WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Australian New Wave, Italian Horror Metal, Madagascarian Doo Wop and French Hair Metal

Laugh if you want, but I’ve watched this Time Bandits video at least a hundred times and have taken copious notes.  Notice the lyric, "love is for the ones," as if only a group as exclusive as these models can really love.  Don't you want to love like these beautiful people do?  I'm not kidding, I find this video totally alluring.   You don't?  sorry... Other Aussie new wavers that have taken up too much of my time: Dugites, Eurogliders, James Freud...  On the right, Italy’s Death SS were not Nazis, but singer Steve Sylvester did lead a satanic sect at the time of this video's filming.  You know that feeling when you’ve watched TV for so long that your stomach hurts? Ugh…

I’ve also been spending too much time looking through archives of Mexican Doo Wop, although every one of those videos gets topped by Madagascar’s Les Surfs.  Mexican doo wop that has taken up too much of my time: Los Hooligans, Manolo Munoz, Los Hitters.  On the right is the fruit of too much time with French Heavy Metal.  A lot of music videos from this era are much more ridiculous, including many of Warning’s other music videos -  I chose this one because the song is a almost entirely unironic blast of Sabotage-era Sabbath meets Iron Maiden.  Runners up include: Dum Dum Bullet, Nightmare, Trust, Speed Queen.

It's Incredibly Depressing Being Green

He made news about this same time last year with an incendiary video for "Hurt", and this week the mad genius behind Sad Kermit dropped a new video, a cover of Elliot Smith's "Needle In The Hay", with a recreation of the Richie Tenenbaum suicide scene from The Royal Tenenbaums.

Here are some mp3s of Sad Kermit singing some other sad songs. See and hear more at SadKermit.com.

Creep (Radiohead)   Hallelujah (Leornard Cohen/Jeff Buckley)   Hurt (Nine Inch Nails/Johnny Cash)

Also on Beware of the Blog: Derek and Clive meet the Muppets - Is the most influential musician of all time Animal or Cookie Monster? - the Yip Yip Martians - Martin Scorcese's Sesame Streets - Welcome to the Muppet Show Fan Club - meet the real life Kermit (in voice anyway) - Jim Henson gets freaky
 

Soggy

Between these guys and Angel Face, I wonder exactly how much of Detroit got into French musical consciousness in the 1970's/80's? "Waiting For the War". Posted to Black To Comm.

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!

A Stretchhead Shout-Out

Seeing how God Is My Co-Pilot's returned to playing live, I got nostalgic for one of my other fave skronk units of that era: Scotland's demented, brilliant Stretchheads issued a handful of LPs and an EP in the late 80s/early 90s, and along with Terminal Cheesecake are definite contenders for overlooked UK gutter-dwellers in need of a good retrospective. The 'heads may not have spread out stylistically over time as cohorts like GodCo, Dog Faced Hermans, Big Flame etc. but they sure hammered the point home gleefully/violently.

Meat Beat Manifested

Everyone has seen a live visual presentation (i.e. Shakespeare in the Park), and everyone has heard a live audio presentation (i.e. WFMU).  And most people have seen a TV show or a movie (i.e. Beavis and Butt-Head, Baby Mama).  Some people have even been told they're being treated to an audiovisual presentation (i.e. Dark Side of the Moon Laser Light Shows). Until last week, I didn't think anyone had made an live audiovisual presentation that really truly was aural and visual at the same time, together.  Then I saw Meat Beat Manifesto on Saturday at the Highline Ballroom.

Zillion-dollar budgets can give electronic music performers like Daft Punk and Kraftwerk an edge in creating visceral visual thrills at their concerts - you can't really do much more for a techno fan than have real robots playing a concert.  But Meat Beat Manifesto has taken a well-worn and considerably less expensive approach - collaging video behind the performers onstage - and taken it to a new zenith of accomplishment in that medium.

Meat Beat mastermind Jack Dangers and Mark Pistel from the political hardcore band Consolidated stood onstage controlling the otherworldly jungle-dubstep-trance beats and squiggles, and at the far right live drummer Lynn Farmer kept incredible pace throughout the entire performance.  On the far left stood Ben Stokes, the visual programmer for the show, who's worked with everyone from Ministry to Public Enemy to Levi's.  He grabbed video samples of Captain Beefheart, old BBC Radiophonic Workshop-esque explanations of sonic technology, Dali's eye-cutting nightmare, The Invaders, Sammy Davis Jr., Harrison Ford as President James Marshall in Air Force One, Star Trek, Billie Holiday, and even Animal, playing in tandem with a live feed of the drummer.

Unlike so many other video shows, clips didn't just sit lay flat and stuttery in the background.  They were accompanied by audio, and were layered over existing beats, scratched, stretched, and re-sampled in a way that fit in with the theme of the song - video of nuclear bomb blasts dropped to the beat, sounds and videos of Rastas burning weed edged their way into a drugs song (well, at least the one that referenced them the most overtly).  Dangers and Stokes were always working together in the audiovisual realm, as well - you could almost imagine the behind-the-scenes dialogue:  "Jack, I've found about 15 clips of people falling from the tops of buildings, can we work the sound of them screaming into the set?" or "Ben, could you work on finding a video of James Brown playing this one sample I use in this song?" Magic like that doesn't just pop out of a video mixer, or an audio mixer for that matter.

The most impressive part about the whole thing was Meat Beat's mastery in weaving overt political commentary into the show. 

The Feelies and the Hoboken Sound

In addition to the WFMU supported 4th of July concert (link) the Feelies are playing two shows at Maxwell's on July 1st and 2nd. Thanks to the time sensitive email from Brian Turner I was able to buy a pair of tickets before they sold out, in I think an hour. In anticipation of all this fantasticness I post an edited excerpt of something I found on the internets a few months back: A 1985 documentary on 'The Hoboken Sound.' (link)

Chaka Khan Vs. the Bee Gees

Now that Simon Pegg has gotten somewhat of a foothold in American consciousness, thought it would be a good time again to bring up his great late 90's UK sketch series Big Train. We posted a clip a couple years ago where Chairman Mao rises from his death bed to inexplicably (and quite convincingly) front Roxy Music; here's another of a Wild West shoot out between Chaka Khan and the brothers Gibb.

Besides Simon's ascent to movie stardom, this show should also be lauded for the sheer genius of people like Kevin Eldon, Mark Heap, Julia Davis (whose lead in Nighty Night may have been the single most screwed up character in a show oddly imported by Oprah's channel), and Catherine Tate (currently enjoying her own sketch show on BBC now, here's a clip); this crew all filtered into other great shows like Brass Eye, I'm Alan Partridge, Look Around You and Smack the Pony. May they all continue to thrive, and not move to Los Angeles to be harrassed by Courtney Love.

Has Andy Breckman Ever Faced a Crowd This Tough?

From Cracked.

Fxxk The Humans!

This week, animator/comic genius Brad Neely dropped a new short musical animated piece. I wrote a bit about Neely in a previous post, and he is popping up on screen as one of the subjects of the new film We Are Wizards, which examines the subculture around the Harry Potter books (the film played at the NY Underground Film Festival earlier this month, as is in the Independent Film Festival of Boston this weekend).

His new cartoon is musical ditty in which "all of the woodland elves, satyrs and hobgoblins are finally coming together for a ragtime protest ditty against us Homo sapiens." They have a rather impressive list of all the things we get wrong.

Dirty, crude, juvenile, and completely reprehensible. And catchy as hell...

NSFW video after the jump.

UbuWeb :: New Addtions, Spring 2008

__ U B U W E B __
http://ubu.com




Tellus Audio Cassettes (1983-1993)
http://www.ubu.com/sound/tellus.html

UbuWeb is pleased to present the entire run of the legendary New York-based Tellus audio cassette magazine. Originally a subscription-based bimonthly publication, the series took full advantage of the popular cassette medium to promote cutting edge music, documenting the New York scene and advanced US composers of the time. Highlight issues include: All Guitars! (1985), The Sound of Radio (1985), Just Intonation (1986), Audio By Visual Artists (1988), The Voice of Paul Bowles (1989) and Flux Tellus (1990). Featuring hundreds of artists including Marcel Duchamp, Alison Knowles, Sonic Youth, Joan Jonas, George Brecht, Pauline Oliveros, John Zorn, Richard Prince, Glenn Branca, Harry Partch and Mike Kelley. Tellus cassettes were edited by Joseph Nechvatal, Claudia Gould and Carole Parkinson. This UbuWeb feature is presented in conjuction with Continuo's Weblog. Produced for UbuWeb by Steve McLaughlin.


Dada Magazine, Issues 1, 2, 3 (1917-1918)
http://www.ubu.com/historical/dada/index.html

Attempting to promulgate Dada ideas throughout Europe, Tristan Tzara launched the art and literature review Dada. Appearing in July 1917, the first issue of Dada, subtitled Miscellany of Art and Literature, featured contributions from members of avant-garde groups throughout Europe, including Giorgio de Chirico, Robert Delaunay, and Wassily Kandinsky. Marking the magazine's debut, Tzara wrote in the Zurich Chronicle, "Mysterious creation! Magic Revolver! The Dada Movement is Launched." Issue 2 appeared in December of 1918. Issue number 3 violated all the rules and conventions in typography and layout and undermined established notions of order and logic. Printed in newspaper format in both French and German editions, it embodies Dada's celebration of nonsense and chaos with an explosive mixture of manifestos, poetry, and advertisements - all typeset in randomly ordered lettering. Included is Tzara's "Dada Manifesto of 1918," which was read at Meise Hall in Zurich on July 23, 1918, and is perhaps the most important of the Dadaist manifestos. See also Helmut Herbst's film Deutschland Dada (1969), Hans Richter's films and Tristan Tzara's sound poems in UbuWeb Sound which is strewn with historical and rare recordings from dozens of Dadaists.


Dinner With Henry Miller (1979)
http://www.ubu.com/film/miller_dinner.html

Dinner With Henry is a rare, 30-minute documentary about Henry Miller. It is exactly what the title implies: footage of Henry having dinner. With him at the table is the film crew, and actress/model Brenda Venus, to whom Henry was enamoured in the final years of life. Henry - at age 87 - spends the majority of his time speaking on a number of subjects, the most persistent of which is Blaise Cendrars. Occasionally, he complains about the food. That is all: a curious "slice of life" for any Miller fan who likes to imagine being at the table with him.


David Cronenberg on Andy Warhol (2006)
http://www.ubu.com/sound/warhol.html

A guided tour of the "Andy Warhol / Supernova: Stars Death and Disasters, 1962-1964" exhibit at the Art Gallery of Ontario, conceived and narrated by renowned filmmaker David Cronenberg. Cronenberg says, "Andy was making underground films when I was making underground films. And I was more inspired by him than by Hollywood. He created himself: He was an outsider, a Slovakian, Catholic, gay, an artist, poor; an outsider in his own family, a triple outsider like Kafka, with his nose pressed against the New York window. And, he became the ultimate insider, the center of his own world, and drew people to him. He became a huge example of the invention of an identity." Commentary by David Cronenberg, Mary-Lou Green, Dennis Hopper, David Moos, James Rosenquist and Amy Taubin.

The Married...With Children Theme Music is Wrong on Hulu

There I was just cruising Hulu to see how my dad's favorite television show holds up 15 years down the line.  Kelly is still hot, Bud is still a dick, Al is still stuck in the shoe store etc etc but THE FUCKING THEME MUSIC IS DIFFERENT!  It's supposed to be the VOCAL VERSION of "LOVE AND MARRIAGE" but now it's some goddamn terrible royalty-free bullshit MIDI instrumental impression of a song that might sound like "Love and Marriage" if you are Tiny James and had been stuck inside a Regular Size Vodka Peach for four days.

What the HELL??

Rocky VI (video)

Twenty years before Sylvester Stallone revived the Rocky franchise in 2006 for the sixth installment of the series, Finnish director Aki Kaurismäki shot a short film called "Rocky VI". It was Kaurismäki's spoof of "Rocky IV" which had come out in 1985. In the words of the director, it was his "revenge on Mr. Stallone, who I think is an asshole". Here is the complete 8 minute thing.

If this doesn't work for you, try it on YouTube. By the way, it is about time that someone release all the great classic Kaurismäki movies on DVD in the US.  Not even "Leningrad Cowboys Go America" is available in region code 1. Criterion, do you hear this?

Elektro the Robot's Sordid Stag Reel

It was during the heady mechanical man creating years of the late 1930s when a walking, talking, 78 rpm record playing robot emerged from the dank appliance division of the Westinghouse Electric Corporation in Mansfield, Ohio. Deemed unsuitable for doing dishes or even trimming the hedges, the plucky humanoid had over 700 words at his command and a litany of pithy one-liners to go with them. Grunt work's loss was entertainment's gain and soon the mundanely named Elektro was shipped to Flushing Meadows Park in Queens, New York, where he dazzled the World's Fair attendees twenty times a day, seven days a week.

In 1940, with Elektro's initially sensational reviews slipping, the Westinghouse lab boys scurried back to Mansfield with their notepads at the ready. Desperate for a new gimmick, they cooked up a companion for the oversized rust-bucket--the scene stealing bionic bone-nibbler, Sparko the Mechanical Dog. The attention-grabbing contrapt-a-pooch irked the jealous robot to no end with his fetching antics and purile parlor tricks. The situation worsened when the leaky little scamp nearly electrocuted Elektro on at least two occasions.

Disgruntled and increasingly unmanageable, Elektro dropped out of show biz and after an unsuccessful stint as mayor of La Hoya, California, he spent the next fifteen years crumpled in the forgotten scrap heap of broken robot dreams. By the time the World's Fair had shut down, Sparko's notoriety had peaked as well. In 1949 the tinfoil mutt was implicated in a bungled pet store robbery in Wappingers Falls, New York. He has since fled the country.

Elektro was eventually re-discovered in Los Angeles by MGM second unit director Ralph E. Black. The story goes that Black was taking his Buick in for an oil change at the South Central Filler-Up where he espied the disoriented robot in a dumpster out back. The former Westinghouse Pavilion star was loudly lubricated out of his metallic skull on used STP straight from the drip pan. Black needed a semi-willing robot to follow his commands--Elektro needed a squeegee. Together they appeared to be possibly unbeatable.

Black offered the intoxicated moto-man fifty bucks and a full tune-up (with a fancy Turtle Wax finish) if he would consent to clean up and appear in his new picture down at Metro. It was a Mamie Van Doren farce starring Marty Milner, Conway Twitty and Vampira. His frayed logistic circuits long since burned out, the anxious android eagerly agreed to essay the role of "Thinko" in the upcoming production. Elektro worked relatively well with the quirky ensemble and soon a smutty subplot was added to the shooting script in order to cash in on his unique skills. Aided by yet another down-on-his-luck thespian, Voltaire the Chimp, Elektro excelled in what could have been just another drunk monkey/midget butler/stripper sequence. His nuanced and natural performance was reviewed favorably in Cahiers du cinéma and in darkened theaters worldwide by discerning popeyes and transients alike.

Currently semi-retired in his native Ohio, Elektro mixes it up with locals and tourists several times a week. Any queries regarding his softcore past will only elicit a mechanical wink and his signature "Ha. Ha. Ha."

Elektro's smut reel after the jump. NSFW. Unless you work in a strip joint, but even then not such a good idea.

Danger! Canadians Ahead!

WARNING: These Canadian "Prevent It" Public Service Announcements are not for the squeamish:

It's Fun To Stare At The N-M-K-Y!!!

From DJ HotRod:

Who said Nokia was the best thing to come out of Finland? The lead singer looks like Fred Armisen starring in an SNL skit. Brilliant.

Gregorius "YMCA/NMKY" (Finnish cover):

Citay Live on WFMU

San Francisco's Citay played a superb live set on my show a few weeks ago ( playlist  |  listen ), check out this video that Doron kindly shot (no small task considering the size of the band and the size of our live music studio).

Future Hoof & Mouth Sinfonia musician? (video)

Just in case you need a drummer next year, I suggest this guy:

Commercial Fever Dreams Part 2

The alternative reality of television commercials have a way of sneaking up on you..and you can't help but wonder if the world you experience is real or imaginary. Let's explore.

If you lived anywhere near New York City between 1974 and 1988, then you knew one simple fact: "Some women just look that way…"  For more, read this glorious essay on the Ritz Thrift Shop commercial.

Meanwhile, Rochester's House of Guitars offers an altogether different experience.

Chicago has long felt the awkward power of the omnipresent Moo & Oink, perhaps the funkiest meat market on the planet.

Wait, what was that on my fork?

Small, moving, shooting parts that are made to lodge in your throat. Yes, that adds up to one of the funnest kid games on the planet: Bing Bang Boing!

More...including pies, dancing, leg warmers, and video games after the jump!

Care for a swim?

Last week on my radio show, I played a set of tunes from Zimbabwe in honor of the recent elections there and the hopes of removing the execrable Robert Mugabe from power. Responding to the music, a listener, Peter R., emailed me some photographs of tourists going for a dip in the Zambezi River.*

Africa's fourth longest river, the Zambezi marks, for a 300-mile stretch, the border between Zimbabwe and Zambia. The swimmers happened to be in the water at just about the point where the upper Zambezi, er, flows into the middle Zambezi. This location is also known as Victoria Falls— the locals call it Mosi-oa-Tunya (Smoke That Thunders). Often referred to as one of the world's Seven Natural Wonders, Victoria Falls is more than twice the height of Niagara Falls.

Known as the Devil's Pool or Devil's Swimming Pool, the refreshing spot happens to be mere inches from the edge of the falls. That is, the falling part of the falls. Astonishing photos of loopy vacationers splashing at death's edge have been making the rounds lately, but nothing quite captures the knee-knocking thrill of the scene like this footage:

For a thrilling first-person description of a Devil's Pool frolic, read writer Michael Joseph Gross's account in the New York Times.

*I'm not sure if listener Peter was aware of this curious connection between the photos he sent and the music I played in tribute to Zimbabwe's re-liberation: Despite the fact that Mugabe has unleashed violent political repression throughout the country, there have been pockets of fairly open opposition. One such area just happens to be the city of Victoria Falls itself. Located on the Zimbabwean side of the Zambezi, Vic Falls has been a hotbed of support for the MDC (Movement for Democratic Change) and its leader—and (fingers crossed) Zimbabwe's new president—Morgan Tsvangirai. Mugabe has resisted lashing back at the town in fear of scaring off desperately needed tourist dollars that are attracted by the Falls.

Hoof and Mouth Videos 2008 (Part 5 of 5)

Here we wrap it up: the final batch of videos from the last night of the Marathon, back on March 9th at Maxwell's.  All 36 videos shall live here forevermore.

These vids were shot by Phil Catalano, Taso Stefanidis, and Evan Savitt and lovingly edited by Bryce.
The Hoof & Mouth Sinfonia is our inhouse karaoke band, lead by yours truly, and starring the following major gents:

Drums: Evan "Funk" Davies, Bryce Kretschmann, Irwin Chusid
Bass: Mac, Matt Fiveash
Guitar: Brian Turner, Scott Williams
Fiddle / Theremin: PGB
Keyboard: David Goldman
Sax: Chris Stubbs

Engineers: Gil Shuster, Irene Trudel, Carson Kopp

Images by notladj

The videos:

31 Todd-o-phonic Todd, "I'm a No-Count" by Ty Wagner

R. Stevie's It's My Life, 1988 [Video]

I recently found a video of one of my favorite R. Stevie Moore songs, an even more respectably adolescent cover of the Animals' It's My Life. It was shot at WFMU in 1988 during his tenure here on staff. Aside from glimpses of a bombed out proto-locale that a youngster like me will never know, you'll catch a few past WFMU luminaries, such as the late Frank Balesteri.

You'll find more of Stevie's video work on this YouTube page. I'm thinking of throwing down for the DVD.

Hoof and Mouth Videos 2008 (Part 4 of 5)

OK, we're almost there!  Here's another batch of videos from the 8th annual Marathon Finale featuring our very own in-house karaoke band, the Hoof & Mouth Sinfonia.  These were shot back on March 9th, live at Maxwell's, and this here's the fourth set, out of five.  Tomorrow we wrap this up, and all the vids shall live forever together, with props to all the beautiful people who made it happen, right here.

23 PGB, "Supreme Evil" (Supremes / ELO mashup) by Go Home Productions

Born for Hard Luck

I'm happy to see more and more websites including video players (that actually work) on their pages that include all manner of things that aren't necessarily available on YouTube. I recently discovered the archives of FolkStreams.net, a fantastic site generally devoted to the American working class experience as it pertains to music. Here are some of the great documentaries you can view on their site for absolutely free. They are, for the most part, available in four different formats, making viewing easy to do.

Born for Hard Luck is a sensational little black and white documentary from 1976 profiling the life of a one legged blues man from North Carolina named Peg Leg Sam Jackson. Tom Davenport's gritty black and white look lends itself well to the subject matter. I believe a clip from this was used in the film Amelie (2001).

It Ain't City Music captures the spirit of a 1973 country and western festival held in a small rural community in Virginia and its ability to unite hillbillies and hippies alike.

The Popovich Brothers of South Chicago is another winner, this one from 1978. The documentary chronicles the extra-curricular musical activities of poor, working class Serbian-Americans.

There are close to forty more rarely seen documentaries following the lives of unsung Blues, Gospel, Country and Folk legends from around the USA. Most of the docs are from the sixties or seventies and several from the eighties. Here's the menu.

Youtube for G&T English Class

featuring "Hoffman Estates High School Extreme Ninja Kazoo TKAM!!!"

Man, when I think back to being 15, there's so much shit I'm glad only I've got the evidence of.  Tapes can be baked, pictures can be burnt, home movies only happened around rich kids with a Betamax at home; you & me, the normal kids, could hide our histories with nothing more than the removal of a rock down at the local quarry, ravine, or sewer system.  Kids these days, um... how can I say this??  They fuk'd.

What follows is a sampling of my current fave youtube subgenre: the AP English class's rendition of the AP English class literary classics.  They're all here!  Salinger, Flannery O'Connor, Hemingway, Shirley Jackson, Metamorphosis, Lord of the Flies, even some James Joyce!  I'm sure I'm forgetting a thousand worthy contenders, so your input is quite welcome here.