WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Incapacitants

Making the nature scene, 1981.
Posted via Big Fat Satanist.

French Singer Gigi Gaston's Jean-Luc Godard-Filmed Music Video

What words would you use to describe 1960s French pop sensation Gigi Gaston? With a growing cult discovering her through the dozens of photos, periodicals, songs and videos assembled by Josh Gosfield, some adjectives describing the chanteuse nicknamed the "Black Flower" include "sultry," "elusive," "scandalous," "murderous" and "misunderstood."

To that you must add the word "fictitious" — Gigi Gaston is wholly and entirely a creation of Gosfield, an artist and designer whose exhibition at the Steven Kasher Gallery in Manhattan closes on Wednesday, November 25th after a monthlong run. Not only did he cast Gigi, shoot the period-perfect photos and created the meticulously rendered versions of the covers of actual magazine of the era along with a staggering variety of her record sleeves, he's also responsible for the putative Jean-Luc Godard film short for Gigi's haunting song "Je Suis Perdue," which is presented here for your viewing pleasure.

Josh Gosfield will appear on this author's show on Sunday, November 22, 5-7 pm ET, during which he will expound upon his creation and dissemmination of the singer who put the "no-no" in yé-yé.

Staff Picks: Victoria Vein and the Thunderpunks circa 1974

Tony Coulter recently brought this rowdy video to the attention of WFMU staffers, Victoria Vein and the Thunderpunks performing "Other Things".  VV would go on to greater fame under the Debris moniker.  Tony got word of the video from Karl Ikola, proprietor of Anopheles Records, who recently issued the previously unreleased Victoria Vein 7" (and reissued the Debris LP).

Ghost Moth Haunt the Castle; Live Session 11th November 2009

When you're already in a dance with noise and free improvisation, the Kosmische is less than one membranous step away. And so it was with Ghost Moth, the duo of suitcase electronicist Todd Pendu and multi brass/woodwind blower Daniel Carter.

This was Ghost Moth's third set as a duo (reduced from a trio), continuous play totaling over 50 minutes. So many of my favorite records come to mind upon listening: Bob Ostertag's Getting a Head; Merzbow & Christoph Heemann's Sleeper Awakes on the Edge of the Abyss; Miles Davis' In A Silent Way. But Ghost Moth are really their own thing, and must be heard to be believed:

11/11: The Duality and the Hidden Third

Live audio covered by a creative commons attribution-non commercial-no derivatives license.

Here's some video of the session, from Todd's YouTube channel:

Die Goldenen Zitronen - Die Entstehung der Nacht (MP3s, video)

Two years ago I wrote a short blog post praising the criminally underrated German avant-punk-pop mavericks Die Goldenen Zitronen (The Golden Lemons). Unfortunately, it didn't catapult them to superstardom in the US, so I'll try again... Three years after their last studio album "Lenin" they finally released a new one, "Die Entstehung der Nacht" (The Emergence of the Night), as good or better as their last ones. Here is the strange and spooky video for the instrumental title song, apparently a modern version of the story of The Pied Piper of Hamelin.

As a bonus, here are two of my favorite non-instrumentals from the album as MP3s: Des Landeshauptmann's letzter Weg (with lyrics in the style of a Hölderlin ode about Jörg Haider and the weird way in which a law-and-order politician who liked the Nazis and died in a car accident, speeding and drunk, could become a popular hero in the Austrian state of Carinthia after his death) | Drop the stylist (features Mark Stewart of The Pop Group, Melissa Logan of Chicks on Speed, and some swearing in English, so don't play it on the radio or in church...)

Now if only a US distributor would pick up this album...

7 Cool Th!ngs on the !nternet Th!s Week

Maybe ! should qual!fy th!s as cool th!ngs ! found on the !nternet th!s week, not necessar!ly th!ngs that were uploaded th!s week - although that !s often the case too.

F!re by Koko Taylor - whatta track

Bob Barker's 1956 TV Debut

Now Appear!ng !n the Lounge - Unf!n!shed Vegas Doc

Soundtrack for D!vorces and Break-Ups

Full 1956 ep!sode of The Grand Ole Opry TV Show wth commerc!als

Tom Snyder gets Pervy - Sex Ep!sode of The Tomorrow Show !n seven parts

Two Hundred and E!ghty Four Stax-Volt S!ngles

Edward G. Monkeyman

Everyone has that moment in life when they wonder why they're walking around in a monkey suit. For legendary actor Edward G. Robinson that epiphany came in 1966 while shooting a test for The Planet of the Apes movie. Good Serling script, good cast but Robinson didn't really need the paycheck so why the hell was he making it? After a costly divorce in '56, Eddie made a killing in the art collecting racket and walking around choking on orangutan hairs was obviously for schmucks. Before Robinson turned in his ape suit he filmed one makeup test scene with Charlton Heston, James Brolin and Linda Harrison. In the finished movie, Harrison was demoted from smart chimp Zira to grunting sexpot Nova (NO-VA!) and Brolin was replaced by the monkeyriffic Roddy McDowell. The role of the wise orangutan Dr. Zaius was given to Shakespearean actor Maurice Evans who was surprisingly all too eager to don the furry jumpsuit.

Captured for posterity for Edward G. Robinson completists and Planet of the Apes perverts alike, here's the makeup test reel that was shot before Robinson bailed. It's about as dull as an Adam-12 chase scene but at least it's got a certain monkey je ne sais quoi about it. The clip begins with a storyboard pitch to the Fox studio gorillas narrated by all-purpose cult hero Paul Frees. Looks like it's gonna be a good Tuesday.

Feeling B - Ich such' die DDR (video)

7 Cool Th!ngs on the !nternet Th!s Week

Unfortunately the number 'ate' and the letter 'eye' have completely stopped work!ng on my laptop. So, as you can see, the regular 'ate' cool th!ngs on the !nternet has been downgraded to seven th!s week unt!l my computer gets f!xed.

The Merv Gr!ff!n Show w!th guests Andy Kaufman, N!ck Nolte and L!nda Lav!n

Zeb & Cous!n Easy - Low Budget Country Comedy Van!ty LP

An awful lot of Ultra Lounge

A Look !nto the Future That Never Was

Joe D!magg!o battles M!ckey Mantle for Game Show Supremacy

Sesame Street covered by The V!llage Soul Cho!r

Rotten 1971 TV Mov!e wr!tten by J!m Backus and featur!ng V!ncent Pr!ce, James Darren, Zsa Zsa Gabor, Marty Allen, Cesar Romero, Edward G. Rob!nson etc

Slasher Risk, My Castle of Quiet Live Session, 28th Oct 2009

I'm running out of ways to gush about Slasher Risk. Point is, this relatively young band, a duo, doesn't seem to yet realize how good they are, or how amazing they're going to be in just a short while. That's a fine thing, because it means they're only doing what must be done—what comes naturally. And what comes naturally is dynamic improvised music, with one limb occasionally stuck in something that remembers rock, but just as often or more so, dances in the air above the unimaginable maw of the Lovecraftian abyss. Frightening to some, but not to Andy or Sara, who do it seemingly just because it's their thing.

A two-person Can? Lou and Sterling? Moe and Sterling? Or a guitar-noise duo whose work makes Solmania seem "uptight"—just who the hell are Slasher Risk?

Here are 37+ minutes that at least put us closer to an answer:

Slasher Risk Live on WFMU's My Castle of Quiet

Good photo and top-notch session engineering by Trent.
Lousy photo and video by your host and author.

Slasher Risk Live on WFMU's My Castle of Quiet is covered by a creative commons attribution-non commercial-no derivatives license.

Burroughs narrates Poe (video, MP3)

This post arrives slightly late for Halloween, but I'll take both William S. Burroughs and Edgar Allen Poe any time of the year. After some Poe readings by James Mason, we have this gem from the 1995 videogame "The Dark Eye", featuring William Burroughs reading "The Masque of the Red Death", accompanied by some creepy slides.

YouTube: Part 1 | Part 2
Just the audio, in slightly higher quality: The Masque of the Red Death (MP3) from RealityStudio

The Way Out, A Portrait of Xentos Jones (video excerpt)

This excerpt of the 2003 film "The Way Out, A Portrait of Xentos Jones" by Kosten Koper and Luke Fowler recently popped up on YouTube. I hope that the whole thing will be released on DVD some day...

YouTube: [link] | More info on Kosten Koper's blog: [link] | More Xentos on the WFMU blog: Die Trip Computer Die - Flowerball (a whole album for free!) | King Leopold Of All The Belgians (weird half-improvised radio play)

Old Jersey vs. New Jersey, Part 2

Billy Jam sez:

In the first part of this series (posted a week ago) I included an MP3 of people on the streets of Jersey City speaking on their knowledge (or lack thereof) of the origins of the name of New Jersey. This time I am including an sample of what the folks I stopped on the streets of St. Hélier in "old" Jersey had to say when quizzed on their knowledge of New Jersey (MP3). I am also including my new favorite old Jersey song which sums up so perfectly the unique and special place that is the small island of Jersey, Hedley Le Maistre's "Jersey, Mon Vie!" (MP3).

Friday, October 2nd's WFMU live remote broadcast (during Doug Schulkind's timeslot) from Jersey's capital of St. Hélier during the Channel Island's 2nd annual Branchage Film Festival was an amazingly wonderful event to be a part of, and a rewarding one on many levels. First off it was a really great idea of the festival's director Xanthe Hamilton to link "old" Jersey with New Jersey via WFMU - something she presented to a receptive FMU station manager Ken Freedman about five months ago, and whose concept grew in scope since. And secondly for the dialog it began between the two Jerseys - one which we hope to keep going on the air here at WFMU. Expect to regularly hear "Jersey Bites" on Friday afternoons during the new WFMU Fall/Winter season which kicked into effect Monday, October 12th.

If you missed last week's broadcast it is archived - in playlist and audio forms - here, and includes a wide variety of guests getting on the FMU airwaves to share insights on the island of Jersey; a place that may only be 45 square miles in size but is incredibly rich in culture and history. A British Crown dependency the Bailiwick of Jersey, as it is officially known, is 100 miles south of England and lies only 14 miles west of the coast of Normandy, under whose rule it was once governed.

The WFMU remote show guests included Philip Malet de Carteret whose ancestors - several centuries ago - owned the land now known as the Garden State and were the ones responsible for giving New Jersey its name. The interview I conducted with him at his historic manor in the parish of St.Ouen (Jersey is divided into parishes, not counties) ran a lot longer than the segment included in the remote broadcast. Hence snippets of it will be played over the coming months on the air. Same for the organic Jersey dairy farmer Ian Mitchell, who was a live guest during the October 2nd remote but whose farm I visited the following day (see video below) and recorded more footage about the Jersey cow (a highly intelligent & unusally friendly animal) and its rich dairy product.

Henry Hills - SSS (video)

SSS is an video by experimental filmmaker Henry Hills. From the description:

SSS is composed from footage of movement improvised on the streets of pre-gentrified East Village by Sally Silvers, Pooh Kaye, Harry Shepperd, Lee Katz, Kumiko Kimoto, David Zambrano, Ginger Gillespie, Mark Dendy, and others, painstaking synched to music previously improvised for the project at Noise New York by Tom Cora (cello), Christian Marclay (turntables), and Zeena Parkins (harp). Beauty emerging from rubble.

The Late Break: Evan Parker's Stone Residency Now Underway

If I weren't so friggin poor, I would quit my job just so I could see the Evan Parker and John Zorn duo tonight.  Evan Parker is in the middle of his two week residency at the Stone, John Zorn's club in Alphabet City, NYC.  Sorry for letting you know a little late, guys.  You've hopefully not already missed sets including Ikue Mori, Richard Teitelbaum, Peter Evans and Joe McPhee, among others.  Don't miss sets with Chris Corsano, Fred Frith, Matt Shipp, many many others.  If I were so inclined, I might use phrases like, "most important living...." or "who's who of...."  Tristate area, cross out every appointment in your rolodex.  Below is a duo with Ned Rothemberg from 2006 at Roulette and a pristine 1970 clip of a Globe Unity orchestra performance of the Brotzmann penned "Drunken In The Morning Sunrise", including Evan Parker amid...well...everybody.

Gorefest - Autobahn (video)

Sammy Davis, Jr. is Your Vehicle

RIP Arthur Ferrante

Arthur Ferrante, one half of the legendary piano duo Ferrante & Teicher, died last week at the age of 88, one year after his partner Louis Teicher passed away. While most of the later Ferrante & Teicher recordings are quite schmaltzy easy-listening fare, their early 1950s albums of prepared piano pop were masterpieces of the space age, goofy, inventive, catchy, and influenced by John Cage, something nobody had ever tried before. Here is a video of the song African Echoes from their 1956 album Soundproof (mono).

Originally, Soundproof was released in two different versions, stereo and mono, with completely different songs. To make the confusion complete, they concurrently released the album Soundblast, consisting of the same songs as the stereo version of Soundproof, but this time in mono. Negativland would have been proud of themselves had they had done this in the 1950s... And nobody should have lived without having heard their version of Tico Tico from Soundblast: Ferrante & Teicher - Tico Tico (mp3)

As an encore, here is Christian Marclay's remix-or-something of Ferrante and Teicher from his album More Encores: Christian Marclay - Ferrante & Teicher (mp3)

Mr. DeLay...Sir...I Strongly Urge You NOT To Do This...Tom...TOM!...NO!!

Pentecostal ZZ Top Impersonators (video)

Here is a very catchy song by WinterBand about the modern scourge of women talking in Church. The self-description reads "WinterBand is a father and son Christian rock/blues/metal band. We are Apostolic Pentecostal Acts 2:38 Christians." Take that, ZZ Top!

And if you wonder who the other two guys playing with Father and Son Winter are, here is another quote from their YouTube description: "Special thanks to Bobo on bass, Hayseed on guitar and especially the Dept of Corrections for allowing them to do this as part of work release."