WFMU's Beware of the Blog

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 153

Give the Drummer Some's
Favorite Downloads from the MP3 Blogosphere

After our hopeful words last week about an attempted comeback at The Vault, it appears (for now) that this mighty Everest of music sharing has been reduced to rubble. Adding to the misery in blogland this week was the apparent demise of the enlightened pages at Weird Brother, but an outpouring of appreciative comments at the site has led erudite host, Y Brawd, to consider giving it another go. (We were all set in this post to link to an historic Fluxus audio collection at WB, but the link went dead as a DCMA doornail.) Please cross fingers—and maybe send a few encouraging words—to help inspire this vital cultural resource to find a way to keep calm and carry on!

 

    
Starship Commander Wooooo Wooooo  ~  "Mastership"
(Blog: Allegory of Allergies)

Pick Hit: "Laugh and Dance"
"Hailing from Kansas City, Missouri in the late 1970s Omer was running a mobile disco that ended up using live instruments. It incorporated a spectacular stage show with smoke and light effects. Along with other stage props, including a spaceship styled car, the stage attention inspired him to create his first solo album in the early 1980s under his moniker 'Starship Commander Woo-Woo.'"  (Uncredited bio posted at Discogs) 

[A friendly hint from your Miner: Do NOT sleep on this one!]

The Ballad Of Caryl Chessman (MP3s)

     

Ronnie Hawkins  -  The Ballad Of Caryl Chessman (Let Him Live, Let Him Live, Let Him Live)

Hoyle Miller  -  Twelve Years On Death Row

Country Johnny Mathis  -  Caryl Chessman

In July 1948, Caryl Chessman, also known as "The Red Light Bandit," was sentenced to die in the California gas chamber after being convicted on 17 charges of robbery, kidnapping and rape.  Chessman's residence on death row was somewhat anomalous in that his crimes did not involve the taking of a life.  However, the fact that he was convicted of kidnapping with bodily harm enabled the state of California to charge him with the violation of the Federal Kidnapping Act (sometimes referred to as the Little Lindbergh Law), which was regarded as a capital offense.

Talibam's Jokey Concept Opera

It's been a minute since a concept record got released in NYC.  Talibam! used to be known as a chaotic, skronky free jazz group.  In the past years, they've been working on a rap album which they performed at the final show at Issue Project Room's Can Factory location.  Now I'm hearing this even less explicable Discover AtlantASS, which will be released in a couple weeks.  The concept opera comes along with a 25 page comic that details some events of the story, which is about something like a teenager who gets kidnapped by jazzfish or something.  Dunno.  Just listen!

Talibam! + Sam Kulik - Squeeze My Nuts In The Barnyard

The Only Way You Can Get Relief Is To Get A Shot Of Diddley

Apropos of nothing but to get the police off the streets by nine o'clock, here's sixty-six minutes of The Originator, Bo Diddley, seen here with friends Jerome Green, The Duchess, Chuck Berry and himself, Bo Diddley:

 

Thunk Tank's Monopoly Zodiac

As part of Thunk Tank’s bid to expand our global media empire, this week we’re moving into the lucrative world of daily horoscope readings. Every newspaper prints these things, people go online to read them, the Zodiac Killer is beloved by millions, it seems only natural that Thunk Tank should provide horoscope readings in order to attract more listeners. Thunk Tank being Thunk Tank, however, we have decided to forgo the traditional horoscopes provided by either Western or Eastern traditions, and instead provide our own system based on a person’s date of birth and a corresponding Monopoly game piece. And so, without further ado, we present:

The Thunk Tank Monopoly Zodiac 

Insanely Rocking Qawaali Video Clip

Aziz Mian! (thank you Katherine Graham):

 

The Pope of Trash: John Waters

by Whitney Weiss

Talk Show - John Waters

See more on Network Awesome

When I was 22, I was lured to Provincetown (once a thriving hotbed of underground artists and cultural revolutionaries, now home to condominiums and dogs in strollers) by the promise of relatively easy money and the opportunity to meet my favorite living director, John Waters, who spends his summers there. When the film festival brought Jane Lynch and Gael Garcia Bernal to town, I kept my eye on the prize: a man whose own twenties were spent living in a treehouse and having sex in the town cemetery, activities that seemed to have been replaced by the current crop of twenty-somethings with shopping at Marc Jacobs and fucking in the gym.

While the money never came that summer, a chance to speak with The Pope of Trash did. One balmy evening, he and his boyfriend were sitting on a bench in Town Square while I walked by on my way to

Strange Bedfellows: A Rockabilly Session and a Voice of Reason on Anti-Communism (Exploring My Reel-to-Reel Catacombs, Volume 25)

"One never know, do one?" - Fats Waller

Today's tape was intriguing enough when I heard the first six minutes of it. When I heard the remainder of the tape (which also indicated what that six minutes had been recorded over, I was even more fascinated.

Recorded over the initial third of the tape, at 15 IPS (the speed often used at recording studios), in whole track mono, after some initial setting up sounds, were versions of two Rockabilly classics, the first being "Heartless Woman" (most often associated with Terry Noland) and the second being "The Fool" (Sanford Clark's huge hit from 1956). There is no indication anywhere on the tape or box as to who is performing on these tracks, or even that they exist on the tape.

1.) Unknown - Set Up (MP3)   |  2.) Unknown - Heartless Woman (MP3)  |  3.) Unknown - The Fool (MP3)

Well, as soon as these recordings end, the rest of what they were erasing shows up, at 7 1/2 IPS and again in whole track mono. And it is just as fascinating as that Rockabilly session, and yet couldn't be more different than it. What remains are three full episodes (and a fragment of a fourth) of a show hosted by Edwin Randall, short radio shows he hosted for The American Friends Service Committee, a Quaker organization, and on which he was joined by Harry P. Cain.

A quick internet search - and I don't for a moment claim to be an expert on any of this - shows that Harry P. Cain was a senator from Washington, and that he served in that position just long enough to develop strong ties to Joseph McCarthy, and join him in the legendary crusade against Communists. This has tended to paint him with the same brush with which history has painted McCarthy. However, once relieved of his seat in Congress, Cain was appointed to the Subversive Activities Control Board, where he began to question some of decisions being made in the name of protecting the nation from Communists, particularly in the area of violations of civil liberties. After making a point of raising these concerns in a variety of ways, he alienated those with whom he had previously worked, including President Eisenhower, and he resigned from the Control Board.

It would appear that these radio shows date from near the end of Cain's time on the Subversive Activities Control Board. They mention his three years on the Board, a time frame he never actually reached - he resigned after 2 1/2 years! The interviews are primarily focused on his concerns about civil liberties, and he brings up several examples of questionable use of Government power, as well as how difficult it was for the little guy to fight back. With one of ideals of The American Friends Service Committee being social justice, a radio show produced by that organization would have been a good fit for Cain to express his views, as they were near the end of his tenure on the Control Board.

(The very last bit is a very brief fragment of yet another show hosted by Edwin Randell, which itself was mostly erased by the show featuring Harry P. Cain. It was on the tape, so I included it.)

4.) Edwin Randall and Harry P Cain (For the American Friends Service Committee) - Fragment and Full Episode 1 (MP3)  |  5.) Edwin Randall and Harry P Cain (For the American Friends Service Committee) - Full Episode 2 (MP3)  |  6.) Edwin Randall and Harry P Cain (For the American Friends Service Committee) - Full Episode 3 (MP3)  |  7.) Edwin Randall and Bill Hoisel - Fragment (MP3)  | Tape (JPG)

Peter Cook and 'Derek and Clive's' Last Album

With some friends working on a Peter Cook / Dudley Moore project recently, my mind wandered back to thinking about the many hilarious and truly outrageous things that they had filmed and recorded over the years. Someday I'll do a long article about them but for today I just want to talk about one of my favorite comedy albums as a teenager - Derek and Clive / Ad Nauseum.  My record-buying budget was slender in those days (1979), and I recall vividly how upon seeing the new copy of Ad Nauseum in the store, with its cleverly designed cover and special screen-printed clear bag I had to have it. But as usual with my "going up to the city to buy new records" trips, this meant that some cheaper lps would be sacrificed altogether in order to get the higher-priced import vinyl (Ad Nauseum was on Virgin Records, right when they went from the sweet little painting of a virgin on the label to the more punk 'side one RED and side two GREEN' format).

Here's a (NSFW) sample of one of the few fully pre-scripted scenes from this record:       Horse Racing   

Brian Chippendale's Black Pus Live on WFMU (MP3s, Video, T-Shirt)

Black Pus is the many-armed beast of a solo project from Brian Chippendale, one of the most distinct musicians and visual artists of our time. If you're not already familiar with the sounds of Black Pus, you may recognize Chippendale's many-armed drumming style and masked mic-in-mouth vox from his duos Mindflayer and Lightning Bolt. A co-founder of the storied Fort Thunder artist collective, Chippendale still lives in the Olneyville neighborhood of Providence, in a former mill building where lately he seems to be writing a new Black Pus song almost every night. So while we're wrapping our heads around 2011's Primordial Pus (Load Records) -- not to mention the limited edition CD-R series of Black Pus 1, 2, 3, 4 and 0 -- there's already a seventh Black Pus album ready to pop.

This live set on Marty McSorely's WFMU program is a special treat because, though he is a prolific musician, Black Pus doesn't tour nearly enough to quench our thirst for Pus. The set was expertly engineered by Ernie Indradat, and the interview covers recent collaborations with Björk and the Flaming Lips. Chippendale also talks about how he assembled such a unique setup, including an oscillator pedal that was originally a gift from Shinji Masuko of DMBQ. When Marty McSorely asks "What is Brian Chippendale's Black Pus?" Chippendale responds that it's reggaeton. He goes on to elaborate on a range of influences from the free jazz assault of Peter Brötzmann's Machine Gun to the unpredictable rhythms of Sightings and Black Dice (who started out as a hardcore band in Providence around the same time as Lightning Bolt).

In some circles, Brian Chippendale is known as much for his fine art, comics and graphic novels as for his music. His visual style can be experienced as part of every Black Pus and Lightning Bolt release. And, as those of you who are on the WFMU swag mailing list may have heard, Brian Chippendale designed an awesome Biker T-shirt for WFMU's marathon which begins later this month!

For more, check out the Black Pus blog, which just debuted this trippy surrealist video for "I'll Come When I Can," off Primordial Pus:

A Young Omar Khorshid Video Clip

 

 

No comments necessary, just watch this clip. Thanks to the folks at Norient for posting this a while back. 

DJ Handi's Archive Picks: Monday Monday, And The Rest Of The Mountain, Too.

Sometimes music makes climbing the Monday mountain more palatable. On More Exiting Moments, Frank O'Toole played an MP3 of The Butterfield Blues Band, from a 1966 live Filmore Show. Liz Berg played a set that included Richard Papercuts, The Skunks, and Baby Tears. Irene Trudel played Curved Air next to 1971, pre-disco Bee Gees, and Colin Blunstone. Singer Joy Askew will be Irene's guest, Monday, Febuary 6th from Noon-3pm

This Saturday, Febuary 4, from 6-9am, Jeffery Davison will have the Rhode Island folk duo Brown Bird as his guests on Shrunkin' Planet  He played their "Severed Soul" last week after a track by the band South China.  From 6-9pm on Transpacific Sound Paradise, Rob Weisberg will have Scott Knetter of the band Nation Beat as his guest DJ.

On Monday, Feburary 6th, from 9am-Noon, Trouble will have Ben Graves as a guest on This Is The Modern World, playing the space-age sound of Cold War era soundtracks. On her last show, Trouble played new music from The Howling Hex and Zombe.

Mac played an  89-year old recording  "The Lovelight In Your Eyes" by the Manhattan Dance Orchestra on his Antique Phonograph Music Program. Mac will be doing next weeks show from The Brooklyn Farmacy 8pm-9pm, Tuesday, February 6th.

 

 

 

 

In case you didn't feel like showing up - Volume 27

Pure adrenaline.

All Pigs Must Die live at The Acheron in Brooklyn on 20 Jan 2012

70,000 Tons: Metal Mutiny 2012 Edition

1 cruise ship, 4 days, 42 bands, 2,000 fans! Yes, I had to do it again! 70,000 Tons of Metal, 2012! I had such a great time last year that I had to go for a reprise and see what would happen! I've got a photo album here with many more photos, and this entry is the companion to my radio show, airing Thursday Feb 2nd at noon. When the archive is posted, it will be linked here.

It's true, I had a lot of prior experience, so I had already been on the same ship, Royal Caribbean's Majesty of the Seas, and knew my way around. The weather I was leaving was not nearly as horrendous as it was last year, but I was still looking forward to punishing my ears and my body for a possible 84 sets of music in 4 days. I arrived in Miami a day early to trek up to Ft. Lauderdale with one of my partners in crime for a Cannibal Corpse show, and to also pick up another partner in crime to head back to Miami. Why not get an early start on bludgeoning my senses? I have to admit we did find time to view a certain sporting event involving a NY team that day also. On to the cruise! Last year I never noticed how much was loaded onto the boat via crane; the pool stage was composed mostly of large items, let alone all the rigging, backline, etc. I watched the crane pluck pieces off the ground and onto Deck 11 for hours on Monday morning.

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 152

Give the Drummer Some's
Favorite Downloads from the MP3 Blogosphere

Few bloggers blitzed by the Megaupload seizure on January 19 could claim to be more devastated than the uploading wizard behind the curtain at Japanese music site the Vault. Eating prolific for breakfast, Voodooninjamunky shared, in less than three years online, a staggering 5,600 LPs.

Understandably discouraged, our hero posted the sad notice that he was retiring the blog. A few days later, though, he announced he was shifting his files over to a private bittorrent tracker, but that proved inefficient and unsatisfying, and the idea was abandoned. Now, to the delight of Japanese music junkies everywhere, it appears that Voodooninjamunky intends to continue the Vault, uploading files to a different 3rd party file-sharing service. Steps toward a reanimated blog are tentative, but the last number of hours have seen a flurry of offerings that looks a whole lot like the old Vault. (Our lead-off item below is a lovely female duo pop album posted not 12 hours ago.)

In honor of Voodooninjamunky's determination to press on, your Motherlode today presents exclusively Japanese music. (For more such magnificent sounds, check out my most recent Give the Drummer Some broadcast.)

    
Membous  ~  "Honey Chapatti"
(Blog: The Vault)

 Track #5 translates as: "Grandma Is Wating for Summer"
"Membous is a group I have been hunting for for a little while now and was shitcited to see them pop up on Rakuten for pretty sweet prices. I first heard them on one of the Benten comps a long while back. then realized that they were affiliated with the Gyuune label also and was like, yeah, I need that shit. They popped up on another comp I found from childish soup, which seems to be a bit of a spinoff from Gyuune. So now I finally have their albums, and they don't disappoint. Delicious lo-fi dual girl action with sweet mellow musical background to some cute and relaxing melodies."  (Description by VoodooNinjaMunky, at The Vault)