Category Archives: MP3s

Just Some Stuff

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Ye olde WFMU Blog has recently posted two Concertos for Jew’s Harp (then known as the guimbarde) composed by Johann Georg Albrechstberger (who once taught some guy named Beethoven) apparently to please his patron, Austrian king Joseph II, who was evidently a fan of the instrument. It’s nice stuff, once one gets past the inevitable giggles from hearing “boing boing twaanggg” amidst the more familiar orchestral arrangements. And why the heck is that thing called a “Jew’s harp” anyway?

There’s also a recent pointer to a jaw-dropping Quicktime VR tour of “Steve’s Weird House,” a Victorian mansion somewhere in Seattle jammed stem to stern with, well, just about everything in the universe (especially if it’s odd). Methinks the man could make a fortune if he charged admission. Must be seen to be believed.

Time Migraine, er, Magazine is currently accepting online voting for their Person of the Year. Candidates include Hugo Chavez, Gee Duh-bya, Kim Jong Il and “the YouTube guys.” Hm.

The reprobate running Seattle’s own Wall of Sound record shoppe recently tipped me to a very fine live 1970 TV performance of “11 Mustachioed Daughters” by biG GRunt (via YouTube), a post-Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band whatsis fronted by Vivian Stanshall (whose very British piece of very surreal comedy, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End (1980), recently appeared on the shelves at Scarecrow Video). Anything featuring a leg-theremin solo and homebrew robot sidemen is worth some peeper time. Btw, the YouTube clip does look better if you use the handy shrinker-izer button. You can learn more about biG GRunt at the Ginger Geezer site (which does not constitute a rabbit). And speaking of Dog Doo-Dahs and biG GRunts, Neil Innes’ web site offers a very fat bowl of MP3 and streaming Real audio floaters, including 8 songs recorded live in Chicago in 2004 and mastered by none other than Pink Bob.

Meanwhile, Pixar has posted all of their short films online for your streaming pleasure.

Also, one Dan Lamoureux is entering post-production on his nerdcore documentary. Like a DQ Blizzard, baby.

But for some real learning, visit the Intergalactic Research – Space is the Place site/blog (or its earlier incarnation at Blogspot), in particular their collection of extremely rare Sun Ra interview and conversation audio. Much of the downloads are only via the thoroughly aggravating and grossly misnamed Rapidshare site, but there is a pointer to a 2 hour interview (in 3 parts, MP4) easily downloadable from the Slought Foundation site. While you’re getting schooled, you should poke around the lengthy discographies at Space is the Place, where you will find many links to choice MP3s…albeit at that dag blasted Rapidshare.

Okay, done now.

And On a Lighter Note…

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Have I mentioned lately that I truly love the WFMU Blog?

Not only have they recently posted an MP3 of a genuine recording of Marie Osmond (yes, that one) performing Hugo Ball’s Dada vocal work “Karawane”, an awesome song by some kids about alien abduction, and some truly excellent animated gifs, they have set a new bar on rarities.

Namely they’ve posted a complete MP3 set of the fabled and long-lost Faust album, Faust V (1975). As the Faust-pages web site explains, “The fabled Faust 5 (or Faust 5½) never saw an official release but exists only in the form of this promotional cassette. After recording material in Munic, the plan was originally for Jochen Irmler and Rudolf Sosna to produce an album from that material for release on Virgin,” which had released Faust IV (recently reissued with an extra CD of alternate takes).

But, as recounted on the WFMU page, while Faust were running up enormous bills at Giorgio Moroder’s studio, Virgin suddenly cut them loose. The essentially completed album vanished into the vaults, inexplicably appearing as the aforementioned promo cassette.

Some of the pieces on the cassette are clearly related to material that appears with much better fidelity on the various (excellent) Faust Tapes releases. But a lot of it is stuff I’ve never heard, and I’ve heard a lot of Faust.

But is that enough? No, not for the mighty WFMU Blog. They also post downloadable video of Faust jamming on stage and in the studio circa 1971 (3 minutes, 20MB mpg), cribbed from a WDR-TV German documentary (auf deutsche), highlights of which were shown in the A/V Lounge at the WFMU Record Fair.

I love you, WFMU Blog. (Sniff.)

Super-Rare Syd Barrett Demo

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Repetition be danged, Goddess bless the WFMU Blog. In commemoration of the recent death of Syd Barrett, they’ve posted an MP3 of “Lucy Lee” (aka “Lucy Lee in Blue Tights”). The song, having a very garage-psych sound, was written by Syd and recorded as a demo in late 1965 by the group that would later call themselves Pink Floyd.

The musicians included guitarist Bob Klose, whom I gather (not being that much of a Floyd-aholic) left the group before they christened themselves Pink Floyd. The recording was made available in 1996 in an unnamed Italian book.

Relive the Cassette Underground Revolution

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Long ago — before CDRs were affordable, before MP3s or even streaming audio, before every Mac came with GarageBand pre-installed and, hell, almost before Macs — there was the mighty analog cassette tape and the 4-track cassette recorder. During the 1980s these now-lowly and pathetic pieces of technology empowered countless freakazoid musicians to make a joyful (or woeful) (or uncategorizable) sound unlike ever before. Like the zine culture it paralleled during the same period, it was a democratizing form of creative samizdat that spawned an entire generation of new art and artists, a whole new form of distribution, and even new forms of music.

Homemade Alien Music is an ongoing series of 1-hour podcasts featuring music/racket/audio phenomena from the cassette underground during the ’80s and ’90s. Emphasis is on experimental, industrial, and electronic music.

The podcast is curated by Hal McGee, who was truly at the epicenter of the cassette/home-taper underground as a founder of the experimental/industrial label Cause and Effect and, later, editor of the legendary Electronic Cottage zine.

The whole thing is beautifully perfect: using the new medium of free Internet distribution of MP3s to remind us all of it’s analog, proto-sneaker-net roots.

Heavens!

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Fire up the broadband, Gertie, it’s 101 versions of “Stairway to Heaven,”  including one that’s a cut-up made from the first 50 versions listed in this post from the ever-lovin’ WFMU Blog.

There’s also a couple obligatory backwards versions, but the best has to be Jeroen Offerman’s spectacular video performance (available here as a 30 second clip, but the entire piece can be seen on the delightful Wholphin DVD that accompanies the 18th issue of McSweeney’s Quarterly Concern, where I first saw it).  Practicing for three months, he learned how to sing the song backwards.  The video shows him performing it in front of St. Paul’s Cathedral…but it’s mastered in reverse, so you hear him singing the song forwards as pedestrians traverse the scene backwards.  Lest you doubt, Offerman’s site also offers a 30 second clip of him performing the song live.

Rare Early Tangerine Dream

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I keep meaning to post this…

Good ol’ WFMU Blog recently posted a whole bunch of MP3s of early Tangerine Dream recordings that really are worth checking out. I’ve always associated Tangerine Dream with their ultra-pasteurized early-’80s soundtracky stuff (yawn), so I was very pleasantly shocked to discover how experimental and often even plain abstract their earlier stuff sounds. I was then pleasantly surprised some more to learn they’d been at it since the late ’60s! I knew they’d been early but, man, seriously cutting edge — at that time there was very little electronic music of any kind occurring outside of academe. (And no, the neo-theremin on “Good Vibrations” does not count.)

The MP3s include a rip of their very first single, some other released rarities, and some choice selections of early live bootlegs. Grab ‘em all, et bon appetit, mes amis.

The Last Testament of Bill Hicks

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If you don’t know about comedian Bill Hicks, then get out of my face and skip to the download below…then run to your local record store and scoop up a big fat handful of CDs — any and all of them will do. Homey was a latter day Lenny Bruce, pure and simple. (Also very highly recommended — if you can find it (hint: Scarecrow) — is the Ninja Bachelor Party video. Warning: Do not drink milk while watching.)

As even the most poseur of Hicks cognoscenti know, on October 1, 1993, Hicks made his 12th appearance on Late Night with Dave Letterman. His set was so, well, Hicksian that for the first (and I believe last) time, a comic’s set was censored and never aired. Ultimately, the master tape was even destroyed (what did he do, fuck a pig??).

What no one knew was that Hicks had terminal cancer. He died four months later.

Following the censored Letterman appearance, Hicks did three gigs — his last and, by all accounts, his most Hicksian. Until now, it was believed none of these shows were recorded.

Well, turns out someone bootlegged the second show. It’s an audience room recording (albeit by an audio engineer), but it’s basically the Last Testament of Bill Hicks.

An MP3 of the entire set from October 5, 1993 can be downloaded here (updated link – MP3, 72mb). Get it right now before it vanishes.

Mad props to frequency23.org for making this available to the world.

Dick is a Killer

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Life imitating art…or merely artists with prescience?

The political mashup artist known as rx has had a great MP3 called “Dick is a Killer” (MP3, 3.6mb) available for download for nigh on a year now. (Check out rx’s other stuff, especially the George W. Bush renditions of “Imagine” and “Sunday Bloody Sunday”.) As I write this, the news is percolating that the condition of 78-year-old Harry Whittington (Dick’s latest victim) is worsening, suffering what amounts to a series of “mild heart attacks” due to one of the pellets that hit him moving into contact with his heart. I certainly wish Mr. Whittington a full and speedy recovery, but in case not you may want to order a Dick is a Killer t-shirt from rx’s Cafe Press shop before there’s a run on them.

Meanwhile, last March the Grouchy Old Cripple blog posted this fine piece of agit-sarcasto-prop:

Ten Ways Dick Can Kill You (click for original)

The Beastles – Beatles/Beastie Boys Mashups

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Visited BoingBoing for the first time in awhile, and came across The Beastles — mashups by Boston-based DJ BC featuring The Beatles vs. The Beastie Boys. (Fwiw, the BoingBoing post also purports to link to their own local copies, except all I got were 2k files for some reason. Caveat surfer.)

The home site offers the “album” Let It Beast for download right there or as a torrent file. There’s another “album”, The Beastles (duded up like the white album but culling from various Beatle periods), but it’s only available as a torrent…something of a problem for me since I’ve only got dial-up at home and the work poobahs frown on suches (understandably).