Drinking From the Music Blog Firehose

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Of late, when moments allow, I’ve been exploring a number of very rewarding music blogs out there. Following is a compendium of what I consider to be particularly notable such blogs and/or postings (which I’ll likely add to in the next day or so, so revisit if you’re so inclined). It’s also well worth mentioning that the blogrolls of these cats are prolly worth exploring (during your copious free time) — not to mention the usual suspects WFMU’s Beware of the Blog, UBUWEB, Strange Reaction, 7inch Punk, and any of the various music links off on the right side of this here post.

Oh, and please remember (and spread the word): friends don’t let friends use RapidShare. (In this context, the more daring and tinker-prone might try RapidShare Link Grabber — caveat emptor and no warranty or endorsement granted or implied.) Here’s a link that offers a list of some alternative filesharing services with less obnoxious end-user experiences.

Mutant Sounds. Ho. Ly. Crap. Not only do you get numerous NWW List ultra-rarities, you get even more stuff that would make any self-respecting avant collector scum drool themselves half to death. And intelligent and oft-even-erudite annotations. Dang. There’s a reason this one is listed first.

FM SHADES. I first learned of this blog qua the Velvet Underground “Dolph acetate” I recently yammered about at some length, and I keep going back. Deeply obscure but almost always delicious selections of early electronics, prog, avant jazz, bent folk, and some things I prolly wouldn’t normally bother with but am almost always glad I did. Just one absolute must have is Pierre Henry’s incredible Mise en Musique du Corticalart de Roger LaFosse (1971), in which the brain waves of one Roger LaFosse are transformed by analog synthesis. Run, don’t walk.

Mended Records. A music blog, not a label. And yes, more please thank you! Currently an emphasis on vinyl rips of gaspingly rare ’80s avant music: Eugene Chadbourne free improv, Fred Frith table-top guitars in Japan, Arcane Device (!), This Heat, Slapp Happy’s BBC sessions, Bob Ostertag, and hell even avant garde groups from friggin’ Estonia! Downside: RapidShit.

Iva Bittová & Pavel Fajt: Bittová & Fajt (1987) via Orang Aural, which has now relocated to the fervently recommended Border Music (see below). Violin and percussion?? Oh hell yeah. Unspeakably beautiful music from this Czech avant duo deeply informed by Roma tradition. Every one of their albums are worth seeking out…if you can even find them. This one is especially rare. Iva has also released some very worthwhile solo recordings. Iva…if you ever need someone to have your baby, just let me know. It’s medically impossible, but I’ll find a way. I’m just sayin’.

Border Music. Um. Wow. Are you ready to pee your pants and not mind one bit? In re: the same cat that brought us the aforementioned Bittová & Fajt at his previous blog-home, I offer six all-important words (integers duly re-typed): The Residents – Early Works (1971-72). As in the complete mythic and illusory Baby Sex, the impossibly ellusive The Warner Brothers Album, and the very first Santa Dog double single. Wait, don’t pee yet. 192kbps rips. Okay, now pee. (And as you change pants, try to forget he uses RapidShitbag.) The Residents post alone is worthy of embarrassing kowtowing (op cit.), but our good captain is also conversant with the likes of Evan Parker, Bob Ostertag, Steve Lacy, René Lussier, Massacre, Frith, et al. Dude.

Bubblegum Machine. All this synaptic avant screeching humming blat shit is plenty well and good, but man…sometimes some delicious AM radio pop is just plain refreshing. Two songs posted every week, and the archives stay active in perpetuity. Quote: “Manifesto. If it’s ever been on K-Tel or Ronco, it’s in. If it features hand claps, cow bells, syrupy orchestration, walls of sound, wrecking crews, sha-la-las, toothy teen idols, candy-based metaphors for carnal acts or lyrics about hugging, squeezing and rocking all night long, it’s in.” You’ll be sitting at your desk stifling the urge to harmonize. Now…if someone would just start making flesh-toned iPod earbuds for use during meetings….

BBC Radiophonic Collections and Dr. Who Soundtracks. The infinitely magnanimous if slightly eccentric X-Y-Z-Cosmonaut once saw fit to post literally hours of precious recordings by the BBC Radophonic Workshop. (Read: “Incredibly rare and absolutely essential early electronic music.”) The rest of the blog is interesting if you’re interested: ’70s “blaxploitation” comic books, obscure ’70s Saturday AM superhero TV video rips, and similarly kitschy fare…all with admirably obsessive glee. But dude: BBC Radiophonics! (Albeit all via the damnable autofelching hell that is RapidShare). To wit:

And while you’re there — and only if you can’t find the original article, which is lovingly assembled, gorgeously packaged in an fascinatingly extensive hardbound booklet, and well worth every red cent — you may as well grab Raymond Scott: Manhattan Research Inc. (2-CDs, 69 tracks total).

And speaking of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, you should definitely read this absolutely superlative extended essay: “BBC Radiophonic Workshop: An Engineering Perspective.”

Delia Derbyshire: Electronic Music Pioneer. Speaking (again) of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop, you must stop by this site to both learn about this (gasp!) female pioneer of electronic music and to visit the Music Clips page to avail yourself of excellent and rare works, including a few pieces unavailable anywhere else.

Crap I Found At the Library. Get real. How can you not be a slave to a music blog whose first-page posts include Curtis “Shaft” Mayfield’s gospel album, Killdozer, Javanese gamelan, and Woody Guthrie? Digging a little deeper, you’ll find yodeling from Austria and Switzerland, Hawaiian exotica, and a full rip of the priceless Best of Ralph compilation (which some rat bastard stole from me back in my DJ-ing days at Club Dreamerz…may your pecker fall off and kill all around you with its putrescence), a theremin compilation, circus music, and a sound effects record. Just for starters. Can you buy someone a beer over email? Hell…are we related?

ShortWaveMusic. Okay, I confess I’ve not yet really checked this one out…but how can I not include any blog “featuring music and/or musical noise intercepted via shortwave radio.” I mean, c’mon.

The Conet Project. Well, if I’m gonna mention shortwave at all, then I must not take one more breath or step without referring you to the legendary Conet Project: a 4-CD, 150-track collection released by Irdial Discs compiling recordings of broadcasts by so-called “number stations” — “used by the worlds intelligence agencies to transmit secret messages” — over 20 years. Fascinating, bizarre, sometimes hilarious, and utterly Yeah. Two different MP3 archives of this remarkable work are freely available online (thanks in part, and ironically, to a successful copyright infringement lawsuit against the band Wilco, which used some excerpts on their CD, Yankee Hotel Foxtrot):

7 thoughts on “Drinking From the Music Blog Firehose”

  1. Mugu, gracias for your kind compliment – but I doubt that anyone will pee while discovering good music, hop to the ceiling – OK! ;)
    The article about Rapidshare is a bit older, as you’ll notice – and it refers to rapidshare.de, and most bloggers nowadays use the .com-version — although!: Rapidshare is STILL the bigggggest company out there, and it’s a bit dangerous only using this – could be the same thing like the fine blogger (now awful google-blogger) — they get bigger and bigger, and BANG!, all of a sudden they’ll charge you… So mediafire and a bunch of other 1-click-file hosters are there to use, too – but beware: some, like Megaupload or Sendspace, don’t allows downloads in certain parts of the world (MUL can’t be used in Latin America or East Europe…).

    Thanks for your great blogroll – really worthwhile to read – and a good introduction… For your everyday fix of posts from the scene, try Totally Fuzzy! http://tofuhaus.antville.org/

    Cheers, Lucky
    ________________
    http://bordermusic.wordpress.com/

  2. Ah, the shortwave!! Many a night have I spent, building models in my office, listening to weird Greek disco and strange sounds from Albania that rival Steven Stapletons endeavors.Thanks for the tip on this weblog Bro!

  3. Hi Lucky — thanks kindly for stopping by, for your own compliments, and also for the fine Totally Fuzzy link. Much obliged.

    Re: my RapidShare comments and related link. I’d included that link intending it simply as a resource w/ info and linkage to alternatives to RapidShare. I’ve now clarified this in my post.

    Your note about some services blocking downloads from some countries is well made and well taken.

    My own snarliness about RapidShare — be it the .de or .com incarnation — is due to its end-user experience, in particular the practice of making you wait over an hour between downloads once one reaches a certain number of downloads. (The whole countdown trip is annoying, too, but I can deal with that.) Their goal, of course, being to force use end-users into paying them money. Okay sure, a fella’s gotta make a buck…but how they go about it ticks me off and, anyway, I’m strongly disinclined to pay for the privilege (especially when I’m feeling strong-armed). Just seems to me like there’s other less extortionary services bloggers could avail themselves of.

    Thanks again, Lucky

  4. Spencer, if you don’t have a static IP, you don’t have to wait at RS – simply disconnect and connect again, and you have another IP which RS don’t remember… I’ve never paid anything to file-hosters, and I also don’t had a premium-account on RS – and the .com version is still the fastest (as I experienced it), most people can use it (compared to Megaupload, Sendspace, Depositfiles and bunch others – I always get complaints from every corner in the world that they’re not allowed to use them, they’re slow or breaking in the middle of the dl, etc. etc. bla bla – you’ll know!).

    SO – if there is an alternative to rapidshare in speed, convenience (100mb minimum and up to 30 days after the last dl) + accessibility — name it, and i’ll use it!

    Lucky

  5. Hi again, Lucky — nice to have you back.

    Static IP is the whole rub for me, actually; both at home and at work. Alas…er, at least in this context.

    And as a professional web dev I totally hear you about heeding user complaints (and how you can’t please everyone :-) ). Naturally, blocking this or that country/continent is definitely a deal-breaker, no matter what else the service might offer. Fwiw, I’ve not (yet!) experienced Megaupload or Sendspace barfing in mid-download, but maybe I’ve just been lucky (or my connectivity is less wonky than for others) — there’s several possible vectors on that count. Re: d/l speed, I’ve never paid too much attention one way or the other, so I’ve no input there.

    And nope, aside from my limited view as an end-user I’ve no knowledge about the relative merits about other filesharing services. No, not very helpful, I admit. Sorry, man.

    But dude, I very much appreciate your actually making so much effort to discuss this with me (and whoever else reads this thing). Honestly, my intention was not to single out you (or any other music blogger I referred to) for abuse. Rather, my thinking was that if enough end-users complain about the shortcomings of RapidShare, maybe just maybe (ha!) they’ll find some way to improve the experience for us.

    My praise for the Border Music blog still stands. (And thanks for the Breuker!)

  6. Hi Spencer,

    First-time listener, first-time caller. Love the linkage and bloggy stuff. I’m writing about the X-Y-Z Cosmonaut’s blog above–would you believe that he took down all the old posts and left a simple “goodbye?” He now has CosmoBells, which is absolutely wonderful in its own right, but I’m trying to find the Radiophonic lovage above. Did you happen to book the rapidlinks? I can’t find any archive or mirror or rss detritus of the old blog, and this makes me somewhat sad. CosmoBells says “no requests,” so I thought I’d bother you first.

    Best wishes, etc.

    No Moog

  7. Hi No Moog –

    That’s a shame about X-Y-Z Cosmonaut. Sadder still, I’m afraid I do not have any of the actual share links. You could try Googling around for “Radiophonic” and/or the individual titles I listed…but I’m sure you’ve already tried that. If you do BitTorrent, you may find some joy there. (I don’t BT, so have no tips or refers.) Some of the stuff surfaces — however infrequently — at etailers and on the collector market. You might even try Amazon.co.uk and other UK etailers…but watch out for the dollar’s lousy exchange rate.

    Terribly sorry I’m no help — but good hunting to you.