Saturday, October 25, 2008

Wistful Thinking



Sauter- Finegan Orch.
Mess Group- The Beginning (At the Perished Mountaineer's Hotel)
Terry Riley - journey
Tones On Tail - rain
Salon de Musique
Khmensayok (Thailand 1959, rec. Kaufman)
Atrium Musicae de Madrid – hymne au soleil
Kraus & Bird - gnossienne
Columbia University Group for Contemporary Music – yo ko (c. Chou Wen Chung)
Austin Wells – west of eden
John Gavanti
Nicols-Cooper-Leandre
Open Sky – spirit in the sky
Pyramids - reaffirmation
Sonny & Linda Sharrock - gary's step
Beggars Opera -nimbus
Francoise Hardie - il est trop loin
Renderers – I can hear the devil call me
Hedy West - shady grove
Grayson & Oberheim - homage to Bach
JI Ivey - pinball (University of Toronto EMS 1965)
Reuben Siggers – ebb tide



Thursday, October 16, 2008

Hostel Takeover



Part One

airedales - drumsville
kishor kumar & asha bhosle - chor
selcuk alagoz - gecti yolun yarisi
tania maria – fio maravilha
eileen – le parfum des bois
growing society - the red fuzz
telstars – hold tight
what for – gonna destroy that boy
roberto carlos - negro gato
seawind – new orleans

Part Two

association - changes
leaves – lemon princess
fedra y maximiliano – ayer de noche
wendy & bonnie - it’s what’s really happening
recurring love habit - faiola brothers
kim sang hee
los juniors de santa tecla – que puedo hacer sin ti
richard shann - wooly buger part 2
sounds of harley – victo blues
stained glass – scene in between
status quo - when my mind is not live
roger miller – shame bird
acoma - my long lost friend
last mile ramblers - future on ice
castells – two lovers


Friday, October 10, 2008

Violent Squirrels



Part One

chrome - electric chair
this heat – health & efficiency
twist II
stranglers - do the euro
fatal microbes – violence grows
tuxedomoon - everything you want
asbestos rockpile – police state
joe crow - compulsion
wang chuck & tesheten dorjee - boom boom boom
anand raj – disco TM (Dashat)
afrosound – el regreso de ET
pop group - she is beyond good & evil

Part Two

wally gonzalez – wally’s blues
toiling midgets - preludes
frith & kaiser – objects every day
bourbonese qualk - qualk street
revolutionaries - earthquake
H&L all stars – give me more music
westwood magic
puff tube - boys of summer

Thursday, October 2, 2008

Hot Cold Blooded Invertebrates

In which oldies, string-driven things, blues with a feeling, field recordings (mostly from the American Southeast), and a few novelty records about othering sit together at one table, fiddling with their party favors and wondering who’s going to say what first.

a divshare refugee, first uploaded October 2008


We begin with a portion of Sir Arthur Sullivan’s letter to Thomas Edison, recorded to cylinder in England on October 5th, 1888; truly the beginning of the end. Gary Kail’s “Media Saturation” is early 80’s LA collage damage. “Journey into Space” comes from a friend’s father, who as a carny in Atlantic City would play this record for amusement rides. Vess L. Ossman’s smokin’ ”Smoky Mokes” was cut in 1900. Ossman was the eddie van of his day, and recorded for virtually every label of the time. This tune stuck around for a while, too; I know some western swing bands played it. Although people classify stuff like the Brilliant Quartette’s “Hear Dem Bells” as the vulgar distortion of minstrelsy (and it sort of am), I hear a lot of actual white folk hollering in there too, which therefore makes this c.1896 Berliner an early antecedent to country recording indeed.
Next, Scotch mystic absurdist Ivor Cutler offers some beekeeping advice, followed by a bit of Jim Fassett’s “Symphony of the Birds” and some colonial residue from the Indian film Junoon. Continuing the ethnoforgery, Lincoln Chase throws some real Africa into his “Deep in the Jungle” routine, but is almost outdone by the sheer obtusity of Lou Berrington’s “The Kwela,” whose intended audience one can hardly imagine (the slightly less impenetrable flip’s been comped on Arf Arf).
Moving on, Dick Clair delivers social commentary at its most wry with “Hi, Dad,” an answer record (and not the only one, at that), to Confused Father anthem “Letter to a Teenage Son.” More hammers hit the felt with Hobart Smith, a master of folk musics who recorded prolifically on many instruments. Here he bangs out a simple but deliciously syncopated “Fly Around my Blue-Eyed Girl.” Herschell Brown’s spoons hit too near the horn on “Spanish Rag,” nearly obscuring a fine raga-rag plectrist (whose name, it should be recorded, is L.K. Sentell), and then music hall belter Billy Bennett encourages us to wave our pints in the air and cry along with “Don’t Send my Boy to Prison.”
Then we set a course for Middle Eastern Virginia and the syncopated banjo of John Lawson Tyree: “Hop Along Lou” is an awful good tune to dance off of. Can’t get enough of the Turkish saz-wielding from Sezai Ulukaya: “Kavalla Oyun Havasi” is from a ubiquitous Nonesuch (you probably have it filed). Buddy Sarkisan & Fred Elias’s “Tempo of the Veils” can be classified under “songs from belly dance records that don’t suck,” and Pat y Mary’s “Mustafa” proves that it wasn’t just American ladies that had a thing for sheiks.
Remaining south, Los Diablos Rojos pull out their guitars’n bongos and swing hard on “El Picor,” and Grupo Guitarras Internacionales (who were actually Cubano) follow with a “Danza Campesina” drenched in Folkways realness, and as intricate and delicate as hand cut doilies. On “Hasta Siempre,” Carlos Puebla lays down the suave before brand Buena Vista was everywhere.
Drawing back another iron curtain, Arcady Severny’s heart-wrenching Soviet blues “The Engine Expands,” sounds like it was recorded on an x-ray and subsequently smuggled into an American pressing plant. The Man in Black reminds us about that Cold War thing, but we can quickly forget it with the nourishing wellspring of swamp soul: Big Walter’s bold yet tender “Never Too Old” is maybe one to play over my box of pine. Speaking of eternal flames, check the solo on Guitar Slim’s “Story of My Life.” The amp is weak, but the spirit is willing. And Marvin & Johnny’s “Ain’t That Right?” might sound like decent Diddley beat R&B, but stick around for that polecat tearing out of the hills slobbering all over your damn picnic. Are you sure Slam did it like that? Throwing back further: Munro Moe Jackson’s “Go Away From my Door” was cut for Mercury in 1949 but it’s pre-war as heck, even besides the throat singing. Incidentally, Ruby Glaze recorded that long ago too, but Big Joe Williams’ guitar brings her back, and Pete Welding was thankfully around to capture it: “Rising Sun, Shine On.” On the other hand, folklorist Lawrence Gellert may have rightly earned the trust of the many black North Carolinian men who sat before his recorder, but its still unpublished who sang “White Folks Ain’t Jesus,” or even when (sometime in the 1930’s or 40’s).
Returning one state north again, where black accordion saw an unexpected survival (I’d be an expert if my record came with the booklet). Clarence Waddy’s “Eve” wheezes and moans like the Arcadians settled in tidewater VA. Meanwhile, Louisianan Lawrence Walker asks (pleads, really) on “What’s The Matter Now?,” Cajun emo at its most raw. And then yet another field recording, this time from the mic of John Storm Roberts, most of whose legacy is egregiously out-of-print. “Mango Time” is Jamaican, from sometime in the 70’s. And finally, Fred Ramsey captured a tragicomic country brass band misfire in Alabama in 1954, and it is there that we leave it.