The wonderful UBU Webhave made the entire filmography of Amos Poe available online.
Poe made Blank Generation in 1976 with a veritable who’s who of New York punk in the movie.
Another notable movie is The Foreigner, with one of the earliest glimpses of The Cramps, who play a gang who beat up the protagonist in the film.
Poe’s films have a certain early Warhol, Kuchar Bros appeal to them. That they’re sort of crappy is beside the point, when one looks at what great documents they are of early NY punk.
Mutated, noise generated by Barack Obama, filtered through LFOs, ring modulation and delay. It was the Altered State of the Union.
Plus, some recent vinyl acquisitions.
Noise. Music. More noise (please).
Playlist:
Lalo Schifrin – What’s Wrong? – THX-1138 OST
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Barack Obama vs DJ ManRich – Altered State of the Union
Core of the Coalman – Anxiety – Resipiscent Records
Unknown – Sausage, pork, beef, cheese, whole milk, butter, margarine, nuts (Found at Dangerous Minds blog)
Jim Larrance – Pastor Lax – Cut-Up Sound
Wire – A Touching Display – 154
Popol Vuh – Aguirre 2 – Deutsche Elektronische Musik
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Pacific Northwest Bell – Holiday in Oregon 7″
Loach Fillet – Origins of the Two-Headed Spitting Cobra – Electric Pond: Solar Solution Resipiscent Records
Hawaiian Pups – Infinite Roads – Split Second Precision
Hawaiian Pups – Trash – Split Second Precision
Hawaiian Pups – Baby Judy – Split Second Precision
Uncle Ron – Airplane Trip – Adventureland
Alp – Artis – Out and About with Alp - Soleilmoon Records
Forrest McCollough – Flight F.I.N.A.L.
Brian Routh and Patricia Wells – Mashed Potatoes – SoundCloud
How Bacon Is Made
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Ollie Halsall & John Halsey – Bum Love – Miniatures
The Residents – We`re A Happy Family/Bali Ha`i – Miniatures
Roger McGough – The Wreck Of The Hesperus – Miniatures
Morgan Fisher – Green And Pleasant – Miniatures
John Otway – Mine Tonight – Miniatures
Pete Challis & Phil Diplock – My Way – Miniatures
Robert Wyatt – Rangers In The Night – Miniatures
Stinky Winkles – Opus – Miniatures
Mary Longford – Body Language – Miniatures
Andy Newman – Andy The Dentist – Miniatures
David Bedford – Wagner`s Ring In One Minute – Miniatures
Fred Frith – The Entire Works Of Henry Cow – Miniatures
Maggie Nicols – Look Beneath The Surface – Miniatures
Joseph Racaille – Week-End – Miniatures
The Work – With Wings Pressed Back – Miniatures
Neil Innes & Son – Cum On Feel The Noize – Miniatures
Herbert Distel – Toscany In Blue (Last Minute) – Miniatures
Lol Coxhill – An End To The Matter – Miniatures
Ken Ellis – One Minute In The Life Of Ivan Denisovich – Miniatures
Steve Miller – Alice – Miniatures
Norman Lovet – John Peel Sings The Blues Badly – Miniatures
Patrick Portella – Serrons Nous Les Coudes – Miniatures
George Melly – Sounds That Saved My Life (Homage To K.S.) – Miniatures
Robert Fripp – Miniature – Miniatures
Andy Partridge – The History Of Rock`N`Roll – Miniatures
Phantom Captain – Breather – Miniatures
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Children’s Starlight Chorus – E.T., I Love You – E.T., I Love You and Other Extraterrestrial Songs
(Reposting this DJ-less mix I put together years ago):
Around 1980 I discovered that, late Thursday nights, some DJ was playing strange, alien music. My appetite was whetted by Devo, Pink Floyd and strange bands I had read about in Heavy Metal magazine (having nothing to do with the genre of music that would later take its name) and I wanted more. The discovery of KBOO’s Stranger than Fiction completely opened the door to new, exciting music for me, and I’ve never looked back. The hosts of STF – the enigmatic Mr. B and Equinox – played a combination of New Wave, skinny-tie pop, novelty music (Barnes and Barnes, Bonzo Dog Band, etc.) and lots of acts that straddled Prog and Post-Punk (Gabriel, Fripp, Hammill). Thier show was like a complete education in alternative music and it really saved me in those lost years of being a weird, alien-feeling teenager, even if it meant that my friends would never let me play my mix-tapes at parties.
Eventually, Mr. B and Equinox expanded the program to handle early and late shifts, Mr. B starting at 1:00 AM, playing mostly newly released import singles and Equinox taking over duties at 3:00, playing lots of ambient music, prog and space rock until morning. I used to go home from school on Thursdays and go right to sleep so that I could stay up all night drawing comics while the show was on. I even taped a lot of it, but the tapes sound horrid now. As the eighties gave way to rock video, STF’s programming went a little too mainstream for my tastes and I was getting into hardcore punk by then. I don’t even recall when they finally went off the air.
the tracks I chose for this mix were songs that were either played often on their show, or played once and really made an impression on me.
I dedicate this mix to all late night DJs out there, playing new, weird music for alienated kids.
Sources: Films: The Penultimate Truth of Philip K. Dick
The Gospel According to Philip K. Dick Philip K. Dick: A Day in the Afterlife, from the BBC series Arena, 1994 Blade Runner
A Scanner Darkly
Other audio sources:
Book on tape of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (read by Matthew Modine and Calista Flockhart)
X-Minus One radio program of PKD’s The Colony, 1950s
Book on tape of Ubik Hour 25 Interview of Philip K. Dick conducted by Tim Hodel in 1977
Music:
Lalo Schifrin – What’s Wrong? – THX-1138 OST
Bill Laswell and M.J. Harris – Distal Sonarity – Somnific Flux
Tim Hecker – Spectral – Radio Amor
Tim Hecker – Star Compass – Radio Amor
Tim Hecker – 7000 Miles – Radio Amor
Vangelis – Prodigal Son Brings Death – Blade Runner OST
Really funny – albeit somewhat dated – comedy record built around the concept of late-Seventies FM radio. Some of it’s really good and I remember hearing bits of this on my local burnout classic Rock station back in the day.
The production values are great and the humor stays within the lowbrow to highbrow range, with oodles of dope references and lots of slams to the crass commercialization of radio. It reminds me somewhat of The National Lampoon Radio Hour – especially the post-Michael O’Donoghue period.
Some funny bits are one about a giant rock festival with $85 dollar tickets (which is chicken-feed nowadays), a running gag about a punk rock band called Garbage and a rock opera about a duck named Herman. Ron Stevens and Joy Grdnic (pronounced grid-nick) were a comedy team who also worked in radio. Apparently, they are still working together in the syndicated radio market. Joy is still drop-dead gorgeous, too.
Tracklisting
Tuning In
Bogus Concerts
Ron Pentecost
Rock & Roll Toy
No Parking
Today’s Weather
Speed Reading
Steve McNab
Bend Over Beethoven
Jesse Jeff Westchester
Dermadrug
Hiwater Pants
Movie Trivia Giveaway
Do It
Unisex Stereo
Miss Information pt.I
Joe Brackne
Miss Information pt.II
Fun & Fresh
Miss Information pt.III
Marijuana Helper
Herman
Massage Parlor
Rocko Products
We’re Really Gonna Make It This Time
Disco Record Offer
Tuning Out
Note: My rip varies from the LP with regard to tracks. I separated out a few tracks to make it work better in MP3 playback. This doesn’t affect the order or running time, but makes a few more tracks than that which is listed on the LP.
The Living Constitution Of The United States Kayden Records/Union Oil Company
“A timely, inspiring record – with a stirring, patriotic musical score” ~ Cover notes
Another historical/histrionic patriotic record, this time in 1961. This one’s fun because it has veteran voice actor Marvin Miller – voice of Robby the Robot and others – doing the narration, as well as other familiar-sounding, if not famous voices (William Conrad, later of 70′s TV show Cannon is one).
It breaks down the articles of the Constitution and has people acting out famous quotes or passages relevant to the topic, with lush orchestration.
I think this may have been a give-away at Union service stations, as it says Union Oil Company at the bottom of the front cover. What’s an oil company doing on a patriotic piece of propaganda, anyway?
Gallant Men: Stories Of The American Adventure Told By Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen Capitol Records
Goofy, fun patrio-psychotic found LP from 1966 by the late Senator Everett McKinley Dirksen.
The first track is the weirdest and the rest is simply a flag-waving look back at U.S. history, that’s only amusing in its earnestness and for those of use born after Vietnam, etc. and for Everett’s deep voice and denture-rattling presentation. It’s certainly not Schoolhouse Rock.
Tracklisting:
Prologue
Gallant Men
The Story Of The Mayflower And The Mayflower Compact
The Story Of The Battle For Independence
The Story Of The Flag
The Star-Spangled Banner
The Story Of Gettysburg
The Gettysburg Address
The Story Of The Statue Of Liberty
Epilogue
Pledge Of Allegiance To The Flag
Some factoids about Everett:
He was an ally (up to a point) of Joe McCarthy
He tried to get school prayer put back in schools
He was a key backer of the ’64 Civil Rights bill
He had a cameo in the forgotten cult sci-fi flick The Monitors
This LP made it to #29 on the Billboard charts and won a Grammy
“The ’65 Jingles…
…From studio to tape, to lacquer, to mother, to stamper and on to mass production“
~from sleeve notes.
This is a rip of a record I found recently that was apparently a set of ID spots put out by the National Association of Broadcasters, via the Radio Advertising Bureau.
It’s a snappy Big Band arrangement around the theme The Sound of Year-Round Pleasure with some variants. The first one is a minute long with “Fifteen Second Doughnut” for affiliated stations to insert their station ID, etc. No doubt you’ve been hearing me having fun, sticking seemingly disparate things in that opening on my shows recently.
The last is a pretty funny “Rock-and-Roll” version that’s pretty white, uptight and pre-Hippie sounding.
Interesting facts:
The record was lock-groove, so I had to manually move the needle to the next cut.
It’s credited to arranger Keith Textor
The spaces between cuts were huge. It was easy to drop a needle on a cut, but was irritating to cue.
Session guitar player Tommy Kay is in the band
Everything was repeated on the flipside. I didn’t realize this until I had nearly recorded the other half of the other side.
It looks like there may have been a thick book inside the gatefold sleeve; Its spine is as thick as a copy of Cosmo.
Out-of-print and hard to find 1961 album of recordings made of a concert of some pioneers of electronic music. From Wikipedia:
“Columbia-Princeton Electronic Music Center was an album of electronic music released in 1961. It was the recording of a concert performed at the McMillin Theatre (today called the Miller Theatre) at Columbia University on May 9 and 10, 1961. (…)
The Arel composition is completely electronic, with articulated signals over a continuous background texture. El-Dabh’s composition, an “electronic drama,” has a text drawn from the epic of Layla and Majnun, and consists primarily of tape manipulated instrumental and vocal sounds. Ussachevsky’s work has lyrics derived from the Enuma Elish creation myth, with chorus and electronic accompaniment. Babbitt’s piece is composed entirely on the RCA Synthesizer. Davidovsky created a work manipulating sine wave, square wave, and white noise generators. Luening’s composition combines solo violin with RCA Synthesizer sound followed by tape manipulation.“
I was pretty damn pleased to find a very good copy of this at my local Goodwill for only 99 cents. Here’s my rip, at 320kbps.
Track list: 1. Bülent Arel: Stereo Electronic Music No. 1 2. Halim El-Dabh: Leiyla and the Poet 3. Vladimir Ussachevsky: Creation—Prologue 4. Milton Babbitt: Composition for Synthesizer 5. Mario Davidovsky: Electronic Study No. 1 6. Otto Luening: Gargoyles
If I get a chance, I may get a friend who has a spiffy, large-format scanner to scan both sides of the cover. The above image is one I found on the ‘net.
From 1984 (or thereabouts) comes Echoplex Kitchenette with Horns.
It features David Harlan on synth and electronics, Andrew Lindsay on voices and keys, Richard Lindsay on noises, electric guitar and kitchen utensils and possibly Paul Wilson on larynx and inspiration.
Recorded live in Mr. and Mrs. Charles R. Lindsay’s kitchen and featuring a homemade echoplex unit. With horns.
