WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Hasil Adkins - The Great Lost Album

[UPDATE: Now with all 15 MP3s!]

A great find today on TheHoundBlog, a blog run by ex-WFMU DJ The Hound: A cassette by Hasil Adkins from the mid-90s, finally digitized to MP3 and available for everyone with an Internet connection. Here is what The Hounds writes [direct link to the post with downloads]:

It was around 1994 or 5 that Hasil Adkins gave this 90 minute cassette to Norton Records' honcho Billy Miller to give to me to play on my radio show. [...] So Billy gives me this cassette of Hasil's home recordings, no info, no song titles, nuthin', but every song is great. Some of his best work. Much better than anything on the Fat Possum LP (which captures Hasil on a very uninspired day). As far as I can tell none of this stuff has ever been released, so now it will escape, I being the one to unlock the cage and let it loose on you--the rest of the world. If you're a Hasil fan, fidelity isn't one of your great concerns, this stuff was recorded at Haze's house in the holler somewhere in the country side outside of Madison, West Virginia and transferred to cassette by Hasil himself. I dubbed it to digital using a program called Amadeus Pro (thanks to Brian Redman, for turning me on to this and teaching me how to use it, without Brian there's be no Hound). Some of the song titles I made up since, as I said, there were no titles on the tape box. [...] These fifteen tunes were chosen from a total of twenty three, so there'll be a volume two someday (all sad ballads). The great lost Hasil Adkins album, I think I'll call it Commodity Meat and other delights, or maybe How To Do The Hunch And Influence People.

If you missed the link above, the full post with all the MP3s and more pictures is here. Since the download speed is a bit slow over there, I grabbed them and put them up here, renamed and tagged.

MP3s: Waitin' For The Graveyard, Go Go Go Down The Line (Lookin' Down That Highway), Let Me Talk To You (Moo Moo Moo), Me & Jesus (Got It All Worked Out), Lee-Anne (I Wanna See You Boogie Woogie), Kill 'Em Rock, Keep On Hunchin', Way Before My Time (I Should Have Been Born A Long Time Ago), Somebody I Used To Know (and Chased Away With A Baseball Bat), Madison Boone County Blues, Old Joe, Commodity Meat & Peanut Butter, Ugly Chelsea Clinton Hunch (Feed Her Commodity Meat, Bill), Catch Me A Train, You're Too Young For Me, Reelin' & Rockin'.

Awkward Jerry Lewis Moments #3

Previous moments here and here.

Elton and Betty White / Folk stars of the fin de sie`cle / Part Two (of two)

As promised, here are my final 25 cuts by the unforgettable Elton and Betty White.  I think that due to the shortness of their songs, one needs to hear rather a lot of them to gain a better feel for what they did. I suppose I should describe their music to those who haven't heard it, I keep assuming that WFMU reader/listeners know about them; the best and most I could say is that they sing straight from the heart about some earthy, patently human things, and what they may lack in skill as poets and players disappears under the weight of their charm. I didn't even expect to be doing Elton and Betty as my first couple of regular posts here on BOTB, but fate seemed to push them into this spot, in several ways.
By the way- I'm tickled to be here.

The second tidal wave of E & B hits after the break.

Songs We Taught The Oblivians

Brownie McGhee - Christina
Uncle Ben And His Nephews - Mama Look At Sis
Little Eva - Loco Motion
Albert King and Otis Rush - All Your Love
Little Willie John - Talk To Me
Tom Waits - Way Down In The Hole
Bo Diddley - Dearest Darling
Hound Dog Taylor - Let's Get Funky
The Monks - Oh, How To Do Now
Trio - Sunday You Need Love Monday Be Alone
Swamp Rats - No Friend Of Mine
Mahalia Jackson - I'm Going To Live The Life I Sing About In My Song

Photo by Miriam

Lux and Ivy's Favorites (mp3s)

This is an amazing interview with Lux and Ivy that Rex Doane conducted for his show, Fool's Paradise, back when HOW TO MAKE A MONSTER came out.

Fool's Paradise with Lux & Ivy

This interview is essential for truly understanding the mythos of The Cramps. Yes, The Cramps made amazing music, and amazing contributions to the history of music, but to really get a good idea of where they are coming from, is to listen to the music that inspired them. If you think its all crazy rockabilly, you're wrong.

Now, here are Lux and Ivy's Favorites. Let's start off with a note I put in one of the volumes to give you a background on the series.

Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Lux and Ivy's Favorites!!!

Ok, I got kind of sick of repeating this story 1000 times. So figured I'd include this in the latest volume. I'm the guy who compiles the Lux and Ivy's Favorites Compilations.

Welcome To The Urban Jungle

Here's the skinny.

We're living in the middle of a global economic depression, which, depending on which newspaper you read, is either going to be the hardest thing you've ever gone through (at the good end) or worse than the Great Depression (at the bad end).

Now that's enough to have the bravest of us reaching for the Prozac.

And, it seems that increasing numbers of us are already doing that, not to mention our therapy sessions and spiritual retreat weekends; and they'll dry up once our redundancy payments go South. A Stanford Daily article from 2005 claimed that half of all Americans were taking anti-depressants.

We live in scary, stressful times.

Belated Top 10 of 2008 from R. Lim

R. Lim (of the Janitor From Mars, aka WFMU's primier out-of-the-closet sneaker whore) checks in with his top 10 list at long last:

In somewhat lazily alphabetical order:

Adidas Muenchen (Dark Sand/Light Scarlet/Dark Green) "Oktoberfest"
Another supremely well-conceived and executed exclusive from Crooked Tongues, in celebration of Oktoberfest and all things Bavarian. Highly conceptual but easy on the eyes, plus bonus points for not using the same 70s retro models that get wheeled out ad nauseum (no offense, Chad!). Not included: sick from someone else's Wilde Maus ride gone wrong.

 

New Balance M575J PG (Pigeon)
Pigeon Part II - minus: Lower East Side mugging brigade, $1,000 price tag on the secondary market - plus: a much more appropriate runner model.

 

Nike Air Force 1 Low Supreme WP (Olive Khaki/White-Gum)
WP = waterproof.  The extra-grippy gumsole adds to the ACG theme without relying on inappropriate and esoteric color schemes (that are only legible to people who know what "ACG" means).

 

 

 

Nike Air Pegasus+ 25 SE (NikeID) "Buckeye Born"
In my blood, on my feet.  Edition: 1 of 1.

 

 

 

 

 

Meatmen live on TV 1982

Tesco Vee's Guide to Agnetha Fältskog sadly never got the book deal it deserved, but great to see this bit of TV history exhumed.

Hilfe, Hilfe, Die Globolinks!

Help! Help! The Globolinks! Is a science-fiction opera for children by Gian Carlo Menotti where strange alien creatures can only be destroyed by music. The Globolinks in this German production look like they stepped out of a Matta painting. They are accompanied by some fantastic and bizarre electronic blip-blop squeeling which adds a nice contract to the neoclassical fanfare. Youtube version here.

Lux Interior RIP

For Immediate Release: February 4, 2009

Lux Interior, lead singer of The Cramps, passed away this morning due to an existing heart condition at Glendale Memorial Hospital in Glendale, California at 4:30 AM PST today. Lux has been an inspiration and influence to millions of artists and fans around the world. He and wife Poison Ivy’s contributions with The Cramps have had an immeasurable impact on modern music.

The Cramps emerged from the original New York punk scene of CBGB and Max’s Kansas City, with a singular sound and iconography. Their distinct take on rockabilly and surf along with their midnight movie imagery reminded us all just how exciting, dangerous, vital and sexy rock and roll should be and has spawned entire subcultures. Lux was a fearless frontman who transformed every stage he stepped on into a place of passion, abandon, and true freedom. He is a rare icon who will be missed dearly.

The family requests that you respect their privacy during this difficult time.

Mort Lindsey Studio Masters (MP3s)

1. All That Jazz (2:00)
2. Gossip (1:46)
3. Night Music (2:08)
4. Like Wow (1:53)
5. Two Little Kooks (2:04)
6. Two Beatniks (2:18)
7. Kerazy (2:04)
8. It Ain't Grendalstag (1:54)

Beat poetry and jazz fans may recognize some of these titles immediately. They're all from Don Morrow's 1961 Roulette release, GRIMM'S HIP FAIRY TALES. Only you won't find a bit of Morrow's vocals on this, as these are the raw studio recordings of Mort Lindsey and his band, which included Doc Severinson on trumpet and Phil Bodner on reeds.

This is a 78 RPM acetate, either for review by the suits or perhaps as playback for Morrow's recording session. Whoever owned this before me scratched off the artist name, and it was only by cross-referencing the track names that I was able to figure out what it was. Those are my handwritten notes on the label. Typos in the track names are courtesy of whoever put it on there ("Kerazy" should be "Kerouazy").

Like most acetates, this one's got some heavy surface wear, but also some surprising fidelity throughout the spectrum. I've left in the odd bits of control-room chatter, and astute listeners will hear Lindsey count in the beat on "Two Beatniks."

This is some terrific bite-sized jazz from Lindsey, who worked extensively in television and film, notably arranging Gay Purr-ee and winning a primetime Emmy for A Happening in Central Park.

The finished album is prized by collectors of beat-era jazz, although Morrow was accused of lifting the concept from Al "Jazzbo" Collins. Here's your chance to enjoy the tunes without the vocal overdubs.

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Vol. 2 (MP3s)

Give the Drummer Some's
10 Favorite Downloads from the MP3 Blogosphere
(see Comments, below, for helpful info about downloading)

I can't wait till you hear this week's batch of goodies. Plump and juicy, phenomenal recordings are low-hanging everywhere online, awaiting your frenzied lunges. Take a peak at my selections, then follow the links to the blogs hosting them.

Highlights this week include a seldom-seen Warner Bros. release by a brother-sister act (Smokey & His Sister), a Japanese funk unit that channels the JBs with outrageous aplomb (Osaka Monaurail), and a two-disc compilation of Aboriginal country music from Down Under (Buried Country). Wow!

Dreamy Pop from Larry and Vicki Mims
Smokey & His Sister  ~  s/t
From the album:  My Fondest Dreams
(Blog: Redtelephone66)

 
Apex of Zambian Afro/psyche
Witch  ~  "Lazy Bones"
(Blog: Crotchbat)

 

How do you say "Unhh" in Japanese?
Osaka Monaurail  ~  "Thankful"
(Blog: Original Funk Music)

[Don't stop here! There are 7 more downloads after the jump.]

My Life in Bagels

The smell of bagels is permanently lodged in my olfactory memory bank.  It is a smell that I have been neglected of since I moved to Chicago from New Jersey years ago. A few months ago my girlfriend brought home some bagels. I had grown to loathe bagels and I ignored the bag she plopped on the kitchen table...thinking it was a batch of Chicago bagels...essentially an inedible and tasteless mass of Wonderbread shaped in an "O". But soon a familiar smell wafted past my nose...a smell that brought back waves of memories and a healthy rumble in my stomach...those are BAGELS! REAL BAGELS! It is a very distinctive smell- doughy, slightly sweet and always accompanied by the scent of a well-worn paper bag.

I have a very nostalgic and emotional relationship to bagels. In high school I had a group of girlfriends that worked at my town's bagel shop (they only hired teenage girls).  It was a dumpy little strip mall storefront that just had the bare essentials- bins of bagels, a couple pots of coffee and a small deli case for lox, cream cheese and butter. Customers rarely came in- giving us free reign of the place to use as our little clubhouse.  Every day after school I would hang out and stock up on bagels...breeding a ridiculous fanaticism. I always had a paper bag of them in my backpack, eating them as I spent hours roaming around town and exploring the woods. Pumpernickel! Sesame Seed! Even a plain bagel was enough for me. I ate at least five bagels a day. A surplus would often accumulate in my school locker, many of them hardening into a concrete that would smash into many pieces when you threw them against the wall.

Imagine my surprise when I arrived in Chicago and bit into the region's bagel! A bagel shop underneath the El tracks by Wrigley Field came highly recommended and I immediately hopped on the train to hunt it down. Unfortunately, what my mouth was greeted with was a puffy and elastic ball of dough. I should have known better when I saw that they offered chocolate chip, blueberry and pumpkin varieties. A bagel is not a muffin! A bagel is not simply a surface to smear cream cheese upon! A bagel is the product of a highly refined recipe and cooking process passed down through hundreds of years- resulting in a bread product whose flavor is rich but simple and a texture that is always challenging. I don't need a goddamn thing on my bagel and honestly, I find bagels most delicious when they are a couple days old and slightly hard.

Sounds of Sanford - The Anti-Aphrodisiac (mp3s)

 

One of the downsides about doing radio at a college station is finding anything at all.  Bob Seger was NOT to be found in the Rock CDs.  Nor was it to be found in the hundred thousand pieces of vinyl.  “Seger”? No. “Bob”? No. “Silver Bullet Band”? No.  (I was looking for "K-K-K-Katmandu", if you must know.)

One of the upsides about doing radio at a college station is finding anything at all - as in the oddest things imaginable. As in - Sounds of Sanford.  As in - a full album of a 1962 evening of drag racing in Sanford, Maine.

Why?  I don’t really know.  Think about it.  Someone took the time to set up a “Presto 800 2 channel stereophonic tape recorder” and a “Neumen (Telefunken) U48a Condenser microphone” to record…a drag race.

So they could make an album.

To sell.

To people.

And someone bought it.

I understand that “fun” meant something different in 1962, especially in Sanford, Maine, but how much utility can you get from a record of drag races?  I admit that I know little about cars and not terribly much about women but (except in rare occasions) I doubt you'll get to first base asking a girl to come over to listen to Sounds of Sanford.  Still, every pot has a lid.

After I played side one, a blind gentlemen called me up to talk about it.  I know he was blind because it was the third thing out of his mouth.  “Those cars were pretty darn slow, it sounded like,” he told me, and then proceeded to analyze everything he heard and the conclusions he drew from it, most of which went over my head.  He told me that he really wanted his grandson to hear the album and if there was a CD of it.

"Um.  No.  There’s not," I told him, "but you could download it in an hour or two."

"Got no use for computers," he said pleasantly, "but thanks anyway."

Sounds Of Sanford Side 1

Sounds of Sanford Side 2

Melodies derived from Stock charts, arranged with Microsoft Songsmith

Did you read that title correct?  You bet your sweet bottom you did!

Melodies derived from Stock Charts, arranged with Songsmith, the Microsoft Composition Tool. By Johannes Kreidler.

Thanks John from Oslo for helping us relax to the sounds of stocks.

Want even more Stock based music in your life?  Listen to your broker, I say, Listen to your broker.

sita sings the blues

     Sita is singing the blues because her man done her wrong.  We all know the feeling.  One day you’re flying high, completing an independent animated feature you’ve been working on tirelessly for years, writing and animating every frame yourself, and then the next moment your award-winning film is in copyright lock-down over fees for music written more than 60 years ago.  Well that isn’t exactly Sita’s problem, but that is the dilemma of animator Nina Paley with her fantastic new feature film, Sita Sings the Blues.
     Layering several versions of the Hindu Sanskrit epic of Ramayana, Paley offers us a gorgeous visual collage of contemporary and ancient imagery centering on the girl done wrong.  Sita is the wife of Rama, the avatar of Vishnu, whose virtue is challenged after she is kidnapped by an enemy of Rama’s.  After rescuing Sita, Rama questions her purity.  She passes a trial by fire, but is sent packing when Rama’s subjects can not respect his decision to allow her to return to his royal household.  Annette Hanshaw is the silent film star and singer whose music provides one of the charming narratives of Sita Sings the Blues.  Her bluesy torch songs add a 1920's twist to the Sita chapter of the Ramayana.  A third layer to Sita's predicament in the movie is the telling of filmmaker Paley's autobiographical tale.  Paley was quite suddenly dumped via email by her husband, while he was working in India - a part of India very close to the area that the Ramayarna legend took place - so a natural collision of the stories blossomed. 

      The lock-down copyright part of this saga is a little more difficult to explain.  Due to an arbitrary and labyrinthine net of copyright protection in this country, music rights are prohibitively expensive, and as a result sometimes impossible to secure.  All the years of woman-hours animating and developing this film were not as costly as the opening price that the Annette Hanshaw songs demanded.  Continued negotiations have somewhat lowered the costs, but the bargaining continues.  Similar to the RIAA's hostile takeover of the the music industry and its royalty formulas, US copyright laws are built to protect a few select individuals, and these are not the creative playas, if you get my drift. Until this issue is settled, Sita Sings the Blues is without a distribution contract.

     Citing the Creative Commons argument, many people are advocating to enlarge the platform for copyright use.  Nina Paley is taking these issues to the streets, gathering attention to her copyright nightmare and pushing for changes to be made to the laws.  Sita Sings the Blues will be shown this Wednesday Feb 4th, at 92Y in Tribeca, 200 Hudson street, 8PM, with the filmmaker present.  WNET in the NYC area will also broadcast Sita Sings the Blues on March 7, 2009, on channel 13.

Economic Stimulus

I grew up wearing other kids’ clothes, mostly Mary Frances Todd’s. Even before my mom got sick and we got really poor, Mrs. Todd would show up at church two or three times a year with a bag of Mary Frances’ old clothes for me. I never thought much about it, except for one particular pink satin shift dress that hung on me like a sack. My mother was thrilled with it and made me wear it for every Special Occasion, but I hated the thing. Other than that one dress, though, I don’t think it ever occurred to me that clothes should be flattering. Or actually fit. Or be new.

Eventually we lost touch with Mrs. Todd and her daughter’s clothing, and I moved on to buying my clothes at thrift stores. The problem was that I was a big girl—5-foot-4 in the fourth grade—and there weren’t a lot of cast-off girls’ clohes that fit me. I ended up wearing lots of boys’ clothes and grown-up-lady outfits, which I can see now must have been sort of inappropriate, but at the time it was just the way I dressed.

A series of emails between two friends who both recently finished watching Rainer Werner Fassbinder's "Berlin Alexanderplatz"

From: Mark Allen
To:  Tc (Tim Cook)
Subject: I finally got to the end
Date: Mon, Jan 19, 2009 at 8:59 PM
Tim -- I made it to the end of Berlin Alexanderplatz just now. And at this point, that in itself is the greatest thing about it.

From: Tc
To:  Mark Allen
Subject: Re: I finally got to the end
Date: Jan 19, 2009 9:05 PM
Whoa, you did it! Eva! Mieze! Meck! Rhinehold! Bruno! Pums! The Angels! Franz! Franz' stump!  The Epilogue!   What Andrew Sarris claimed in what used to be called The Village Voice: "The Mt. Everest of World Cinema"! You did it all! Congrats, Mark!  So...  what did you think?  How do you feel?

From: Mark Allen
To:  Tc
Subject: Re: I finally got to the end
Date: Jan 19, 2009 at 9:08 PM
Numb.

KONICHIWA, STUNTKUNT CLAIREBARE NAIR FOR I-CAN'T-BELIEVE-IT'S-KNOTTED-BUTT-HAIR OVERTANNED UNDERMANNED B9ITCHES WITH STITCHES IN THEY HOT BRITCHES: AN ED SHEPP NEW YEAR FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY TALKING RECTAL WART

You know that time when you were all wanting to make your friend Xtina's Sunday really, really special, and you were like, "I'm going to make her a ten-tiered layer cake with columns and Ed-ible glitter and rhinestones, and it's gonna have color-changing LED lights and rotate 360 degrees and each layer is going to have its own unique theme, and when I present it, a mini-Fergie is going to pop out the middle and perform nose piercings? And it's gonna be like that Lexus commercial that plays every Christmas, only without that algal bloom schmaltz? Remember that?

And how you kept trying to make it, but this wasn't really coming out right and you didn't really plan that out and every time you tried to correct it, new obstacles appeared and then you started to think like, "Shit, we're in a Depression — maybe I oughtta stop metaphorically flicking off SoHo store owners by balking at their 80%-off prices and, like, SERIOUSLY focus on my job?" So that when Sunday finally rolled around, all you had for Xteenerz was a plate of half-underdone, half-burnt cookies that you put too little sugar and too much salt (and banana flavor!) in, but mixed it wrong, so that one bite was like a Matterhorn-size circus peanut and the next was all brackish seawater but mostly it was just charred flour? Remember that? Remember? You do??

Well, um... OK, then. [deep cleansing breath] Happy Sunday, X-teenzlers! [best :/ face here]

Ballad of the Skeletons (video)

A "clean" and abridged version of Allen Ginsberg's "Ballad of the Skeletons", with music by Paul McCartney, and video directed by Gus van Sant.

YouTube [link]: