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Dr. Adrian Ostfeld Speaks on LSD Research, 1967 (Exploring My Reel-to-Reel Catacombs, Volume 28) (MP3's)

Today's sampling of my reel to reel collection features a tape containing a speech made during a gathering at Lake Forest College in Illinois, on February 22, 1967. On that date, Dr. Adrian Ostfeld, then the head of preventive medicine at the Univeristy of Illinois College of Medicine, spoke about his findings as an early researcher (at the beginning of the 1960's) into the effects of LSD.

As you will hear, he generally found the effects to be fairly limited, with the exception of a very few subjects who had quite extensive responses to the drug. Because of the many visual effects reported by those involved in the experiments, he expanded his research into those who were blind, and who had experienced the removal of their eyes, and he reports on the findings with those subjects, as well.

He goes on to discuss the vast difference between his rather banal findings and the amazing LSD experiences being reported by a variety of sources in the press and elsewhere, in those more recent days of 1966 and 1967, and speculates on some of the reasons for this, before ending with his own views on the likelihood of discovering anything worthwhile via the continued study of the drug.

This was apparently part of a larger presentation or event: the tape begins with a brief organ piece and an equally brief choral piece, before someone named Dr. Smucker introduces Dr. Ostfeld (another piece of music is beginning as the tape is shut off, after the speech). I have separated this four minute set of introductory items into a separate file, for those who might not be interested in this material, and the speech (which runs about 35 minutes) is heard in the second file, below.

Organ Prelude, Choral Piece and Dr. Smucker's Introduction (MP3)  |  Dr. Adrian Ostfeld - Speech Regarding LSD Research, February 22, 1967 (MP3)  |  Tape Box (JPG)

SPK Live at Oddfellows Hall, San Francisco, on 5-16-1981

A recent posting of the SPK Brickwerks performance video got me to thinking a bit about what was an important and exciting band for me in the early 1980's, and about the aesthetics and techniques of "Industrial / Noise" outfits at that time.  Seeing SPK live in 1982 was to be a defining moment for me artistically and socially, and I'll go into that in the part two post about "System Planning Korporation" aka "Surgical Penis Klinik" in two weeks (May 12th, 6pm EST). Unfortunately I missed the performance featured today, from a year earlier, but it was caught on cassette by my friend Mr. Rob Wortman, from whose archive I've presented several rare live tapes here on BOTB. More about this gig after the jump.

Keep the Smooth: An Interview with Yacht Rock Creator JD Ryznar

by RJ White - Collection - Yacht Rock

What's on Network Awesome today??

In 2003, Dan Harmon and Rob Schrab founded the monthly film festival Channel101 with a simple premise: Make a five-minute pilot and if enough of the audience at the live screening in LA votes for it, you have one month to make another episode. If they vote for it again, you make another. Repeat. In 2005, JD Ryznar submitted Yacht Rock, which would go on to become one of the most successful shows in 101’s history and, over 12 episodes, create a new notch in the Internet’s heart for smooth, smooth music. We caught up with Ryznar for this interview...

Ryuichi Sakamoto and "Derrida," a Decade Later

A decade ago, the groundbreaking documentary on Jacques Derrida, Derrida, was released around the world to celebrate to elusive philosopher. Ryuichi Sakamoto composed 29 short pieces inspired by Derrida the fill the soundtrack to the documentary. The tracks, simply called "jd" (Jacques Derrida) and followed by a number, range from warm, minimalist piano trills (as in "Jd017") to haunting soundscapes ("Jd022") to chilling electronic echoes of a distopian present and future ("Jd029").

"Jd017", "Jd022", and "Jd029".

The range of tones and themes loosely played with by Sakamato brilliantly mirrors not only the intellectual contributions of Derrida to literature, philosophy, and thought, but also the man himself. Famously refusing to be photographed until 1979, Derrida's increasing visibility and even celebrity peaked with the release of Derrida, a mere two years before his death. The documentary, appearing in full here, documents both symbolic moments in Derrida's life, such as his visit to Nelson Mandela's jail cell, and the mundane day-to-day details of Derrida's life.

After a brief scene in which he tries to find a camera-worthy matching ensemble, Derrida himself says that the "traditional philosophy excludes biography, considers biography as something external to philosophy." This examination of Derrida rejects the traditionalists and shows that the life of an author and his philosophy are necessarily intertwined (an idea Derrida discusses explicitly in the 1970s and 1980s). As the filmmakers attempt to deconstruct the life of Derrida and his work, Derrida himself engages in destructively deconstructing the film, the nature of memory and human interraction, and the very idea of seeing and understanding. 

"Jd028", "Jd009", and "Jd001"

To have the soundtrack of Derrida composed by Ryuichi Sakamoto is fitting. Sakamoto's career is marked by brilliant deconstructions of rhythm, of texture, of sound, making his audience question what, exactly, it means to hear and to listen (two verbs which are not by any means synonymous). Like the documentary, the premise of the soundtrack is superficially dull -- an instrumental, stripped-down interpretations of a philosopher whose own work is difficult, confusing, and problematic. However, both prove to be incredibly entertaining, enjoyable, and thoughtful reflections on how life, whether through sound or through film, can be best represented.

More text and video clips below...

Come on Down To Noise Park and Meet Some Friends of Mine

Noise Park, a pretty funny new tumblr that depicts noise icons as South Park characters.  Below is Aaron Dilloway.  

Don't You Flush?

Turn on these videos concurrently. Thank you.

Super Raw Basement Freestyle from the Screwed Up Click (mp3)

Mixtape by mixtape, I've been working my way through DJ Screw's insanely huge discography, which is up in its entirety on Pirate Bay.  Pretty much every track is gold, Screw's taste is impeccable.  For the last few weeks, I've also been digging into other members of the Screwed Up Click - these were all just friends from Houston who made a ton of albums together.  It would be pretty inspirational actually the way they all stuck together, if they didn't all die in their 30s from codeine overdoses.  At any rate, the track that made me curious about S.U.C. was this super raw, super insane 18 minute freestyle.  Big Moe, who refers to himself as Mo-Yo on this track, really shines.  I've listened dozens of times and every time I catch more and more gold.  I love it because they're all clearly pretty messed up and sometimes fuck up and don't make sense.  Gotta love the default line "Break these boys off" that's like a knee jerk reaction when anybody can't think of something else to say.  If you're into this, also check out the much more notorious June 27 freestyle.

Screwed Up Click - Freestyle

As a sidenote, I'm also totally obsessed with this verse from H.A.W.K.  Too hilarious.

In case you didn't feel like showing up - Volume 33

Earcandy for your eyes - 

Negură Bunget from Transylvania live at their first ever US show at Cameo Gallery in Brooklyn on April 20, 2012.

In case you do feel like showing up for a change, we highly recommend going to the show below. Autopsy's appearance at the Bell House in Brooklyn is just about a week away. The band has not played live in New York City in 19 years. Only the devil knows when they will do so again, so get you advance tickets...More tales from the crypt below...

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 164

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

During my earliest navigations of the Freemusicsphere, I was so floored to discover the bounty of amazing out-of-print recordings on offer, I made little notice of the actual quality of the MP3s I was prodigiously hoovering. I still don't give a fig about fidelity and I'm still harvesting the fertile fields of vinyl kudzuing across the Internet, but there are some records I've snatched whose sub-par listenability indeed does cut through the happy haze of merely having them.

One such recording was Roswell Rudd's live recording Maine from 1976 that I snagged from the old incarnation of Jizz Relics. The music struck me immediately as one of the most stunning jazz performances I'd ever heard, but the brutal quality of the rip made it sound like Rudd and his quartet were playing submerged in a swimming pool. To be so close to an all-time great recording and yet so far from the full flower of its true magnificence has been fairly excruciating. Well imagine my thrill yesterday when the inimitable Kinabalu at Inconstant Sol posted a clean copy of this dazzling album. Before you eat, sleep, breathe—download this now!

    
Roswell Rudd  ~  Maine
(Blog: Inconstant Sol)

Good to the Bone
"This is a hyperkinetic date, top speed ahead from all four and to me, Dulfer is a revelation, even over-powering Rudd at times, particularly on the Rollins piece. Sometimes you need a bit of coolness to balance the hotness, and the soloists do compliment each other nicely. Recommended, and to be played reasonably loud to appreciate the full dynamics of this wonderful date! And it's a topnotch recording to boot."  (Description by Kinabalu, at Inconstant Sol)

The Optic Spectacle of Bartlett and Dewitt

I recently had the opportunity to scour the archives of The Film-makers' Coop. I'd dig out some film cans, thread the projector and watch. I wasn't at all prepared for the treasures found, and realizing some had not been in circulation since 1978...they demanded an audience, again. 

My search was not completly unguided. That is, I wanted to find interesting uses of optical printing, and hybrid printing techniques used in "experimental/ avant garde" film. I was interested in Scott Bartlett's work from a digitized copy of OffOn (1967) that I had seen, as well as his "Making of OffOn" that Bartlett made over a decade later. Bartlett used early analog video mixing teqniques in making his 16mm film. He built body length kaleidoscopes to achieve visuals otherwise impossible by printing methods alone. Bartlett was one of the few and one of the most skilled filmmakers to hybrid film and video. To date, his work looks both contemporary, and radical. With, "Moon 69" Bartlett caught the attention of George Lucas, and thus moved into the world of big cinema effects.  Sadly Bartlett died from complications due to cancer in 1990.   The Film-makers' Coop have a pristine print of "OffOn".  They also had a selection of his works ranging from his student project work, "Metanomen" (1966), to the very intimate "Lovemaking" (1970).  

The film Offon and more review below the fold...

The Heretic Children Of The God Emperor of Dune Messiah

A strange coincidence when you are writing about someone, up against a deadline, and they die. No time to go back and make it a memorial, no point in going forward with what would now be an obsolete piece. A stranger coincidence in that the now never-completed post was to be about a never-completed project of Jean "Moebius" Giraud, the legendarily failed film collaboration with Alejandro Jodorowsky: Dune.
What follows is a free-imagining of a re-imaginging of the negated future of that impossible past:

Are You A Badass?

As regular listeners know, we here at Thunk Tank are committed to saluting the badasses and feats of badassery that make this world a more interesting place to live. Some listeners may be confused, however, as to what exactly makes an individual or a particular accomplishment badass. In order to clarify the criteria by which we evaluate candidates for This Week in Badassery, and to help listeners determine whether they themselves are badass, we’ve created this simple quiz. Just answers these six questions and total your score at the end to determine whether or not you are a badass.

 

The Magnificent Andersons: UFO

By Brian Correia

UFO (1970) - Episode 1

What's on Network Awesome today?

UFO might just be the grooviest television show ever produced. As in groov·y (/ˈgro͞ovē/), adj: so obviously a product of the sixties that it hurts. See: Country Joe and the Fish, Laugh-In, quaaludes. Though it technically debuted in 1970, the show so embodies the swingin' (as in swinger) sixties stereotypes that if you pulled this baby up on the old Jumbotron and told me it was something along the lines of Austin Powers: Moonfaker (by the way, if they ever make a fourth Austin Powers movie and they don't call it Thunderballs, I'm not seeing it), I would almost believe you. Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Interview with dave phillips: "Any form of definition will eventually work against itself"

The most important thing to convey about Dave Phillips is that he fuses rawness and intensity with meticulous composition, rendered with an indelible form of scarcity. Whether it is short, sharp, and sparsely explosive tracks, or what Ron Lessard called “Otto Meuhl having his way with Hermann Nitsche”, Phillips uses body sounds, amphibian field recordings, conventional musical instruments, or things like party balloons, with widely varied results, but most apparently as a means to “activate primordial shared emotions otherwise hidden by civilized experience”. Not limited to that, “dp” has been participating in various punk, hardcore, metal acts or projects that are as light hearted as covering the B-52s, or the somewhat absurdist collaborations with Tom Smith (To Live And Shave In .LA), or Schimpfluch Gruppe, and others, since 1984.

Full interview beneath the fold...

Blue Cheer on American Bandstand

Dick Clark's American Bandstand was obviously an important and inescapable pop-music institution, the importance of which will no doubt be analyzed and mulled over in light of Clark's passing a couple days ago. The one drawback of the show, and its numerous imitators and descendents for that matter, was its insistence of its musical acts miming their performances to a studio recording, a practice that results in considerable frustration when digging deep for live footage of certain under-documented bands of yesteryear.

Still, although it's pretty obvious those stacks in the background aren't allowed the opportunity to immolate the teeny-boppers in the stands, it's nice to have proto-metal legends Blue Cheer tearing it up on TV, even if it's all a put-on of sorts. While many in my circle, in light of Clark's passing, have rightly been posting the infamous and ingenious Public Image Ltd. performance that saw the Metal Box-era lineup taking advantage of the artifice of Bandstand to jovially chaotic ends (that's not even mentioning the total mindfuck of having the band at their most sonically confrontational being pumped into the homes of no-doubt terrified suburbanites), it's almost as equally surreal to see the LOUDLOUDLOUD burbling fuzz and grime of Cheer taking the young-in's for baptism by fire.

Stay for the spectacularly stoned-out interview between the always-chipper Clark and the Cheer boys. In spite of Clark's relative enthusiasm, this interview with the late Cheer mainstay Dickie Peterson notes that there was definite contention off-screen:

"At the time, we were being managed by 'Gut' Terkl, who'd been a Hell's Angel, and Gut and I were sitting in the dressing room smoking a bowl of hash, and Dick Clark walked in, and looked at us, and he says, 'PEOPLE LIKE YOU GIVE ROCK 'n' Roll A BAD NAME!' We looked back at him, and we said, "Thank you very much!" That was the last time we were ever on Bandstand."

Books on Record: Carl Sandburg's "Rootabaga Stories" LP

This one's especially weighty for me, since I hail from Sandburg's birthplace of Galesburg, IL.  Not much I can say about Sandburg himself: he's ingrained in my mind as a legend, due in no small part to Galesburg's constant celebration of his talent.  But on Caedmon's 1961 issue of Rootabaga Stories as Told by Carl Sandburg, the bygone poesy's rich voice and lofty cadence bring new life to some of these stories, and they go great with a few highballs and an open window during these wondrous spring months.  From the aforementioned recording, enjoy "How Six Pigeons Came Back to Hatrack the Horse After Many Accidents and Six Telegrams," below.

R.I.P. Cyril Lefebvre

Tony Coulter here. This past Tuesday, on FMU's Give the Drummer Radio stream, I aired a tribute to the wonderful French slide guitarist and ukulele player Cyril Lefebvre, who passed away recently at the age of 64. To augment that broadcast, which you can listen to here, I thought I'd share with you a charming little film on Lefebvre from 1979, titled Gomina et Whap dou Whap. Non--French speakers may want to know that the live music kicks in around the three-minute mark. The amazing drummer is Guigou Chenevier, of Etron Fou Leloublan (should-be) fame. Please to enjoy.

Roadburn Recap 2012 Companion to Diane's Kamikaze Fun Machine

Tilburg, Netherlands was the place to be this weekend if you appreciate heavy music AT ALL. It's my 2nd trip to Roadburn, and not likely to be my last. This is the festival that screams community in all the right ways. The festival's head, Walter, crafts a lineup from the roots of doom, rock and riff heavy original rock to the latest avant garde satanic acoustic bands, and it all works! This is the companion post to go with my program airing today, April 19th from Noon-3pm (if you're reading this late, well go check out the archive!!). I hope listening to the music creates the feeling of what goes on at the fest; not likely though, as good as it may sound! There is just a sense of overwhelming appreciation at Roadburn, this year with one day curated by Voivod, and featuring a one man art show by drummer Away who has illustrated many album covers for Voivod and others, who also designed the main festival poster. The banners for Roadburn were waving at me when I walked out of the train station and I was happy to wave back to Away's artwork! Note the little flying saucers on the top corner of the banners! Feast your eyes on 200 photos below...and the rest of the experiences after the jump!

 

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 163

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

Beginning in August 2008 and continuing over the course of 28 thrilling monthly installments, an unidentified blogger behind the music-sharing site Tonal Bride posted an impressive collection totaling 170 recordings.

Comprising roots music from all cultures, experimental and avant improvisational sounds, and field records from far and wide, the audio library up for grabs is as stunning an array of free music as you'll find anywhere on the Internet. (Well, at least until the massive Alan Lomax archive came online last month.) But here's the kicker—almost every record posted at Tonal Bride is still available almost four years later.

In addition to its wonderful selections, Tonal Bride provides extensive commentary for every single recording. Given the increasing volatility of the free-music blog scene, do yourself a favor and spend an afternoon or two (or three) downloading the entire archive before the site disappears.

Listen to my radio show Give the Drummer Some—Tuesdays, 6-7pm, and Fridays, 9 to noon—on WFMU's web stream Give the Drummer Radio.
Send your email address to get on the mailing list for a weekly newsletter about the show, the stream and Mining the Audio Motherlode.

Check out every installment of Mining the Audio Motherlode

The Bakersfield Sound Gets The Museum Treatment It Deserves

If you have any appreciation at all for country music, you owe it to yourself to do whatever you can to get to Nashville to check out the Country Music Hall Of Fame's extraordinary new exhibit.  Fortunately, you have a pretty spacious window in which to do so.  The exhibit, which just opened and runs through December 2013,  does a fantastic job of documenting the fabled "Bakersfield Sound," generally characterized by the sharp and piercing sounds of Fender Telecaster guitars, accompanied by fiddles, steel guitars and a honky-tonk ethos that was becoming less prominent in Nashville at the time.

The Hall is literally jam-packed with an amazing collection of guitars, fiddles, amps, stage costumes, photos, hand-written lyrics and miscellaneous ephemera documenting the country sounds emanating from not only Bakersfield, but Los Angeles and the West Coast in general. 

After the jump, a few semi-blurry snapshots....