WFMU's Beware of the Blog

The Songs of Christian America - Clifton Webb at the Piano (MP3's)

Here's a downright peculiar album. It came from Fleetwood Records, in Revere, Massachusetts. But while Fleetwood seems to have specialized in Drum and Bugle Corps records, as well as a variety of sports related releases, this one is something different entirely. 

Credited to "Nathan Webb at the Piano", and titled "The Songs of Christian America", it is nothing but a series of unidentified songs played as piano solos, for more than 25 minutes a side. 

The back of the cover is blank, and the album label only repeats what is said on the cover, as well as a bit of label information. That information includes the phrase "PARDON ME, but... CHRISTIAN PATRIOTS SCHOLARSHIP FUND". I'm assuming the album was a fundraiser for that fund, although I can't find out anything about this particular group of Christian patriots or their fund. 

My assumption, though, is that this was a white supremacist group of some type, both because that sort of group pops up in searches for the phrase "Christian Patriots", and because this album came to me in a collection which contains multiple other examples of anti-Semitic, anti-Black and related white supremacy items, such as the album I posted by Wally Butterworth, some time ago. 

What you'd be hard pressed to do would be to develop any idea of the political leanings behind this album by actually listening to the tracks. These are straightforward, unimaginative and (to my ears) deathly dull run-throughs of several songs. As mentioned, the songs aren't named on the label, and in a fit of un-professionalism, the producers allowed the next to last song to be recorded at a very low level, and only faded in to full volume after more than half a minute of the tune.

Many of these songs I either don't recognize or can't recall the names of (in the latter camp are several hymns I can hum, but can't put words to). Those I do know include a number of national songs, as well as a few of those hymns. In at least a few cases, calling these songs "Christian" is a stretch (is the U.S. National Anthem in any way a strictly Christian song?), and in at least one other, identifying the song - "Onward Christian Soldiers" - as an American song, is demonstrably untrue. 

Because I'm familiar with so few of the songs, and because they are unnamed on the label, I have simply made files of the two sides, without breaking them down into tracks, many of which I'd have to leave unnamed anyway. Besides, the best thing about this album, by far, is being able to see the ridiculous cover

Nathan Webb: Songs of Christian America, Side One (MP3)

Nathan Webb: Songs of Christian America, Side Two (MP3)

Album Cover (JPG)  |  Record Label (JPG)

Comments can be left at [email protected]

The Most Repulsive Album I've Ever Heard (MP3's)

Here’s an album with virtually no redeeming qualities. I say “virtually” because there is a argument to be made for making this sort of thing known, in an historical context, the same way we can use the written and filmed records of prior atrocities to be more aware of similar threats in our midst going forward.

Without that – or even with that “value” taken into consideration – this album is simply repugnant and vile. It came to its original owner, who lived in the deep south, in the early 1960’s, when it was produced. The people behind it called themselves the “Christian Votes and Buyers League”, but most people buying the album would likely have known that this was a front for the Ku Klux Klan.

 

Essentially, the first side of the record is a twenty minute screed, telling listeners how Kosher rules cause the price of your grocery items to become more expensive, and how to make sure to avoid these products and grocers. Along the way, you’ll hear that Dr. King’s activities were being directed behind the scenes by a Jewish cabal, among other obnoxious lies, the rest of which I’ll let you hear for yourself – although please be aware of just how creepy this entire endeavor is.

 

The album is narrated by Wally Butterworth, who was at one time a well known radio announcer and quiz show host. According to the brief outline on his Wikipedia page, it would appear that, like so many others, when things didn’t go his way (he lost a lawsuit and his radio platform) he seems to have made a hard turn to the right wing and joined organizations that supported his (and many other people’s) ideas that everything was someone else’s fault, especially the fault of those who didn’t look or think like him.

 

I’d like to think that this sort of thinking – and the more general group mindset behind it that led to these albums (and much more) would be behind us as a country, but sadly, that’s clearly not the case. 

 

Rather than repeat anything else Wally has to say, I'll let him speak for himself: 

 

Wally Butterworth - Kosher Food Blackmail of American Housewives (MP3)

 

Record Label

 

That folksy “Goodbye, all” at the end, following nearly twenty minutes of hate, is, in context, among the creepiest things on the album.

 

I’m admittedly not as familiar with the issues that Butterworth gets into on the flip side of this album, but a quick web search indicates that it was about the move towards “one man, one vote”, in that era. Essentially, small towns and rural areas, at least in the south, were getting far more representation in Congress than the number of residents should have allowed. Some congressional districts had literally just hundreds of votes, while those in big cities might have had in the tens of thousands, meaning that the issues of the rural votes had much more pull than all of those other people in the big cities. Around the time of this album, some court decisions had resulted in that imbalanced system having been thrown out.

 

Now, it seems to me that changing extremely unbalanced representation into something approaching equal representation would be a no-brainer, but Wally Butterworth and his pals seem to see it as an assault on Apple Pie, Mom, Baseball, and the very center of their way of life. At one point, he makes it clear what the concern was: all of those minorities (racial and religious) that live in the cities would suddenly have electoral power that had been denied them, due to the God-given rights of the Rural White Protestants.

 

Nearly the sum and total of his “solution” seems to be for local jurisdictions to refuse to follow the courts’ decrees, and a cry to his fellow white southern men to rise up and resist the Gum’int’s evil plans to make sure everyone has an equal vote. Sheesh. 

 

Again, here's Wally:

 

Wally Butterworth - How to Deliver the Knockout Punch to Federal Judges (MP3)

Record Label

The record sleeve that the album came in is a piece of work, too: 

Record Sleeve

Comments seem to be closed again, for some reason, so I'll accept comments at [email protected]

Pretzel Bill in a Witch's Blood Sauce...; Grasshopper on My Castle of Quiet, 28th May 2014

Ah, Grasshopper! A mainstay of My Castle of Quiet playlists from the very beginning. This Brooklyn duo has traversed the most-eerie of improvised / otherworldly territories, and come out the other end, as outstanding soloists and collaborators, in many projects outside of Ghop. Their musicianship remains expert, the sheer quality of them "knowing what they're doing," and choosing to do THIS, is one of the great charms / inspirations of Grasshopper, still very much the "mothership" for Josh and Jesse.

Fans will find the band largely in familiar territory here, painting a slow-burn garden of creeping dread and pulsation, cradled by ethereal long tones. "Witch's Blood in a Sauce" finds them especially "on," adding unanticipated horror-dressing to their usual array of mesmerizing sound evolution. Always good, and always at home on MCoQ.

Grasshopper have new work out or coming soon, on various formats / labels. The new, full-length Grasshopper LP (their third 12" on vinyl), Dark Sabbath: Symbols of Evil is coming soon on Hausu Mountain. Jesse and Josh also have a solo / split tape, Josh Millrod / Shingles, also on Hausu, there's a full Shingles cassette, First God Planted a Garden (2AM Tapes) ,and a Josh Millrod solo cassette, Seeking the Millenary Kingdom, on Solid Melts. (MCoQ archive links: Josh | Shingles)

Grasshopper on My Castle of Quiet, v.1 (2009; our second live-musical guests, ever!)

Thanks as always to audio engineer Juan Aboites, for his professionalism and talent, and to Tracy Widdess of Brutal Knitting, for continuing to immortalize my crappy iPhone band captures. (This one is especially good, recalling the hippie-photo-collage covers of Amon Düül and their ilk.)

His Holiness, Mar Eshai Shimun, Patriarch of the East and of the Assyrians, Speaks on WGN, Chicago, 10/27/46

Quite some time ago, I picked up a large batch of acetates from some online seller. They were the usual mish-mash of home recordings, audio letters, recordings off the radio, etc.

But two of the records, one recorded on both sides, the other on one side, contained a curious recording of a radio program which aired on the legendary WGN on October 27, 1946, as part of a 15 minute series called "Distinguished Guest", sponsored by one of the Department Store giants of the Chicago area, then and now, Carson, Pirie Scott and Company.

The episode I have is primarily given over to a speech by "His Holiness, Patriarch of the East and of the Assyrians", Mar Eshai Shimun. Reading up on Shimun, beyond his brief Wikipedia entry, provided quite an education, and I encourage those interested to do so, as well. He took over his position at age 11, and saw his people and their lands go through extensive changes and upheavals during his lifetime. By the time of his recording, it appears that he was living in Chicago. He seems to have been viewed as a great man by some of his people, and nothing short of evil by others, at least by the point of his assassination, nearly 30 years after this recording was made. Reading up on him gives a bit of background to what is already (to me, at least) a very interesting speech heard here. 

As interesting as this recording is, I do wish I had a copy of the speech from the following week, by Arkansas' then-Governor, Ellis Arnall, who seems to have been just as interesting a character.   

His Holiness on WGN, Part One (MP3)

His Holiness on WGN, Part Two (MP3)

His Holiness on WGN, Part Three (MP3)

Comments are welcome at [email protected] 

Real and Replica: Independence Day, 2013

This year, I saw two Independence Day-themed exhibits, of which it would be easy to categorize one as real and one as not, except that, technically, both are “real.” Or maybe one is just as much a figment of meaning-projection as the other. I can’t decide.

The first display was at the New York Public Library, which was showing an original draft of the Declaration of Independence, as written by Thomas Jefferson, along with one of the original 14 copies of the proposed Bill of Rights. Both these documents are extremely rare, and the Library has never exhibited them together before. Because they're so fragile, they were on display for only three days, July 1–3.

I went to see them after work on Tuesday, when the library was open late, and stood in line for 45 minutes, which was totally worth it. It’s hard to write about the experience without sounding like a Frank Capra film. The crowd was large and diverse, and noticeably respectful. Even standing in line, everybody was polite and patient, which is something I don’t recall ever experiencing in an NYC queue before. The crowd fanned out once we were admitted to the room where the documents were in three displays: Jefferson's two-sheet (front and back) Declaration, sandwiched in glass inside two separate vitrines, so you could read all four pages; and the large, printed Bill of Rights (one of only 14 original copies known to exist) laid on a slanted backing inside another, much larger display case. Even though people were allowed to crowd around the displays at will, there was no bad behavior that I saw: Everyone waited patiently for their turn and looked as long as they liked.

Have You Thought About Freedom Lately? (MP3)

As the last hours of the festive Independence Day long weekend pass us by, here's an appropriate record for the holiday. It's a piece of patriotic drivel written by someone named Michael Quirk, and titled "Have You Thought About Freedom Lately?". Quirk himself recorded the piece at some point, and his version can be found a few places on the internet. But for this release (which the record label oddly shows to have a running time which is over a minute more than its true length), the artist is Eddie Paul: 

Eddie Paul - Have You Thought About Freedom Lately? (MP3)

(Whether or not this is the same Eddie Paul who is well known for customizing cars... I have no idea.)

For the flip side, Michael Quirk performed another one of his compositions himself, titled "Lonely Men in Blue":

Michael Quirk - Lonely Men in Blue (MP3)

"Freedom Lately" Label (JPG)  |  "Lonely Men" Label (JPG)

 

Don't Free Pussy Riot

Last night I saw Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, and now I’m convinced that Pussy Riot should be in jail, which I think was not the filmmakers’ intent.

The video shows three strong feminist women and their history of activism, culminating in their action in Moscow’s Cathedral of Christ the Savior. The three who were arrested—Nadezhda Tolokonnikova, Maria Alyokhina, and Yekaterina Samutsevich— are not the only members of their political collective, although you wouldn’t know that from the film. They also are not “girls,” they are young women in their mid-20s and early 30s, they are wives and mothers, they are educated and intelligent enough to have devised an ideological basis for their political protest. Yet since their arrests, they’ve been portrayed as “girls” who “didn’t realize” that defiling a revered place of worship would offend anyone, which is complete bullshit: The whole point of the action was to offend as many people as possible. If people weren’t offended, they wouldn’t pay attention. Well, they’re paying attention now; they’re paying attention all over the world.

The women of Pussy Riot must have realized there were likely consequences for their actions. Just as Edward Snowden was prepared to accept the loss of his well-paid job, the end of his comfy life, and his possible extradition to the US to face treason charges, so Pussy Riot should have been prepared for arrest, trial, and conviction. They say they are feminists: Let them act like feminists. Their prison sentences are the proof of everything they’ve said about Russian repression. Let them take the consequence of their actions like strong feminist women, not disingenuous, apologetic little girls. In the words of Sammy Davis Jr. “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

Be punk, Pussy Riot: Be strong.

UPDATE 6/18: So what I was trying to say was unclear, and that is the fault of my writing. Mostly I was objecting to the documentary's portrayal of "girls," but also there's the rather alarming footage of the three prisoners apologizing and saying they "didn't mean to offend anyone." This is contrary to their otherwise strong statements--contrary, in fact, to their actions. The obvious injustice of two years in prison for their protest is what has called international attention to the very repression they were protesting. I have friends who participated in ACT UP's protest inside St. Patrick's Cathedral in 1989; no one went to prison, but it brought international attention to the AIDS crisis and forced the government to begin dealing with it. I hope Pussy Riot's Punk Prayer will turn out to be as influential. Also, one week on, Edward Snowden looks less like a hero. -B.

 

 

A Unique New Wave/Boogie/Avant Rock/Vanity/Christian EP (MP3's)

Here's a genuinely peculiar and interesting little EP-length 45 from my collection. The title of this post captures the difficulty I encounter in trying to nail down exactly how to label this 1984 release. 

It's a religious record, released by the distinctly un-catchy named Farinella-Siena-Fretto, and housed in a sleeve that shows not only the four members whose names appear above the title, but also the other three members, as well as a drawing of the "Pig In Mud" who is featured in one of the songs. 

The lead track, carrying the very direct title and message "Don't Be Left Behind", fills the entire first side, all 6 1/2 minutes of it. The mixture of new wave sounds and Born-Again Christian theology is quite the experience, but then, just over halfway through the track, it segues into a completely different sound, more of a boogie arrangement, where it stays for the rest of the song. 

"Pig in Mud" starts the second side, and is subtitled (II Peter 2:22). This one reminds me of nothing so much of Captain Beefheart's spoken-word-over-avant-jazz-rock performances - certainly not on the same level, but that's style I'm reminded of here. Then it's back to the New Wave setting for the final piece, "Look At the Mess". 

The back of the sleeve is quite the production, too, with more pictures, a list of credits that mentions that the drummer was named "A. Drummer", links to biblical verses which inspired two of the three songs, and a statement that the record was "Composed, Arranged and Produced by GOD, through Jesus Christ and through Gerald M. Fretto", 

Farinella-Siena-Fretto - Dont Be Left Behind (MP3)

Farinella-Siena-Fretto - Pig In Mud (MP3)

Farinella-Siena-Fretto - Look At the Mess (MP3)

EP Front Cover (JPG)  |  EP Back Cover (JPG)  |  EP Label A Side (JPG)  |  EP Label B Side (JPG)  

Oh, and on another note, All Hail The King, Rafa Nadal!!!

A Song-Poem Easter, From Halmark Records (MP3's)

The varied and numerous song-poem companies which have existed for decades have always attracted writers of religious lyrics in large numbers, but no label seemed to draw them in as high percentage as did the Halmark label, one of the most peculiar purveyors of the song-poem scam.

You can read all about the Halmark story here, but the short version is that they stood alone, among the many providers of this service, for their cheapness, taking existing backing tracks from wherever they could find them, and recycling the same fifteen or twenty-some tracks - nearly all of them sounding like leftovers from 20 or more years earlier - over and over again, using, primarily, a core group of four vocalists to sing the customers' lyrics over this limited set of canned backings. Keep in mind that these records were mostly released in the 1970's, and not, as their sound would indicate, the 1940's or early 1950's. That the folks at Halmark had the nerve to adopt the slogan "Sound of Excellence" just ads to the ridiculousness of their endeavor.  

For the most part, Halmark did not label the vocalists on their 45's, choosing instead to list the name, and often the address, of the lyricists. Those that do list the vocalist have assisted those of us who collect song-poems in identifying the mainstays of the label, but even this can be confusing; on the relatively few records where the vocalist is listed, I've found at least three where the wrong person is credited. 

Today, for Easter, six tracks from various Halmark 45's, all with Christianity as the subject matter, a few specifically related to the observances and celebrations of this week, and others with a more general Christian focus. Unfortunately, the most astonishing, ridiculous and unctuous vocalist from the Halmark stable, Bob Storm, doesn't seem to have appeared on very many of their religious releases, and he is not represented here, but you can hear plenty of his work, and other Halmark sides, on my own song-poem site, as well as on Darryl Bullock's masterful "World's Worst Records" blog.   

I'll start with a song that was heard on the very first song-poem I ever owned, one I picked up in 1975 or so, at the age of 15 - it was 20 years before I knew what a song-poem was, or that this record was a song-poem, but even at 15, I knew that there was something bizarre, otherworldly and somehow just wrong about this record. I particularly enjoy the end of this record, as the lyrics appear to run out of words long before the pre-recorded track runs out of music, and the singer ends up singing "He brings me Joy" over and over and over again. As mentioned above, there is no artist named, but I believe the vocalist here is Halmark mainstay Jack Kim (real name, Jack Kimmel), singing "The Man Called Jesus". 

No Artist Named - The Man Called Jesus (MP3)  |  Record Label (JPG)

Focusing more on the Easter theme than the previous track, here's Jack Kim, again, joined by wife Mary, in the song of a man who thanks Jesus for his life, especially after having been "in a coma, twice!". It's called "He is the Resurrection and the Life": 

No Artist Named - He is the Resurrection and Life (MP3)  |  Record Label (JPG)

Over on the flip side of the same EP, we hear one of my favorite of Halmark's ridiculous backing tracks, this time fitted with the lyrics of the most excellently named Larn Headley, with "From the Manger to the Cross", a song which introduced me to The Legend of the Dogwood Tree, which I'd never heard of before. Mary and Jack sing us this one, yet again: 

No Artist Named - From the Manger to the Cross (MP3)  | Record Label (JPG)

"Jesus Was Standing Right There" is the odd man out in this batch - it comes from what appears to be a later (or different) period of releases from Halmark, it contains a traditional country styled backing that I've never personally heard on another Halmark release, and a vocalist who I do not recognize - I don't believe it's the ubiquitous Mary Kimmel, although I could be wrong. Note that this record likely belonged to either lyricist C. M. Covey of Wallace, ID, as my copy of the record has a whited-out correction to that writer's name, right on the label. 

No Artist Named - Jesus Was Standing Right There (MP3)  |  Record Label (JPG)

The opening bombast of "A Walk on a Lonely Road" seems to promise great things ahead, or at least weird things, but instead, the track bogs down into nearly four minutes of trite lyrics and over-the-top vocalizing from Mary Kimmel. 

No Artist Named - A Walk On a Lonely Road (MP3)  |  Record Label (JPG)

And finally, back to Jack Kim, for the song "My Savior". It's hard to miss that this track features the same singer and the same backing track as the song we started with, "The Man Called Jesus", and this last track offers a nice window into how the same singer and track were used with two different sets of lyrics. By the way, the tape glitch about halfway through this track is right on the record - "sound of excellence", indeed. 

No Artist Named - My Savior (MP3)  |  Record Label (JPG)

A Trip to Hell, With Wayne Pyzer (MP3's)

As the Christian calendar approaches its holiest days, the time is right for some holier-than-thou listening. And here's a perfect example, a two sided trip to hell from our friends at Creative Sound Recordings of Los Angeles, an awkwardly titled EP-length release "Decision for Destiny: The Region Beyond", narrated by Wayne Pyzer. 

This really has to be heard to be believed. Over a variety of B-Movie sound effects, Wayne Pyzer portrays death, I guess, leading a poor soul from her wretched life right into hell, where even when she holds her head in her hands, those hands themselves are in flames. The first voice we hear is actually the dear departed soul herself, then death invites the listener along, and although he asks questions, the woman from the beginning of the record is never heard from again. 

Pyzer's performance is perfect, in terms of appealing to those who already agree with him about where the wicked of the world will go (and surely, they get to decide what makes someone wicked). I can't, however, imagine that this record managed to convince anyone who wasn't already on the same page of anything at all. He performs with a smug, obnoxious, know-it-all tone, sounding very much like a fun-house mirror version of Peter Lind Hayes as "Genie, The Magic Record". But instead of enthusiastically and warmly introducing the listener to the wonders of sound and imagination (as did Hayes), Pyzer sounds like he's looking down his nose at something icky on his shoe, while introducing the listener to the concept of being too late to repent.

In a way, this record reminded me of right wing radio and television - an echo chamber for the converted. I have a hard time believing that anyone who wasn't with him before the record started was converted into any new way of thinking once it was over. It is, however, a quite entertaining little play, especially if one listens to it as if it were meant as satire, and will be the source of many a sound clip for those who like to play with sounds. 

Wayne Pyzer - Decision for Destiny: The Region Beyond (Part One) (MP3)

Wayne Pyzer - Decision for Destiny: The Region Beyond (Part Two) (MP3)

Record Label (JPG)

 

Star Children: Heaven’s Gate and the Self-Destructive Family

by Joe DeMartino

Watch the whole video on Network Awesome

If we’re very, very lucky -- and I’m talking here about the kind of luck that would get you rudely expelled from even the highest-class Las Vegas casino -- the star Betelgeuse, located 640 light years away from us in the top-left corner of the constellation Orion, will die within our lifetimes. Betelgeuse is much larger than our sun, which means that its lifespan is correspondingly shorter. Its death throes will manifest in a supernova -- a stellar explosion of such magnitude that it will put out apocalyptic amounts of light and energy. Stars operate on eonic timelines, so Betelgeuse could erupt in the next ten seconds, or the next hundred thousand years. If our luck holds, we’ll see it almost as a second sun -- it’ll rival the moon in the night sky. We’ll be able to read by its light. For a few brief months, Betelgeuse will put on an inspiring show.

Most of us will stare at it and see something gorgeous. Others will be quietly terrified -- the heavens rarely speak unless to say something, and nothing good can come of a message sent through the death of another solar system. Still others will marvel for a day, until the wonder of the thing recedes into banality, long before the star itself dims.

For at least one person -- and I don’t yet know who that is, but I’ll near-guarantee he or she exists -- the supernova won’t be inspiring, or terrifying, or banal. It’ll be an excuse. Time to go. Time for everyone to go.

Marshall Applewhite -- slight, wide-eyed, with the calm conviction of an airline pilot -- saw his excuse in the comet Hale-Bopp, whose passing was perhaps the most widely-observed celestial event in human history. Applewhite’s cult, Heaven’s Gate, counted among its beliefs the idea that the Earth was

Putin Summer Retrospective

As befits the future Savior of Humanity (or at least the Savior of Blonde Russian Gymnasts in the Duma), Vladimir Putin has been extremely busy this past summer. One of his major tasks has involved recruiting new members of the Putin Pals, his protective managerie of super-powered animal agents. Thunk Tank Cohost Jay and I often wondered why it was that the Putin Pals did not have any bird members, when their primary mission will be to defeat the insect forces of MANTIS. How is it that Putin would recruit a Were-Whale before he’d got even one bird? (Anuka, the Flying Donkey, does not count as a bird, because: Legs. Hooves. Hair. Mammal.) Naturally, the Leader was just waiting until the time was ripe, and this summer he finally judged time to be squooshy and soft enough to unveil his Craneforce. Dressing in the uniform of a Crane Obergruppenfuhrer—sort of a white hazmat jumpsuit with weird black goggles—Putin jumped aboard Craneforce One and led the baby cranes on skywriting maneuvers high in the sky above Moscow, where they wrote “Surrender, Pussy Riot!” in smoke, and also in Russian, not English. And Cyrillic. Cyrillic letters are really hard to make in smoke, but of course Putin enjoys the challenge.

Memorial Day Reflections with Reverend Bruce Howard…. SPEEEEAAAK

Memorial Day, a day to reflect on the nature of man, the nature of war, the nature of sacrifice and what the cost of freedom really means. In this modern era where every thing about an individual is sliced, diced into micro tuned categories I would probably call myself just a hermenaut with intense and passionate Christian leanings. The church gets a bad rap these days, with clowns like Pastor Charles Worley, new Vatican scandals, etc. Yearning for a  shining light in murky faith Spectrum Spools' John Elliot tipped me to perhaps one of God's greatest voices, Reverend Bruce Howard, a man who lives the words of 2 Timothy 4:17: But the Lord stood by me and strengthened me, so that through me the message might be fully proclaimed and all the world might hear it. So I was rescued from the lion’s mouth. Or something, I honestly don't know. Where I see faith and redemption, others see totally BERKO. I'm used to it. In another life I could see myself as one of Reverend Bruce's silent goth krewe, in the shadow of his greatness.

More Bruce

Update: No Airplane for You

From the land that brought you St. Olav and Hornorkesteret came the oxymoronic competition to place the images of Famous Norwegians on the tails of airplanes belonging to the national airline. When I last wrote about this contest, Euronymous (aka Øystein Aarsteth) of Mayhem was wa-a-ay out in front in the voting, so I was astonished when I checked the final results and discovered that the winner was Ludvig Karlsen, a “beloved Norwegian Gypsy Christian Evangelist.”

Whu? The only info I could find out about him was in Norwegian, except for one English-language website of Famous Gypsies which lists Elvis Presley as a Famous Gypsy, so I don’t know what to say about Mr. Karlsen. But apparently Euronymous didn’t win the poll because his family asked that his name be withdrawn.

If this had happened in the US, it would be because the Authorities and Officials would have “asked” the family to withdraw his name to avoid the embarrassment of having a Black Metal guy in corpse paint on the tail of their plane. But Norwegians are actually proud of their black metal and the global influence it’s had on popular music, so I think maybe the story about the family is legit.

For a taste of what Norwegian music is up to now, here’s a bit of Hornorkesteret performing their soundtrack for the great silent film, Nanook of the North.

 

For black metal, and all kinds of other dark doings, check out the archives of Wm. Berger’s great WFMU show, My Castle of Quiet.

P.S. about the corpse paint: It kinda makes them look like Boston Terriers or pandas, doesn’t it? So scary!

Bloody Aliens And The Future Of Mankind: An Technocratic Education

by Gabriella Arrigoni

Vampires of Geona & The Masters of Geona (Gennady Tishchenko)

What's on Network Awesome today?

The Red Star (1908) is a Russian science-fiction novel describing the coming into being of a perfect Communist society on Mars, where the principle of egalitarianism is pushed to the point where even blood is a common good and must be constantly re-distributed and shared in equal parts among the whole extraterrestrial population. This process of transfusion also allows the communist Martians to overcome death and set up the basis of an immortal, omnipotent empire. In the Vampires of Geona (1991), the pterodactyl-esque blood suckers that gave the title to the cartoon are the bad guys and certainly not an incarnation of socialism, but it is not unlikely that their creator Gennady Tishchenko got to know the novel and the theories of its author, Aleksandr Bogdanov. He was one of the major representatives of that weird assemblage of science, philosophy and occultism which comes under the name of Russian Cosmism.

Cosmism's ideas about the possibility of a new man and a new society based on the technological triumph of man over nature to gain the resurrection of the forefathers, immortality and the progressive colonisation of the universe seems to fit rather well with the declaration we find in Tishchenko’s website about his own

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...

Andy to be Crucified on Vinyl Cross Next 7SD

It's true, pledgers to 7 Second Delay raised enough money last Wednesday to win an enviable prize - Andy will be crucified on a vinyl cross that's been kicking around the station, largely unused for years. More info here.  Video by Yvonne.

 

7 Second Delay! WFMU Marathon! from WFMU on Vimeo.

Elvis To KLF: The Train I Ride Is Sixteen Coaches Long

Life with a three-year-old can find you focusing on on forms and representations of transportation you wouldn't otherwise. Trains, for example, hold a particular resonance with the developing mind that challenge their relative rarity compared to cars and airplanes. We've found ourselves meeting constant demands for all things trains by discovering the online world of obsessive documentarians of all things locomotive. Watching this narration-and-music-free modern footage of old-fashioned steam engines has caused us to consider the sensual impact the advent of train travel would have on the rural blues men who would incorporate the sound of trains into their music and use the eeire whistle of the coming train as a metaphor for all great changes in life, love and death.

A Rev. J. M. Gates Holiday Side

Today a visit with the Rev. J. M. Gates, known for his beautifully-delivered sermons, recorded between 1926 and 1941, which vary widely in theme, tone and intensity. He can caress you on one 78 and then scare holy hell out of you on the next. He was one of the biggest-selling recording artists there ever was.

A Germs Whisky Christmas: Cruising For Oki-Dogs

December 23, 1979, Germs play the Masque Christmas Ball at Whisky-Au-Go-Go, performing what would be dubbed on-stage "art" by singer Darby Crash, self-proclaimed "Manimal" and possessor of "television and supervision," who read "every Bible story," and was educated in mind-control by public school Scientologists, an A+ hustler whose world-famous catchphrase was "buy me a beer" and whose demands for "beer and damage" do not go unheeded this night. Watch as Darby, spolight directly in his eyes, eats a lit book of matches, transforms into a panther, demands each audience member "hit the person next to you," sets fire to his (A+) lyrics (balls-on-fire-great teenage Blake) all before guitarist Pat Smear kicks a bouncer in the head (several times+) for crossing number one invisible line in rock n roll: the artists own the stage.