soul that's as thrilling a listen as I have all year.

 

 

Hamad Kalkaba ~  Nord Cameroun Rythms
(Blog: Oro )
[To download, click on the tiny "oro"]

Cameroon
"For a long time this extremely rare and fabulous record has been asked. For good reason I repost it. I think the singer is Hamad Kalkaba, known to have recorded, on the same label Sonafric, with "Le Grand Orchestre de la Garde Républicaine du Cameroun."  (Description by Oro)

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 165

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

Ten years ago, while reading a review of Robert Caro's Pulitzer Prize–winning Master of the Senate, his 1,200-page third installment of a planned four-volume biography of Lyndon Johnson, I blurted out that I wished I had the time to read such a thing. With every-waking-moment music obsessions to attend to, I'd kind of fallen off the pleasure-reading bandwagon. Blessedly, my wife dashed out and bought me a copy, and I've been enthralled with Caro's work ever since.

Yesterday was the official pub date of The Passage of Power, Caro's fourth, but (as it turns out, not final) LBJ volume, so if Mining the Audio Motherlode over the next number of weeks appears a bit thin, it's only because I'm reading and just don't have the time.

Sharing my sonic discoveries with you is a great pleasure. There are times when I wish I could just reach out and grab you by the collar to get you to listen to some of this stuff. Well, my enthusiasm for Caro's writing is just as impassioned. Trust I don't say lightly that I find the experience of reading his books to be as miraculous as any music I could recommend.

Pádraig O'Keeffe  ~  The Sliabh Luachra Fiddle Master
(Blog: Ceol Álainn)

Leaves You Reeling
"A deleted recording of the Sliabh Luachra fiddle player and teacher taken from RTÉ archive recordings made by Séamus Ennis between 1947 and 1949. This is absolutely brilliant Sliabh Luachra music, and the final set of tunes - a duet with Denis Murphy - is a classic."  (Description by Dragut Reis, at Ceol Álainn)

Keep the Smooth: An Interview with Yacht Rock Creator JD Ryznar

by RJ White - Collection - Yacht Rock

What's on Network Awesome today??

In 2003, Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab founded the monthly film festival Channel101 with a simple premise: Make a five-minute pilot and if enough of the audience at the live screening in LA votes for it, you have one month to make another episode. If they vote for it again, you make another. Repeat. In 2005, JD Ryznar submitted Yacht Rock, which would go on to become one of the most successful shows in 101’s history and, over 12 episodes, create a new notch in the Internet’s heart for smooth, smooth music. We caught up with Ryznar for this interview...

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 164

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

During my earliest navigations of the Freemusicsphere, I was so floored to discover the bounty of amazing out-of-print recordings on offer, I made little notice of the actual quality of the MP3s I was prodigiously hoovering. I still don't give a fig about fidelity and I'm still harvesting the fertile fields of vinyl kudzuing across the Internet, but there are some records I've snatched whose sub-par listenability indeed does cut through the happy haze of merely having them.

One such recording was Roswell Rudd's live recording Maine from 1976 that I snagged from the old incarnation of Jizz Relics. The music struck me immediately as one of the most stunning jazz performances I'd ever heard, but the brutal quality of the rip made it sound like Rudd and his quartet were playing submerged in a swimming pool. To be so close to an all-time great recording and yet so far from the full flower of its true magnificence has been fairly excruciating. Well imagine my thrill yesterday when the inimitable Kinabalu at Inconstant Sol posted a clean copy of this dazzling album. Before you eat, sleep, breathe—download this now!

    
Roswell Rudd  ~  Maine
(Blog: Inconstant Sol)

Good to the Bone
"This is a hyperkinetic date, top speed ahead from all four and to me, Dulfer is a revelation, even over-powering Rudd at times, particularly on the Rollins piece. Sometimes you need a bit of coolness to balance the hotness, and the soloists do compliment each other nicely. Recommended, and to be played reasonably loud to appreciate the full dynamics of this wonderful date! And it's a topnotch recording to boot."  (Description by Kinabalu, at Inconstant Sol)

The Heretic Children Of The God Emperor of Dune Messiah

A strange coincidence when you are writing about someone, up against a deadline, and they die. No time to go back and make it a memorial, no point in going forward with what would now be an obsolete piece. A stranger coincidence in that the now never-completed post was to be about a never-completed project of Jean "Moebius" Giraud, the legendarily failed film collaboration with Alejandro Jodorowsky: Dune.
What follows is a free-imagining of a re-imaginging of the negated future of that impossible past:

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 163

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

Beginning in August 2008 and continuing over the course of 28 thrilling monthly installments, an unidentified blogger behind the music-sharing site Tonal Bride posted an impressive collection totaling 170 recordings.

Comprising roots music from all cultures, experimental and avant improvisational sounds, and field records from far and wide, the audio library up for grabs is as stunning an array of free music as you'll find anywhere on the Internet. (Well, at least until the massive Alan Lomax archive came online last month.) But here's the kicker—almost every record posted at Tonal Bride is still available almost four years later.

In addition to its wonderful selections, Tonal Bride provides extensive commentary for every single recording. Given the increasing volatility of the free-music blog scene, do yourself a favor and spend an afternoon or two (or three) downloading the entire archive before the site disappears.

Listen to my radio show Give the Drummer Some—Tuesdays, 6-7pm, and Fridays, 9 to noon—on WFMU's web stream Give the Drummer Radio.
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Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 162

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

Three years after being written about in this space and two years after performing live on WFMU, the miraculous return of saxophone legend Giuseppi Logan has received its highest-profile acknowledgment to date with this recent piece in the New York Times.

The attention has been good for Mr. Logan, who's reportedly sold numerous copies of his last CD at his regular busking gigs in Tompkins Square Park. Better yet, a Kickstarter campaign, created to fund distribution of another Logan recording, has now been swamped, thanks to a mention in the Times piece. Even better, since the Kickstarter effort has surpassed its goal, word is that some of the additional $$$ may be used to help repair Logan's damaged saxophone!

    
Abderrahim Amrani ~  Hamadsha Tunes from Fez
(Blog: Moroccan Tape Stash)

In Full Possession
"The performer, Abderrahim Amrani, is the muqaddem of a Fez branch of the brotherhood as well as a versatile musician proficient in a number of genres. See yala.fm for his biography (and some questionable pop versions of Moroccan trance tunes.) Or check out more tunes and video on the Fez Hamadsha website or on their MySpace page! The music on this tape features the guinbri (not the large guinbri used by the Gnawa, but a smaller variety) and the large clay goblet drum known as gwal, along with clapping and singing. Not heard here is the ghaita oboe, which the Hamadsha use in some parts of their ceremony."  (Description by Tim Abdellah, at Moroccan Tape Stash)

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 161

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

I am not a lawyer, and I don't play one on the radio, but for the life of me, I can't fathom the legal argument against music Web search engines like Chewbone, which was squashed like a bug almost two years ago, and Captain Crawl, which voluntarily went dark last week. If a search engine merely points to existing sites online but actually hosts no content, legal or otherwise, what is the justification for shuttering this service?

By this logic, the Post Office, which delivers millions of pieces of fraudulent mail each year, should be dismantled. Since bank robbers plan escape routes, how come road maps aren't contraband? Google provides a blog-specific search engine tool that points to innumerable sites hosting unlicensed material. What so distinguishes this service from others that have been forced to shut down? I mean, what the hell?!

My head hurts. Time for music.

    
Guelewar Band of Banjul  ~  Tasito
(Blog: Oro)

Guelewar, What Is It Good For?
"Guelewar Band of Banjul has been further developing the Afro-Manding sound of Ifang Bondi during a short period in the late 1970s and early 1980s. With strong percussion, a psychedelic tinge, prominent keyboards and saxophones, Guelewar's music is an "Aha-Erlebnis", but surprisingly enough, not a single album has ever been reissued on CD, whereas their LPs are sometimes offered at horrendous prices. Not much is written on the group apparently lead by Laye N'gom since the 1970s. Youssou N'Dour considers Guelewar as a main inspirational influence, partly because of the use of lyrics in a noble wolof as opposed to "street" Wolof, and partly because Guelewar had resolutely moved forward from Latin and highlife. Lead singer Moussa N'Gom has had a strong imprint on Guelewar's music with his expressive voice."  (Description by Frank Bessem, at Musiques d'Afrique)