Quantcast
Channel: Music for Maniacs
Viewing all 316 articles
Browse latest View live
↧

RE-POST: MUSIC FOR WEIRDOS

August 30, 2013, 10:51 am
$
0
0
Have had requests for the mother-lode of audio oddities that reader Chris Swank compiled few years back. Chris asked that I don't reveal the exact contents of the 4 volumes, just let 'em hit like a radio show where you don't know what's coming next. Dig in:

http://musicformaniacs.blogspot.com/2008/06/music-for-weirdos.html



(Hope to get back to posting new stuff soon, not just re-upping oldies, e.g.: more "Silly 78s," new releases...)
↧
Search

More Re-Upping: Paul Super Apple & Hardcordian

September 5, 2013, 11:22 am
$
0
0
Got another request for a re-up, and tho I said I wanted to get back to posting new things, this is a classic: outsider legend Paul Super Apple:
http://musicformaniacs.blogspot.com/2010/05/they-call-me-apple-love.html

Also had a request for the brilliant Ed Cox accordion-goes-techno EP "Hardcordian," but strangely I can't find one song from it, the strangely-named "Dance of the Otter Droppings." Can anyone mail me the mp3? UPDATE 9/6: Got it!  Mucho thanks to Professor Elliot.

http://musicformaniacs.blogspot.com/2010/07/hardcordian.html
↧
↧

SILLY 78s pt3

September 12, 2013, 11:59 am
$
0
0
At long last! Count Otto Black's continued spelunking into the dark, forgotten caverns of music history has resulted in another overdue (my fault, not his) collection of funny, strange, suggestive, and/or offensive audio oddities from the first half of recorded history. The Count speaketh:


"Firstly, some bizarre examples of political incorrectness from days gone by (these are nowhere near the worst). "We're Gonna Have To Slap The Dirty Little Jap" is symptomatic of a more innocent age, when we apparently thought that wars could be won by giving the enemy a jolly good spanking. There were plenty of post-WWII jingoistic propaganda records, but after Hitler, it was generally agreed that the ideal way to cope with evil dictators involves death rather than spanking.

Moving swiftly on, I give you Helen Kane, a young lady who in 1932 attempted legal action on the grounds that, since for several years prior to the cartoon she'd been singing like Betty Boop, saying "Boop-boop-be-doop!" on a regular basis, and even looked like Betty Boop, obviously she was Betty Boop, so she deserved a slice of the vast profits that mega-successful character was generating. She lost when the prosecution demonstrated that she had herself pinched her entire act from an even earlier very obscure black performer called Baby Esther, and as for alleged resemblance, Betty could equally well be said to look like the much more famous Clara Bow. This didn't stop Helen Kane from spending the rest of her career implying as heavily as she could without using the actual name that she was Betty Boop, and cutting a great many records on that basis. I include one to demonstrate what I mean.

However, she had nothing to do with the cartoon - almost all of the classic 1930s films were voiced by Mae Questal, who lived to be over 90, and was still doing the Betty Boop voice whenever it was needed right up until the end - amazingly, that's her in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. To provide a useful "Battle of the Boops" comparison, I've attached an incredibly strange record by her, which seems to be about a rag-doll who dies of cancer. Who thought this was a good idea? And if it somehow is, why aren't there any Skooby Doo AIDs records?

Continuing the theme of cartoon characters singing about death, there is, however, an Elmer Fudd road safety record! Though once again, the vocalist "Waymond Wadcwiff" is not the real voice from the cartoons (according to Wikipedia, the only famous Raymond Radcliff was a basketball player, but I think this must be a different one), so the name "Elmer Fudd" is not used - it's all rather confusing, really. Presumably that's why "wabbits" are never mentioned, and a goose is run over instead.

Just for jolly, I've added an utterly incomprehensible song about the Stellenbosch Boys, and how they coped with Germany's terrible baboon problem (or something), and of course "Take Out Your False Teeth, Daddy" - surely a neglected classic?

I also include both sides of a record which proves that Gefilte Joe and the Fish, one of the numerous one-note "comedy" acts of very dubious merit promulgated by Rhino Records, did not invent the concept of parodying popular songs in an excessively Jewish manner for comic effect. Mickey Katz & His Kosher-Jammers were doing it decades previously! They weren’t Spike Jones and his City Slickers, though Mickey Katz did play with Spike’s band for a year. He was quite prolific, and cut numerous tracks that were controversial even among other Jews, some of whom felt that in the wake of WWII, this kind of cartoonishly exaggerated Jewishness was doing them no favors. Anyway, I attach what seems to have been his greatest hit, “Yiddish Square Dance”. It’s a very lively number which may well have hilarious lyrics, though if you don’t speak Yiddish it’s hard to tell.

Wendell Hall retains his dignity and wants to know “Who Said I Was a Bum?” Meanwhile the Pearl Five’s “Golfin’ Papa” somehow manages to make golf sound naughty - and now I think about it, “niblick” does sound as though it ought to be smutty. And we can't not have another one from at least half of the Two Leslies (Leslie Holmes is the tall one with the glasses).

Moving swiftly on to Frank Marvin’s “Yodellin’ Rambling Cowboy”. The odd thing about yodeling records is that, although it’s absolutely impossible to sing about anything the slightest bit serious if you’re going to yodel in the middle, some people insisted on trying. This is the surprisingly merry tale of a misogynist psychopath who married a nymphomaniac and ended up committing murder and going to prison for life. Yodel-ay-he-hoo! And now it's time for the scratchy old Count to go back in his box..."

I once again offer my thanks to Count Otto Black (and so should you!)


SILLY 78s pt3

1. Todd Rollins Orchestra & Chick Bullock "The Boogie Man"
2. Nellie Lutcher "Chest X-Ray Song"
3. Denver Darling "The Devil And Mister Hitler"
4. Pearl Five "Golfin' Papa"
5. Bill Nettles "Hadacol Bounce"
6. Mickey Katz & His Kosher-Jammers "Haim Afen Range"
7. Helen Kane "He's So Unusual"
8. Mae Questal "I've Got a Pain In My Sawdust"
9. Leslie Holmes "I've Gone And Lost My Little Yo-Yo"
10. Ruth Wallis "Johnny Had a Yo-Yo"
11. Ruth Wallis "The New Yo-Yo Song"
12. Oscar Quam "Oscar Quam Calling Ducks"
13. Milt Herth Trio "Please No Squeeza Da Banana"
14. Pearl Trio "She Had To Lose It At The Astor"
15. Waymond Wadcwiff "The Silly Goose"
16. Leslie Holmes "The Squire's Wedding Day"
17. Josef Marais "Stellenbosch Boys"
18. Margie Day "Take Out Your False Teeth Daddy"
19. Monroe Silver "That's Yiddisha Love"
20. Deep River Boys "That Chick's Too Young To Fry"
21. Al "Jazzbo" Collins "Three Little Pigs"
22. Carlson Robison "We're Gonna Have To Slap The Dirty Little Jap"
23. Wendall Hall "Who Said I Was a Bum?"
24. Mickey Katz & His Kosher-Jammers "Yiddish Square Dance"
25. Frank Marvin "Yodellin' Rambling Cowboy"


↧

Re-Up Request: "Money No Be Sand"

September 13, 2013, 5:05 pm
↧

STRANGE INTERLUDES WITH HARMONICA RASCALS

September 16, 2013, 9:50 am
$
0
0
I'm worried about zippyshare. It seemed to be working fine but I just had a request to re-post an album I had just re-upped in April. It had already "expired." Do I need to look for yet another hosting service?

Anyway, here it is again, the jazz-age harmonica novelty stylings of Borrah Minevitch and crew, as well as another request, for the EZ/creepy comp "Strange Interludes":

http://musicformaniacs.blogspot.com/2011/06/borrah-minevitch-his-harmonica-rascals.html

http://musicformaniacs.blogspot.com/2009/09/strange-interludes.html

I heard an old Zappa interview recently (somewhere on youtube, don't remember what it was called). He was in New York for a spell, and he said how he wanted to find the Shaggs, and Borrah Minevitch and his Harmonica Rascals to appear on the bill with him.  Franks' love of the Shaggs is well-known, but I was startled to hear him mention Minevitch. I thought I had discovered him!  I should have known. Too bad that show never happened - how epic would that have been?
↧
↧

Beat Writer's Got The Beat: William S. Burroughs Sings!

September 23, 2013, 11:26 am
$
0
0
One of the most unlikely stars of the late '70s-to-early '90s punk/college rock days wasn't a musician at all, but a taciturn, elderly writer clad not in flannel shirts and Doc Martens, but a three-piece suit, hat, and cane. How a novelist with no musical background who began his career in the 1940s became so popular an alternative music figure that Kurt Cobaine backed him up on one of Cobain's last recordings is one of the odder, more fascinating footnotes in this otherwise heavily examined musical era.

William S. Burroughs is, of course, one of the most celebrated figures in 20th century literature due to his key participation in the "Beat" movement that essentially dragged American letters into the modern era, rejecting classical European/Shakespearean influences in an attempt to create a literature as unique to the U.S. as jazz is to American music. And, indeed, the cliche of the beatnik reciting stream-of-consciousness poetry over cool jazz is the first thing that pops to mind when considering the confluence of the Beats with music.

But Burroughs was never a beatnik.  He was a junkie and heroin dealer who accidentally shot and killed his wife, traveled thru Latin America and Morocco, helped popularize North African trance ritual music, dismantled literature via his "cut-up" method of chopping up and rearranging pages of writings, was put on trial for obscenity, saw his son go to prison, saw his son die, was gay in the pre-Stonewall days, and co-created a "dream machine" said to create somewhat hallucinatory experiences when activated.

In other words, he'd been thru some shit. By the late '70s, he was back in the States and started giving public readings in his now impossibly craggy, deep, world-weary voice.  This was to be his main source of income for the last years of his life. The downtown New York scene was receptive to both his writings and his voice, filled as it was with not only the weight and wisdom of a life you never led, but with an idiosyncratic rhythmic delivery. He left New York for Kansas in 1981, well on his way to becoming an icon of cool.

After a while, it wasn't enough to just listen to Burroughs read his own works, with increasingly elaborate musical backings, but to hire him to perform on other people's recordings. And that is what we have here: not Burroughs' own releases, but his various miscellaneous appearances on other bands' songs. Having Burroughs perform your music gave you instant hip cred, and gave a Bill a paycheck. As this article puts it, he was a rock star to rock stars. William S. Burroughs died in 1997, at age 83.

William S. Burroughs Sings

UPDATE 10/13: Also now up on ubu.web: http://www.ubu.com/sound/burroughs_sings.html

1. Star Me Kitten (with REM, from "Songs in the Key of X: Music from and Inspired by 'the X-Files'" - 1996)
2. Is Everybody In? (with The Doors, reciting Jim Morrison poetry, from "Stoned Immaculate: The Music of the Doors")
3. Sharkey's Night (with Laurie Anderson, from "Mister Heartbreak" - 1983)
4. What Keeps Mankind Alive (from Kurt Weill tribute album "September Songs")
5. 'T 'Aint No Sin (1920s jazz song, performed on Tom Waits'"The Black Rider" - 1993)
6. Quick Fix (w/Ministry, "Just One Fix" b-side - 1992)
7. Old Lady Sloan (w/The Eudoras, covering a song by a Lawrence, Kansas punk band from "The Mortal Micronotz Tribute!" - 1995
8. Ich Bin Von Kopf Bis Fub Auf Liebe Eingestellt (Falling In Love Again) - Marlene Deitrich cover, from "Dead City Radio" - 1988




↧

FRANK SINATRA'S GREATEST SHITS

September 26, 2013, 4:33 pm
$
0
0

I love Frank Sinatra's music, got tons of his records. But anyone with a career spanning six decades has got to drop a few turds along the way, and even The Chairman of The Board is no exception. And that is what we are presenting here today: 15 examples of the worst, from the greatest.

There's the good-bad Frank, which is fun, e.g. finger-snappin' his way thru unlikely/inappropriate songs like Stevie Wonder's "You Are The Sunshine of My Life" (a staple of my Vegas road trips) or his hep-cat spin on Simon and Garfunkel; his groovy mod duets with daughter Nancy (sample lyric: "I'm lookin' out love-colored windows"); or when his take on "Mack The Knife" becomes a self-conscious history lesson on that oft-recorded classic.

And then there's bad-bad Frank. "Mama Will Bark," a duet with the now-forgotten Dagmar, a performer more known for her curvaceous figure than her singing ability, has been called the worst thing Frank recorded, and I would not argue. Literally, a dog of a record. Nothing else here is quite as cringe-worthy, but the unreleased (for good reason) disco version of "All or Nothing At All," or the appalling duet with that ghastly creature Bono come pretty damn close.  Yes, sometimes you can judge a book by it's cover: "Everybody's Twistin'" sounds exactly like you think it would. And has there ever been a good version of "Winchester Cathedral"?

This collection eases you in: at first, there doesn't appear to be anything particularly wrong with this version of "Some Enchanted Evening." The "South Pacific" standard should be a slam-dunk, right?  But it gradually becomes clear that Frank has no feel for the song whatsoever, as he's been hobbled by a terrible arrangement, and it just goes completely off the rails. Surprising that this one got out of the can. (Although I guess you could say that for most of these tracks.)

This collection come to us thru our regular contributor windy via his pal, another mad-dog record collector named MadJon, who conceived, compiled, and created the cover artwork (above) for this festering concoction. Thank (or blame) them! Jon's notes for each song below.


Frank Sinatra - "Come Suck With Me"

01some enchanted evening
02Everybodys' twistin
03 i whistle a happy tune
04mama will bark
05all or nothing at all (disco)
06winchester cathedral
07mrs robinson
08 feelin kinda sunday (w/nancy)
09 life's a trippy thing (w/nancy)
10 you are the sunshine of my life
11bad bad leroy brown
12ive got you under my skin (w/Bono)
13mack the knife (w/Quincy Jones; vibes: Lionel Hampton)
14the 12 days of christmas (w/Nancy, Frank Jr, and the rarely-heard Tina Sinatra)
15 my way


Some Enchanted Evening: The Richard Rodgers estate was very strict about licensing its songs for recording. Altho' Sinatra had recorded this tune in the past, on Columbia in 1949, they gave him a difficult time about it two decades later. Personal? Who knows, but when Sinatra finally got the rights, he made it personal and recorded this ridiculous, horrible version as revenge.
Everybody's Twistin': Sinatra craved hits as much as anyone and would lower his famous standards when required. Here, he takes an old song by Fats Waller called "Everybody's Truckin'." changes the title and imagines he has a twist hit. He didn't. In America it only went to #75.
Mama Will Bark: It's too easy to say that Mitch Miller forced Sinatra to record this. Imagine ANYONE telling Frank what to do! Sinatra puts his all into this record, and seems to be enjoying himself. The flip was the tragically beautiful "I'm A Fool To Want You" which he co-wrote. Both sides did well on the charts. It remains awful only because it's incomprehensible that he would have gone along with it.
All Or Nothing At All: Before the huge success of his Trilogy album, Sinatra was lost in the 70's, with the label he founded only releasing several singles between 1974 and 1980. Clearly desperate, Sinatra re-recorded two old hits of his as disco records in 1977, this and "Night And Day," but "All Or Nothing At All" was so awful it remained unreleased until the Complete Reprise box set in 1995.
Winchester Cathedral: Enjoying a surprise return to the Top 10 charts in the mid-60's, Sinatra decided that every other album would be "for the kids." Like the kids were waiting for this.
Mrs. Robinson: Reportedly, Paul Simon hated what Frank did with his song, as should we all.
Feelin' Kinda Sunday and Life's A Trippy Thing: Juvenile hippy crap. Worst, who could even imagine the word "trippy" appearing in a Sinatra title?
You Are the Sunshine Of My Life and Bad, Bad Leroy Brown: Both from the album Some Nice Things I've Missed (1974), it's another one "for the kids!" The latter song being a #1 hit in 1972, Reprise thought the kids would like Frank's version as a single two years later. It (#83), like the album (#48), did poorly, and so began Frank's lost decade.
I've Got You Under My Skin (duet with Bono): Inexplicably, the public made Sinatra's first Duets album a smash hit, even if it never sounded like Frank was ever in the same studio with his guests, as is most evident here. Frank sounds flat, while Bono's vocal is produced with his trademark ethereal sound. When their vocals are mixed together, their phrasing doesn't match.
Mack the Knife: Sinatra's last album, L.A. Is My Lady, produced by Quincy Jones, is almost entirely awful throughout. Here, Sinatra can't resist changing the lyrics as he salutes the members of the orchestra.
The Twelve Days of Christmas: Featuring his three children (only one of whom ever achieved success on her own) the repetition of the all-too-cute, terribly unfunny jokes quickly becomes horribly obnoxious. It is the one track on this compilation that I cannot bear listening to.
My Way: It would be easier to take if recorded by a better man with a lesser voice, but here Sinatra celebrates a life of bullying abuse which the public is well aware of. Additionally, it is ironic that at his own label, Sinatra cared less about the engineering of his records; on the line "For what is a man?" there is an over-saturation of the vocal on the tape, creating horrible distortion that technology can never fix.
I threw this collection together quickly one day, being too lazy to look for more, but I know more stinkers are out there, and perhaps in the future there will be a Volume Two.

↧

Tony "The Cool Casanova" Fabbri

October 1, 2013, 8:31 pm
$
0
0

There is almost no info on Tony Fabbri on the 'net, but all you need to know is that this is seriously some primo outsider awesomeness. His thick accent of undetermined origin, his unique songwriting ("Gong, Gong, Gong" is an ode to the schlocky '70s tv program "The Gong Show"), his vocal delivery that makes up in enthusiasm what it lacks in traditional notions of pitch, the way he acts out the songs in his videos (even the song about the 9/11 attacks on New York!) - it's all just so great. I love this guy. 

Yes, I know that once again I'm opening myself up to more accusations that we're just some "hipsters" (heh) ironically smirking at some pathetic no-talent old guy, but I sincerely think that there's something heroic about a man with virtually no chance to "make it" in the music biz writing songs and performing with the gusto of someone a third his age. It's not just "bad." Journey is bad. The Eagles are bad. And there's nothing entertaining about them. Anthony Fabbri is an inspiration, and if you think I'm being sarcastic, download these tunes, and watch the mind-boggling public access show presented below. Of course you may laugh at times, but I predict that you'll be fascinated by the man's unique vision, and will end up rooting him on (waves hand in the air "Go, Tony!  Go, Tony!")

These four songs were sent to me by The International Voice of Reason, whose crazed Friday morning show on KXLU radio is required listening for all Maniacs. IVOR has no idea where he got these (perhaps Tony sent them to the station?) When we went on-line to see if we could find more info about our favorite new singing discovery, all we found were these videos, a public access show from parts unknown. The songs were wonderful, e.g.: his attempt at a West Coast "New York New York" and the go-go rockin'"Her Phone Number", but the videos take it all to a whole other level. One minute he's singing about how great it is that the Berlin Wall has fallen, the next he's changed from a suit into a Hawaiian shirt, brandishing a golf club, telling all the ladies that he's a "cool Casanova." The videos were put up 5 years ago but still have only 100 views. That's just not right. 

Tony Fabbri

1. Beautiful Los Angeles
2.  Her Phone Number (on the wall)
3. The Phone Booth
4. Gong, Gong, Gong

part 1, intro, "God Bless New York":

part 2, "Splendid Lady,""Everybody Needs Love":




part 3, "the Berlin Wall,""Beautiful Los Angeles" (different version from the mp3), "Tony The Cool Casanova":  




part 4, "Her Phone Number (on the wall)", contact info (anyone want to call him and see if he still has the same phone number?)


part 5, "Baby Bright Eyes":
and finally part 6, the hand-clappin' gospel rouser "Somebody Took My Hand":
↧
Search

BeerBottle Percussion, NewWave Music-Boxes, Avant-Catholic Masses

October 7, 2013, 1:12 am
$
0
0
Last year's assortment of experimental/alt-classical/unclassifiably weird new releases received a succinct two-word comment from reader Outa-Spaceman: "Astonishing stuff!" Like last year's roundup, these are new(ish) commercial releases that are well worth your hard-earned dollars/francs/pounds/heads-of-cattle/etc., with album moods ranging from Carton Sonore's charming toy-pop and the krazy kovers of Hanna Peel and Misfit Toys, to chin-stroking Afro-tronica and new avant-chamber music; from modern-day high holy masses to Neon Lushell's creepy "No Religion" - we're covering a lot of territory. And when was the last time you heard music performed entirely on beer bottles? Prepare to be astonished!

Astonishing Stuff!

1. Paddy Steer - "A. Welson Senior II": reader Phil C. hepped me to this Mancunian cat with this description:"He's a crazy one man moog/ glockenspiel/drumkit band with a penchant for paper maché robot/creature heads. I saw him at a tiny little festival a couple of years ago (he was on after the band I was with) and it was the best and strangest thing I've ever seen. For the whole of his set I felt like I was having an acid flashback." One of the best albums I've heard in recent years.  Was very hard to pick representative tracks, they're all doubleplus good. Watch the vids on his label site!
2. Misfit Toys - "Alone Again Naturally": from the ridiculously entertaining debut album "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is," a mad collection of '70s covers performed on banjo, bowed banjo (?!), marimba, oboe and clarinet, among others, radically reinventing Stevie Wonder, Chicago (as you may have guessed by the album title), Tony Orlando and Dawn, Black Sabbath, Talking Heads, the Gilbert O'Sullivan song featured here, and more. Transcends novelty, but still a must for any Maniacs' party.
3. Neon Lushell - "Black Confetti": I really liked these Midwesterners debut "Modern Purveyors of Filth and Degradation" and their new one (to be released Oct 8) is just as good - two-discs bulging with experimental ambient evil, as dark as goth or metal but without those genres' kitschy cliches.
4. Mammane Sani et son Orgue - "Bodo": hypnotic '70s Space-Age organ instrumentals from Niger, Africa; who knew such things existed?
5. Gunnelpumpers - "Bottley Functions": The six musicians of this Chicago-based avant/improv group perform here only on beer bottles. From their new one,"Montana Fix."
6. Gunnelpumpers - "Buffalo Jump": groovy percussion with three double-basses; that's like, what, 6 basses total? (boom-tish!)
7. Hannah Peel - "Electricity" - Peel's splendid 4 song EP "Rebox" performs '80s hits by Soft Cell, New Order, Cocteau Twins, and the song featured here, OMD, on sampled antique music box. May be corny as hell, but I love it.
8. Phil Kline - "John the Revelator - Sanctus": We reviewed this NYC composer's Christmas music for massed boom-boxes previously, and reader James C. recommended the Catholic inspired "John The Revelator;" the eclectic music sometimes doesn't immediately suggest a mass, tho it does get a bit Gregorian at times; quite lovely. 
9. Kurosounds - "Manège d'éléphants": Fantastic hypnogogic ambient soundscapes; looped delayed instruments echo rhythmically as dreamy sound effects drift in and out; owes as much to psychedelic dub as it does to  Minimalism. 
10. Bruce Cropley - "March Into April": This Aussie's excellent album "Modal Podal" is almost all instrumental, exploring a wide variety of styles that aren't necessarily all that weird; which makes it all the more unique - he's not afraid of risking his avant credentials by throwing some perfectly pleasant jazz fusion-type stuff in with the almost Zappa-like quirkiness; makes one realize how even "strange""experimental" music can be predictably formulaic.
11. Bruce Cropley - "Modal Podal": Copley's is also the man behind the super-swell "Quirky Music" on-line radio station
12. Juan Blanco - "Musica para Danza": Was I surprised to find this album in my PO box - "Nuestra Tiempo" is a retrospective of Cuba's electronic music pioneer, Juan Blanco. Cuban electronica? As in, with those infectious Latin rhythms? Yes, on one almost 14 minute -long track. The rest of the album doesn't offer much mamboing, just tasty analog bloopiness, like this track from 1961, the very first piece of electronic music ever recorded in Cuba, available for the first time.
13. Tino Contreras - "Santo": Perhaps not as historically startling as the Blanco album, but "El Jazz Mexicano de Tino Contreras"is another worthy reexamination of an overlooked Latin American artist from decades past; this one unexpectedly veers from psych Afro-Latinisms to exotic international styles, to such oddities as numerous tracks from his groovy '60s a-Go-Go Catholic mass, like the track featured here that mashes up Latin (in the original sense of the word) chanting with Brubeck-esque cool jazz and sleazy electric organ. Que pasa?!
14. Paddy Steer - "Stun phlogiston"
15. Carton Sonore - "The Mexican Roads": The latest from France's adorable "naive music" toy-pop maestro.
↧
↧

PETER COOK RARITIES pt1

October 15, 2013, 4:16 pm
$
0
0
By request, the private-press lounge crooner Mr. "Home" Center is back up.

Count Otto Black, our expert in silly 78 rpm oddities, has sent us another batch of wonderfulness, this time a collection of out of print rarities by British comic genius Peter Cook. Two songs from a single, the entirety of the 1965 "The Misty Mr. Wisty" album, and a couple of other leftovers, inc. a brilliant call-in radio show prank. Quite a revelation to me, as I only knew Cook from his work with Beyond the Fringe and his subsequent partnership with Dudley Moore.

Quoth the Count: "...let us consider the bizarre character E. L. Wisty who, with slight variations, featured throughout his career. He is a paranoid schizophrenic based on a mentally ill staff-member at the private school he attended as a boy. At least one psychiatrist commented after watching his performance that if somebody exhibiting those mannerisms and speech-patterns checking into his clinic, he'd unhesitatingly diagnose him as a genuine schizophrenic who couldn't possibly be faking it!

E. L. Wisty was invented for an early sixties British TV show called The Braden Beat. The host wanted a weekly guest spot for Peter Cook that was similar to the famous (and still hilarious) "Dagenham Dialogues" performed by him and Dud on their ground-breaking (but, thanks to the stupidity of the BBC, only partially preserved) show Not Only But Also. Incidentally, since you're not British, I should explain that Dagenham is a suburb epitomizing dull, shabby, working-class London. It is famous for exactly two things (other than the Dagenham Dialogues of course) - the Dagenham Girl Pipers, the only British majorettes that anyone has even vaguely heard of, and the phrase "a couple of stops short of Dagenham", meaning mentally unbalanced, since if you're traveling in a southerly direction, Dagenham is two stops after Barking.

Anyway, in the absence of Dud, that format, in which a very stupid man with delusions of brilliance (Pete) explains lofty subjects to the only man in the world more stupid than he is (Dud), couldn't be used, so a character who had been the high point of Pete and Dud's breakthrough review Beyond The Fringe was revived. Technically, that character, though never named on stage, is called Arthur Grole, and he is very similar but not identical to E. L. Wisty. Both are strange men sitting on park benches and talking nonsense in a peculiar monotone, but Arthur Grole is always talking to, or rather at, somebody else, whereas E. L. Wisty is alone and talks straight into the camera. Also, Arthur Grole's major preoccupation in life is dissatisfaction with his job, since he wanted to be a judge but didn't have the Latin for it and had to be a coal-miner instead. E. L. Wisty has no job, and apparently almost no contact with anybody else, other than his best and only friend Spotty Muldoon, whom we never meet, which, given that is covered from head to foot in terrible acne, is probably just as well.

Although these sketches were written for television, E. L. Wisy was almost entirely motionless and expressionless, and sat on a park bench staring hypnotically at the camera while he delivered his monologue, so the entire visual content of this material is basically the same as the photo on the album cover.
 
And finally, a few non-album extras comprising the only other material recorded by the character officially known as E. L. Wisty. This single reached No. 34 in the UK charts in 1965. Even though Peter Cook never could sing to save his life, the B-side is oddly poignant. The character's brief celebrity also led to him starring in several beer adverts that were aired on British TV and released as a flexidisc (remember those?). American readers way be unfamiliar with the Watney's brand. All I can say to them is: lucky old you! As mass-produced characterless British beers go, Watney's is arguably the worst of the lot, and inarguably not much better. You may have noticed Eric Idle's repeated references in the Monty Python travel agent sketch to "bleedin' Watney's Red Barrel!" This is a beer which has an exceptionally long cask-life, allowing it to be profitably sold from venues which for some reason don't sell very much of it, and nothing else going for it whatsoever. It's supremely ironic that a man who was eventually killed by alcohol helped to promote the world's worst beer in the character of a madman who was completely wrong about everything. Or is it more ironic that Watney's hired him to do it in the first place? Go figure...
Therefore, without further ado, I give you his 1965 album The Misty Mister Wisty."

Peter Cook: "The Misty Mister Wisty"

More Peter Cook rarities to come! [note to non-Brits: "spotty" means pimply]

 

↧

PETER COOK RARITIES pt2: "Here Comes The Judge"

October 18, 2013, 2:14 pm
$
0
0
Here's a second and final blast of comedic genius from the late Peter Cook, this time from 1979 - 24 minutes of "Here Comes The Judge" (no relation to the Pigmeat Markham song, or any of those other r'n' b novelties by the same name - scroll down to 'session 211'HERE for that phenomenon). The great man making this available to us, Count Otto Black, tells us:

As a follow-up to the collected works of E. L. Wisty, I give the the EP that Peter Cook made as a response to the trial of Jeremy Thorpe in 1979. As a non-Brit, you probably don't know about this, but in its time it was the British O. J. Simpson trial, only much more fun because nobody actually died. Also, politicians and kinky sex! What's not to like? Jeremy Thorpe had until recently been the leader of the Liberal Party, the most important British political party with no chance whatsoever of winning an election (especially after this). Some years previously, a whiny, neurotic, and thoroughly unpleasant male model called Norman Scott had alleged that Thorpe had been in a homosexual relationship with him. Not only was this not the sort of thing you could possibly admit to in those days, but at the time Scott claimed that it happened, homosexuality was a criminal offense in the UK. Thorpe, a thoroughly respectable public figure who was married (to a woman), managed to brush this off as a pack of lies concocted by a seedy little creep he'd briefly known (though obviously not that well), mainly because Scott was obviously the kind of person you couldn't trust, let alone like.

And then Scott made further allegations that Thorpe, along with several of his friends, had conspired to murder him, a plot which only failed because they had no experience of serious crime, and hired a totally inept hit-man who only managed to kill Scott's dog, a Great Dane called Rinka (as a result of which the British press called the whole thing "Rinkagate"). This was a much more serious allegation, and because various people panicked and admitted that at least some of it was true, Scott was taken a lot more seriously this time. Thorpe's defense was that some of his buddies had paid huge sums of money out of their own pockets to have somebody who was inconvenient to his political career murdered, but at no point had they mentioned to him that they were even thinking of doing any such thing.

Since there was no proof either way, the jury had to decide whether the charge of conspiracy to commit murder was true or false on purely subjective grounds. The extremely pro-establishment judge did his best to emphasize Norman Scott's obvious character flaws throughout the trial while painting Jeremy Thorpe as a saint, and in his notorious summing-up, practically ordered the jury to find Thorpe not guilty. After initially being deadlocked 6-6, they eventually decided that Thorpe was innocent. Nevertheless, his career was ruined. He's still alive, but ever since he has with rare exceptions kept out of the public eye, concentrating on low-key charity work, almost as if he felt guilty about something.

Peter Cook's blistering satire of the judge's summing-up was written very quickly for the Amnesty International benefit gig The Secret Policeman's Ball, and is often regarded as the best sketch he ever wrote, though apparently it was Billy Connolly who came up with the famous line "self-confessed player of the pink oboe". The other three tracks on the subsequent EP Here Comes The Judge were written later, but the peculiar sermon is a spoof of the real sermon preached at Thorpe's local church in front of him by an absurdly sycophantic vicar who directly compared his recent sufferings with those of Jesus Christ. I think the other two tracks are self-explanatory. A comedy genius at his darkest and best - enjoy!

Peter Cook - Gay Sex Dead Dog Atrocity!



↧

MONSTER BEACH PARTY

October 22, 2013, 12:19 pm
$
0
0
At last!  All the greatest songs with "monster"/"creature" + "beach" /"surf" in the title. Most of these records are from rock 'n' roll's glorious sleazy-listening era of the early '60s. The rest from recent years/decades, but still trying to catch that surf-rock wave, inc. 2 bands from Japan (The Surf Coasters, and Hell-Racer) and what has to be the world's only goth surf band, the theremin-licious Vampire Beach Babes. And, really, isn't Sex With Lurch just about the greatest band name ever?

1. Surf Trio - Monster Beach
2. The Surf Coasters - Beach Monster
3. 'Monster on the Beach' movie - radio ad
4. Deadly Ones - It's Monster Surfing Time
5. Gene Moss And The Monsters - Surf Monster
6. The Phantom Surfers - Monster From the Surf
7. The Abominable Surfmen - Monster Surfer
8. Vampire Beach Babes - Surfing Swamp Monster From The Planet Zon
9. Sex With Lurch - Monster Surf Party
10. Sloppy Seconds - The Horror Of Party Beach
11. Deadly Ones - There's A Creature In The Surfer's Lagoon
12. Dead Elvi - The Creature Stole My Surfboard
13. Don Hinson And The Rigamorticians - Monster Surf Stomp
14. Hell-Racer - Monster Beach
15. The Dynotones -It's Monster Surfing Time

Dubious Bonus - my mashup from 2006: Mr Fab and His Bag O' Heads - Go! Surf Monster [Gene Moss vs Go! Team]

MONSTER BEACH PARTY


(artwork courtesy of Steam Crow)

And hey, all you Halloweenies: I put the popular "Zombie Jamboree" back on-line earlier this year, for more sun-drenched darkness and horror. A real cool ghoul has created a streaming playlist for it now, too.


↧

PRIMITIVE: LOU REED'S PRE-VELVETS RECORDINGS

October 28, 2013, 1:23 pm
$
0
0
I first encountered the early works of the recently-departed Lewis Reed as a youngster obsessed with all things Lou/Velvets (I even bought "Sally Can't Dance"!) in the '80s visiting New York City. I slipped away from my family long enough to check out a lower Manhattan record store, made a bee-line to the VU section, and found two bootlegs entitled "The Velvet Underground Etc." and "The Velvet Underground And So On," compiled by Phil Milstein. Yes, the same man behind the song-poem resurgence, and the crucial Probe! music blog. The albums featured, apart from Velvets rarities, some surprisingly normal pre-Velvets Reed recordings. When I brought the records to the counter, I asked the guy to play them because with boots, you never know what you're gonna get.  He happily obliged, exclaiming: "The Ostrich by The Primitives is one of my favorites!" That song, featuring an early lineup of the VU, and featuring the "ostrich guitar" sited on the "banana" album (all strings tuned to the same note) quickly became a fave of mine as well, tho I had a hard time convincing my school chums of the coolness of this, well, primitive recording. When I bought an electric guitar, I tried tuning it to all one note. Sounded great!  Sounded a lot like Sonic Youths' guitars, actually. Which of course, should come as no surprise.

Since then, I've found other early rarities, as other early recordings came to light, inc. the previously-unreleased "Lewis Reed" songs from the same producer who put out a 45 by his high-school band, the Jades. The presence of the then 16-year-old Reed isn't too apparent on the Jades record, singing backup and playing guitar behind smooth singer Phil Harris, the star of the show. R'n'B sax star King Curtis, no less, is one of the session cats brought in. It's an okay, sorta generic doo-wop record. The Lewis Reed recordings, however, find Lou taking his first lead vocals, and they're great.  "Merry Go Round" should have been released, it's a sweet little rocker.

After university, Lou joined cheesy "budget" label Pickwick Records, and co-wrote a number of songs churned out to meet the current crazes, e.g.: surf, soul, etc. His distinctive lead vocals are featured on some of these, tho not on the hypnotic garage/psych classic "Why Don't You Smile now," a song that would be covered a number of times by other artists over the years (inc Moe Tucker).

There are other records Lou co-wrote for Pickwick performers Roberta Williams, The J Brothers, and Terry Phillips, but I don't have those.  So far as I know, these are all the pre-VU records with Lou's lead vocals. Nothing that would shake the earth the way the Velvets did, but many of these sides are good, fun early rock 'n' soul nuggets that are worth hearing for their own merits. Linger on... 

Primitive Lou Reed

1. Jades - Leave Her for Me
2. Jades - So Blue (time-1002, 1958)
3. Lewis Reed - Merry Go Round (1962)
4. Lewis Reed - Your Love
5. The All Night Workers - Why Don't You Smile Now
6. The Beachnuts - Cycle Annie (1965)
7. The Beachnuts - I've Got A Tiger In My Tank
8. the Hi-Lifes - Soul City (1965)
9. The Primitives [pictured right]- Sneaky Pete
10. The Primitives - The Ostrich
11. The Roughnecks - You're Driving Me Insane

↧
↧

Halloween Stomp: A Haunted House Party

October 30, 2013, 1:13 pm
$
0
0
UPDATE 11/12/13: Back on-line 

Hey, all you hep cats 'n' flipped chicks, here's a voot-o-rooney volume of vintage jazz, blues, and music hall spooky songs that I meant to post earlier, 'til the death of Lou Reed done threw me for a loop. This 1990 album was released by the real gone studs at Jass Records, who had a great, all-too-brief run in the late '80s/early '90s compiling wonderful novelty oddities from the 78 rpm era: dirty blues, reefer-smoking songs, etc. "Viper Mad Blues: 16 Songs of Dope and Depravity" was a particular fave of mine.

This one includes: swingin' numbers by a pre-crooning Nat Cole, a pre-lounge Louis Prima, a pre-corny sitcom Ozzie Nelson, and bad-ass big band stompers from the legendary likes of Cab Calloway, Peggy Lee, Glenn Miller, and the Dorsey Brothers. But despite all the dancing skeletons and boogieing boogie-men, Rudy Vallee's bad Cockney accent is the most frightening thing here.

Halloween Stomp: Haunted House Party



















1

















1) The Haunted House - Ray Noble & His Orchestra
2) Shivery Stomp - Frankie Trumbauer & His Orchestra
3) Mysterious Mose - The Radio All Star Novelty Orchestra - Dick Robertson
4) The Boogie Man Is Here - Tom Geron & His Orchestra
5) Haunting Blues - Red Nichols & His Five Pennies
6) Bug-A-Boo - Red Nichols & His Five Pennies
7) Got The Jitters - Don Redman & His Orchestra
8) The Boogie Man/I'm A Ghost - Todd Rollins & His Orchestra - Chick Bullock
9) The House Is Haunted (By The Echo Of Your Last Goodbye) - Glen Gray & The Casa Loma Orchestra - Kenny Sargent
10) Zombie - Gene Kardos & His Orchestra
11) Mr. Ghost Goes To Town - Louis Prima & His New Orleans Gang
12) Skeleton In The Closet - Nat Gonella & His Georgians
13) The Goblin Band - Glen Gray & The Casa Loma Orchestra
14) Hell's Bells - The New Yorkers (Sid Peltyn & His Orchestra) - Dick Robertson
15) With Her Head Tucked Under Her Arm - Rudy Vallee & His Connecticut Yankees
16) The Black Cat - Ozzie Nelson & His Orchestra
17) Strange Enchantment - Skinnay Ennis & His Orchestra
18) The Ghost Of Smokey Joe - Cab Calloway & His Orchestra
19) Ol' Man Mose Ain't Dead - Nat King Cole Trio
20) Swingin' At The Seance - Glenn Miller & His Orchestra - Dorothy Claire
21) Horror Fantasia For Spooks And Wild Indians - Charlie Barnet & His Orchestra
22) Fanfare/Cherokee (Theme) - Charlie Barnet & His Orchestra - Peggy Lee
23) Old Man Mose Is Dead - Charlie Barnet & His Orchestra
24) Pompton Turnpike - Charlie Barnet & His Orchestra
25) Haunted Heart - Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra - Johnny Amoroso
26) The Headless Horseman - Kay Starr & Billy Butterfield Quintet
27) Dry Bones (Head Bone Connected To The Neck Bone) - Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra
↧

FREE LUNCH DINER pt1

November 12, 2013, 9:52 am
$
0
0
("Halloween Stomp" is back on-line)

They say there's no such thing as a free lunch. Yeah, well, "they" say all kinds of crap, don't they? What do you call all of these free/name-your-price audio feasts? Damn tasty, that's what you call 'em. And so I fling open the doors of the M4M diner and its' all-you-can-listen-to buffet:

Hanetration "Timelapse" EP - I quite liked this ambient oddball's previous releases, but wasn't so sure about this one: the opener "Moon" has a nice head-nodding riddim that is at odds with a somewhat annoying amateur violin. But the next track is a minute-and-a-half of niceness, and then we get to this EP's centerpiece: "Opal" starts off with a compellingly off-kilter rhythm made by no known drums, and slowly, subtly increases in complexity and texture. Excellent. The closing track "Sleep" is a 7 minute long dystopian industrial ambient nightmare - very well done, but if you value peaceful sleep I don't know if you'd want to listen to it much.

Buttress O'Kneel's "Applied Metapop" is another action-packed thrill-ride from this mad sample-smasher's series of plunderphonic parties. I marvel at how B'o'K can take the lowest form of Top 40 manure and use it as mulch to grow great, big, loud mutant killer plants. This latest album even makes me listen to that "Gangland Style" song or whatever it's called, and like it.  Bowie gets a sex change, Eno's "Baby's On Fire" might finally be the dance-club smash it always deserved to be, the "Breaking Bad" theme gets mashed, and is that the rantings of Francis E. Dec mixed in with Fela and "Yackety Sax"?

And dig these individual tracks:

The fate of "Flakes The Bunny", the stand-out track on Philip Stranger's new EP "Miscolab," makes me laff only the way an accordion-and-steel-drum bit of retarded nonsense like this can. If Mr. Stranger & Co. could concoct a whole album of this kinda thing, we might have a Bonzo Dog Band for our times. Or at least a They Might Be Giants.

Peopling "Live Session - Dandelion Radio": This EP by a New York noise-meister boasts the super-swell song "Which is Width," which features distorted vox & crunching rhythms topped w/bloopy Space Age electronics. (And "De Pelicula" is a fine instro drone, as well.)

More freebies to come, ya cheap bastards...




↧
Search

HELP ID AN (*Burp*) OLD NOVELTY SONG

November 13, 2013, 9:40 am
$
0
0
By request, Wild Man Fischers'"Wildmania!", "Space Age Santa,""Christmas Is For Weirdos,""Curl Activate: '80s rap novelties", and "White Men Can't Rap" are all back up.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Got a nice email from someone looking for a treasured record from her childhood. Can any old time/novelty song hounds out there help her out? Kathleen O. writes:  "When I was little, my father would play a record on the portable record player that made both of us laugh & laugh. I have no idea who recorded it or what any other lyrics were except that, apparently, each verse ended with a burp and then the man would say/sing "'scuse me ma'am. Musta been somethin' I ate." Dad would slow it down for a long, drawn out belch or speed it up for a quick bip & chipmunk voices. My older sister hated when we played it. She doesn't remember it, and, alas, my father has passed away.
 

During my search, I listened to funny songs by Benny Bell, Spike Jones, etc. but, if I remember correctly, this "song" was more spoken than sung. Dad was born in 1913. The record was probably an old one, but it was the late 1950s /early 1960s when we listened to it. I think my sister broke the record...
An extensive on-line search yielded nothing but a discovery of other novelty songs and performers from years ago.

Any ideas?
Thanks!
Kathleen


↧

Ahh...Outsider Music...

November 15, 2013, 12:38 pm
$
0
0
The George King/Joe Corney Space-Age Organ Sounds are back on-line.

The first thing many Americans think when they hear the phrase "folk music" is still the Joan Baez/Dylan types listlessly strumming acoustic guitars and singing protest songs in coffeehouses, none of which has much has nothing to do with actual American folk traditions. The excellent new compilation Turn Me Loose: Outsiders of Old-Time Music
features not only the weird 'n' wild obscurities you maniacs crave, but it also serves as a nice corrective to the '50s/'60s folk revival's rewriting of history. For one thing, acoustic guitars were not too common (almost no songs on this album feature them), banjos were originally a black instrument (derived from African instruments), silly humor was much more common then protest politics (e.g.: the wacked-out duo Mustard and Gravy), and plenty of "non-folk" instruments like the piano really were used in folk music, Charlie Tweedy's berserk stylings on the ivories being one of this albums' many highlights (which reminds me of Tom Lehrer's crack introducing his song "The Folk Song Army": since the piano isn't considered a folk instrument "imagine I'm playing an 88-string guitar.") Ernest Rodgers' Greek lesson "Mythological Blues" punctures holes in the notion that these were all dumb, uneducated hicks.

Most of these recordings, taken from old '78s, are by fairly professional if necessarily rough 'n' raw performers, but at least one character here, Willard Hodgin, is just flat-out nuts. To quote from compiler Frank Fairfield's extensive liners notes: "He recorded 18 sides (1927-1928) for various labels, which is quite an outstanding feat considering how unusual a performer he was. The combination of the occasional verse speckled in with his own unusual yet charming stanzas and his delirious haphazard banjo strumming make him one of the most unique performers to ever record." 18 songs?  Someone put out a complete Willard Hodgin album! (Clicky on song titles to take you to Divshare-land:)

Willard Hodgin: "Don't Get One Woman on Your Mind"Now with bonus offensive racistlyrics!  But don't musical saws make everything better?

South Georgia Highballers: "Mister Johnson Turn Me Aloose"

Another great new comp I recently purchased at my local record emporiums is "Enjoy The Experience: Homemade Records 1958-1992," a two-disc set plus 44 page booklet, all for only $15. Explore the wonderful world of private-press records! I was amused to see that the booklet featured reproductions of the covers of a couple albums I own, namely Mike Hudson and Wayne & Marin Foster. No tracks from them featured on this, but I included them on my own collection "I'll Take Las Vegas." This album goes way beyond Vegas-y lounge performers, tho, ranging from the already sorta-well known punk jazz of Gary Wilson and the middle-aged former Big Band singer-turned-hippie Arcesia, to such unknowns as the hip Christian behind this absurdly catchy upbeat bit of apocalyptic pop:

Ray Torsky: "666"

The booklet includes interviews with some of the performers the compilers were actually able to track down. The heartbreaking tale of Joe E.'s swindle at the hands of a fly-by-night record label is particularly memorable. Unfortunately nothing is known about one Vinny Roma, but he recorded what could be this blog's theme song.  Hell, it could be my (or your) life's theme song:

Vinny Roma: "Ahh...Music"

And if that's still not enough outsider music for you, Colchester, England's premier mental patient/transvestite/stoner/coprophiliac singer-songwriter has a new album out called
"Hippie Heaven" 
for your free downloading pleasure. It's like a 12" single more than an album, with the same songs appearing in slightly different forms throughout. Highlights inc the biting "Parasite Pest," and "Rock 'n' Roll Brothel" ("Why won't any of the girls have sex with me? It's quite frustrating...I could get a complex!") The backing track of "Lady Dub #1" could be by Martin Rev. And paging Yoko Ono! The final track is a 20 min field recording of wind.



   
↧
↧

T.V.O.D.

November 19, 2013, 11:50 pm
$
0
0
Turn on the t.v., watch a movie, what do you get? Inane sitcoms, "Transformers," cops chasing serial killers for the umpteenth time...but what's this?!  Video being put to good use for a change, producing such feasts for the eyes and ears as

Nintendo audio played by player piano and robotic percussion:
"This system allows for Nintendo gameplay audio to be played through an acoustic player piano and robotically controlled percussive instruments. The piano and percussion play live during actual gameplay."  It's true, watch the game in the upper left to see how it triggers the robot instruments.

I wrote about Gnarboot's nutty album in 2011, but this video from earlier this year isn't so much kooky as it is pretty sick 'n' twisted.  Imagine David Lynch making children's programming. Over an eerie electronic score, the title phrase "Cats In Pajamas" is chanted mantra-like by a childlike vocalist, as people in cat masks mysteriously appear and disappear.  My three-year-old came over to my computer when I was playing this, intrigued. After all, it's kitties, right?  But when the scary knife-wielding clown showed up, she ran from the room.  Thanks a lot for scaring my kid, Gnarboots!

Speaking of sick and twisted...the gold standard of such, The Everyday Film, who released an album we reviewed earlier this year, have now added video to their arsenal of weapons of mass hysteria.  It's for the short version of their song "Goool" and, like a slideshow of early Jandek album covers, features a series of blurred, discombobulated photos in as compelling a video realization of alienation and disconnection as you're ever going to see.


Need a laugh now? Another M4M fave, the absurdist mad scientist and his "singing" robot duo the Satanic Puppeteer Orchestra, have also released their debut video, "Frankenstein's Laundromat," another welcome bit of their trademark electro-poppin' surreal humor. This is a preview of the forthcoming album, "Experiments With Auto-Croon."

Swedish female duo The Haggish Moue have a bunch of videos up on the youtubes, and I watched 'em all.  Not sure if I really need to listen to their wistful brand of electro-psych on it's own, but the largely-instrumental (+ somewhat ethereal vox) music works great as a soundtrack to spacey video art acid trips that you can get lost in. Let's fall into space...

"Bangs Glitter"






↧

STRANGE/OUTSIDER/NOVELTY JFK SONGS

November 22, 2013, 1:13 pm
$
0
0
John F. Kennedy inspired a lot of music. This is some of the weirdest. Song-poems! A Frank Zappa composed/produced surf record!  A singing psychic! Mexican music! And all 6 tracks from the great "Sing Along With JFK" album that featured pre-sampling tape manipulations of Jack's voice "remixed" with original music and a vocal chorus. You've heard of musique concrete?  This is musique ridicule.

http://www36.zippyshare.com/v/23219444/file.html
Sing Along With JFK

1. George Atkins and Hank Levine: Begin Anew For Two (from "Sing Along With JFK")
2. George Atkins and Hank Levine: Let Us Begin Beguine
3. George Atkins and Hank Levine: Alliance For Progress Bossa Nova
4. George Atkins and Hank Levine: Ask Not Waltz
5. George Atkins and Hank Levine: The Trumpet 
6. George Atkins and Hank Levine: Let The Word Go Forth
7. Los Conquistadores: Homenaje a John F. Kennedy
8. Brian Lord & The Midnighters: The Big Surfer (written/produced by Frank Zappa, recorded in his Cucamunga studio, 1963)
9. Frances Baskerfield, "The Singing Psychic" - The Grassy Knoll
10. Johnny Tucker - Mr. Kennedy
11. Mike Macharyas - Lee Harvey Oswald (from the 2005 album "Ashlee Simpson" in which all Macharyas does is repeat famous peoples names over and over; he has 17 albums of this insanity)
12. Lee Roy Abernathy: John F. Kennedy The Greatest Of All (like the Johnny Tucker song, this is an indie country/folk record, but this guy seems really worried about Texas' reputation as much as anything else)
13. Norm Burns and the Five Stars: John F. Kennedy Was Called Away
14. Norm Burns and the Five Stars: John F. Kennedy's Election Race (Song-poems! This one's the more inept/funnier of the two)


Thanks for some of these to WFMU's Beware of the Blog, and master blogger Bob Purse.
↧

DISCO SELLOUT!

November 25, 2013, 3:08 pm
$
0
0
By the late 1970s, the memo had come down from the music biz execs: make a disco record. Everyone, and we mean EVERYONE is hereby ordered to march into the studio and sing over anonymous lush orchestras, wah-wah guitars, congas, and female backing singers.  Yes, even you, Ol' Blue Eyes.  It's hot, it's commercial, you have no choice. 

And so we have here an assortment of some of the biggest names in music pounding their well-established square peg styles into the round hole of disco. Faded stars like Frankie Avalon, Petula Clark and Teresa Brewer remade their old hits inna disco stylee. EZ listening acts like Percy Faith, Andy Williams and Johnny Mathis figured this would be a way to squeeze onto rock-dominated charts. Leftover hippies like Country Joe McDonald and The Byrds cut new songs designed to get them back into the good graces of their old Baby Boomer audience, now living a coke-filled life of affluence. I suspect that some, like Ringo Starr, simply had nothing better to do. Toot toot, beep beep, ka-ching!

One of the great musical mysteries of my life is why I find old forgotten disco cheese so entertaining.  I never really liked disco in the first place, and I still couldn't care less about most of the big hits, e.g.: the Bee Gees, KC and the Sunshine Band, etc. But the hilarity of hearing utterly inappropriate material subjected to the disco treatment, the surrealism of the likes of Sinatra or The Beach Boys on the dance floor, the aura of pre-AIDS decadence, some genuinely impressive arrangements and powerful performances (Andy Williams kills it here), and yes, those exuberant rhythms all add up to tacky kitsch taken to almost Liberace-like levels. Plus, we have not had these songs pounded into our brains over the years/decades a la the "Saturday Night Fever" soundtrack.

DISCO SELLOUT

If for no other reason, download this for the incredible Country Joe McDonald song. Granted, he never struck me as being the most talented sort, but this song is the very definition of "wrongheaded."

Thanks to MadJon! He's the madman who gave us the worst of Sinatra collection.


In case you missed it: more disco sickness.  (I did two other thrift-store disco comps, but they got knocked off-line.)

↧
Viewing all 316 articles
Browse latest View live
Search