UPDATE: Despite repeated tries, I could not get the Zippyshare file to work, so I've moved the file to Box. Let me know if you-all still have any problems, prefer Box to Zippyshare (or other free sharing methods?) --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Continuing our survey of songs from the hippie era that are similar to the surreal, psychedelic humor of the Bonzo Dog Band (git yer Vol. 1 here)...
Count Otto Black made many contributions to this batch of dog meat, so continued woofs of thanks to him. Vol. 1 was more from me, the more obvious stuff - albums that I'd had for ages (Cream, Pink Floyd, etc.), but the Count really dug deep for things like the irrational international obscurities that perhaps never washed up on our shores during their initial release.
01 Duke Ellington - C Jam Blues [the otherwise thorough "Songs The Bonzos Taught Us" compilation did not include this 1942 basis for the Bonzos' "The Intro and The Outro"] 02 Dudley Moore - Psychedelic Baby 03 Stackridge - Do the Stanley [a non-LP single, this one from 1973 - my fave tune from these eclectic Brits] 04 Erkey Grant & The Eerwigs - I Can't Get Enough Of You [wish I could find some info on the loonies who released this 45, their one and only record] 05 The Purple Gang - The Sheik [this band's singer wore a mask, and claimed to be an actual wizard] 06 Liverpool Scene - Bat Poem [poets poet-isizing over rock; this bunch somewhat transmogrified into the Scaffold:] 07 Scaffold - Lily the Pink [this big UK hit featured Paul McCartney's brother Mike McGear; was a cleaned-up version of a filthy old drinking song] 08 Les Sauterelles - Where Have All The Flowers Gone [a Swiss piss-take on Pete Seeger's folk hit] 09 Os Mutantes - Chao de Estrelas [yes, the Brazilian 'Tropicalia' legends] 10 The Deviants - Garbage [a college radio show I'd listen to in the '80s would play this; was mighty surprised to learn how old it was: from these British anarchists' 1967 debut] 11 Tritons - Rock Around The Clock [continuing our world tour with some Italians...] 12 Grobschnitt - Sahara [...and Germans...] 13 Giles,Giles & Fripp - The Saga Of Rodney Toady - Part 1 [precursor to King Crimson...hold up, Robert Fripp had a sense of humor?!] 14 Giles,Giles & Fripp - She Is Loaded 15 Brian Eno - Dead Finks Don't Talk [this one often gets tagged a Bryan Ferry satire, but I dunno, sounds a bit Viv Stanshell-ish to me] 16 Roxy Music - Hula Kula [this loopy mock-Hawaiian instro was a non-LP 1973 b-side written by Phil Manzanera] 17 Alberto Y Lost Trios Paranoias - Follow the Guru [the hippie's often-shallow infatuation with/appropriation of Indian culture was just begging to be satirized] 18 Doggerel Bank - Finale [more poetry rock, from '73] 19 Quicksilver Messenger Service - Happy Trails [another antique cover: 'singing cowboy' Roy Rogers' theme, recorded by these San Franciscans in '68] "Dada for now..."
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 everyconceivableplatform, and you can listen to most of it HERE. It's a kind of concept album about theUFO/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!
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."
There's 'beat' as in the Beat literary movement that produced beatniks, and poetry read over (usually) jazz music. And there's 'beat' as in the European '60s rock'n'roll-inspired pop. The kooky, sometimes hilarious Dutch band The Zipps combine both: yes, a Beat Beat group. Their music's fine in a basic mid-'60s garage kinda way (some tunes are quite catchy), but the real distinguishing characteristic of The Zipps is singer/guitarist PhilipElzerman's English-as-a-second-language vocals, which are either nonsensical, or obscured by his thick accent. Or both. In the Ramones-y titled, Byrds-y sounding "Kicks and Chicks" Elzerman claims that he "read all the books of Jack Kerouac," but he pronounces that Beat icon's name as "Ker-acky." Two lengthy tracks called "Beat and Poetry" are live all-Dutch language spoken word over peppy rock music, not jazz. An odd combination. Tho in the hysterical "Hipsterism," one of the greatest, funniest '60s nuggets I've heard lately, Elzerman says "I always like to listen to good jazz/You're a square! And you don't like it, I guess!" Followed by a solo on that most rock'n'roll of instruments, the flute. Having said that, the groovy a-go-go instrumental version of "Lotus Love" is one of my faves off this career-spanning collection. Wish I could hear all of "LSD 25" minus the interview on top of it, it's a great Seeds-y proto-punk stomper. The Zipps - Be Stoned Dig Zipps.zip
Thanks again to our psychedelic nugget farmer, Count Otto Black!
1
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Highway Gambler
2
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Roll The Cotton Down
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Kicks And Chicks
4
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Hipsterism
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Beat & Poetry Part 1
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Beat & Poetry Part 2
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Marie Juana
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The Struggle For Ice-Cold Milk Of Benzi The Bassplayer Or How To Promote Original Dutch Milk
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When You Tell It, Tell It Well..!
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Lotus Love (demo - vocal version)
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Walking On This Road To Mine Town (previously unreleased live track)
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The Beer Hall Song (previously unreleased live track)
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Kicks And Chicks (previously unreleased live track)
Continuing our survey of new music you can listen to, and in many cases, download for free on Bandcamp.com, we fly off to exotic lands. It is the depths of winter now, so I felt a tropical vacation was in order. And this first album is especially timely, as it features Evan Crankshaw from the great "Flash Strap" blog, who just debuted his all-exotica radio show, "The Explorer's Room" last week. The Cumberland County Mean Gang "Crashing Waves"
Starts off a bit New Age-y, but track #3 "Slave Trade" is really great psychedelic exotica that sounds like it was played on your grandma's electric organ after someone spiked her Ensure with mescaline; it dovetails nicely right into the next track, which is almost 9 minutes of pure lysergic abandon. "Under The Jungle" does indeed sport jungle ambiance, tho the music is more Jean-Michel Jarre '70s-type electronica than Martin Denny. It's melody is re-used in the next track, a Giorgio Morodor-on-cheap-ass-Casios techno-dance stomper. The most excellent "Ritual of Flight" begins with theremin- ish electronics, followed by haunted-house organ...and exotic bird calls? Just what kind of spook show is this, anyway? Was happy to hear grandma's psychedelic organ again on track 8. Price: Name Your Price. And enjoy your flight. The Mad Drummer - from South Africa, but sounding more Zappa than Zulu. The inverse of Paul Simon and Vampire Weekend? A lot better than them, that's for sure. All 6 songs are good, but for someone who calls himself a mad drummer, the synthetic drums are the one (minor) fault I find with this. Price: $3.
Boolz "S.O.S.[Slovvd-n-Chopped]" - Also from South Africa comes this trippy dub electronica. I like the bugged-out VV3ΔK [SLOWD-N-CHXPPXD] Price: Name Your Price Some comps that will keep you busy and dancing for days:
Analog Africa - 21 albums! Haven't listened to all of them, but I can def recommend "African Scream Contest" - just don't buy the line about it being "psychedelia." It's James Brown-ish funk and West African highlife, and what's wrong with that? Can we stop throwing the word 'psychedelic' around so much? It's getting to be as meaningless a term as 'experimental.' And be sure to read this as you dig the crate diggin' sounds of Analog Africa: Dusty African Grooves.
Seeing as how Latin America's Day of The Dead festivities begin today and go thru Nov. 2, now's the perfect time to rock out to these juvenile delinquents from, of all places, Lima, Peru. Trashy surf/garage sounds from the 1960s, all instrumental reverb and fuzz guitars and sleazy electric organ, with one song ("Holy's Psicodelicos") even featuring a theremin. "Campo De Vampiros" is the appropriate party-starter by these Dia de Los Muertos daddy-o's. I would be interested to know how Los Holy's (sic) fit into Peruvian culture of the time. Were they considered makers of no-good teen trash by the mainstream culture, but revered as cool cats by the kids? Or was this stuff so foreign to their society that they were playing a kind of 'world music,' without any of the controversy that this kind of primitive rock created north of the border?
Los Holys"Sueno Sicodelico" (1967) 1. Campo De Vampiros 2. Sueno Sicodelico 3. Melodia Encantada 4. Reunion Psicodelica [a cover of the Markett's Space-Age surf classic "Out of Limits"] 5. Piedra De Doce Angulos 6. Hawaii Five-O 7. El Hombre Desnudo 8. Holy's Psicodelicos 9. The High Chaparral [cover of the '50s movie theme "Moulin Rouge"] 10. Psicodelico Desconocido [cover of the Meters' funky soul groover "Sissy Strut"] 11. Spectro I 12. Choque De Vientos
The recent news about the passing of actress Marcia Strassman payed little heed to her short, strange music career. She recorded a few singles in the late '60s, including one of my all-time fave examples of...what's a word for something that you know is awful, but love it just the same? Maybe there isn't one. (Let's invent one!) Whatever it is, that's what Strassman's "The Flower Children" is. This 1967 Uni records 45, one of those only-in-the-'60s odes to the counter-culture, was one of the last gasps of the big-hair, lushly produced girl-group sounds. Soon the flat-haired, acoustic guitar strumming singer-songwriters would take over. But not before Mrs. Kotter sang the hell out of this ridiculous number, redeeming it thru her passion and sincerity (and a great arrangement). It was a hit in California, if nowhere else. The equally ludicrous follow-up, "The Groovy World of Jack and Jill," similarly has a swell pseudo-Phil Spector sound. And, really, I like all of her records (tho surprisingly, a Kim Fowley production ["Stargazer"] is a bit of a dud.) How can you not like such choice lines as: "My toys are all dead, but my friend is here/nothing is wrong with me" (from the song "Self-Analysis"). Even more tragic than her early death from cancer - the fact that her frog-voiced "Welcome Back Kotter" co-star John Travolta was the one with the far more successful musical career. A great record like "The Flower Children" languishes in obscurity, while that execrable "Grease" soundtrack lives on. Won't someone please think of the children?! Marcia Strassman - Singles (1967-68) 1. The Flower Children 2. Out Of The Picture 3. The Groovy World of Jack and Jill 3. The Flower Shop 4. Self-Analysis 5. Stargazer This isn't a complete discography. I am missing one of her songs: "Flower Shop." Anyone, anyone..? Mega-thanks to super-reader Holly for supplying not only the missing song, but higher-bitrate copies of the other songs AND the artwork!
Artist Rutherford Chang says: "I collect first-pressings of The White Album and currently own 1,034 copies." As part of his 'White Album' project (which also includes a record store only stocked with copies of you-know-what arranged according to serial number) he somehow got 100 of them to play at once. I wonder how? Sounds quite good tho, like 100 needles were dropped onto 100 turntables at pretty much the same time. Then they slowly go out of phase, like an old Steve Reich tape-loop piece. Surprisingly wonderful, e.g.: "Julia" (end of side 2) whips up a really nice drone. And I hadn't actually sat down to listen to the White Album since I was a kid, so it's also an interesting way to revisit the album. Four 20+ minute tracks, one for each side of the White Album, plus lots of pics of White Albums in various states of decay: Rutherford Chang - We Buy White Albums (file removed by corporate Blue Meanies) Reminds me of another Beatles-related oddity, a very skillfully executed mashup album based on the absurd (or is it?!) premise that someone visiting another dimension where the Beatles never broke up brought back a cassette of one of their later albums. It's actually made up of tracks from various Beatles solo releases. The whole crazy story, and the album download, is available here: The Beatles Never Broke Up Thanks to Amadeus, And Count Otto!
As a delightful addendum to the avant-'tard Tin Huey album we posted last week, a thoughtful Maniac (thank you, sir!) has sent us 4 more sides from the indie days of these Ohio oddballs. The "Breakfast With The Hueys" 7" from 1978 features an early version of the album's "Squirm You Worm," minus Chris Butler, who apparently hadn't joined the band yet.
The "English Kids" 7" from 1980 doesn't sound anything like the album or the other single. It's straight-ahead '77-style punk and power-pop.
Killed By Death posted a single by Butler as "The Waitresses," tho singer Patty Donahue had not yet joined. It's really quite strange! The Waitresses - "Clones"
I shall be returning to Radio Misterioso tomorrow (Sunday) night for two hours of maniacal music that hasn't been featured here (at least not yet). "In-depth conversations on the paranormal alternating with weird music. Live on Sundays 8-10 PM PST @ killradio.org" Have I mentioned here before that your host Spacebrother Greg is one of the authors of "Weird California"? That should tell you something.
This Ohio sextet's 1978 debut album was such a commercial disaster that their befuddled label Warner Bothers payed them to not record a follow-up. Which probably explains why I found my copy as a cut-out in the 48 cent bin sometime in the '90s. (I think every copy of this album that I've ever seen has been a bargain-bin cut-out.) Behold! A singular, highly entertaining mix of Bonzo Dog Band dada and Zappa/ Beefheart-style prog, but shot thru with punkish energy and a good-natured anything-goes spirit, leaving no doubt that these guys were from the same fertile fields that produced the likes of Devo and Pere Ubu. Ralph Carney's horns help make it a bit Oingo Boingo-esque. And what did they do with their bribe to go away? Some of the members, inc. Chris Butler and Carney (both of whose wonderful solo work has been covered here) moved to New York, and with the crucial addition of vocalist Patty Donahue, transmogrified into the far more successful New Wave stars, The Waitresses. Who I liked just fine, but for my money, the one-two punch of "Chinese Circus" into "Puppet Wipes" (featuring the memorable chant: "My car is filled with puppet heads!") is as good as it gets. It would be nice to hear that over the shopping mall sound system every year instead of "Merry Christmas, merry Christmas, couldn't miss just one this year" every now and then, wouldn't it? (new link:) TIN HUEY "Contents Dislodged During Shipment"
Namaste! I was interviewed recently by the very nice DJ Jess at BreakThruRadio. And our pal Count Otto is back: "The Orient Express took the hippy trope of bunging sitars on your albums willy-nilly because George Harrison thought it was a good idea to its perfectly logical extreme and recruited actual Indians, amongst other nationalities, as fully integrated members of the group. Ironically this made their music too exotic for the US market, and they ended up as an obscure footnote to the psychedelic scene. But did any other sixties band sound quite like this? I think you'll agree that more of them should have."
I certainly agree. This oddity is a fascinating bit of rock-xotica. Were there any bona-fide Indians in the band? Discogs sez: "Guy Duris was actually born on the Left Bank and later met Farshid Golesorkhi, who had been decorated by the Shah of Iran for his drumming and was interested in applying Eastern rhythms to Western music, in Iran. They met Bruno Giet, a Belgian pilot and guitarist, in Paris while traveling around Europe. Soon the three members headed for America and settled in New York's East Village initially but ended up in California where their album was recorded." So it appears that they were European and Iranian, but jumped on the raga-rock bandwagon. Audiences weren't so hung up on 'authenticity' back then. They probably thought: hey, they're still "foreigners," so what dif does it make? It really doesn't make any difference. Good music is good music, and this is some good stuff, as traditional hand percussion meets drum kits, and stringed things (lutes? mandolins?) rock like guitars. Remarkably free of kitsch, it's an organic mixture of all original songs, unlike those goofy (if amusing) sitar-sploitation albums. I esp. dig the proto-kraut drone of "Layla" (not the Derek and the Dominoes one) and the furious funkiness of "Azar" and "Train To Bombay." And "A Little Star" is solid bubblegum. Surely The Monkees could have used this, perhaps in an episode of their TV show where they meet with a guru or sumthin?
In this blog's world, The Great British Band Of The Sixties isn't those loveable mop-tops from Liverpool (good as they were), but of course, the Bonzo Dog Band. Tho comparing them to the Beatles isn't quite accurate, as the Beatles were pretty much a straight-ahead (if wildly creative) rock band, and the Bonzos were a Dada/ jazz/ comedy/ psychedelic / performance-art / avant-'tarde / rock band. And Roger Ruskin Spear - he of home-made robots, fanciful stage props, explosions, and performing on a theremin hidden in a mannequin's leg - carried on the band's traditions perhaps more faithfully than his two more celebrated band mates Viv Stanshall and Neil Innes, both of whom went off into some rather non-Bonzo-like (tho frequently rewarding) directions. Spears' two solo albums in the early '70s following the band's dissolution sticks with the original Bonzo plan of playing crazed "trad" jazz, rock parodies, covers of forgotten old novelty records, and wildly inventive original creations, all drenched in good-humored absurdity. When I first came across a copy of "Electric Shocks" in a thrift store in the '90s, I'd had no idea that Spears had made any solo albums. I certainly wasn't expecting it to be as good as it was. Originally it's follow-up album "Unusual" was posted here as well, but something, er, unusual happened to the files, so we're only posting "Electric Shocks." Hopefully I'll get a good uncorrupted copy of "Unusual" cuz it's a goodie. But to make it up to you, three bonus tracks have been added. Roger Ruskin Spear "Electric Shocks"
1. All by Yourself in the Moonlight
2. I'm a Fly
3. Mattress Man
4. Blue Baboon
5. The Liberty Laughing Song
6. Doctor Rock
7. Patrick Moore
8. Make Yourself a Happiness Pie
9. Livin' Doll 10. Call Of The Freaks (BBC radio flash 10-08-1971) 11. Drop Out (single b-side) 12. Trouser Freak (single)
Recently we posted an album by "The Rattles," a curious early German take on rock-n-roll. The Lords were another band from the '60s pre-Krautrock era, very famous and successful in their homeland, but more likely to rise eyebrows and cause mutterings of "WTF..?" from elsewhere. Their English lyrics in particular are, er, interesting. And how 'bout those fashion-challenged album covers?
"Some Folks By The Lords" (1967) is largely a collection of covers, many of them strangely inappropriate for an alleged rock band to be performing. Perhaps they and/or their audience simply didn't know enough about American music to make genre distinctions. Or maybe they were geniuses who realized it didn't matter: "Miss Otis Regrets" may be a Cole Porter showtune, but it's still a great song. Much of it, like "East Virginia" and "Sing Hallelujah," are inspired by 'down-home' folk and gospel. "San Miguel" is sung in a ludicrous Spanish accent on top of their usual sometimes-thick German accent. And I must admit: "Greensleeves" made me giggle.
"Ulleogamaxbe" (1969): No more fake-folk Americana covers - it's fake UK psych this time. Tho it's two years after the fact, they finally betray a 'Sgt Pepper' (or at least a BeeGees) influence, what with all the strings, horns, and "poetic" ambition. After six songs of this, we get an unexpected proto-metal garage fuzz blast in the excellently apocalyptic "The World Is Falling Down". The frantic "Fire" could be a Roger Corman exploitation film theme song. Musically, "Poor Chin-Lee" is a Pet Sound-alike; vocally and lyrically, however, not even Brian Wilson was this weird. On "Cut My Hair" they "get back" to basic rock n roll, tho I don't recall Little Richard ever penning lyrics that detail instructions to his barber. The bonus single "John Brown's Body" goes back to the American folk/gospel of the first album, but now with added flutes and intrusive sound-collage elements. And it's b-side is a cover of Eddie Cochran's "Somethin' Else" that out-punks the Sid Vicious version of a decade later. Apparently, these guys will do any style at least once, and do it strangely. Does anyone have any idea what that album title means?
"Shakin' All Over '70" is a bit of a hodge-podge, with a few tracks repeated from "Ulleogamaxbe." The title track recasts the rockbilly swinger into a "heavy" acid-rock-with horns biker stomper. "Feeling Chicago" is a response to modern bad-man ballads like "Rocky Racoon" or "Bad Bad Leroy Brown." "Four O'Clock In New York" is a swell bit of Bay City Rollers-ish bubblegum, while the chicken-squawking "Talk About Love" from 1970 might be the most ridiculous thing these guys did, and that's saying something. Needless to say, it's one of my favorites.
Elsewhere, the flower-power sounds continue as if it were still the Summer of Love. The fact that they cover not one but two songs from the "Hair" soundtrack suggest that they either never really understood what rock'n'roll was all about, or they were just went straight for mainstream commercialism. I actually love "Hair," but it's purely musical theater, hippie culture depoliticized and sensationalized for tourists. In any case, it's pretty awesome to hear 'em try to wrap their accents around the wordy nugget, "Manchester England."
"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.
"Trout Mask Replica"..."Eskimo"...The Shaggs...any such list is now incomplete without a mention ofFive 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.
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...
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 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 liner 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:)
Another great new comp 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:
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:
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.
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