Bill Laswell, Otomo Yoshihide, Yoshigaki Yasuhiro (repost)

Soup

P-Vine Japan

Four lengthy, fairly dirgey jams from Laswell, Yoshihide and Yasuhiro. Otomo’s an amazing guitar player! Who knew? I always assumed he was more of a turntablist/manipulator, but as an axe-grinder he’s no slouch.
Sometimes the tunes take on a dub-like quality – a Laswell trait.
This sounds like music made while coming off of a bad acid trip in Yokohama, Tokyo or a sushi joint in New York.

Download:Right here

(5/29/07) This is a repost for someone who wandered into my old blogger incarnation – and a timely one, too. I just recently accidentally deleted everything from my iPod, which wouldn’t have been such a big deal if I didn’t have lots of stuff on it exclusively. This album is one that I thought perished forever (along with more than one un-backed up album*) until I remembered that I burned it onto a CD. Crap! – When do I EVER make CDs anymore? So, luckily for us, here it is.

*The others I’ve noticed so far (inasmuch as I miss them): Peter Hammill – Nadir’s Big Chance; The Orb – Auntie Aubrey’s Excursions Beyond the Call of Duty pt. 1, and lots and lots of single tracks.

Negativland

Over the Edge Vol. 4: Dick Vaughn’s Moribund Music of the Seventies
Seeland Records

Fabulously overblown re-issue of the formerly cassette-only Over the Edge series entry Dick Vaughn’s Moribund Music of the Seventies, presenting Richard Lyon’s titular soul-less radio personality character in his many failed attempts at radio stardom. The first disc unveils an insidious change to KPFA’s programming to a bland, middle of the road music and canned news segment format called The California Superstation. the horrified and clueless call-ins are priceless, as is Lyon’s portrayal of a huckster who is totally oblivious to his own vapidity. Done in ‘air-check’ style, all songs – horrid though they are – have been culled out of the mix, leaving Dick’s IDs and commercials alone.
Side two, titled Dick Vaughn’s Moribund Music of the Seventies, documents Dick’s failed countdown show to highlight some of the low points of Seventies music. All this is wrapped around some befuddled call-ins (not included on the original issue), an assessment of Dick Vaughn’s pathology by a radio psychiatrist (Dr. Oslo Norway) and some relatively recent updates on the death of Dick Vaughn from Negativland’s 1993 concerts.

Dick 1: The California Superstation
Dick 2: Moribund Music of the Seventies

For more Negativland mayhem, be sure to visit Carnival of Headaches. He’s got the excellent OTE Time Zones Exchange Project, as well as lots of other goodies.

Bo Diddley

His Greatest Sides
Chess

Rock and blues legend Bo Diddley suffered a stroke on Sunday that has left him in intensive care at Creighton University Medical Center in Omaha, Nebraska.

A publicist from his management team stated that test have showed the stroke affected the left side of the musicians brain and has impaired his speech and speech recognition. Although little information has been released, it is known that the “Who Do You Love” singer is listed in “guarded” condition. It is not known how long he will remain in the hospital. (link)

I ripped this a few weeks ago for a friend and didn’t think I’d post it (I inadvertently set its bit-rate too low – 128 – whoops!) but now I think I will. Later reports sound like he may make a recovery. Let’s hope so.

This album is my favorite by him and contains some of his best-known hits.

Tracks:

1. Bo Diddley
2. You Pretty Thing
3. Bring it to Jerome
4. I’m a Man
5. Diddy Daddy
6. Dearest Darlin’
7. Bo Diddley
8. Who Do You Love?
9. Roadrunner
10. Say, Man!
11. Bo’s Bounce
12. You Can’t Judge a Book By Looking at the Cover
13. Crackin’ Up
14. Hey Bo Diddley

Download (31 megs – 128kbps)

Viragelic

I typed Generative Music into Google and found Viragelic, a cool little java-based Flash web page that will generate a simple little composition and play it for you. It starts out rather simple, and then gets somewhat complex. It’s lovely and weird, It’s weirdly lovely.
Check it out!

So Long Totally Fuzzy

You were too good to me, even when I wasn’t really working hard at it.

Thanks Herr K. and all the others who made it fun and exciting.

Godspeed Totally Fuzzy and here’s to the new Fuzz.

My Last.FM station

I’ve had a Last.FM account for about a year or so. I hardly ever check it out, but I think I might start again.

Let’s see if this works…

If you don’t see an imbedded player above, then the code’s shite.
Here’s a link.
We’ll see how this works…
So far it’s making a feeble attempt to play something similar to that it has compiled from my listening habits. If it inserts a lot of crappy, pouty-boys-in-mascara type indie crap, then it’s not me, I swear.

Reposting Don Joyce’s Mort Aux Vache: We’ll Be Right Back

For the third time, by request.

Right here.

Previously blogged here.

Meet the Meat Beetles

Sometimes when taking a long break from finding cool music, cool music finds you instead.

The well-named Wongo Starr dropped me a line to let us know about his cool sampledelic band the Meat Beatles. Fantastic tape manipulation, turn-tablisms and great use of sampling are contained herein.

The lengthy track Backwards Devil Music #13 had me chortling coffee out my nose this morning.

They’re so good, I wonder why I haven’t heard of them before.

Go check ‘em out!

The Brady Bunch

It’s a Sunshine Day: The Best of the Brady Bunch
MCA Records

Fucking awful, that’s what this is.
Insipid and vile from the first note to the last.
Due to the success of a song that sprung from the competing TV show The Partridge Family ( also bloody terrible), The Brady Bunch were forced at gunpoint into recording studios for the rest of that show’s interminable run. Lucky us. We not only get to hear songs that you may remember from that show (Peter’s voice cracking on Time to Change, the titular track Sunshine Day) but the good folks at Universal have bundled up some promo pieces that probably went to advertisers or affiliates.
But did you know that the real secret weapon is their very own rendition of Don McLean’s horrid American Pie, that single-handedly redeems Mrs. Guy Ritchie’s, if that’s even possible. Despite the fact that Florence Henderson and the schmuck who played Greg had some formal vocal training, the whole gang shouts along in a tuneless warble with the vigor of a death-camp choir. This came out in 1972, but you’d be hard pressed to envision this coming from the same era (or planet, for that matter) as the Stooges, The Velvet Underground or even Alice Cooper. No, this was meant to play for the tamest audience and had to appeal to the 80 year old TV executives who worked those poor kids like a 42nd street chicken pimp. I suppose little Cindy’s speech-impediment affected rendition of Frosty the Snowman is a hoot if played through pitch shifting equipment, but who besides weirdos like me has that kind of stuff lying around? There’s even a trucker song, just to keep our horrible 70’s trend thing consistent.

I warned you.

Link