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Showing posts with label Outsider. Show all posts

THE CORILLIONS DOUBLE ALBUM

The liner notes on the back of this true outsider music classic detail Marlin Wallace's years of pain at the hands of communists (or "reds," as he calls them) shooting painful laser-like rays at him and his mother. Mad? You call him mad?! Say what you like, but he had his act together enough to hire pro singers and musicians to perform his songs and release this 1981 double album. The slick studio country rock is, as in song poems, at odds with the unpredictable, idiosyncratic lyrics.

The album starts off fairly sensibly, but the eccentricities in both lyrics and vocal performances start to add up to truly one of the more bizarre listening experiences you're likely to encounter. Songs like "La-Lo-Ram-Ya" are as kooky as the titles. "The Jungle in Flight" is smothered in gratuitous sound effects. The singer in "Wildcat Mabellene" breaks into hilariously spazzy vocals. Heartfelt ballads might lull you into thinking: aw, this guy's not that crazy, a little sappy perhaps...until you hear a lounge crooner belting out: "Abominabllllle...snow creatuuuure...."

The second disk in general is a lot stronger, with such must-listens as the prehysterical "Millions of Years Ago," the rhythmically propulsive jungle adventure "Head-Hunters," and, really, just one goodie after another right up thru the Revelations-inspired closer "Mark Of The Beast." Some of the 'professional' singers sound fairly inept at times. Hope they didn't cost too much. Might be Marlin himself singing songs like "Stranger In The Land."

Marlin Wallace ‎– The Corillions / Double Album

1	Sweet Love Of Mine
2	Mekong
3	I'll Try
4	La-lo-ram-ya
5	The Planet Mars
6	Georgia Corn Liquor Man
7	The Jungle In Flight
8	Love Me Tonight
9	Whistlin' Bill
10	How It Feels To Be Alone
11	Wildcat Mabellene
12	Ghost Train
13	Little Orphan Girl
14	This Is War
15	Heart Full Of Pain
16	Gray Wolf
17	Abominable Snow Creature
18	Colorado River
19	Midnight Train
20	Golden Dreams
21	Millions Of Years Ago
22	Head-hunters
23	The Song Of The Wind
24	The Flower Of Love
25	Colombus
26	Only You
27	Before The White Man Came
28	The Russian Bear
29	A Stranger In The Land
30	Big Eight Wheels
31	Mark Of The Beast

Wallace survived the red's attacks and, as pointed out in this post from 2011, he's been cranking out albums ever since, performing (with some help) and singing his songs all by himself. As I wrote: "His albums are usually themed. Wanna hear a whole collection of songs about bugs and insects? Interested in rivers? Outer space? Jungles? Well, Wallace has written entire albums dedicated to these concepts. Give that boxing fan in your life a copy of "Songs of Pugilism."

6 ALBUMS ABOUT...ER, YOU REALLY DON'T WANT TO KNOW...

The music of Zoojay (Jonathan Niehaus) might be the most disturbing, disgusting stuff I've ever heard. Simply put, he sings about having sex with dogs. Siberian huskies, to be precise. There is some info on-line about Niehaus but I have no idea how true any of it is, e.g.: molesting animals is not just a fantasy for him as he has apparently been caught in the act, resulting in him being fired from a job at a pet store. And supposedly, he has made videos that feature him illustrating the songs. I'm not going to look for them to confirm this. Listening to this music is bad enough! And supposedly, he is on the autism spectrum (not that that's any excuse.)

And he has six albums.

Musically, it's crap rave/techno, and there are plenty of instrumentals for those with nervous dispositions. But the vocal numbers are what move Niehaus outside of most outsider musics. His voice, the high-pitched squeak of a pathetic sissy, would be funny in other circumstances, what with his rhythm-less/rhyme-less lyrics that make song-poem authors look like Shakespeare. He is utterly unconcerned about any possible harm he may be doing to his unwilling partners. And he is unrepentant, demanding that beastiality be legalized and that everyone should just "leave him alone." He names one song "This Human Sex Thing Is So Corny."

I haven't listened to all six, just bits and pieces here and there, but I did listen to the album "Anthems For Dogs Only" in its' entirety. Not all the songs are about animal abuse. "What In The Hell" questions the economy. "Normal = Wrong Life" accuses his father of abuse. If that's true all I can say is: don't worry Dad, no jury will convict you. At least he's self-aware enough to name two songs "Shut The Fuck Up (With This God Damn Music)" and "This Song Sucks." And the "Shoktro" album has a song called "Boo, Get Off The Stage."
Unfortunately, "Shoktro" also features the song "The Instructional Guide To Having Sex With Huskies." Do not listen on a full stomach.

An anonymous reader provided us with this link:

Jonathan Niehaus Discography (6 albums)

Technical note: You'll need WinZip to download these. WinZip is free.
UPDATE: 7-Zip, also free, should work as well (thanks, DeReviùer)

Thanks (?) to anon. I promise my next posts will be culturally and spiritually uplifting!

COSMIC DENNIS GREENIDGE

"Cosmic" Dennis Greenidge is a 60-something Londoner who sings off-key nonsense lyrics over other people's instrumental music playing out of a boombox in the background. Ha! In fidelity as low as early Daniel Johnson, Greenidge enthusiastically warbles lyrics like "Psychtronic, psycho-sonic boom! Don't leave the room!" or "the amazing colossal cucumber man" over a wide variety of musics. Sometimes he likes just a snippet of music (the intro perhaps) and audibly keeps hitting 'rewind' to play the good bit over and over, "singing" all the way. The songs are often under a minute, hence we've got a whopping 66 tracks here.

They're not all songs, e.g. "Horror Interlude," a brief radio drama that's far more funny than scary. Other highlights include the kiddie march "Lavender Castle," the bizarre beach party of "Satellite Beach" ("Space Dracula, Space Frankenstein, Space Mothra, party down!"), the literal laugh riot of "The Laughing Cavalier," and the quite wonderfully bonkers "Spaghetti Yeti": "Spaghetti, you eat it! Yeti can eat you!" There's even the inspirational sincerity of "The Windows Are Open." Such delightful torture!

Musos will of course consider Cosmic Dennis to be utterly without any musical talent, but, like The Note-Ables, he's obviously having such a grand time with this lunacy that many Maniacs will find themselves getting swept up into Greenidge's mad world. Or is it madness? Perhaps it's just good ol' English eccentricity.

Cosmic Dennis Greenidge "Giant Man Giant Plan" (66 tracks - 2008)
(tracklist here)

I'm Bringing Weirdness Back...

If you feel like genuine musical weirdness died with Sun Ra and Captain Beefheart, take heed!  We have some

stone-cold freakazoids in our midst even today. To whit:

- The Everyday Film is raising funds for his next album. Judging by the excerpts of works in progress in the video

below, it's the veteran outsider's most ambitious project yet, as it moves beyond his usual industrial nightmares

into some realms of sound that actually resemble, well, music. Y'know, that some people will like to listen

 to? So give, brothers and sister, give 'til it hurts:

The Everyday Film - "Bleed Over" (GoFundMe site)

- Ostrich Von Nipple is such a great name that I thought there was no way that their music could measure up to it,

but their latest album is an absolutely awesome acid-bathed assemblage of spazz-jazz-tronica, weirded-out lyrics,

and a guest guitarist who has played with the Residents, no less. Songs like "Mad Martian Beach Party" actually

sound like their titles. One 10-minute track suggests prog, but prog is rarely this humorous and surreal.  Originally

released last year in hard copy formats thru Psychofon Records, including a very limited vinyl run, it's now available

digitally thru outlets like Amazon and iTunes. In Maniac-universe, this album would sweep the Grammys.

"Ostrich von Nipple Quantifies Absurdity" album Amazon page

Ostrich Von Nipple "Upright Jerker" (mp3)

- Petunia-Liebling MacPumpkin, the gal who's so cray-cray she makes Kate Bush look like Barbra Streisand, is the

 one who hipped us to the Nipple. Her own latest video "Picked Fences" (see below) is another outlandish mixture of

live action, animation, puppets, toys, video effects, and art-song.

- Womb Pals' brief (13 minutes) name-your-price download EP "Baby Spinach" is mostly pleasantly low-key

piano ambience, but is notable for the track "perfection," which ingeniously samples the sounds of coughing and

throat-clearing. No other instruments. Exactly the kind of thing that Maniacs might find clever and funny, and

Normals might respond to by running away, hands over ears. That's irri-tainment!

http://wombpals.bandcamp.com/releases

- The Chewers are the twisted Southerners whose two previous albums got rave reviews from Yours Truly on these

here virtual pages. They're still spewing out their inbred hell-billy guitar rock primitivism, but with seemingly

a bigger budget. More instrumental sounds, cleaner production, guests vocalists - they sound better

than ever, tho the songs are not sticking with me the way their earlier work did. One track, however, the utterly

over-the-top "Misanthropic Bones," just might be the greatest thing they've ever done. It's a kind of rap song,

with a clenched-teeth Chewer sptting out rhymes like "I don't get enough sun or sleep/I'm a hollow, distorted

creep."

Well, aren't we all?

The Chewers "Dead Dads" album Bandcamp page

The Chewers  "Misanthropic Bones" (mp3)

T.V.O.D.: 2015

I have obviously fallen off my new-post-every-few-days schedule, but yes, I'm still alive (and well), and have been receiving your always-appreciated emails, musics, DVDs, etc. There's no shortage of material for this here web-log. Guess I've been too busy watching TV...

How did I not see this before?! A recent live version of the greatest song ever about animal homosexuality is up on Vimeo:

Tom Wilson Weinberg - "Lesbian Seagull" / interview

You know that Mr. Will Grove-White is the right kind of people since he's a member of the mighty Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. But brilliantly performing the Beach Boys on nose flutes, and no other instruments?! One can only bow down: "We're not worthy!"

And here's your WTF? of the day: a nine-minute long concert, also on Vimeo, by an
Odd-stralian named, er, Dumbshit:

DUMBSHIT live 4/24/15

Our source for all good things Down Under, Buttress O'Kneel, has played with Mr. Dumbshit a few times, and even after having been an acquaintance of him for a good decade or so, is still a bit perplexed by his, shall we say, lack of regard for traditional musical standards. How self-aware is he? One wonders "...if he is and just doesn't care, or if he's kidding, or if he's doing some kinda meta-kidding-outsider combo... he normally plays some weird indian stringed instrument, this is the first time i've seen him play a casio - adds a whole other element. with classic songs like "my housemate's a fuckwit" and "exposing myself to the moon", he's always fun to watch."

This guy's gotta make some recordings.

The NOW SOUNDS Of Outsider Music

Had a request to re-up Tony "The Cool Casanova" Fabbri. Sometime after I wrote that post in 2013 I acquired a full-length CD by the man, which I just posted in its' entirety. HIGHLY recommended for outsider music enthusiasts.

France's super-swell toy-pop maestro Carton Sonore remixed acapella tracks from one of outsider music's founding texts, Daniel Johnson's "Hi, How Are You?" album, adding his trademark ukulele/musical saw/ocarina sound. Only complaint: too short! More, s'il vous plait.

Carton Sonore - Mini Orchestre Pour Daniel Johnston

(By the way, the latest Cartone Sonore release is 4 bits of spacey loveliness, like Joe Meek on Casios.) And in other outsider music news:

Ms Marilyn Miles sez: "I am a 64 year old grandmother with no music background that likes to write anointed poems." She's put up a short album entitled "Welcome Marilyn To Area 19" on every conceivable platform, and you can listen to most of it HERE. It's a kind of concept album about the UFO/Marilyn Monroe connection, or something like that. She doesn't sing, but recites clunky verse over r'n'b loops that are only a small step above Wesley Willis' pre-set beats. A couple songs about her encounters with space aliens are certainly interesting, but the real gem here is "Nice Man," a tale of an encounter with a different kind: a weirdo pervert. Gets me laffin' out loud every time. Her prim, schoolteacher-esque vocal delivery is the icing on the cake. And remember: "My spoken words are from a real experience direct and indirect."

For individual songs, I used to use DivShare, but as it is now apparently kaput, I'll try using Box.com. You can listen, or download by clicking on the downward-pointing arrow in the upper right. Let me know if it works or not, gang!

MsMarilyn Miles "Nice Man"

And who doesn't like experimental electronic psychedelia by 7 year old girls? Stinky Picnic, an old favorite of ours, returns with another name-your-price download album, and once again li'l Ponky Pie Pea (as she is now known) is joined by dad to discuss such crucial matters as hamsters, doggies, rainbows and "A Fungus And A Mungus And A Wungus."

"Hamster World"

PIck Hit: the doo-woppin' "No, It's A Smiley Love Heart." The family that plays together, stays together.

Happy Tax Day, America!

Was just gonna re-up both sides of the outsider oddity that is Ah-Ah Allen's "Kick The IRS" single, but why stop there? Behold!

A wee Taxday Mix

Ah-Ah Allen - Kick The IRS
Ah-Ah Allen -Montana I'm So Proud of You
F.U.2 - Tax Exile (late '70s fake-punk)
Lenlow - To the Taxmobile! (classic mashup from 2004: Beatles vs Surfaris vs "Batman" theme)
rx - Taxman Obama (The Prez "sings" the Beatles)

My fellow Americans! Remember, April 15 is the day to show Uncle Sam your love.

HELLavision

I could give some background on these videos...but why bother? They won't make any more sense if I did. So I'm just gonna hit you with three of the greatest, most incredibly WTF-iest things I've seen/heard lately. Prepare to question your sanity!

#1:

#2 (thanks to maniac Francis C for passing this one on to us):

and, perhaps most disturbingly, #3:

HIT SONGS OF TOMORROW

The Manor Boys are back on-line, by request.

Warning! This here's a whole album of song-poems - lyrics that ~~suckers~~ regular folks have paid to have set to music - that might have you questioning your sanity if you attempt to listen to it all in one go. Like I did.

Unlike the song-shark racket's most famous exemplars Rodd Keith and the slickly professional MSR Studios posse, Royal Master Recordings from Tennessee are at least as inept as the amateurs who sent in their hapless lyrics. The singers, one male and one female, can't find the rhythm, stop (give up?) singing thus leaving long awkward instrumental passages, and once even keep going after the music has stopped! They also give every song the exact same reading no matter what its' content. The music tracks are generic country, and sometimes are repeated. Yep, you pay good money to have your heartfelt poems set to "original" music, and you get the same backing track as several other poor souls.

And what poems they are. Side 1 sports at least two real gems amidst all the love songs, the self-explanatory "Monkey Disco," and the hysterical Luddite plea "Progress." Side 2 is nuts, kicking off with several baffling songs. "Let Me Try Again" actually resembles good music, but the following track "These Hands" sends things back into the twilight zone.

As with another Royal Master album I've posted, the all dead-Elvis themed "Gone But Not Forgotten," we get the added bonus of actual photos of the lyricists. And remember - these aren't hit songs yet. But they will be...tomorrow. I can't wait!

Hit Songs of Tomorrow

Nugglets: Strange/Novelty DIY Compilation

By request, the "Soft, Safe and Sanitized" collection is back on line.

DJ Useo, when not creating mashups, or blogging and podcasting, scours the internet for strange and silly song stuff, as featured in his previous collections, "Music For Maniacs Tribute," and "Fun Music." And here's his latest 'n' greatest, exclusively for us, and hence, you:

Nugglets vol. 1

This is the sound of new millennium DIY bedroom-producer kooks operating blissfully free of any illusions of "makin' it in the music biz," with many tracks downloaded from the old MP3.com. Apart from boasting one of the greatest album covers ever, this disreputable collection also features Dr Demento-ready novelty songs, odd experiments, youngsters screwing around, a "Death Metal Alphabet" lesson, a 36-second Dylan parody about a dead squirrel, a musical saw, some actual catchy tunes, and inexplicable sounds from folks in various states of mental health. Plus! Not just one, but two techno-polkas. Worth it for the DJ My Ass track alone, the kind of spazzy nonsense that the internet was created for.

TOILET TIDBITS

Zoogz Toozday returns with some re-up requests: the sick punk/jazz/prog of Zoogz Rifts' "Amputees In Limbo," "Island of Living Puke," and "Torment" are all back on-line. And if that still isn't enough scatological humor for ya, plug your nose and dive into this:

TOILET TIDBITS

courtesy of reader Duke Kola, who sounds like a pretty cool grandpa. He writes: "I made this mix (with a couple of changes) a few years back for my pre-teen grandson. Never fails to bring a few smiles to my face regardless of how many times I listen."

Now this may seem like a somewhat dubious concept for a mix, but if you're gonna sing about such stuff, you've got to have: a) a sense of humor, and b) a lack of inhibitions, both of which are sterling qualities for an artist to possess. Not to mention the fact that you've pretty much thrown all commercial potential and radio play hopes out the window once you've gone down this path, another admirable move. And this is indeed a very entertaining listen, more so than I was expecting.

I personally would have added the Bonzo Dog Band's "The Strain," but I'm sure we all have our favorites.

-----------------------------------
01. Amsterdam Dog Shit Blues - Mojo Nixon
02. Caca De Vaca - Joe 'King' Carrasco
03. Snake Bit and Can't Shit - Root Boy Slim
04. Constipation Blues - Screamin' Jay Hawkins
05. Somebody Just Poop - Goofy
06. Somebody Farted - Bobby Jimmy
07. Fart - Breetles
08. I Can't Stop Farting - The Queers
09. Old Fart At Play - Captain Beefheart
10. The Phantom Windbreaker - Red Bovine
11. Pissin' In The Wind - Ernie Payne
12. Pissin' On Your Steps - Del the Funky Homosapien
13. Wee Wee - Abner Jay
14. Piss On the Wall - J. Geils Band
15. Urine Your Out - Prehistoric Cavemen
16. The Thing From Uranus - Sloppy Seconds
17. Shit Don't Stink - TMA
18. Shit For Brains - Nervous Eaters
19. Bag of Shit - Sean Price
20. Shit Can Happen - D12
21. Shaving Cream - Byron Lee
22. Disco Defecation - Flash Bouyancy
23. The Slurf Song - Holy Modal Rounders
24. When the Shit Hits the Fan - Circle Jerks
25. Piece of Crap - Neil Young
26. My Shit's Fucked Up - Warren Zevon
27. Why Does It Hurt When I Pee - Pancho and Sancho
28. I Ain't Gonna Piss in No Jar - Mojo Nixon
29. Don't Eat the Yellow Snow - Frank Zappa

Thanks a heap, Duke!

Your Dead Pet Sings To You

Oh, so horrible, so hilarious...how can this be real?! I just discovered this on craigslist whilst looking for something else entirely. From reading the below description, you know this is all kinds of wrong, but the reality is even worse than you can imagine.

A touching memory from your beloved little friend you miss can always be as close to you as your computer.
In our Pet Memorial Photovids,,,the pet photo that you send us will be animated to sing our original song,,,"When You Think Of Me,,,Smile !". Yes,,,your own pet will sing to you.

You may order a song-only version,,,or you can choose to order a Customized Memorial photovid for which I invite you to compose a brief script of dialogue that you want your beloved little friend to say in their video.
I will help you with the script as much as you want me to.

IN this example for you,,,,this video is a customized Memorial with added dialogue that I produced for a client. A customized version like this featuring your own script thast your pet would perform is $60.00. A song-only version with the pet just singing the song is $30.00.
This is the song your pet would sing,,,and your Memorial Photovid would be similar to this video:

The song is acapella - let the mashups begin!

Ronald Vaughan IS Isadore Ivy, Spaceman At Large

There's something a bit...off about Ronald Vaughan. Just look at him, standing to the left of legendary Los Angeles radio D.J. Rodney Bingenheimer. He is apparently an old pal of Rodney, and can be seen in the documentary film "The Mayor Of The Sunset Strip" performing a bit of his song "Jennifer Love Hewitt." I read somewhere that he actually got in legal trouble for stalking famous actress Hewitt, tho I can't find confirmation of that now. I wouldn't be too surprised tho, judging by the weird, creepy feel of his music. Still, it's often a funny, even somewhat catchy weird, creepy feel. He often performs live in a silver spacesuit.

This is most of his low-budget pop album, replete with naive, clunky lyrics, and distracting vocal effects on nearly every celebrity-obsessed song. The 58 second "Uri Geller's Bending The World" swipes the melody of "Santa Claus Is Coming To Town", just as the song "Paula Abdul" rewrites "Louie Louie" as "Paula Abdul - Whoopee! - You are so cool." "I Live For That Song" ends at the one minute mark, just as it seems that he's on to something. "See ya!" sets new lyrics to a vaguely familiar '70s hit (Fleetwood Mac? Tom Petty?). But it's not a Weird Al-style parody. Perhaps he just couldn't be bothered to come up with his own music. And whose version of "You Only Live Twice" is more sexy: Nancy Sinatra's original, or Ronald's?

Let's all give a big thankyouverymuch to James, C. for this one, the M4M superhero whose previous gift to us all was the "Brain in A Box" set.

Ronald Vaughan IS Isadore Ivy, Spaceman At Large

The H.L. Twist
You Only Live Twice
Uri Geller's Bending The World
Paula Abdul
Stargate SG-1
How Important Can It Be?
I Live For That Song
Girls Before Swine
See-Ya!
Man!
Jennifer Love Hewitt
Three Starlets
Boris Karloff Didn't Meet The Runaways

A number of tracks from this album have been left off due to terrible sound. But not to worry: they're mostly unnecessary alternate/instrumental versions. The last two tracks are vocal numbers that I've included despite the sound, because, well, one's called "Boris Karloff Didn't Meet The Runaways." And it's only 1:40 long.

The Note-Ables: Worst Lounge Band Ever?

Back up by request: "Halloween Stomp."

The recent post re: Banda Plástica De Tepetlixpa Mex. reminded me of another wonderful exercise in musical incompetence, the most hapless lounge band I've ever heard..ladies and gentlemen, please welcome...The Note-Ables!

Maybe they should have been called the Note-Unables: sporting off-beat (in the original sense) drumming, mangled lyrics, goofy vocals, the occasional sick trumpet, and guitars so out-of-tune they're practically "No Wave," one has to wonder if these guys were deaf. I originally featured one song, their remarkable demolition of Chuck Berry's "Roll Over Beethoven" on my collection of private-press lounge wonders "I'll Take Las Vegas," and tho it's still the, uh, "highlight" of this album, there's plenty more goodies here: Neil Sedaka/Elton John's "Bad Blood," Glen Campbell's "Rhinestone Cowboy," and lots of Beatles. They have no feel for rock'n'roll, so naturally, there's plenty of it. Only the last couple songs, standards where horn and accordion take over, do they sound like they're in comfortable (tho no less incompetent) territory.

But you gotta love these guys - they sound like they're having a great time. Everyone's drunk and having a party, and the accordion is the coolest, most rock 'n' roll instrument in their world. Out-of-control naive exuberant joy is infinitely superior to such dull standards as technical skill and recording quality, right?

The Note-Ables: "Flipside" [USA, 1974]

1. Bad Blood
2. I Saw Her Standing There
3. She Loves You
4. Loves Not Always Kind
5. Sun Flower
6. Rhinestone Cowboy
7. Roll Over Beethoven
8. Way Down
9. Lost And Found
10. Can't Buy Me Love
11. So What's New
12. Bye Bye Blues - Baby Face

Tracks 4, 9, and 11 are originals.
Sadly, no biographical info out there. Have no idea where they're from.
Don't remember where I got this, but this isn't my copy - I believe the late, great Bellybongo site first posted it. So thanks to whoever!

ADIOS A LOS BEATLES

There is no more glorious sound for jaded ears than this rural Mexican brass band blowing berserk, off-key, highly enthusiastic instrumental versions of Beatles songs. Even the dreaded "Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da" sounds great as a crazy carnival theme. Sadly, nothing is known about the band responsible for this genuine piece of folk-art madness other than that they were from, as their name would indicate, Tepetlixpa.

The lack of info almost makes me wonder if this isn't a hoax. Consider the name Banda Plástica De Tepetlixpa Mex.: a reference to Plastic Ono Band? And the back cover tells a preposterous story of Lennon and McCartney visiting Tepetlixpa. But there is still plenty of information that has not been captured in the internet's nets, and these guys could very well have simply never been documented in their time. Tepetlixpa, after all, is a pretty obscure little village, warranting only a few sentences on their skimpy wiki page...if they really were from Tepetlixpa. I've heard no indications that this is a hoax, but even if it is, it's still as enjoyable as The Portsmouth Sinfonia, or Fritz Guckenheimer and his Sour Kraut Band.

We're Banda Plástica De Tepetlixpa Mex.
We hope you will enjoy the show:

"ADIOS A LOS BEATLES"

01 Ob-La-Di, Ob La Da

02 I Want To Hold Your Hand

03 Carry That Weight

04 Yesterday

05 Eleanor Rigby

06 Yellow Submarine

07 Hey Jude

08 Girl

09 I Should Have Known Better

10 A Hard Days Night

ODD-STRALIA pt 2: Stinky Picnic

"If you're dead, you're totally dead
If you're dead, you're totally dead, not alive"

Can't argue with that. These words of wisdom come from the title track to shoegaze-y electro father/daughter duo Stinky Picnic's latest name-your-price album. We've been following their career for a bit now, so li'l girl singer/lyricist/conceptualist Indigo must be getting pretty old. What is she, like, six now?

The fun and innocence of this is so opposed to our previous example of strange music from Australia, dark satanic rapper Ice Cold, that it could give you whiplash. Highlites include the catchy above-cited title tune, the awesome 2-part "I Am A Robot" (a totally cool bit of pre-school Kraftwerk-goes-psych) and the 54-second "Lullaby for Bunny," in which dad puts down his space guitars and lets a little girl sing a simple song for her bunny - so pure and sincere it could put a lump in the throat of the most heartless bastard. All music should be like this.

Stinky Picnic: "Totally Dead"

The Gospel Accordion To Frank

And lo! the Lord appeared to Father Frank Perkovich, saying unto him: go amongst the Catholics of the American Midwest, and playeth polka music, so that they might gather in My name on the Sabbath. And Frank of Minnesota took up his accordion and in 2008 releasedeth the album "Songs And Hymns From The Polka Mass" with Joe Cvek and his band. And the blogger did LOL out loud upon listeningeth to it, for he is a damnable heathen. Clicketh on the song title below, so that you might do the Chicken Dance for Jesus:

Father Frank Perkovich: "Chapel in the Valley"

Yes, this is real. Polka masses have apparently been celebrated for years, primarily in the Midwest, tho not without some controversy. Some feel that a secular dance music is not appropriate for a Sunday service. And some - the REAL heathens! - just don't like polka.

The Strangest Album Ever Made?!

"Trout Mask Replica"..."Eskimo"...The Shaggs...any such list is now incomplete without a mention of Five Starcle Men's "Gomba Reject Ward Japan." Coherent biographical info on this band is hard to come by, but apparently Five Starcle Men were two nuts in the '90s making low-fi (presumably) home recordings out in the desert town of Lancaster, CA. Or maybe they were from Austin, Texas. Or maybe they heard the works of those two town's most famous loonies, Capt Beefheart, and The Butthole Surfers, and said: "That's nuthin; get a load of this," and proceeded to lay down 28 tracks over the course of a few years that in comparison makes Ween sound like Journey.

At first, it may come off as a couple of stoners' self-indulgent mucking about on a Teac four-track, and there may be some truth to that, but keep listening, and one starts to wonder if there may be some genuine insanity at work here (apparently, one of the members killed himself, thus ending this band's "career.") Every sound is warped beyond recognition, lyrics range from unintelligible jabbering to surreal nonsense, samples and tapes loop themselves into delirium, unnatural rhythms pound away, all adding up to a mind-melting experience. Some "songs" sound like they were made up on the spot, many are less than 30 seconds long, and a surprisingly high amount of the tracks are really quite good. Play this for over 99% of the population (even those who consider themselves "alternative"), and they will probably will scrunch up their face and say, "What are you listening to?!"

Free listening/download here:

Five Starcle Men "Gomba Reject Ward Japan"

courtesy of 'net-label Lost Frog, who have also blessed us with releases by R. Stevie Moore, The Happy Flowers, Animals Within Animals, Big City Orchestra, and some people who make noise music out of bicycles.

One Of The Most WTF-iest Songs You Will Ever Hear

Words fail me...a warning to the men-folk from a thoroughly eccentric (just take a look at these song titles), highly prolific Nigerian/American outsider recording artist. Not safe for work, radio airplay, or your sanity. Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

(Click on song title to go to divshare download:)

Chief Kooffreh - She Will Cut Your Balls Off

Cathegory