Saturday, June 27, 2009

Incredible String Band - 1969-05-01 - Ludlow's Garage


The Incredible String Band (abbreviated as ISB) were a psychedelic folk band formed in Scotland in 1965. The band built a considerable following, especially within British counter-culture before splitting up in 1974. The members of the group are considered musical pioneers in psych folk and, by integrating a very wide variety of traditional music forms and instruments, in the development of world music. The group reformed in 1999 and continued to perform until 2006.

Friday, June 26, 2009

NEIL INNES - Live in Chicago April 2004

The Legendary A&M Sessions


The Legendary A&M Sessions is an extended play featuring five songs by Captain Beefheart & His Magic Band, recorded early in their career for their original record label A&M Records. The EP was released by the company in 1984 after Captain Beefheart had gone into retirement.

The EP is compiled from two singles originally released through A&M in 1966. The first of these paired the Bo Diddley cover "Diddy Wah Diddy" with a track written by Don Van Vliet (Beefheart) called "Who Do You Think You're Fooling?". The second, "Moonchild", was written by producer David Gates (later of the band Bread), and was backed with Van Vliet's "Frying Pan". The fifth tune featured here, "Here I Am I Always Am", was apparently a rejected B-side which had remained unreleased until the EP's appearance in 1984

Ken Nordine - A Transparent Mask

Zipping back along the freeway like he'd never left the Beatnik era, the legendary Nordine rolled back the decades with this album in 2004. The infamous voice deepened, frazzled by the rushing years still sounds hep as Nordine intones smokily atop some free-jazz electronic scores from keyboardist Howard Levy. Excellent stuff from the spoken word master.

Moondog (Prestige)


One of the best early albums from the legendary Moondog -- a set that got wider circulation than his first few releases, and really helped expand his reach beyond New York City! Moondog's still at his simple best here -- working in a blend of rhythmic percussion, stringed instruments, flute, and other rootsy instrumentation -- all with echoes of Eastern styles, but served in a way that definitely has more of a touch of American exotica! All numbers are played by small groups -- or even solo by Moondog -- and any vocalizations take on almost an instrumental feel -- sliding in alongside sound effects, animal noises, and other obscure utterings. The album's almost the art world equivalent of Martin Denny -- but has a lot more depth than easy kitsch -- and is still tremendously powerful stuff all these years later! Titles include "Caribea", "Big Cat", "Frog Bog", "To A Sea Horse", "Surf Session" and "Trees Against The Sky".

Thursday, June 25, 2009

THE EXOTIC BEATLES VOL.1


26 of your all time Beatles favourites performed by the most exotic cast ever assembled 
including... Eleanor Rigby in Latin by Derek Enright MP - Lucy In The Sky by William Shatner -
I Am The Walrus by John Otway - She Loves You Flamenco - Japanese Yellow Submarine
Ondo - Brian Sewell - The Metropolitan Police Choir - Cats and Dogs - The Indian Beatles -
The Japanese Beatles - The Argentinian Beatles - The Malayan Beatles...
"This is the sound of the world going mad"   Record Collector
"Freshness, innocence, exoticism; the three cardinal virtues of pop" Beatles Unlimited
"A Must for Beatles obsessives and lovers of kitsch" Rock CD

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

HERE'S JOHNNY-Magic Moments From The Tonight Show

JOHNNY CARSON, featuring, ED McMAHON, DOC SEVERINSEN, IKE & TINA TURNER, BETTE MIDLER, LUCILLE BALL, GROUCHO MARX, GEORGE CARLIN, PEARL BAILY, LENNY BRUCE, BILLY HOLIDAY, JACK BENNY, SMOTHERS BROTHERS , JAY SILVERHEELS AND OTHERS....

Syd Barrett June 6, 1970 Olympia Exhibition Hall, London, England


Syd Barrett
June 6, 1970
Olympia Exhibition Hall, London, England

1. Terrapin
2. Gigolo Aunt
3. Effervescing Elephant
4. Octopus

Syd Barrett - guitar, vocals
David Gilmour - bass
Jerry Shirley - drums

Note: Some Vocals are hard to hear due to poor miking during the show.

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

My Pal Foot Foot


One of the great stories of rock & roll is that of the three Wiggins sisters (Dot, Helen, and Betty), better known as the Shaggs. Growing up dirt poor in New Hampshire, the three girls were turned onto forming a band by their father, Austin Wiggins, who bought their instruments and payed for lessons. Despite their lack of musical expertise, Austin drove the girls down to a studio in Massachusetts, determined to get them on tape "while they were still hot." Striking a deal with a local fly-by-night record company called Third World, the Shaggs recorded their debut album, Philosophy of the World, in one day, recording a dozen tunes all written by Dot. One thousand copies were pressed and all but 100 of them quickly disappeared, along with the president of the company. The Shaggs started playing a regular, Saturday night dance back home in Fremont, NH, and added another sister, Rachel, on bass, to their ranks. When Austin Wiggins passed away in 1975, the group disbanded and never played together again. But over the intervening years, their lone misguided attempt at recording started gaining cult status. In a Playboy magazine interview, Frank Zappa is reported to have said of the Shaggs, "This sounds like the missing link between Fanny and Captain Beefheart & his Magic Band." Zappa rated The Shaggs #3 best band in history in a Norwegian newspaper, and by the time NRBQ had reissued it in 1980, its legendary status was already confirmed. Other, later, and slightly more profieicent recordings emerged on the compilation Shaggs' Own Thing, and both albums were produced for compact disc on Rounder, issued as simply The Shaggs. In 1999, RCA Victor finally reissued the original Philiosophy album with its original cover, notes, and sequencing, keeping the music of the Shaggs (which one can view as either guileless primitive art or just a garage band that really can't play or sing) alive into the new millennium."The Shaggs. Better than the Beatles--even today." - Frank Zappa
"They bring my mind to a complete halt." - Carla Bley
"Maybe the best worst rock album ever made." - New York Times

Sunday, June 21, 2009

Flowers of Evil

Yvette Mimieux & Ali Akbar Khan

Head (The Monkees album) - 1968

Head is the soundtrack to the band's first and only theatrical release, Head. It was The Monkees' sixth album and their last to feature Peter Tork, until 1987's Pool It!.

The original issue of the record featured a front cover with a surface of aluminized PET film, meant to reflect the listener's "head" (face) back at them. With the movie having only a limited release (and virtually no publicity), the point was largely lost, and while the cover was innovative for its time, manufacturing was problematic; Micky Dolenz recalled years later that the cover was "actually ruining the printing presses at RCA!" A 1980s reissue from Rhino Records was less problematic by using foil paper instead, the end result less reflective than the original. The presently in-print CD from Rhino has a grey cover that is not reflective at all.

Showing the growing influence of Frank Zappa on the Monkees' circle (Zappa even has a cameo role as "The Critic" in the film itself), the soundtrack album intersperses the six proper songs ("Porpoise Song," "Circle Sky," "Can You Dig It?," "As We Go Along," "Daddy's Song" and "Long Title: Do I Have To Do This All Over Again?") with bits of Ken Thorne's incidental music, dialogue fragments and oddball sound effects, for an overall effect surprisingly close to Zappa's Lumpy Gravy.

The selection of music and dialogue approximates the flow of the movie itself, and was compiled by actor Jack Nicholson, who cowrote the film's shooting script. Nicholson recalled in Monkee Mania how he observed Michael Nesmith working on the album in the studio, asked if he could try some editing, and Nesmith let Nicholson take over the session, because "I just want to go home!".

MOTHERMANIA!!!


Mothermania (subtitled The Best of the Mothers) (1969) is a compilation album by The Mothers of Invention, led by Frank Zappa. It contains tracks, personally chosen by Zappa (it is the only Mothers compilation authorized by FZ), that were previously released on Freak Out!, Absolutely Free and We're Only in It for the Money. However, certain tracks on this release are in unique mixes or edits done specifically for this compilation.

'Gimme Dat Harp Boy' Roots of the Captain

Thursday, June 18, 2009

Bonzo Dog Doo Dah Band




Besides, perhaps, the Mothers of Invention (with whom they were sometimes compared), the Bonzo Dog Band were the most successful group to combine rock music and comedy. Starting off as the Bonzo Dog Dada Band, then becoming the Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, and then finally just the Bonzo Dog Band, the group was started by British art college students in the mid-'60s. Initially they were inclined toward trad jazz and vaudevillian routines, but by the time of their 1967 debut album, they were leaning further in pop and rock directions. A brief appearance in the Beatles' Magical Mystery Tour film bolstered their visibility, and Paul McCartney (under the pseudonym Apollo C. Vermouth) produced their single "I'm the Urban Spaceman," which reached the British Top Five in 1968. The Bonzos really hit their stride with their second and third albums, which found them adding elements of psychedelia to their already-absurdist mix of pop, cabaret, and Dada. The Bonzos could be side-splitting, but their records held up well because they were also capable musicians and songwriters, paced by Neil Innes and Viv Stanshall (both of whom wrote the lion's share of their best material). The group attempted to move into more serious and musical realms with their 1969 LP Keynsham, which, unsurprisingly, was acclaimed as their weakest effort. They broke up shortly afterward; Viv Stanshall made some obscure solo recordings (he was also the grandstanding narrator on Mike Oldfield's "Tubular Bells"). Neil Innes collaborated with members of Monty Python, upon whom the Bonzos were a large influence, as well as writing the songs for and performing in the Beatles documentary spoof, The Rutles.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

Vivian Stanshall - Men Opening Umbrellas Ahead




Vivian Stanshall was an eccentric pioneer that pushed boundaries in music, comedy, poetry and art and won a legion of fans, including John Peel in the process.
In the mid-1960s he led the group Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band, who caused a stir on the college rock circuit and had a Top 10 hit in 1968 with 'I'm the Urban Spaceman'. The Bozo band split in 1970. With the encouragement of John Peel, Vivian developed the idea of the eccentric English aristocrat Sir Henry Rawlinson, who was later to achieve a full flowering in the 1980 film, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End. Sir Henry's philosophy was, "If I had all the money I'd spent on drink I'd spend it all on drink."
When Peel went on holidays he asked Vivian to stand in for him. Vivian launched his alter-ego character, Sir Henry on Peel's Top Gear show and it was so successful with listeners that he was asked to continue the skit when Peel returned from holidays.
John said of Vivian: "I could never really think of anything to say when I'd played one of his pieces on the radio, and would end up, rather feebly, with something along the lines of 'I fear that a single one of Viv's thoughts would blow my damn brains out.'"

Wynona's Big Brown Beaver (Letterman)

Residue of the Residents



Residue of the Residents
Compilation album by The Residents
Released 1984
Recorded 1971-1983
Genre Rock

Residue of the Residents is a compilation of The Residents' outtakes, ranging from about 1971-1983. The compilation was released in 1984. "Walter Westinghouse" is an edited version of the song from the Babyfingers E.P. while another early song, "Whoopy Snorp", was from a hard-to-find benefit album for Los Angeles artists. Although meant to have something released while fans were waiting for the next part of the Mole Trilogy, this album stands on its own. It was re-released in 1998 on CD as Residue Deux, deleting some of the songs (which had appeared frequently as bonus tracks on 1980s CD releases) and adding some later tracks.

* Residue Tracks:

1. The Sleeper
2. Whoopy Snorp
3. Kamakazi Lady
4. Boy in Love
5. Shut Up! Shut Up!
6. Anvil Forest
7. Diskomo
8. Jailhouse Rock
9. Ups and Downs
10. Walter Westinghouse
11. Saint Nix
12. Open Up