WFMU's Beware of the Blog

For April Winchell (mp3s)

When I started getting into oddio, my friend Benari sent me a link to the 365 Days Project.  From there I found April Winchell.  And FMU after that.  And now I are riting for them!  (And since I'm sucking up, thanks to Derek at Here It Wow for getting me here)  April is where I first listened Little Markie and Little Marcy and cringed to Tiny Tot Calvin sing A Cowboy for Jesus.  April is the person that first introduced me to the phrase "CAUTION CHILDREN SINGING".  So let me thank her with not one christian child singing but a whole bunch of recently converted Korean christian children singing America The Beautiful with there adorable reversals of "r" and "l".

This comes off an album called Billy James Hargis' Korean Guys and Dolls.  I can find no real discrenable reason for this title.  Produced in 1970, It bears no relation whatsoever to to the stage show/movie.  In fact, there's not a single show tune on the album.  It's 60% hymns, 15% traditional Korean folks songs an 15% Americana.

Quick Quiz!  Here's the track list for side two in no particular order.  What I'm looking for is the last song on the album.  Bonus points if you get everything in the right order

How Great Thou Art
America The Beautiful
Blessed Assurance
My Jesus Thou Wilt
Battle Hymn of the Republic
He Hideth My Soul
Down in the Valley
In the Garden

I'm so tempted to post the answer tomorrow but that seems horribly unfair.  The answer is

Taylor Ho Bynum/Tomas Fujiwara Duo Live at WFMU

Taylor Ho Bynum and Tomas Fujiwara stopped by recently for a Sunday brunch set at WFMU.  The drums/cornet duo met in high school and have collaborated ever since, playing together in a plethora of bands/musical settings.  Playing a mix of composed and improvised music, and drawing on a broad spectrum of jazz styles from Ellington to Bill Dixon to smoldering grooves and who knows what else, the duo sounds loose and relaxed on the five tunes below.  Thanks to Mark Triant for engineering.

Their latest project together, The Thirteenth Assembly (a quartet with Jessica Pavone on viola and Mary Halvorson on guitar), has a brand new record on Important called (Un)sentimental.  Also, if you're in the midwest, they'll be playing a tour April 5-12 hitting Minneapolis, Detroit, Milwaukee and Chicago, where they'll play as a duo and in various configurations with a bunch of amazing Chicago musicians as part of the Umbrella Music Series.

Taylor Ho Bynum/Tomas Fujiwara Duo - Basie/Wisdom
Taylor Ho Bynum/Tomas Fujiwara Duo - Keys, No Address
Taylor Ho Bynum/Tomas Fujiwara Duo - Untitled
Taylor Ho Bynum/Tomas Fujiwara Duo - Leaning Reflection
Taylor Ho Bynum/Tomas Fujiwara Duo - Ikuru

The live audio in this post is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States license.

More photos after the jump.

Los Shakers!!

Prepare to witness the greatest rock & roll video of all time. Then follow this link to Gaylord Fields' Los Shakers blog post and this link to Michael Shelley's interview with guitarist Osvaldo Fattoruso.

man foreground, woman behind

I don't want to fall into that trap.  You know the one where because we are seeing a film, or listening to music 40 years after it was made it doesn't seem to be all that shocking.  As a teenager I walked out on Godard's "Breathless", the very first time I went to a midnight movie. Of course, I am horrified at that juvenile snafu, but I didn't know any better.  I had to be taught to understand French Cinema in all of it's oddities. Yet, I have been watching "Who are you Polly Magoo?"  for over a week now: rewinding, fast forwarding and I still don't have a clue what to say about it.  Cinematography wise it's a gas.  Fab angles, odd shots of crowds and high places in Paris, the fashion world has never looked more extra terrestrial.  But these stylized images are so part of our almost mainstream now it's hard to be as shocked as we might have been had we sat in the audience on opening night of William Klein's 1966 film.  Criticizing the Parisian fashion world at the birth of its youth market is an easy hit.  Models always look silly  when we see them from behind the camera, vamping and sashaying to and fro.  Magazines and still photography seem to create a peace that separates the action from the outcome and allows the observer to fetishize, belittle or worship as we please. 

William Klein was a fantastic photographer before he shot this film, with heavy credits in the fashion industry.  He knew firsthand the insanity of the magazine hierarchy and its' willing subjects. Because this film was made as the French New Wave was winding down, that influence feels hearty and obvious.  After all, Klein was an American, at the height of anti-American feelings in France.  One couldn't just waltz in and not make a big nod without trench coats flapping or ballet flats mussed up.  Klein interjects humor and absurdity that frees his influences from their New Wave forefathers and offers up an early Woody Allen quality that suggests we are all in on the joke, we just don't know where we heard it first.

My only complaint about "Qui Etes-Vous Polly Magoo?" is that the story we are being sold, about how vapid the fashion industry is, especially its models, is such a duplicitous tale.  While we mock them, we also worship, and look to them for strength of good style character. The women in his film are seen as robots to visual reward, yet the male viewers enjoy those efforts.  It's hard to be sympathetic to the poor male lead who frets about Polly's vacuousness while he day dreams about her fashioned false front.  As seen through the eyes of a male film maker this recurring tale will always be resolved with 'man in foreground, woman behind'. 

Differently Cognitive

I don’t read a lot of fiction, because usually I find it upsetting. An author sets up some characters and gets you all interested in them, and then makes terrible things happen to them. I told that to a guy I worked with, and he pointed out that bad things happen to people in non-fiction books, too. “But those are real people, they’re not invented specifically to make you care about them,” I said. I don’t think he understood the distinction, but it makes a difference to me.

Anyway, in the last few years I have found a little sub-genre of fiction that I enjoy: novels written as if by people with neurological disorders. First was Motherless Brooklyn by Jonathan Lethem (Doubleday, 1999). This is the story of Lionel Essrog, an orphan with Tourette’s syndrome who tries to solve the murder of Frank Minna, his employer, mentor, and friend. I liked the experience of seeing the Brooklyn I knew though Lionel’s eyes. The depiction of Tourette’s felt accurate, and didn’t seem as if it were just a gimmick or even just a metaphor. The writing was excellent, and the story was satisfying. (I still smile at the memory of the two old dons, Brickface and Stucco.) I discussed Motherless Brooklyn on my WFMU book club show on August 14 and 21, 2002—which seems incredible, since it was so long ago. One caller explained the name Essrog to me, and I’ve always wondered if that was Jonathan Lethem himself, but I’ve never found out. (Update 4/3: It wasn't Lethem, it was Listener Bruce! That's good to know, after all this time.)

Sightings playing Saturday's WFMU Free Music Archive concert w/ Thee Oh Sees, Excepter, Pink Skull (mp3s)

As we continue to tweak WFMU's emerging social music website The Free Music Archive, we've just been informed that Catatonic Youth disbanded this weekend and canceled all future shows, including Saturday's Free Music Archive launch party. With this bummer news comes the awesome news that Sightings has been added to the bill.

Over the last decade the Hoffman/Lockie/Morgan trio has become one of thee live bands to see in NYC, taking cues from everything from early Neubauten to Japanese blowout psychedelia to cave-dwelling dub and even minimal house, all contained within a traditional guitar/bass/drums format. Sightings channel it all via noisy, organic rock with weirdly structured songs developed through a keen and alien vocabulary that constant playing and recording has developed to today's state of the band. Five years ago people first started to talk about them reaching new peaks, but they've only kept adding fuel to the fire and are really are destroying more every show.

This is music best heard live. Sightings damn near blew my mind opening for The Dead C last year at The Bowery Ballroom, and I'm looking forward to hearing them through The Bell House's excellent sound system.

Every band will be getting a full sound check, and don't forget that we're broadcasting live starting at 8pm ET! We're also recording multi-tracks, and high-quality live recordings from this show will be just a handful of thousands of free, legal mp3's you'll soon be able to download from FreeMusicArchive.org.

7pm DJ set from WFMU Music Director Brian Turner

8pm Pink Skull (Philadelphia Kraut-House, RVNG Intl.)
listen: Pink Skull - Unicorn Harpoon (mp3) from Zeppelin 3 (Free News Projects 2008)

9pm Sightings (NYC kinetic noise-rock)
listen: Sightings - Perforated (mp3) from Through The Panama (Load Records 2007) co-produced/engineered by Andrew W.K.

10pm Excepter (Brooklyn electronic-improv)
listen: Excepter - Kill People (mp3) from Debt Dept (Paw Tracks 2008)

11pm Thee Oh Sees (Johnny Dwyer's newest shit from San Francisco, w/ a new album on In The Red Records)
listen: Thee Oh Sees - The Freak Was Clean (mp3) from the oop Peanut Butter Oven 12'' EP (Awesome Vistas 2008)

Saturday April 4th, doors 7pm, 18+  @ The Bell House: 149 7th St, Brooklyn [map]
admission: $10 adv. [tix here] or a roll of the dice

Captain Beefheart's 10 Commandments of Guitar Playing

1. Listen to the birds.
That's where all the music comes from. Birds know everything about how it should sound and where that sound should come from. And watch hummingbirds. They fly really fast, but a lot of times they aren't going anywhere.

2. Your guitar is not really a guitar Your guitar is a divining rod.
Use it to find spirits in the other world and bring them over. A guitar is also a fishing rod. If you're good, you'll land a big one.

3. Practice in front of a bush
Wait until the moon is out, then go outside, eat a multi-grained bread and play your guitar to a bush. If the bush dosen't shake, eat another piece of bread.

4. Walk with the devil
Old Delta blues players referred to guitar amplifiers as the "devil box." And they were right. You have to be an equal opportunity employer in terms of who you're bringing over from the other side. Electricity attracts devils and demons. Other instruments attract other spirits. An acoustic guitar attracts Casper. A mandolin attracts Wendy. But an electric guitar attracts Beelzebub.

5. If you're guilty of thinking, you're out
If your brain is part of the process, you're missing it. You should play like a drowning man, struggling to reach shore. If you can trap that feeling, then you have something that is fur bearing.

6. Never point your guitar at anyone
Your instrument has more clout than lightning. Just hit a big chord then run outside to hear it. But make sure you are not standing in an open field.

7. Always carry a church key
That's your key-man clause. Like One String Sam. He's one. He was a Detroit street musician who played in the fifties on a homemade instrument. His song "I Need a Hundred Dollars" is warm pie. Another key to the church is Hubert Sumlin, Howlin' Wolf's guitar player. He just stands there like the Statue of Liberty-making you want to look up her dress the whole time to see how he's doing it.

8. Don't wipe the sweat off your instrument
You need that stink on there. Then you have to get that stink onto your music.

9. Keep your guitar in a dark place
When you're not playing your guitar, cover it and keep it in a dark place. If you don't play your guitar for more than a day, be sure you put a saucer of water in with it.

10. You gotta have a hood for your engine
Keep that hat on. A hat is a pressure cooker. If you have a roof on your house, the hot air can't escape. Even a lima bean has to have a piece of wet paper around it to make it grow.

(This is part of a longer piece, entitled "The Ten Commandments of Guitar Playing as They Were Handed Down to Morris Tepper by Captain Beefheart," by John McCormick, published in 1996 by Rolling Stone in the book Alt-Rock-a-Rama.)

More of Crom at WFMU

A widescreen "Grim Grey Gods" (from Septicbath) recorded on my show 9/6/08, part of a forthcoming documentary on L.A. grind/doom/old school worshippers Crom. Another clip earlier on BotB here.

Chop Suey (1931)

The best site for vintage animation fans, Cartoon Brew, has posted some fascinating and unbelievably racist press sheets this week for a pair of Terrytoons shorts from the early thirties. Post is here. Some of the promotional material was for an early Terrytoons piece called Chop Suey - a very interesting, often disturbing and entertaining in spite of itself five minute cartoon.

Mighty Titan, The Most Scary Lovely Dog

 
Sunday treat! Fantastic pictures of a flappy faced Bordeaux Mastiff gnawing and slobbering on a ball!

As an aside, I just spent ten minutes consulting Google on the proper capitalization of dog breed names. I can't find a definitive answer as it seems to be a case of style, so I decided to capitalize the whole damn thing because this goddamn dog deserves it. Look at him.

My Pink Half of the Drainpipe

It's definitely getting warmer and sunnier out there and armies of weekend gardeners are busy mowing their lawns and getting some bedding plants dug in for a spot of instant colour.

Here at Junk Towers there's a fair bit of greenery going down too with various plants springing up hither and thither, and it's an encouraging sight to see. When life bursts forth it's good for the soul, and yet when things don't quite go according to plan...

Well it sucks, quite frankly.

"Still Worse Than Missing A Meal": More From The St. Louis Metro Evening Whirl

Right about this same time last year (it's 70th anniversary) I found an incredible paragon of throw-down urban journalism resting on the counter of my local 7/11 store.  To say The St. Louis Metro Evening Whirl is unlike any newspaper printed and distributed in the United States would be giving it so little credit it's not even funny.

 

Headline templates and the stories to which they belong in the Sun-Times', Journal-Stars and Plain-Dealers are so prosaic and unimaginative it makes you wonder why there aren't more print machine operators filing workers comp claims over their hands just getting hacked off because they fell asleep reading the template cuts.  The Whirl busts out headlines--and lead paragraphs--fully intended to cause anyone within ten feet of you to shield their faces because you're getting ready to puke all over them from laughing.

Ashcroft and Bacon: Sizzlean

Austin artist and Poodle co-creator Ethan Persoff recently had a lively face to face with John Ashcroft when he infiltrated a thoughtful, measured event titled "Can OBAMA ... KEEP AMERICA Safe? An Evening With John Ashcroft". His tale is well worth the read, especially for this moment:

I decide to double my bet. I lean up. "Mr Ashcroft, I'm sorry and I know this is tacky. Thank you so much for the photo. But can I also have an autograph?" My arms outstretched with a paper and pen, John ejaculates, "I can do one better. Why don't I just sit down."

Who is this John Ashcroft, you ask? Well, besides being Bush's Attorney General he is also well known as the voice behind America's unofficial anthem "Let the Eagle Soar"* (listen to Bryce's luscious cover version). But before that, a young Missouri State Auditor teamed up with fellow state politician Max Bacon to form the gospel duo Ashcroft & Bacon.

Here are the songs from their vanity pressing "Truth, Volume One". More photos and liner notes available here.

Why Me, Lord | Reach Out to Jesus | Jesus Hold My Hand | The Broken Vessel | King Jesus | Unseen Hand | Didn't He Shine | I Find No Fault In Him | More About Jesus |We've Come This Far By Faith | Come Holy Spirit | Jesus Is Lord of All

* Oh yeah, and he's a hateful war monger who abhors civil liberties, champions an ever useless war on drugs, and approves of torture. Let's not forget that.

My Church Of Scientology Free Personality & Stress Test Story, Plus Scientology Jazz!

Last week I decided that I wanted to take the free personality test and stress test offered by one of the Scientology centers here in Los Angeles. I had my girlfriend Nicci come along so that she could take the tests too, but also to make sure I wasn't abducted and sodomized and left for dead. They do that, you know, it is just not widely reported. So, she and I drove into Hollywood to see what Scientology could teach us about ourselves, and experience firsthand just how hard the advisers at the center try to sell people on their cult religion.

The center we visited was laid out as follows. The storefront featured two bookshelves on opposite walls, and a large desk set back a bit from the entrance. All manner of Scientology books lined the shelves. Behind the front desk there were a number of free-standing displays with pictures of L. Ron Hubbard and various graphics and news stories depicting all the wonderful things Scientology does for the world. Beyond that there were some school desks and a small "theater" that included three rows of wooden chairs and a television set. The back of the room had large, office-style desks, an enclosed area where tests results were generated, and a door to a back room. There were one-way mirrors on the rear wall that I imagined were used for surveillance purposes.

Upon entering the center, an older gentleman with grey hair asked the purpose of our visit, and I mentioned the free tests. He asked us if we had thirty minutes to spare, and we said yes. Then he showed us to our desks and gave us a copy of the Oxford Capacity Analysis (Wikipedia) and an answer sheet.

Tito Schipa's Orfeo 9 (film)

Ran across this oddity the other day, 1973's film version of Orfeo 9, a rock opera by Tito Schipa Jr. and Bill Conti, who now conducts at Academy Awards shows these days.  The opera's stage debut was in 1970 and was Schipa's first successful work, although he had previously released a rock-operacized medley of Bob Dylan songs.  Reissues of the CD are in print, but I can't seem to find the film anywhere.  Then again, I'm not so skilled at searching through Italian sites for leads.  A man's gotta know his limitations.  But take this consolation, a 9 minute long clip with some very nice selections.  More selections are available here.

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Vol. 9

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

The tanking economy claimed another victim last week as your humble miner got laid off from his day job. Yes, the army of the unemployed just called up another reserve, and he's ready serve with, um, dignity. Losing that zippy T-1 connection at work, but gaining a heightened appreciation for the "free" aspect of free album downloads, this column vows to continue to serving up piping hot links to the most pleasurable platters the music blogs have to offer. Fries sold separately.

The Glory of This Human's Voice
Jeanne Lee & Ran Blake  ~  "Free Standards"
(Blog: I Forgot Clifford)

 

Brazilian Mamas & Acid Papas
Quarteto Nova Era  ~  "Apolo"
From the album: De Repente (mp3)
(Blog: Brazilian Nuggets)




Spacefunk Electronica Does Basque Folklore
William S. Fischer  ~  "Akelarre"
(Blog: Vinyl 4 Giants)
 

[7 more blue-plate specials after the jump]

New Podcast: The Media Squat with Douglas Rushkoff

WFMU is pleased to welcome a new member of the freeform family, Douglas Rushkoff! Mr. Rushkoff's program, The Media Squat, can be heard live on our airwaves and webstreams every Monday at 7pm EDT, and streaming archives are available here.

The Media Squat is freeform, bottom-up, open source radio looking towards similarly open source, bottom-up solutions to some of the problems engendered by our relentlessly top-down society.

It isn't pure '60s or Whole Earth radicalism and self-sufficiency (though it's certainly related) but a 21st Century, cyberpunk reclamation of all technologies and social contracts as essentially open source, up for discussion, and open to modification. It's an application of the hacker ethic and net collectivism to everything, done in the spirit of fun and adventure.

The Media Squat is also now available as a podcast: click here to subscribe via iTunes or hit WFMU's podcast page for more options.

If you're not familiar with Douglas Rushkoff's work, dive in by reading his excellent analysis of the economic downturn for a refreshing view.

EEF BEAT MANIFESTO (MP3s)

Eefing (sometimes spelled eeefin' or eephin', among other variations) is a jarringly weird hillbilly vocal tradition that traces its birth back to at least the 19th century.  Sometimes described as sounding like a wheezily rhythmic asthma attack, eefin' afforded those without musical talent or instruments the opportunity to hop on stage and be part of the entertainment.  It's pretty hard to convey the essence of eefin' with mere words, however, so by all means go ahead and watch the short video clip up above if you haven't already done so. In the clip, from 1971, Jackie Phelphs (left) hambones while Jimmie Riddle eefs. In addition to being superb at hamboning, Phelps was an accomplished guitarist. Riddle's resume included a long stint playing harmonica (as well as the accordion and piano) in Roy Acuff's Smoky Mountain Boys.

Long ago, before I even knew what eefing was, I caught the Dave & Deke Combo in action at the Star Bar here in Atlanta.  In the midst of the show, with no introduction or explanation, Deke Dickerson started eefing with what I can only describe as full-throttled and wide-eyed intensity.  I was thunderstruck by the absurdity and kookiness of the situation and Deke's total willingness to perform, with a straight face, this odd vocal stunt that made him sound.....well, deranged.  I literally could not stop laughing.  Later, I found out that I'd just seen eefin' for the first time.  Yeah, up to that point, I'd led a pretty sheltered life, I guess.

Later still, upon learning that there existed actual eefin' records, I set out to track them down.  Here are the fruits of my "labor."

Harmonica Frank  -  Swamp Root  (2:33)  This 1951 disc by Harmonica Frank Floyd is the first eefin' record that I'm aware of, though there are almost certainly earlier examples.   Recorded by Sam Phillips in Memphis the year before Sun Records was officially launched, this track was leased to Chess Records.  Floyd, a "modern day hobo" as Phillips once referred to him, was an itinerant musician with a medicine show background who made records that combined blues and country influences.

Jimmie Riddle Gives An Eefin' Lesson  (1:06)   This fantastic 1981 audio clip comes to us courtesy of Alan Ross, at the time a copywriter for the Nashville ad agency that hired Riddle to do radio voice work for a sausage commercial.  Before the end of the session Ross politely informed Riddle that there was no way he was getting out of there without giving the crowd an eefin' lesson.  Riddle obliged and here is the result, where we learn that he was taught how to eef as a young child by his Uncle Ralph, who called it hoodlin'.

Jimmie Riddle  -  Wildwood Eeeph  (1:33)  Jimmie Riddle probably did more to popularize eefin' than the  rest of humanity combined.  For several years he eefed with great regularity on Hee Haw along with the hamboning Jackie Phelps.  That's them in the video clips above.  Riddle was born in 1918 in Dyersburg, Tennessee though his family relocated to Memphis a month or so later, where he spent all his early years. 

Faust in studio, 1971

I put this WDR German TV clip up a couple years ago as a download on Beware of the Blog, but figured I'd repost since I just noticed via Boing Boing that someone had You Tubeized it for easier viewing. Great and rare glimpse at one of the most inventive rock bands ever, in studio.

The Pat Boone Of Evangelicals (mp3s)

Pat Boone just can't keep his mitts off other people's stuff.  In the 50's he ripped off Little Richard and other black artists to produce watered down rock and roll that white people could listen to without turning into chest-beating savages and destroying the fabric of the family and democracy.  Sound familiar?  Of course it does.  Every generation has its white sheep.  If you want to get all spiritual about it, you could argue that without the moralists there'd be no one to piss off.  And it's not just rock music that angers the moralists.  The Nose by Dmitri Shostakovich was condemned as an "anarchist's grenade" and buried in the Russian archives for 40+ years after its first performances.  Thank god, Pat Boone never tried opera and that he gave up heavy metal.

But I digress.

Pat Boone wasn't the first to rip off black artists.  Think back to the bi-polarity of the minstrel show where white people liked black music so much that they made themselves up to look like black people because they refused to allow blacks in the theater.  I remember hearing a story that Billie Holiday actually had to "dark up" for one gig because the owner thought she looked too white.  Go figuh.

And so it was only a matter of time that the amazing Rev. JM Gates got his act hacked.  Concern over copyright prevents me from posting his magnum opus, Death May Be Your Santa Claus (yes, it's as twisted as it sounds).  As a consolation, here's a YouTube version of his Hitler and Hell sermon.  You can pick up a bunch of his stuff on the marvelous Goodbye Babylon compilation.  Gates perfected the art of speak-singing (I'm sure someone coined a better term for it) his sermons racheting them up to a feverish pitch and kicking the Devil's pointy tailed ass back to Hell.

Enter Barney Pierce, "the son of a farmer and fourth of thirteen children".  I don't mean to sound too snarky here, after all, I'm pretty sure that Gates sold more records that Pierce did.  Where I'd go to find that out, I have no idea.  On the positive side, there's always some cross-over happening between cultures.  That's not to say that you should ever confuse James Brown's dancing with Mick Jagger's impression of James Brown's dancing.  Or that you should EVER play the Macarena EVER again.

The odd thing about Hell Bound Train is the intro, with its funereal organ and ghostly introductory doggerel.  From there on out, it's a straight shot to....well...Hell.  One of the charming features of the trip is the echo-chamber voice announcing the stops.  Dramatic!

Some reviews from the back of the album.