WHEN YOU'RE IN LOVE, THE WHOLE WORLD IS JEWISH

Another exhibit of weird old album covers? I like this trend. Last year here in Los Angeles we saw the bad religious album covers exhibit, this year, running thru Sept. 5, it's the wacky world of Jewish novelty records of the '50s and '60s. And not in some tiny hipster gallery either, but in the august halls of the Skirball Cultural Center.

Jews On Vinyl "...was developed in association with the publication And You Shall Know Us By the Trail of Our Vinyl: The Jewish Musical Past As Told By the Records We Have Loved and Lost (Crown, 2008), a project of the non-profit Idlesohn Society for Musical Preservation, which reissues select classic recordings and has created a digital online home for Jewish musical memory in an attempt to restore missing legacies to our contemporary view of Jewish America." These are the folks who put out the infamous "Jewface" collection we wrote about, and whose blog offers much music listening/video viewing satisfaction.

These kinds of records are ubiquitous in American thrift-stores and used record shop bargain bins, and I buy 'em occasionally. But this exhibit puts them in a sociological context I hadn't considered before - as silly as these records can be, they are nonetheless important for documenting the transition of American Jews from isolated tenement-dwelling immigrants to mainstream Americans, from Yiddish theater to (mostly) English-language satire engaging the popular culture. Such as:

Micky Katz "The Most Mishige"

Like a Jewish Spike Jones, Katz made kosher mincemeat of popular songs of the day thru his zany upbeat parodies, laced with lots of Yiddish words I don't know. His still-teenaged son, future Broadway star Joel Grey sings the track "Holidays."

THE BARBER OF SCHLEMIEL (Mickey Katz)	RECORDED: July 25/58
THE POIPLE KISHKE EATER (Sheb Wooley)	July 25/58
YIDDISHE MAMBO(Sid Kuller-Mel Diamond)	Nov.16/54
DOWNTOWN STRUTTERS' BALL (Shelton Brooks)	Jan.9/52
HOLIDAYS (Mickey Katz)	Aug.13/51
NUDNICK THE FLYING SCHISSEL (Mickey Katz-Irving Fields)	Nov.4/57
KNISH DOCTOR(Ross Bagdassarian)	July 25/58
k'NOCK AROUND THE CLOCK(Jimmy De Knight-Max C. Freedman)	Aug.23/55 (2:03)
WHERE IS MY PANTS? (Georges Auric-William Engvick)	Aug.6/53
CHINATOWN, MY CHINATOWN (Jean Schwartz-William Jerome)	May 12/50
CHEDER DAYS(Gus Edwards-Will D.Cobb)	July 2/51
IT'S A MICHAYE IN HAWAIYE(Mickey Katz)	July 25/58

HEY! IT'S A CHRISTIAN CHILDREN'S BEACH PARTY!

Ummmmm...

"Beach Party"
"Beach Be-Attitudes"
"Surfin' Through The Scriptures"
"In The Son"
"Shazaam!"

Words fail me this time.

But the fact that these songs are from an album called "Beach Party: Surfin' Through The Scriptures" should tell you all you need to know. It's fun in the Son!

TUNES-FOR-FREE JAMBOREE #5: GEOFF LEIGH

Here's a veritable King Tut's tomb of post-punk/avant/weirdo rock from the ever-fertile late-70s/early '80s punk days of England. Geoff Leigh was a founding member of prog legends Henry Cow, who offered a distinctly different take on art-rock then, say, Emerson Lake & Palmer, namely avant-jazz/20th century classical influences. And those influences splatter all over these tracks, some of which are otherwise not too far removed from contemporaneous fellow Brits like Gang of Four or Magazine. A Pere Ubu-ish free-form explosiveness further conspired to keep these records off "Top of the Pops."

Apart from solo releases, we also get tracks from his other bands Black Sheep (now X Black Sheep), Red Balune, Kontakt Mikrofoon Orkest - none of whom I'd heard of before, and I thought I knew my New Wave. Start with the irresistible synth-punking "Animal Sounds," then check both sides of the "Do The Residue"/"Living in Rotterdam" single. "Buy mccb", a commercial for their label, is catchy twisted funk. Advanced students may then want to move on to "Spider In Love," a delirious burst of spazz-jazz, with Geoff humorously singing "I'm Spiderman in love!"

A generous 22 tracks in all, yet the quality level rarely dips. And it's all free. Ahhh, life is good...

Geoff Leigh "Things From The Past"

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TUNES-FOR-FREE JAMBOREE #4: GRANT MOROS

"Originally recorded in 1973, this vinyl rarity is best described as an electronic ceremonial soundtrack. After being discovered in a hidden compartment beneath a closet floor, Fonetap Music has obtained the rights and reissued it in all its dusty glory."

That's their story and they're sticking to it. In any case, Grant Moros' all-instro all-electro "Mysteries" certainly sounds like it could have been recorded in the early '70s, and the whole occult ritual aspect of it recalls Moog-master Mort Garson's excursions into that realm.

Lots of nice stuff here: the song "Neophyte's Illumination" hints at a more low-key "Popcorn," and "Ritual of the Serpent" makes great use of primitive drum machines. "Death Be The Penalty" is as intense and scary as it's title, but it's immediately followed by the genuinly lovely "Rosslyn's Crypt." You can download the whole thing here:

Grant Moros "Mysteries"

but buy it here in various formats, including the fancy-shmancy FLAC. Rumor has it that there's a vinyl version availble, which would worth picking up for that cool artwork alone.

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TUNES-FOR-FREE JAMBOREE #3: YOU ARE NOT STEALING RECORDS

Some of my favorite albums of late have been internet give-aways, the perfect music-distribution route for weirdos who don't make the kind of trendy cookie-cutter sounds the labels are looking for. Such as:

YOU ARE NOT STEALING RECORDS

Were it not for the 'net, how else would I know about the strange/outsider music underground of Portugal? There is abundance of goodies here, and from what I've heard so far, none of it sucks, and everything's been at least worthwhile, and at best wonderful.

Stealing Orchestra is the band that started this 'net label. "We are using: sampling, guitars, accordeon, drums, flute, oboé, marimba vibraphone xylophone, cello percussion, piano, theremin and a lot of keyboards like church organ or hammond." Start with:

- "For Me 'Formidable," from their "É Português? Não Gosto!" album, in which traditional Portuguese polkas and waltzes are transformed into a spazz-tronic circus.

- From their "Bu!" album, "É Contra Mim Que Luto ," and "Catarse" especially when the exotica sample comes in @ 1:oo.

- G.G. Allin's Dick, also Portuguese, play a cartoonishly crazed polka-tempo electronica on their "King of the Road" album; might be my fave YANSR release so far; "Monocycle From Hell" is a tune that has wormed it's way into my head, popping out at odd times.

- Slipper are a British band featuring ex-Loop Guru members that draws inspiration from '50/'60s exotica, but filtered thru a modern sensibility. Check "Nuke Bug," in which a thick dub bass line is crawling with insect sounds; kinda like those tropical bird call-festooned Martin Denny records, but more creepy. "Lobsters" features a Peter Gunn-ish guitar riff, Miles-esque horns, and weird nightmarish noises.

- The Prostitutes play '60s-style garage rock and surf instros with maximum fuzz and energy; compared to the eccentric eclecticism of other YANSR acts, there's nothing too original here, but these Portuguese punks are plenty fun.

- Duo Inmortales play Residential one-minute-long songs with text-to-speech robots on vocals. Pick hit: "My First Nazi Girl."

- Vincent Bergeron's first two tracks annoyed me with it's modern-classical atonalities and Bergeron's nerdy voice singing in French. Then, either I got used to it, or the classical-chamber-group-chopped-up-in-a-sampler sounds sunk in, and I found songs like "L'Art du Déssaroi" to be pretty damn cool.

- Luis Antero's 17-minute long "Sinfonia Amphibia" consists of nothing but field recordings of some very loud uncredited Portuguese critters, presumably amphibians. I like to play this at the same time as other musics, such as the minor-key shoegazey sounds of worriedaboutsatan.

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AUTHENTIC MUSIC FROM ANOTHER PLANET...

...has been re-upped, by request. Fly your saucer over to HERE.

BOSTON SUCKS! BOSTON SUCKS!

No offense to my Boss-Town peeps, it's just a basketball thing. Us fans of the Los Angeles Lakers love it when our team wins the NBA Finals, but when they beat Boston to get there, oooh, it's just that much better. Bwahahahaaa!

So let's celebrate the Laker's latest championship title the way we celebrate everything around here at M4M: with some really weird, bad music.

Ron Artest: "Michael Michael" - Artest played a great Game 7; made a jaw-droppingly awful Michael Jackson tribute song; not at the same time. He actually thanked his psychiatrist after the game last night. Um hmm...

NBA "Where Clutch Happens" - I recorded the audio for this commercial off the video; features the sampled voice of the Finals MVP Kobe Bryant auto-tuned to nice effect; it's actually a pretty catchy little tune.

There's a million rap songs celebrating Bryant and the current Lakers team by everyone from Ice Cube and Snoop Dogg down to the most rank amatuer rapper. But the Laker tribute song tradition began in the '80s during the reign of Earvin "Magic" Johnson and the "Showtime" Laker team, producing records that ran from cheezy/goofy:

Onaje Murray "Hoop Troop (Lakers)" - from his otherwise serious funky jazz album, "I Hear A Samba"

to the spectacularly tasteless and hilarious:

Niki Rios: "Thank You Magic" - A 9-year-old girl attempts to tug at our heartstrings with this epic ballad; If Magic Johnson wasn't already HIV-positive, this would have really sickened him.

The "Curl Activate: '80s Novelty 12" Singles" collection I posted a couple years ago featured some other home-brew basketball/Lakers records, including a good one sampling the late great announcer Chick Hearn, the voice of the Lakers. After Chickie died, this solo acoustic folk atrocity was released in tribute:

Swamp Donkey "Golden Throat" - Reminiscent of Neil Innes' Bob Dylan parody, but of course, I don't think this one is supposed to be funny.


(Thanks to ma home-slice IVOR for heppin' me to the "Thank You Magic" magic.)
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