WFMU's Beware of the Blog

William S Burroughs' Thanksgiving Prayer (video)

Here's a Thanksgiving Eve re-post from last year, Gus Van Sant's film of William Burroughs' poem Thanksgiving Prayer: download mpg video or youtube it. And before the croaky one gets underway in dispensing fake gratitude for the last and greatest betrayal of the last and greatest of human dreams, I'd like to genuinely thank all the readers of this blog and the listeners to WFMU. May your family go easy on you this Thanksgiving.

Thanksgiving Prayer
by William S Burroughs

Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shit out through wholesome
American guts.

Thanks for a continent to despoil
and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a
modicum of challenge and
danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to
kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.

Happy Wednesday

Audio Projects That Time Forgot

 

 

 

 

 

Pictured above (L-R): Phil Spector's original Wall of Sound, an early attempt at stereo localisation, and the oldest known prototype of the vinyl disk walkman. Actual explanations can be found on this page, courtesy of Douglas Self, who also brought the world the Museum of Retro Technology. Thanks Don!

Lou Reed Minus One (MP3s)

Let us journey back once again to those pre-Clear Channel days, when DJs at locally run radio stations had to expend a bit of effort to appear well connected to Rock and Roll royalty. The record labels were eager to oblige, by sending stations "Interview Albums" with scripts for the DJs to use, and an album's worth of answers from the rock star in question.

Here are the MP3s of the Interview Record that RCA put out for Lou Reed's The Blue Mask album. From the cover:

Lou Reed Interview: A radio interview album in which Lou discusses track by track the songs on his RCA release "The Blue Mask."

You are the interviewer.

Side One: Track by track answers to questions about each song on The Blue Mask: download MP3 (19 megs)

Side Two: The Lou Reed Interview: download MP3 (6 megs)

download the interview script  (jpg)

And be sure to check out the final question and answer, at the end of Side B -->

And once you're done interviewing Lou, head over here to interview Phil. Thanks Brian and Megan!

No Music Day

Bill Drummond (KLF member, alleged burner of a million pounds, and co-author of "The Manual" which instructs readers "How to Have Number One the Easy Way") is burnt out on music. He can't seem to find new music that engages him, there's too much older material in his CD collection to go through and perhaps listening to music has become more problematic than it is pleasurable. The solution? He has declared November 21st "No Music Day".

He's also managed to get London radio station ResonanceFM to play along. (For those playing at home, Resonance is a bit late to the party... NPR stations across the country have already been trailblazing the whole "No Music" idea for a few years now).

Says Bill in the Guardian:

Maybe it's just an age thing. Maybe it is just that my palate is jaded. So many men, and I guess women too, who get to my stage in life are happy enough slating all modern music, happy to press the nostalgia buttons. But I can't stand that. And it's not because the new artists don't mean what they play, it's just that, to my ears, they all begin to sound like vaguely updated versions of something that has gone before. Do I just accept this as a part of the ageing process? The sagging flesh, the thinning hair I have to accept, but this? No! No! and NO!

<snip>

It was in 2004 that I began to suspect that my problem lay not so much with the music as the form in which all music now seems to exist. Almost every piece of recorded music since recorded music began 110 years ago is just a click away. And once we have got it we can listen to it where and whenever we want. We can have this non-stop soundtrack as we sit on the bus, do the shopping, go on holiday.... ...Maybe I want music that is to do with place and time and occasion; music that we can only ever hear if we travel to one specific place at one special time. This does not mean Pink Floyd at Live8.

Adventures in Amplitude Modulation - Part 32

These shortwave bandscan recordings are the last I'll offer from my trip to the Catskills at the end of September. This is from September 29, 2006, and the recordings start just before midnight. Officially, this first scan starts out at about 0344 UTC (11:44 EDT). The audio can be found after the jump.

This is the first time I tried to record two scans at once. And I'm using the radios I've used most in this series - the Tecsun BCL-2000 and the Degen 1103. As I've previously discussed, I like a few things about the BCL radios (specifically analog tuning/digital readout, a nice big sound and a bright always-on display), but the Degen is a much better portable and you hear that in these scans. The Degen is a digital receiver (also known as the Kaito 1103 here in the states) which is available for around the same price, or cheaper, than the BCL-2000 (which is known in the US as the Grundig S350 or the Eton S350DL). I bought my versions of these radios directly from China via ebay, which even with the shipping is a considerable savings over their counterparts branded for America. That said, if you happen to have a problem with a radio you bought from China you might have a harder time getting it fixed or replaced. But I took that risk.

These radios are comparable in that they are recent products from the growing and maturing Chinese electronics industry, and are innovative in the fact that they marry elements of digital and analog tuning. And compared to radios in the recent past, they offer more bang for the buck. Specifically, the Degen 1103 is probably one of the best shortwave portables to retail for less than a hundred bucks. The BCL radios are quite sensitive, but there is no filtering of wayward images of strong stations. The Degen is a dual conversion radio, which greatly reduces the chance of hearing signal "images" at places they don't belong on the dial. And it can be a little confusing and annoying to find out you're actually hearing a station from another band instead of a broadcast at the frequency you're scanning. (Reader Ralph did a nice job of explaining how this happens in the comment section of this post.)

Record Making With Duke Ellington (video)

More about record making than the Duke himself, this 1937 promotional film uses Ellington to focus on the wonders of record making in the shellac-based 78 rpm era: download mpeg video, 12 megs or youtube it.

From youtube user WhenSwingWasKing's description:

This promotional short for Irving Mills' short-lived Master and Variety labels not only gives us a glimpse of Ellington and his band in the actual Master/Variety studios (as opposed to a soundstage set), but is one of the very few film accounts of how records were recorded, plated and pressed in the long-ago age of analog, shellac and 78 rpm. Narration is provided by pioneer radio announcer Alois Havrilla.

via If Charlie Parker Was A Gunslinger...

One Bank...One Love

Today's New York Times features the behind-the-scenes story of Bank of America's version of U2's "One" performed at a corporate conference celebrating their merger with MBNA. Watch it now, then read on...
Quicktime download   YouTube

This clip could have come right out of an episode of The Office, but it is no fake - proving once again that The Office is closer to reality TV than any of those "reality" shows could ever hope to be. That really is the BoA brass, and the song is performed by Ethan Chandler, Manhattan bank manager by day, sensitive rocker by night (favorite band: Counting Crows).

The video is a hoot, and works on so many levels. It shows the crassness of corporate culture (especially those inspirational conferences) while simultaneously reminding us that artistic expression is such a hard-to-control beast. I'm no U2 fan (okay, maybe once, long long ago), but I'm pretty sure they had no intention of their song being co-opted to represent bank mergers, NASCAR, office teamwork, or dissing Capital One. The standing ovation by middle-aged BoA executives is almost like a slap in the face. Life can be such a bitch that way.

Not to say that we are all so clueless. Modest Mouse fans at this Saturday's show were treated to a surprise duet from David Cross and Johnny Marr, who ripped out a rather faithful version (YouTube link). And yes, it was understood by this crowd that comedy was happening. I am betting that whatever BoA employee leaked the video in the first place had the same idea. 

Then we have the cease and desist orders sent by Universal music. Scroll down in the comments section on Stereogum to read the notice. If a viral video is circulated, no money has exchanged hands, and the version is clearly a parody (it is at least meant to be "clever" for the staff of BoA), is that really a violation of copyright? Did the Backstreet Boys try to sue the Two Asian Guys? Those of us who get how terrible/funny this version is just have more ammo in our hate-on for corporate culture. No harm, no foul. Universal and the BoA lawyers can circle-jerk this all they want, but leave the bloggers alone, already. We just report this crazy shit. We don't make it.

For a darker reading of the BoA song, I recommend reading the lyrics side-by-side with U2's, which helps bring out some of the subtext. Comparison after the jump.

The Tielman Brothers

Alan Bishop from Sun City Girls dropped us this You Tube link last night of a wild 1960 TV performance by Indonesia's Tielman Brothers, who took rockabilly into some serious acrobatic realm. They were hardly jumping on pianos and setting them on fire with abandon ala Jerry Lee Lewis, but I don't know if the Killer could have pulled these more studied moves. The band recorded in various incarnations between 1958 and 1981 according to this informative site, and while most of their releases were in their homeland as well as Dutch and German labels, they managed to graze a few U.S. imprints as well. Bear Family seems to have a few definitive CD compilations, but without visual, you're not even getting a piece of the story. Here's the video for download (16MB mpeg) as well.

Mudhoney at WFMU

These Seattle legends have now been to the White House and Jersey City, though their weekend visit to the latter featured a set of live rock action that we won't soon forget. Yep, Mudhoney hopped the PATH train and hit Terre T's Cherry Blossom Clinic midway between their two night stint at the Knitting Factory; and with the kind assist of fellow show guests Hank IV and their gear rental (plus engineer Diane Kamikaze), brought the Superfuzz and Bigmuff to life right here in Studio B and blasted through a short but killer set that included classics like "Mudride", "Into the Drink", and "Suck You Dry" (slightly ill-lit but watchable 36MB avi file). They also did two from their new record Under a Billion Suns, and capped it off with, holy smokes, Black Flag's "Fix Me"! Hear the whole set on archive here. After all the hot Sub Pop roster action in the FMU live room over the years (Comets On Fire, Kinski, A-Frames, Jennifer Gentle, Kelley Stoltz, Michael Yonkers, Dead Moon) we've now officially put in our request for a Cat Butt and Dickless reunion. Pic: Terre T, Video: Brian Turner.

TV News Theme Overload

Nothing gets me pumped like the hard-hitting interstitial music immediately preceding an investigative report on my local TV news affiliate. That's why I had a field day on this site, where I compulsively downloaded TV news theme openers, sympathetic bumpers, breaking news stingers, election coverage intros, severe weather montages, and so much more. Everything is low bit-rate, but good god man, there are a zillion MP3s! Plus, I discovered that the lowly, underappreciated ranks of TV news theme composers include none other than John Williams (MP3) and Lalo Schifrin (MP3)!

I got so caught up with the drama, intrigue, human interest fluff, and foiled terror plots that I made a little TV news theme montage of my own. Click here to download the 6-minute-long emotional rollercoaster. Then forgive me.

More TV news music links:
- Streaming real audio of various network news program themes, some going back to the '70s.
- Searchable database of local news themes, streaming audio.
- Scroll down on this page for a few selected news jingles from the '70s and '80s, along with selected airlines commercials (wha?), sitcom themes, et al.

Photos of People Playing Video Games

 

 

 

 

 

By Phillip Toledano via Parumo

From Da Space (video)

Far be it from me to veer away from this blog's primary subjects of industrial safety and construction material, but here's a nice video by a fella named Gordie for DJ Slade's song From Da Space: download mov file, 15 megs or youtube it.

There's nothing unusual about using found footage, but Gordie manages to do something new with it, and he's dug up some really odd clips. And what the hell are those kids in Kansas City doing at the one minute mark? via Antville.

Kids and Aliens (MP3s)

Do you remember the good old days of MP3.com, before Vivendi Universal bought it and ran it into the ground? Just like on MySpace these days, unsigned bands and musicians could upload their music and present it to the whole Internet, for better or worse. And while most of it was crap with no redeeming features whatsoever, there were a few gems waiting to be found by music fans with strange tastes and too much time on their hands. Here is one example, the band Background, who said about themselves "Background has been playing together for many years...not playing music but actual playing because we are all cousins and like playing with each other."

Here are the lyrics for their song Alien Abduction, giving practical advice of how to deal with hostile aliens, if you forgot to wear your Thought Screen Helmet.

aliens aliens
lil green aliens
coming down to carry me away
i grabbed his green body
and threw it in the trunk
what could the alien say?

1 night i was alone
watching television
when i saw a bright light
i went outside in my underwear
and wasn't sure my eyes were right
the alien saw me
and tried to take me in his ship far away
i hit him in the head and threw him in the trunk
what could the alien say?

And now with music: Alien Abduction (mp3). Can't get enough? I got one more for you: Background (mp3).

Drywall

Drywall is a man-made building material used in the construction of the interior walls of homes and buildings. Also sometimes called "gypsum board," "plasterboard" or "sheetrock," the material is made from forming a mixture of gypsum plaster mixed with fiber (usually shredded paper and/or fiberglass), a foaming agent, mildew and fire-resitant additives, and water. The mix is sandwiched between two sheets of tough paper mat or fiberglass, and when dried becomes stiff enough to use as a building material. The use of this material is the world-wide status quo. North America is the largest user, with a total wallboard capacity of 40 billion square feet per year. And in developing countries, it's demand as a construction medium is rapidly accelerating.

The Greatest (and Goriest) Industrial Film Ever (Video)

In the greatest industrial film of all time, Klaus the Forklift Operator cuts off the hands of one co-worker, decapitates another, drops a knife on the head of a third, impales two and slices another in half. Twice. Oh, it's in German. It takes a while for the plot to get going, but once it does, the blood and safety tips flow like a river: download mpeg video, 17 megs, or youtube it.

Cleaning Out My Gifbox

The Christian Action Films of Erik Estrada

Erik Estrada. He belongs to that pile of self-consciously ironic pop culture figures whose careers have turned into self-parody, so much so that even a mere attempt to ridicule them turns you instantly into a hack comedian. William Shatner, Gary Coleman, and pretty much anybody who has ever appeared on an episode of The Surreal Life fall into this category. Despite the majority of Estrada's kitsch value having been derived from his fame on C.H.I.P.s. and more recently as the phonetic-Spanish speaking co-star of a popular Mexican soap opera, the most obvious source for Estrada mockery has never truly been explored.

Erik Estrada's film debut was in, what is without doubt, the most famous Christian action film, if not the most notorious Christian motion picture ever made. The Cross and the Switchblade (1970) is still well remembered by Christians and reformed Christians alike, perhaps because it has never really gone away. Apparently religious classes still show it to children clean across North America and Christian bookstores, where I was able to buy my copy, are now stocking their pristine "25th Anniversary" VHS and DVD copies. The story is simple, if not completely lacking in credibility, but had enough staying power to prosper in three separate mediums. Preacher David Wilkerson first wrote The Cross and The Switchblade book based on his "true story" of being a white Christian wandering blindly into the ghettos of New York City, and using the power of his voice and bible into convincing knife wielding, "marijuana addicted" gang members to keep from killing one another. The success of the book was immediate in the Christian community and was quickly turned into a comic book by the now notorious Spire Christian Comics organization headed by religious Archie Comics staffer Al Hartley, who in turn would produce 19 simultaneously fondly and creepily remembered Archie Comics filled with unnerving Christian messages (Hartley was also the son of right wing New Jersey congressman, Fred Hartley, whose unsavoury legacy lives on in the Taft-Hartley Bill). It was around the same time that the idea for the movie was spawned and an unknown upstart, Estrada, was cast in the role of a ne'er do well Hispanic hoodlum. The autobiographical role of author Wilkerson was handed to a darling of the born again set, Pat Boone. You can currently watch large chunks of the film via YouTube. Check out these clips: one, two and three.

Well, If Collector's Choice and Rhino Aren't Going to Take the Lead...

...and if Matador is too occupied reissuing Chavez and Pavement records, I suppose there's nothing we can do about that. But someone is sure missing out. So, let it never be said that WFMU fails to bring the meat and potatoes to the table when digging for and presenting culture-defining artifacts. Released on Casablanca, recorded live 1979 at the Roxy in Hollywood with backing band that includes Christopher Guest credited as Nigel Tufnel (three years before Spinal Tap, though well dressed and with short hair), Ming the Merciless, Lars Svenki, Dwight Night and Beanie Barnhill. Tracks flow into each other as it's a live record, so MP3's of Side One combined: "Vamp On", "Night After Night", "Creature Without a Head", "King of the Cars", "Squiggy's Wedding Day", "Love Is a Terrible Thing." Side Two: "Babyland (For Eva Squigmann)", "(If Only I Had Listened To) Mamma", "So's Your Old Testament", "Sister In Law", "Honor Farm", "Starcrossed", "Only Women Cry", "Foreign Legion of Love", "Vamp Off." Thank you to Amanda Barrett for donating this and many other of Mr. Boyd's records to the station. As for Collectors' Choice, you clearly goofed bigtime by picking the Laverne and Shirley record instead.

Marie Osmond Does Hugo Ball

MP3: Marie Osmond Performing Hugo Ball's "Karawane" (written in 1916)

Taken from a Ripley's Believe It Or Not segment on sound poetry from the mid-80s. According to producer Jed Rasula, "Marie Osmond became co-host with Jack Palance. In the format of the show, little topic clusters (like "weird language") were introduced by one of the hosts. In this case, the frame was Cabaret Voltaire. Marie was required to read Hugo Ball's sound poem "Karawane" and a few script lines. Much to everybody's astonishment, when they started filming she abruptly looked away from the cue cards directly into the camera and recited, by memory, "Karawane." It blew everybody away, and I think they only needed that one take. A year or so after it was broadcast, Greil Marcus approached me, wanting to use Marie Osmond's rendition of Hugo Ball for a cd produced in England as sonic companion to his book Lipstick Traces; so I was delighted to be able to arrange that."