WFMU's Beware of the Blog

A conver-view with Alexandra Gorczynski

It's another month of life.

Last week I had a conversation online with Philadelphia based artist Alexandra Gorczynski about her work.

I discovered her through Hologram City, an incredibly engaging curatorial project she does.
The images she posts range from the hopeless, to the grotesque, to the violent, to the explicit, to the materialistic, to the humorous.

To really get the 'full experience', check out her work before you read the interview.

Thank you.  

Oh and here's to hoping you enjoy her work as much as I do.

Thank you

*Note: the interview is in the form of an image, please wait for it to load.

WFMU DJs Pick Their Favorites of 2011 (part IV)

In this fourth installation, we've got picks from Tony Coulter, Lou Z., Noah, and Chris M...first up is...

Tony Coulter's Favorites

Bene Gesserit: Half-Unreleased Madness (OnderStroom LP)

George-Edwards: The George Edwards Group Archives (Drag City LP)

Human Flesh: Second Hand Emotions and Half Forgotten Feelings (OnderStroom LP)

Human Flesh: Pretending to Be Pseudo Code (Plinkity Plonk CD)

Michel Potage Collective: Occupé (Alga Marghen LP)

Nostalgie Eternelle: EP (EE Tapes 7” EP)

Pierre Berthet & Frédéric Le Junter: L'enclume des jours (InPolySons CD)

Various Artists: Objets noirs et choses carrées: Nino Ferrer Covered (Optical Sound CD)

Various Artists: The Insanely Happy EP (EE Tapes 7” EP)

Various Artists: The (Almost) Insanely Happy EP (EE Tapes 7” EP)

E.S.P. TV Episode #10

E.S.P. TV #10 is now online....

The latest episode features Brooklyn synth-duo Further Reductions (Shawn O' Sullivan also of Led Er Est and Katie Rose) with background video by House Plants, filmmakers Martha Colburn and Kenneth Curwood and a video by Scott Kiernan. Curwood's video is tracked to a song by Child Abuse while Martha Colburn's second video features Felix Kubin playing a Stylophone.

This show aired 12/13/11 on Manhattan Neighborhood Network cable access TV in Manhattan (10PM on Ch 67 Time Warner) and, as always, was taped and mixed live to VHS by Louis V E.S.P. in front of an audience at The Schoolhouse in Brooklyn NY. 

More episodes at: http://vimeo.com/channels/esptv

  

FUN Go! America! Celebrates New Jersey, on My Castle of Quiet, 12.18.2011

FUN—as I've come to know the Philadelphia-based combo, its sounds and membership, I realize how truly appropriate the name is for what they do. FUN are able to apply clever, inventive, fresh ideas to their improvised music-making, minus all the beard-stroking and pretentious, high-minded, music-conservatory-based conceptualization and back-patting that often accompanies similar activities.

For their FUN Go! America! tour, a 50-year project that involves one performance a year, each in a different state, on the very date that that state was inducted into the Union, FUN came to New Jersey on December 18th, to WFMU's Studio B, to render two unique, smartly conceived and individually distinct long-form improvisations. The concept of the tour alone is staggering, and relies upon FUN's members having access to interstate transportation, and living long enough, to execute the mass concept in its entirety.

 

DJ Handi's Archive Picks: Skinning The Free Form Holiday Cat

WFMU never makes habit of playing stale Christmas carols, but has its holiday traditions. Stan annually plays the entire first Rotary Connection album: this 1968 piece never made it to "classic rock" formats, but hear how its choral treatment of rock and soul covers has aged like fine brandy, taken out for special occasions. 

How about Holiday surrealism? Kurt Gottschalk filled in for Dan Bodah with Miniature Minotaurs, playing "Santa Dog '92" by the Residents. The big, digital production gives this track modern classical grandeur. Tamar filled in for Liz Berg, playing Meredith Monk, Hazel Meyers, and Billie Holiday on Are We There Yet.

Nazario Scenario's Amanda filled in for Jesse, playing Bob Dylan next to Memphis Minnie, then Merle Haggard next to Chuck Berry. Amanda tilted these sets towards music distinctly rootsy and distinctly American. This is a fascinating gambit. A DJ's show sound is all in the DJ's choices, and Amanda creates her sound by linking organic sounding tracks of different genres. She uses genre without being boxed in by genre. This is just one way to skin the free form cat, but indeed an effective one .

Hanson Records Promo Video from 1997.

While you slowly wake up out of your post-holiday food/family comas in time to prepare for whatever New Year's Eve debauchery you have on the agenda, here's an indispensable Hanson Records "promo" video circa 1997 uploaded straight from the label's mastermind, the great Aaron Dilloway. This collection features some extremely rare performance footage of defunct Michigan projects, both featuring future superstars/mainstays of the 2000's noise underground, Mini-Systems (Nate Young of Wolf Eyes and Anthony Miller, a.k.a. HZMT) and Isis & Werewolves (Dilloway with Steve Kenney, later of Demons, and Andrew W.K., who I believe sits in on drums here) as well as some wonderful homemade films from Beast People (Dilloway, Young, and Twig Harper of Nautical Almanac), Ron Of Japan, and perhaps most fascinatingly to many, an early short film from Andrew W.K. (then going under his full last name of Wilkes-Krier) documenting the absurdist rocker/cult pop figure's uncomfortably bleak early travels through the dirges pof Michigan noise.

HANSON RECORDS Promo Video 1997 from Hanson Records on Vimeo.

2012: Year of the Balls

It's Thursday, December 29, and the holidays have left their tread; heady drink and hearty food have all but rendered my mind and metabolism slug-like, and I can barely even remember what I did last week, let alone what records I purchased and bands I saw at the dawn of this (or any) annum.  In lieu of summarizing this year in recorded music history, then, I will instead say this: My most anticipated release in 2012 is actually from 1973.  It's the vinyl reissue of the Coloured Balls' Ball Power LP on Aztec Records, which I hear is due out "soon."  While you and I await the long-overdue re-release of this seminal sharpie outfit's best album, we can feast our eyes on this video of the band ripping through a truncated version of "Human Being" on GTK in early '73.

For those of you who can't wait or aren't particular about your media, you can also order the CD reissues of Ball Power and Heavy Metal Kid through Aztec Records' site -- or various distributors, like the ol' reliables at Forced Exposure.  Now if you'll excuse me, time to ice my achin' head.  Oh, and Happy New Etc. 

The Fart and Wheeze of Gardenella Dingledart

Gardenella Dingledart is Marge Gardenella, cello player for the weirdo Austin band Attic Ted. I have been following her on Soundcloud where she posts her lo-fi songs of mostly organ and voice. Her lyrics are dark, crass, funny and sometimes sweet, yammered and cooed over wheezing organ, farty sounds and rhythm box- a lot of it reminds me of the soundtracks to Cafe Flesh and Liquid Sky. My favorite track is "The Plague" where the tale of viscera and garbage flushed down the toilet is sung over burpy and manic classical figures and haunted house organ grinding.

Mining the Audio Motherlode, Volume 147

Give the Drummer Some's
Favorite Downloads from the MP3 Blogosphere

So many insanely great recordings have been Motherloded over the last year that it would take a month or two just to compile a BEST OF post heralding the best of the lot. Good thing I took stock last July to post my Mid-Year Favorites! Blessedly, this left me only half the calender to parse in order to select my Most Pleasurable Platters for the second half of 2011.

See if you agree with my selections, and please do exalt your faves in the comments. Here's to bounteous insanity in 2012!

    
Joe Harriott  ~  "Free Jazz"
(Blog: BritJazz)

Utterly Magnificent
"This is rare music, and great music. Joe Harriott and his group were making confident steps in the area called "free jazz" at a time when that was a daring, even a dangerous undertaking. As with the almost contemporary music of Ornette Coleman, however, these many years later it is the beauty and the lyrical invention of their playing which is most striking. The group has long since passed into legend; the records, in their original vinyl form, have become almost impossibly rare; and with both Harriott and his front-line partner Shake Keane now both gone, there is also a poignancy in rediscovering this wonderful jazz."  (Richard Cook, from the liner notes)

A Good Year For The Wine (MP3)

Ernest Tubb  -  A Good Year For The Wine (2:32)

Ever notice how many crusty country honky-tonkers like Ernest Tubb seem to drink way more wine than you'd ever expect?  Porter Wagoner comes to mind (One Dime For Wine, Daddy And The Wine, When I Drink My Wine) and so do Merle Haggard (Little Ole Wine Drinker Me, Wine Take Me Away), Faron Young (Wine Me Up), Johnny Bush (Back From The Wine, Waltz Of The Wine), and Bob Wills (Warm Red Wine) among others.

These are, generally speaking, the kind of guys you'd expect to be throwing back beer and shots if you ever encountered them nursing a heartache in a bar somewhere.  Yet they seemed to have an unshakeable affinity for wine over and above all other alcoholic beverages.  Sure, there are lyrical and metaphorical reasons for this, but I find it fun to contemplate all the same.

One of these days, I'll round up 10 or 20 of my favorite examples of this now-deceased trend but for today here's the Texas Troubadour himself, Ernest Tubb, with A Good Year For The Wine.  I don't know about the rest of you, but at my house it was indeed a good year for the wine.  And by wine, I mean beer.

And speaking of Ernest Tubb, here are some selected excerpts from The Troubadour, ET's fan club newsletter from the winter of 1964.

Amazing Video Compilations of Swing Dancing

This fifth installation of the video compilation, Swing City, comes from WFMU's own Mike "The Good Doctor" Anderson. Fast forward to 2:40 to see some of the most insane girl-tossing swing dancing you've ever seen. Kudos to Irwin for pointing this one out.

WFMU DJs Pick Their Favorites of 2011 (part III)

This installation has year end picks from heavy hitters like Liz Berg, Joe Belock and Rich Hazelton.  For the rest of our year end favorites, click here.

Music Director Brian Turner's Favorites:

Sunflare - Young Love (Cubic Pyramid)
Roly Porter - Aftertime (Subtext)
Cyclobe - Wounded Galaxies Tap at the Window (Phantom Code)
Twerps - s/t (Chapter Music/Underwater Peoples)
April In the Orange - When A River Meets the Sea (Slooow Tapes)
Colin Stetson - New History Warfare Vol. 2: Judges (Constellation)
Blues Control + Laraaji - FRKWYS Vol. 8 (RVNG)
Key of Shame - Key of Shame (Planam)
Dan Melchior - Assemblage Blues (Siltbreeze)
Andy Stott - Passed Me By/We Stay Together (Modern-Love)
Kvelertak - Kvelertak (Indie Recordings)
Moon Unit - Hell Horse and Heavy Strata (Blackest Rainbow)
Sutekh Hexen - Luciform (Wanda)
The Men - Leave Home (Sacred Bones)
Zond - Zond (Kemado)

Reissues/comps
Plastikman - 1993-2010 (Minus 100)
Various - Opika Pende: Africa at 78 RPM (Dust To Digital)
Doug Hream Blunt - Gentle Persuations(No Label)
O.Rex - My Head's In 73! (Gulcher)
Various - Before the Fall (Ace)
Jack Ruby - Jack Ruby (UgExplode)
Various - Ongoku 70 (Hiraku)
Le Super Djata Band du Mali - En Super Forme (Musique Mondiale)
Vita Noctis - Against the Rule (Dark Entries)
Drakar - Let Draka/Flight of the Dragon (I Hate Records)
Lijadu Sisters - Danger (Knitting Factory)
Voivod - To the Death 84 (Alterative Tentacles)
Various - Krypton 10: Christchurch 1981-87 (Unwucht)
John Bender - I Don't Remember Now/I Don't Want to Talk About It (Record Sluts)
Paul McCartney - McCartney II (Capitol)

Much more below the fold!!

Orion Samuelson's Christmas Single (MP3's)

I'm not sure how well he's known, outside of Chicago, but Orion Samuelson is a Chicago legend. It's possible that many readers are familiar with him, since the signal for his long-time radio home - WGN - reaches far and wide, particularly at night.

Orion Samuelson was one of the first media stars - aside from perhaps Bozo - that I was aware of, when I was a little boy. At age six, I was an early riser, and one of the benefits of getting up so early was the chance to watch the exotic TV show "Top O' the Morning", essentially a farm report, hosted on WGN-TV by Samuelson and Max Armstrong. The subjects on the show were a complete mystery to us, but it was always made worthwhile when we got to hear that most bizarre and comical of phrases, "Pork Belly Futures".

Flash forward another 45 years until today. Last year Orion celebrated his 50th anniversary with WGN radio, and is entering his 52nd year with the station. As of earlier this year, Pork Belly Futures are no longer traded, and his decades-long program "The Noon Show"- aimed at farmers who were in from the fields for lunch - ended almost a decade ago, but he remains the station's business and agriculture reporter, and can still be heard regularly on WGN, including his weekend Morning Show, co-hosted with, yes, Max Armstrong.

Knowing all of this prepared me in no way for my discovery last year of an unassuming Christmas 45: At some point in the 1960's or '70's, Orion Samuelson went into a recording studio, with cohorts going under the name of "The Uff-Da Band" (for the not-so-cleverly named "Phonograph Records" label), and recorded cover versions of Yogi Yorgessson's most popular record, the combination of "Jingle Bells" and "I Just Go Nuts at Christmas". Curiously, while giving credit to Yogi (under his real name of Harry Stewart) for the B-side, Orion took credit himself for the arrangement of "Jingle Bells", despite its arrangement being virtually interchangable with that of Yogi's 1950's recording.

Orion Samuelson and the Uff-Da Band - Jingle Bells (MP3)

Orion Samuelson and the Uff-Da Band - I Just Go Nuts at Christmas (MP3)

Single A-Side Label (JPG) - Single B-Side Label (JPG)

A Rev. J. M. Gates Holiday Side

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

Merry Christmas from Brooklyn, Redux

A good Christmas song is clever and/or schlocky, with a kernel of goodwill at the center; many great ones are parodic; the best ones are also obscure. One of my favorites since childhood that satisfies all these requirements is "Merry Christmas from Brooklyn," a fake Chipmunks tune recorded in 1980 by Emerson Bimby and the Cadman Kids:

Merry christmas from brooklyn

 One year ago I wrote this blog post about this song (and included a bad recording of it that I did using just Audacity and my little laptop speakers). Last week D.B. Fisher, the artist who created it, found my blog and wrote to me, asking for an mp3 copy, as none of his original recordings had survived. I was thrilled to oblige -- in a weird twist, I'd also bought his record "My Little Bomb" (r.) just the day before at a used vinyl shop because I recognized the name Emerson Bimby. After so many years I've learned the story behind the underground track, which I knew nothing about besides that it received some play on New York's WNEW.

Fisher was living in a loft on Jay Street in December 1980, and recorded the song with his two roommates as part of an audio Christmas card for his sister's family stationed in Japan. The building where they lived is now Brooklyn Union Gas, and Fisher himself eventually moved to Hawaii as his neighborhood was bulldozed to build the Metrotech business improvement district. His experimental/new wave rock music, recorded in the late 1970s and early 1980s under Emerson Bimby, can be heard on MySpace.

Check out D.B. Fisher's MySpace page here.  Listen to a Christmas-themed show I did this week on WFMU's Give the Drummer Radio stream here.  And happy holidays, everyone, no matter what geographic location your apartment is in!