Ahh...Outsider Music...

The George King/Joe Corney Space-Age Organ Sounds are back on-line.

The first thing many Americans think when they hear the phrase "folk music" is still the Joan Baez/Dylan types listlessly strumming acoustic guitars and singing protest songs in coffeehouses, none of which has much to do with actual American folk traditions. The excellent new compilation Turn Me Loose: Outsiders of Old-Time Music
features not only the weird 'n' wild obscurities you maniacs crave, but it also serves as a nice corrective to the '50s/'60s folk revival's rewriting of history. For one thing, acoustic guitars were not too common (almost no songs on this album feature them), banjos were originally a black instrument (derived from African instruments), silly humor was much more common then protest politics (e.g.: the wacked-out duo Mustard and Gravy), and plenty of "non-folk" instruments like the piano really were used in folk music, Charlie Tweedy's berserk stylings on the ivories being one of this albums' many highlights (which reminds me of Tom Lehrer's crack introducing his song "The Folk Song Army": since the piano isn't considered a folk instrument "imagine I'm playing an 88-string guitar.") Ernest Rodgers' Greek lesson "Mythological Blues" punctures holes in the notion that these were all dumb, uneducated hicks.

Most of these recordings, taken from old '78s, are by fairly professional if necessarily rough 'n' raw performers, but at least one character here, Willard Hodgin, is just flat-out nuts. To quote from compiler Frank Fairfield's extensive liner notes: "He recorded 18 sides (1927-1928) for various labels, which is quite an outstanding feat considering how unusual a performer he was. The combination of the occasional verse speckled in with his own unusual yet charming stanzas and his delirious haphazard banjo strumming make him one of the most unique performers to ever record." 18 songs?  Someone put out a complete Willard Hodgin album! (Clicky on song titles to take you to Divshare-land:)

Willard Hodgin: "Don't Get One Woman on Your Mind" Now with bonus offensive racist lyrics! 
But don't musical saws make everything better? Dig this barn dance earworm:
South Georgia Highballers: "Mister Johnson Turn Me Aloose"

Another great new comp recently purchased at my local record emporiums is "Enjoy The Experience: Homemade Records 1958-1992," a two-disc set plus 44 page booklet, all for only $15. Explore the wonderful world of private-press records! I was amused to see that the booklet featured reproductions of the covers of a couple albums I own, namely Mike Hudson and Wayne & Marin Foster. No tracks from them featured on this, but I included them on my own collection "I'll Take Las Vegas." This album goes way beyond Vegas-y lounge performers, tho, ranging from the already sorta-well known punk jazz of Gary Wilson and the middle-aged former Big Band singer-turned-hippie Arcesia, to such unknowns as the hip Christian behind this absurdly catchy upbeat bit of apocalyptic pop:

Ray Torsky: "666"

The booklet includes interviews with some of the performers the compilers were actually able to track down. The heartbreaking tale of Joe E.'s swindle at the hands of a fly-by-night record label is particularly memorable. Unfortunately nothing is known about one Vinny Roma, but he recorded what could be this blog's theme song.  Hell, it could be my (or your) life's theme song:

Vinny Roma: "Ahh...Music"

And if that's still not enough outsider music for you, Colchester, England's premier mental patient/transvestite/stoner/coprophiliac singer-songwriter has a new album out called
"Hippie Heaven" 
for your free downloading pleasure. It's like a 12" single more than an album, with the same songs appearing in slightly different forms throughout. Highlights inc the biting "Parasite Pest," and "Rock 'n' Roll Brothel" ("Why won't any of the girls have sex with me? It's quite frustrating...I could get a complex!") The backing track of "Lady Dub #1" could be by Martin Rev. And paging Yoko Ono! The final track is a 20 min field recording of wind.



   

Halloween Stomp: A Haunted House Party

UPDATE 11/12/13: Back on-line 

Hey, all you hep cats 'n' flipped chicks, here's a vout-o-rooney volume of vintage jazz, blues, and music hall spooky songs that I meant to post earlier, 'til the death of Lou Reed done threw me for a loop. This 1990 album was released by the real gone studs at Jass Records, who had a great, all-too-brief run in the late '80s/early '90s compiling wonderful novelty oddities from the 78 rpm era: dirty blues, reefer-smoking songs, etc. "Viper Mad Blues: 16 Songs of Dope and Depravity" was a particular fave of mine.

This one includes: swingin' numbers by a pre-crooning Nat Cole, a pre-lounge Louis Prima, a pre-corny sitcom Ozzie Nelson, and bad-ass big band stompers from the legendary likes of Cab Calloway, Peggy Lee, Glenn Miller, and the Dorsey Brothers. But despite all the dancing skeletons and boogieing boogie-men, Rudy Vallee's bad Cockney accent is the most frightening thing here.

Halloween Stomp: Haunted House Party



















1

















1) The Haunted House - Ray Noble & His Orchestra
2) Shivery Stomp - Frankie Trumbauer & His Orchestra
3) Mysterious Mose - The Radio All Star Novelty Orchestra - Dick Robertson
4) The Boogie Man Is Here - Tom Geron & His Orchestra
5) Haunting Blues - Red Nichols & His Five Pennies
6) Bug-A-Boo - Red Nichols & His Five Pennies
7) Got The Jitters - Don Redman & His Orchestra
8) The Boogie Man/I'm A Ghost - Todd Rollins & His Orchestra - Chick Bullock
9) The House Is Haunted (By The Echo Of Your Last Goodbye) - Glen Gray & The Casa Loma Orchestra - Kenny Sargent
10) Zombie - Gene Kardos & His Orchestra
11) Mr. Ghost Goes To Town - Louis Prima & His New Orleans Gang
12) Skeleton In The Closet - Nat Gonella & His Georgians
13) The Goblin Band - Glen Gray & The Casa Loma Orchestra
14) Hell's Bells - The New Yorkers (Sid Peltyn & His Orchestra) - Dick Robertson
15) With Her Head Tucked Under Her Arm - Rudy Vallee & His Connecticut Yankees
16) The Black Cat - Ozzie Nelson & His Orchestra
17) Strange Enchantment - Skinnay Ennis & His Orchestra
18) The Ghost Of Smokey Joe - Cab Calloway & His Orchestra
19) Ol' Man Mose Ain't Dead - Nat King Cole Trio
20) Swingin' At The Seance - Glenn Miller & His Orchestra - Dorothy Claire
21) Horror Fantasia For Spooks And Wild Indians - Charlie Barnet & His Orchestra
22) Fanfare/Cherokee (Theme) - Charlie Barnet & His Orchestra - Peggy Lee
23) Old Man Mose Is Dead - Charlie Barnet & His Orchestra
24) Pompton Turnpike - Charlie Barnet & His Orchestra
25) Haunted Heart - Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra - Johnny Amoroso
26) The Headless Horseman - Kay Starr & Billy Butterfield Quintet
27) Dry Bones (Head Bone Connected To The Neck Bone) - Tommy Dorsey & His Orchestra

BeerBottle Percussion, NewWave Music-Boxes, Avant-Catholic Masses

Last year's assortment of experimental/alt-classical/unclassifiably weird new releases received a succinct two-word comment from reader Outa-Spaceman: "Astonishing stuff!" Like last year's roundup, these are new(ish) commercial releases that are well worth your hard-earned dollars/francs/pounds/heads-of-cattle/etc., with album moods ranging from Carton Sonore's charming toy-pop and the krazy kovers of Hanna Peel and Misfit Toys, to chin-stroking Afro-tronica and new avant-chamber music; from modern-day high holy masses to Neon Lushell's creepy "No Religion" - we're covering a lot of territory. And when was the last time you heard music performed entirely on beer bottles? Prepare to be astonished!

Astonishing Stuff!

1. Paddy Steer - "A. Welson Senior II": reader Phil C. hepped me to this Mancunian cat with this description: "He's a crazy one man moog/ glockenspiel/drumkit band with a penchant for paper maché robot/creature heads. I saw him at a tiny little festival a couple of years ago (he was on after the band I was with) and it was the best and strangest thing I've ever seen. For the whole of his set I felt like I was having an acid flashback." One of the best albums I've heard in recent years.  Was very hard to pick representative tracks, they're all doubleplus good. Watch the vids on his label site!
2. Misfit Toys - "Alone Again Naturally": from the ridiculously entertaining debut album "Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is," a mad collection of '70s covers performed on banjo, bowed banjo (?!), marimba, oboe and clarinet, among others, radically reinventing Stevie Wonder, Chicago (as you may have guessed by the album title), Tony Orlando and Dawn, Black Sabbath, Talking Heads, the Gilbert O'Sullivan song featured here, and more. Transcends novelty, but still a must for any Maniacs' party.
3. Neon Lushell - "Black Confetti": I really liked these Midwesterners debut "Modern Purveyors of Filth and Degradation" and their new one (to be released Oct 8) is just as good - two-discs bulging with experimental ambient evil, as dark as goth or metal but without those genres' kitschy cliches.
4. Mammane Sani et son Orgue - "Bodo": hypnotic '70s Space-Age organ instrumentals from Niger, Africa; who knew such things existed?
5. Gunnelpumpers - "Bottley Functions": The six musicians of this Chicago-based avant/improv group perform here only on beer bottles. From their new one,"Montana Fix."
6. Gunnelpumpers - "Buffalo Jump": groovy percussion with three double-basses; that's like, what, 6 basses total? (boom-tish!)
7. Hannah Peel - "Electricity" - Peel's splendid 4 song EP "Rebox" performs '80s hits by Soft Cell, New Order, Cocteau Twins, and the song featured here, OMD, on sampled antique music box. May be corny as hell, but I love it.
8. Phil Kline - "John the Revelator - Sanctus": We reviewed this NYC composer's Christmas music for massed boom-boxes previously, and reader James C. recommended the Catholic inspired "John The Revelator;" the eclectic music sometimes doesn't immediately suggest a mass, tho it does get a bit Gregorian at times; quite lovely. 
9. Kurosounds - "Manège d'éléphants": Fantastic hypnogogic ambient soundscapes; looped delayed instruments echo rhythmically as dreamy sound effects drift in and out; owes as much to psychedelic dub as it does to  Minimalism. 
10. Bruce Cropley - "March Into April": This Aussie's excellent album "Modal Podal" is almost all instrumental, exploring a wide variety of styles that aren't necessarily all that weird; which makes it all the more unique - he's not afraid of risking his avant credentials by throwing some perfectly pleasant jazz fusion-type stuff in with the almost Zappa-like quirkiness; makes one realize how even "strange" "experimental" music can be predictably formulaic.
11. Bruce Cropley - "Modal Podal": Copley's is also the man behind the super-swell "Quirky Music" on-line radio station
12. Juan Blanco - "Musica para Danza": Was I surprised to find this album in my PO box - "Nuestra Tiempo" is a retrospective of Cuba's electronic music pioneer, Juan Blanco. Cuban electronica? As in, with those infectious Latin rhythms? Yes, on one almost 14 minute -long track. The rest of the album doesn't offer much mamboing, just tasty analog bloopiness, like this track from 1961, the very first piece of electronic music ever recorded in Cuba, available for the first time.
13. Tino Contreras - "Santo": Perhaps not as historically startling as the Blanco album, but "El Jazz Mexicano de Tino Contreras" is another worthy reexamination of an overlooked Latin American artist from decades past; this one unexpectedly veers from psych Afro-Latinisms to exotic international styles, to such oddities as numerous tracks from his groovy '60s a-Go-Go Catholic mass, like the track featured here that mashes up Latin (in the original sense of the word) chanting with Brubeck-esque cool jazz and sleazy electric organ. Que pasa?!
14. Paddy Steer - "Stun phlogiston"
15. Carton Sonore - "The Mexican Roads": The latest from France's adorable "naive music" toy-pop maestro.

SILLY 78s pt3

At long last! Count Otto Black's continued spelunking into the dark, forgotten caverns of music history has resulted in another overdue (my fault, not his) collection of funny, strange, suggestive, and/or offensive audio oddities from the first half of recorded history. The Count speaketh:

"Firstly, some bizarre examples of political incorrectness from days gone by (these are nowhere near the worst). "We're Gonna Have To Slap The Dirty Little Jap" is symptomatic of a more innocent age, when we apparently thought that wars could be won by giving the enemy a jolly good spanking. There were plenty of post-WWII jingoistic propaganda records, but after Hitler, it was generally agreed that the ideal way to cope with evil dictators involves death rather than spanking.

Moving swiftly on, I give you Helen Kane, a young lady who in 1932 attempted legal action on the grounds that, since for several years prior to the cartoon she'd been singing like Betty Boop, saying "Boop-boop-be-doop!" on a regular basis, and even looked like Betty Boop, obviously she was Betty Boop, so she deserved a slice of the vast profits that mega-successful character was generating. She lost when the prosecution demonstrated that she had herself pinched her entire act from an even earlier very obscure black performer called Baby Esther, and as for alleged resemblance, Betty could equally well be said to look like the much more famous Clara Bow. This didn't stop Helen Kane from spending the rest of her career implying as heavily as she could without using the actual name that she was Betty Boop, and cutting a great many records on that basis. I include one to demonstrate what I mean.

However, she had nothing to do with the cartoon - almost all of the classic 1930s films were voiced by Mae Questal, who lived to be over 90, and was still doing the Betty Boop voice whenever it was needed right up until the end - amazingly, that's her in Who Framed Roger Rabbit. To provide a useful "Battle of the Boops" comparison, I've attached an incredibly strange record by her, which seems to be about a rag-doll who dies of cancer. Who thought this was a good idea? And if it somehow is, why aren't there any Skooby Doo AIDs records?

Continuing the theme of cartoon characters singing about death, there is, however, an Elmer Fudd road safety record! Though once again, the vocalist "Waymond Wadcwiff" is not the real voice from the cartoons (according to Wikipedia, the only famous Raymond Radcliff was a basketball player, but I think this must be a different one), so the name "Elmer Fudd" is not used - it's all rather confusing, really. Presumably that's why "wabbits" are never mentioned, and a goose is run over instead.

You may be familiar with "I've Gone And Lost My Little Yo-Yo", though this is a lesser-known version by Leslie Holmes (50% of the Two Leslies). At one point every version was banned by the BBC for being far too filthy! Then Ruth Wallis came along a few years later and obsessively carried on with the rude yo-yo theme in a way that makes Chuck Berry's notorious "ding-a-ling" sound quite innocent. So here's a trilogy of increasingly filthy yo-yo songs - how specific can a genre get?

Continuing with the mild innuendoes that seemed terribly daring at the time, the Pearl Boys discuss female absentmindedness in large hotels, and the Milt Herth Trio protests about how carelessly policemen handle fruit. But the reflections of the Deep River Boys concerning the culinary shortcomings of underage poultry are by today's standards downright creepy... I think I'd better take the curse off it with another merry and totally innocent Hadacol song completely different from the previous one - clearly the stuff was popular!

 

Just for jolly, I've added an utterly incomprehensible song about the Stellenbosch Boys, and how they coped with Germany's terrible baboon problem (or something), and of course "Take Out Your False Teeth, Daddy" - surely a neglected classic?

I also include both sides of a record which proves that Gefilte Joe and the Fish, one of the numerous one-note "comedy" acts of very dubious merit promulgated by Rhino Records, did not invent the concept of parodying popular songs in an excessively Jewish manner for comic effect. Mickey Katz & His Kosher-Jammers were doing it decades previously! They weren’t Spike Jones and his City Slickers, though Mickey Katz did play with Spike’s band for a year. He was quite prolific, and cut numerous tracks that were controversial even among other Jews, some of whom felt that in the wake of WWII, this kind of cartoonishly exaggerated Jewishness was doing them no favors. Anyway, I attach what seems to have been his greatest hit, “Yiddish Square Dance”. It’s a very lively number which may well have hilarious lyrics, though if you don’t speak Yiddish it’s hard to tell.

Wendell Hall retains his dignity and wants to know “Who Said I Was a Bum?” Meanwhile the Pearl Five’s “Golfin’ Papa” somehow manages to make golf sound naughty - and now I think about it, “niblick” does sound as though it ought to be smutty. And we can't not have another one from at least half of the Two Leslies (Leslie Holmes is the tall one with the glasses).

Moving swiftly on to Frank Marvin’s “Yodellin’ Rambling Cowboy”. The odd thing about yodeling records is that, although it’s absolutely impossible to sing about anything the slightest bit serious if you’re going to yodel in the middle, some people insisted on trying. This is the surprisingly merry tale of a misogynist psychopath who married a nymphomaniac and ended up committing murder and going to prison for life. Yodel-ay-he-hoo! And now it's time for the scratchy old Count to go back in his box..."

I once again offer my thanks to Count Otto Black (and so should you!)

SILLY 78s pt3

1. Todd Rollins Orchestra & Chick Bullock "The Boogie Man"
2. Nellie Lutcher "Chest X-Ray Song"
3. Denver Darling "The Devil And Mister Hitler"
4. Pearl Five "Golfin' Papa"
5. Bill Nettles "Hadacol Bounce"
6. Mickey Katz & His Kosher-Jammers "Haim Afen Range"
7. Helen Kane "He's So Unusual"
8. Mae Questal "I've Got a Pain In My Sawdust"
9. Leslie Holmes "I've Gone And Lost My Little Yo-Yo"
10. Ruth Wallis "Johnny Had a Yo-Yo"
11. Ruth Wallis "The New Yo-Yo Song"
12. Oscar Quam "Oscar Quam Calling Ducks"
13. Milt Herth Trio "Please No Squeeza Da Banana"
14. Pearl Trio "She Had To Lose It At The Astor"
15. Waymond Wadcwiff "The Silly Goose"
16. Leslie Holmes "The Squire's Wedding Day"
17. Josef Marais "Stellenbosch Boys"
18. Margie Day "Take Out Your False Teeth Daddy"
19. Monroe Silver "That's Yiddisha Love"
20. Deep River Boys "That Chick's Too Young To Fry"
21. Al "Jazzbo" Collins "Three Little Pigs"
22. Carlson Robison "We're Gonna Have To Slap The Dirty Little Jap"
23. Wendall Hall "Who Said I Was a Bum?"
24. Mickey Katz & His Kosher-Jammers "Yiddish Square Dance"
25. Frank Marvin "Yodellin' Rambling Cowboy"

CHRISTMAS IN JULY - SILLY 78S EDITION

Count Otto Black has been sending us an amazing smorgasbord of shellac lately, including these three seasonal numbers, just in time for these hot, humid months.  The Count sez: "here's a 78 which has to be the WORST seasonal release ever! It's a sermon rather than an actual song, which is a pity, because a song with a title like "Death May Be Your Christmas Gift" would undoubtedly have been covered by the Smiths, and/or possibly Joy Division. In fact, it's so depressing that I'd better add another Xmas 78 which is a little bit more seasonal...another of Spike Milligan's Goon Show spin-off 78s, "I'm Walking Backwards For Christmas". Spike, incidentally, is playing a regular minor Goon Show character called Webster Smogpule, and his pianist (Peter Sellers) is credited as "Reuben Croucher". Merry Christmas, everybody!

SILLY 78S - CHRISTMAS

1. Unknown Creepy Preacher - Death May Be Your Christmas Gift
2. Gayla Peevey - I Want A Hippopotamus For Christmas
3. The Goons - I'm Walking Backwards For Christmas


(UPDATE 7/18: I think the preacher is Rev. A.W. Nix. )

Silly 78s pt2

Count Otto Black returns!  With a further batch of awesome audio oddities and atrocities from the first half of recorded history. Perhaps even more spectacular than part one. The Count sez:

Firstly, for no reason at all, Oscar Quam the professional bird impersonator demonstrates in all seriousness that he can convincingly call crows. Why would anyone go to a lot of trouble to learn how to attract crows? Are the edible? Anyway, Oscar Quam could do it. Perhaps he was a sort of anti-scarecrow who made a living standing a long way away from the crops decoying crows? Who knows!

And now for something completely different. I haven’t the slightest idea who Mister Goon-Bones was, except that he plays a mean set of spoons! And it’s not often that you encounter a band consisting of spoons, piano, banjo and organ.

Moving swiftly on, Irving Aaronson and his Commanders go very convincingly insane over “Wimmin Aaah!”,  and Kenny Roberts telling us how "She Taught Me To Yodel" because - well, just listen to him! - why was a vocal style this bizarre every popular, however briefly???

Ever onwards and upwards - here's a very ancient recording from the Van Eps Banjo Orchestra, who give us "My Hindoo Man" - obviously nothing evokes the Mystic East like massed banjos and loud mysterious scraping noises. And we can't not have another one from at least half of the Two Leslies (Leslie Holmes is the tall one with the glasses).

Moving swiftly on, the Milt Herth Trio inform us for no particular reason that "The Monkeys Have No Tails In Pago Pago", and in a throwback to a much more innocent age, George Beaver solemnly explains that he likes to ride a camel because it goes bumpity-bumpity-bump.

"The Laughing Policeman" is sung by, of all people, Paul Robeson! (Given his commitment to fighting for the rights of black Americans, I can't help feeling that there may be a certain amount of intentional irony involved...)

The original version of a record which I presume must once have been a big hit, since it was parodied by Spike Jones as "Hawaiian War Chant". I don't speak Hawaiian, but it sounds to me as though it wasn't terribly serious to begin with, and may not be in any language at all. [Indeed, every other Hawaiian and exotica record of the '50s had a version of 'Hawaiian War Chant' - MrF]

 

And another one from the Two Leslies. This was a big hit for them, and spawned a catch-phrase that was still around as late as the 1980s, when on the occasion of the sinking of the General Belgrano during the Falklands War, British tabloid The Sun printed the magnificent headline "Umpa, Umpa, Stick It Up Your Junta!"

"You Gotta Go Owww!" was the first and most obscure of the singles released as Goon Show spin-offs, and was sung by Spike Milligan.

And of course the song with possibly the best title ever: "Who put the benzedrine in Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine?"

Silly 78s pt2

1. Leslie Sarony - Ain't It Grand To Be Blooming Well Dead (Side B)
2. Rex Stewart - B.O. Blues
3. Nora Bayes - Cheer Up, Eat, & Grow Thin
4. Mr. Goon-Bones - Crazy Bone Rag
5. Basin Street Six - Everybody Loves That Hadacol (Side Two)
6. G. H. Elliott (The Original Chocolate-Coloured Coon) - The Ghost Of The Yodelling Coon
7. Helen Kane - Hug Me, Kiss Me, Love Me
8. Mr. Goon-Bones - I'm Forever Blowing Bubbles
9. George Beaver - I Love to Ride a Camel
10. Paul Robesonn - The Laughing Policeman
11. Harry Champion - Little Bit Of Cucumber
12. Al "Jazzbo" Collins - Little Red Riding Hood
13. Milt Herth Trio - The Monkeys Have No Tails In Pago Pago
14. Van Eps Banjo Orchestra - My Hindoo Man
15. Ozie Waters - Old Man Atom
16. Oscar Quam - Oscar Quam Calling Crows
17. Three Earbenders - The Parade Of The Little White Mice
18. Kenny Roberts & The Pinetoppers - She Taught Me How To Yodel
19. Andy Iona & His Islanders - Ta Hu Wa Hu Wa I
20. Helen Kane - To Have You
21. Two Leslies - Umpa, Umpa (Stick It Up Your Jumper)
22. Bertha Willmott - Up Aroun' The Ole North Pole
23. Harry "The Hipster" Gibson - Who Put The Benzedrine In Mrs. Murphy's Ovaltine?
24. Irving Aaronson and His Commanders - Wimmin Aaah!
25. Count Jim Moriarty - You Gotta Go Owww!

Part 3 coming soon.
Much thanks once again to Count Otto Black!

SILLY 78s

A hardworking, generous Maniac known to us commoners as Count Otto Black has bequeathed unto us an old wooden chest crammed full of mp3s. As I picked each one up and blew the virtual dust off them, my eyes grew wide: 'twas a treasure-trove of bizarre and funny antiques from the shellac era, including a few I was going to include on my own 78rpm strangeness collection (that I never got around to completing, but this is inspiring me) and plenty that were new to me. A plethora of British and America music hall/vaudeville, hillbilly and jazz hepcat novelties. I'll let His Countship tell the tale of a few of these gems:

"here are some very silly 78s, including the banned gay cardboard record, "Let's All Be Fairies"!

The Durium Dance Band were a curious ensemble that existed purely to promote durium, a form of liquid bakelite that never really caught on. The best use they could think of for it was to impregnate cardboard with it, making it tough enough for records to be pressed out of the stuff. The idea was that music magazines could print records on their covers, and this was actually done for quite a while - there was even one by the Monkees! You can instantly spot durium records (many of which are by this band) because they're an unfortunate shade of brown that suggests they may be made of poo...

You probably know "Serutan Yob", but if not, the Unnatural Seven are actually Red Ingle's Natural Seven - a spin-off from Spike Jones' City Slickers - and this is the B-side from their somewhat better-known hit "Cigareets and Whiskey and Wild, Wild Women".

Al "Jazzbo" Collins' quartet of Hipster Fairy Tales are surely unique - who exactly were they aimed at? People who wanted their children to grow up to be beatniks? Anyway, I'm pretty sure that these four sides are the genre in its entirety!

I've added a merry comedy number about eating disorders...[and]...both sides of a record officially issued to promote Hadacol. [side 2 will appear on "Silly 78s pt2" - ed.] You'll notice that the claims made for this substance are so ludicrous that even the manufacturers don't seem to take its medicinal virtues seriously - but they do mention several times that it contains alcohol and honey, implying that it's a legal way to get drunk during prohibition (true) and it tastes jolly nice (false). Shades of Lily The Pink!

A comedy song about the Scopes Monkey Trial, though your guess is as good as mine whether the composer was rooting for Darwin or God - personally I think he's just having fun!
Also, a couple of numbers that at the time must have seemed daringly risqué, a cautionary tale about the marital problems faced by circus performers, two howling failures in the political correctness department, a desperate attempt to write a comic song about the latest developments in Egyptology..."


Silly 78s - pt1

1. Leslie Sarony "Ain't It Grand To Be Blooming Well Dead (Side A)"
2. Cactus Pryor & The Pricklypears "Cry Of The Dying Duck In A Thunderstorm"
3. Basin Street Six "Everybody Loves That Hadacol (Side One)"
4. Leo Teel and his Teel Billies "He's Gazing At Daisy Roots Now"
5. Carol Chapell "I Married An Acrobat"
6. Two Leslies "I'm A Little Prairie Flower"
7. The Jesters - "I'm My Own Grandpa" [anyone know who does this version? UPDATE: thx to Our Pal Doug for identifying the band]
8. Four Lads "Istanbul" [yep, the tune They Might Be Giants scored with]
9. Al "Jazzbo" Collins "Jack And The Beanstalk"
10. Bob Pierce "King Of The Bungaloos"
11. Durium Dance Band "Let's All Be Fairies"
12. Two Leslies "Miss Porkington Would Like Cream Puffs"
13. International Novelty Orchestra with Billy Murray "Monkey Biz-ness (Down in Tennessee)" [GOTTA have some Billy Murray in any survey of 78s- he was the early 20th century's biggest recording star, and certainly one of the most prolific]
14. Edith Clifford "No Wonder She's a Blushing Bride"
15. Billy Jones & Ernest Hare (The Happiness Boys) "Old King Tut"
16. Winnie Lighter "Pingo Pongo"
17. Comedy Dance Orchestra "Rambling Wreck From Georgia Tech"
18. Unnatural Seven "Serutan Yob"
19. Carol Chapell "She Lost It"
20. Al "Jazzbo" Collins "Snow White And The Seven Dwarves"

Part 2 coming soon.  A thousand thankyous, good sir Count!

RE-POST RE-QUESTS REDUX...AND DELIGHTFUL XYLOPHONE NOVELTIES

The New Age pseudo-Hindu bluegrass album Hindu Kush Mountain Boys is back up, by request. I say! Does anyone have: The Full Life All-Stars, "Ya No Hay Beatles," The Musical Betts, March Fourth 2012. They were requested and I cannot find them - they sank with both my hard drive crash and the heavy-handed Mediafire/Rapidshare take-downs. Muchos grassy-ass! And now let's listen to a dazzlingly talented Australian boy/girl team who play "music from 'the golden age of the xylophone,' classic jazz and pop standards from the 1930s and 40s and novelty hits from all time periods!":

STICKS AND TONES

The 78rpm roots of the Sticks and Tones sound can be found in the intimidatingly vast archives of the US government Library of Congress' National Jukebox project: dozens of sides by xylophone legend George Hamilton Green, Master of the Marimba (aka the 'mellorimba'), streaming for free under his various guises, to whit:

Green Brothers Novelty Band

or over 60 (!) recordings with various groups, mostly the All Star Trio:

George Hamilton Green

Many more antique oddities and novelties coming your way soon, courtesy of Yours Truly, and a fine Maniac with a large assortment of bizarre vintage recordings. Am still organizing our collections, but hopefully in the coming weeks the 'Silly 78s' project will get under way. It should be simply ripping!

One Of The Most Famous Songs in History is Marxist Propaganda That Involves Raping A Minor: The Story of "Mack The Knife"

"Oh, the shark bites
With his teeth, dear
And he shows them
pearly white..."

Yeah, you know it, "Mack The Knife", #3 on Billboard's Top 100 Songs ever. You've heard it a million times, from Bobby Darin's #1 hit version in 1959, to countless crooners ever since. But who first recorded it?

Feel free to smack the next smug twerp who tells you "Google is your friend." No, it's not, not always, and I couldn't find the answer to that question. I knew it was written by the great German composer/playwright/anti-capitalist team of Kurt Weill and Bertolt Brecht back in 1927 for the musical "Threepenny Opera," but that's well known. Heck, that Weimer-era Berlin cabaret style is probably more popular now then it was in the 1920s.  Tom Waits, Amanda Palmer, The Tiger Lillies, and numerous other alt/dark-cabaret performers owe much of their careers to it, and countless jazz, pop, and theater singers have been performing these songs for decades. (That's an original German 1929 poster to the right.)

So you'd think the question of who made the first recording of "Mack The Knife" would be a pretty basic one. But it gets confusing early on.  For one thing, the song wasn't even originally entitled "Mack The Knife." Nope, it was called "Moritat," a term from German folklore meaning a bad-man ballad, similar to Old Western songs about bandits and outlaws. It then became popularly known as "Die Moritat von Mackie Messer (The Ballad of Mack the Knife)." In the Fifties, it finally became known as "Mack The Knife" when it was discovered by the American jazz and theater world.

So who did it first? I went to the source, and asked the Kurt Weill Foundation, but even spokesperson Dave Stein isn't certain. He wrote me:

"I'm not absolutely sure, but it seems pretty clear that the first recording of the "Moritat" was made in December 1928 by Harald Paulsen, who played Macheath in the original production of the Threepenny Opera. Brecht himself also recorded the song early on, but my sources say that was made a few months later, in May 1929. It's odd that the standard Brecht biographies and chronologies we have here seem to make no mention of this recording, which you would expect to be a little more noteworthy. Paulsen's recording is available on a recently reissued Capriccio 2-CD set

"Die Dreigroschenoper: Historische Originalaufnahmen" (C 5061, reissued 2011, originally released on CD in 1990).

I should point out that the "Moritat" was not the biggest hit from the show in Weimar Germany; it did not become the hit song from Threepenny until much later, when Louis Armstrong's 1955 recording paved the way for so many successors."

Needless to say, Paulsen's and Brecht's versions sound little like the ones you know. With their German lyrics, oom-pah sound, and different vocal phrasing, they almost sound like different songs altogether from the later finger-snappin' remakes. They do sound great, tho - I'd take Brechts' version over many of the later, more famous recordings.

And then there's the matter of the lyrics. The famous versions from the '50s and afterwords usually use Marc Blitzstein's somewhat sanitized translation. The eye-opening original lyrics feature such lines as "And the minor-aged widow/ Whose name everyone knows/ Woke up and was violated/ Mack, what was your price?" Yikes, that's getting a bit rape-y, isn't it? Macheath wasn't just some loveable Rat-Pack type rogue, but a genuinely Bad Dude. In the eyes of Brecht and Weill, Mack was a symbol of unrestrained capitalism. This context disappeared, of course, after the off-Broadway 1954 revival of "Threepenny" became such a huge success using Blitzstein's translation. My mom even attended a performance! And I have a copy of the hit cast album, featuring a young pre-sitcom star Bea Aurthur, then still known as "Beatrice." (Hey trivia fans! A pre-Law and Order Jerry Orbach would eventually play Mack in the same production.) Darin did his version based on the Blitzstein revival, and here we are.

All of which got me thinking...I bet many of you remember the 1985 album "Lost In The Stars - the Music of Kurt Weill."  With it's fresh re-workings of numerous Weill classics and it's all-star cast, it was pretty popular in the college/public radio scene of the '80s. I liked Slapp Happy/Henry Cow singer Dagmar Krause's track so much, I then bought her "Supply & Demand" German cabaret covers record. Producer Hal Wilner, on this and other albums he organized, actually made the dreaded 'tribute album' seem like a great idea.

"Lost In The Stars - the Music of Kurt Weill" 

I added the two previously-described earliest known versions of "Moritat" to the file.

Get the artwork/liner notes to "Lost in The Stars" HERE.

1. Mahagonny Songspiel (Intro) - Steve Weisberg

2. 'The Ballad Of Mac The Knife' - Sting/Dominc Muldowney

3. 'The Cannon Song' - Stan Ridgway, The Fowler Brothers [Bruce Fowler of Captain Beefheart's late-period Magic Band?]

4. 'Ballad Of The Soldier's Wife' - Marianne Faithfull

5. Johnny Johnson Medley - Van Dyke Parks

6. The Great Hall - Henry Threadgill

7. 'Alabama Song' - Ralph Schuckett, Richard Butler (of the Psychedelic Furs)

8. 'Youkali Tango' - The Armadillo String Quartet

9. 'The Little Lieutenant Of The Loving God' - John Zorn

10. Johnny's Speech - Van Dyke Parks

11. 'September Song' - Lou Reed

12. 'Lost In The Stars' - Carla Bley

13. 'What Keeps Mankind Alive?' - Tom Waits

14. Klops Lied (Meatball Song) - Elliot Sharp

15. 'Surabaya Johnny' - Dagmar Krause

16. Oh Heavenly Salvation': Hurriccane Introduction - Mark Bingham & Aaron Neville

17. Oh Heavenly Salvation: Oh Heavenly Salvation - Mark Bingham & Aaron Neville

18. 'Call From The Grave/Ballad In Which Macheath Begs All Men For Forgiveness - Todd Rundgren

19. 'Speak Low' - Charlie Haden

20. 'In No Man's Land' - Van Dyke Parks Oh, so how's Sting's version of "Moritat"? It's really good, except for the Sting part. And if you like Tom Waits' take on "What Keeps Mankind Alive?," dig William Burroughs' version:

ALBUM DU JOUR #3: Tiny Tim Plays In Your Living Room

Tim from Radio Clash asked me if I had the Tiny Tim/Bruce Haack album "Zoot Zoot Zoot Here Comes Santa In His New Space Suit." Alas, I don't - do any of you out there have this true meeting of outsider musical minds?  It's as rare as a complete dinosaur skeleton, and about as expensive. But the query did send me poking thru the Tiny Tim things that I do have, such as this extraordinary tape of some anonymous person recording what is apparently a concert for one in Tiny's apartment in Brooklyn, New York. Just a man and his ukulele - and you are there!

The first song sounds like the mic is a little too far away, and Tiny isn't quite warmed up on the early tracks, frequently consulting sheet music, but then he really gets rolling. Yes, he was a truly strange individual, his fluke late-'60s popularity resulting in as much ridicule as acclaim for the troubled troubadour. But this "Tim unplugged" tape serves as a much-needed corrective to the idea that Tiny was just some comical oddball. This is Professor Tim in action here, as much scholar as entertainer, a walking repository of obscure Tin Pan Alley, hillbilly, Broadway, British music hall, and novelty songs from as far back as the 1800s that had gone largely unheard until Tiny found their sheet music.

Comic songs like "I Used To Call Her Baby" and "When They're Old Enough To Know Better" are my faves, and I'd love to hear a complete version of "After The Ball," as it sounds like a lovely waltz. They're not all antiquities - his pals the Beatles (yep, he was that famous  for a while) are saluted with a version of "Yesterday" that doesn't sound all that different from the rest of the selections. And that's about the only song here you're liable to recognize, except maybe for Dean Martin's "You're Nobody Til Somebody Loves You," and the jazz standard "Dancing In The Dark."  To quote his first album title, God bless Tiny Tim.

Tiny Tim: Tiny's apartment, 1976 (28 tracks: complete songs, as well as fragments)

GEORGE FORMBY JR, BRITAIN'S NOVELTY KING

He was a goofy-looking bucktoothed little guy who sang funny songs with titles like "Swimmin' With The Wimmin" in a high, thin voice, while playing something called a 'banjolele' (a cross between a banjo and a ukulele.) He was also Britain's single most popular entertainer in the late '30s.

Many dozens of George Formby Jr's cheerful, clever, sometimes naughty double-entendre (i.e.: "With My Little Ukulele in My Hand") songs have been put up for free download to archive.org by some kind soul, and apart from being essential listening to fans of vintage novelty music, it's also a peek into the style of music hall entertainment that the typical Brit enjoyed back in the day. Whether performing live, acting in films, or recording, Formby was massively successful and influential to generations of British funnymen, from Benny Hill right up to Mr B The Gentleman Rhymer, even if the suggestive nature of his songs led him to sometimes be banned by the BBC.

George Formby Jr on archive.org

One of his most famous tunes, "When I'm Cleaning Windows":

 

 

Funny, just as I was thinking about writing about Formby a few days ago, I came across this:

The Earliest Known Recorded Music in Existence

Yep, only three known copies of this Edison wax cylinder from 1888 exist, which would certainly make this one of the most historically prized recordings ever.  But it's also a good listen. 

The "song" heard here is an excerpt from classical composer Handel's "Israel In Egypt" sung by, to quote a note on the cylinder: "A chorus of 4000 voices recorded with phonograph over 100 yards away." Conducted by August Manns; recorded by Col. George Gouraud, foreign sales agent for Thomas Edison at the Crystal Palace, London, England, June 29, 1888.

A hundred yards away?!  At first I thought: 'a hundred feet away', the length of a football field, but no, it says 'yards.' Dang, that's far. So what does it sound like?  Pretty avant-garde, actually - the white-noise of the cylinder whirring around melded with the huge distant choir is a strange and haunting sound, indeed. Not too far removed from something you might hear on a Zoviet France or Nurse With Wound album. Knowing that these are actual voices from the 1800s adds a ghostly mystery to the experience.

Handel festival: "Israel In Egypt" - excerpt

(Courtesy of archive.org.)

It's Not Just A Banjo - It's A Really BIG Banjo

Another odd bit of musical obscurity...I've been using this pic for a background for a while:



not really knowing what that large, strange stringed musical instument was.  But thanks to valuable info submitted to us by Outaspaceman, I can tell you that it's a bass banjo, and that there used to be groups like Raymond and His Famous Banjo Band, a seven-banjo (!) British combo featured in this video of a 1937 performance:

 HERE's another video of the group that, to my surprise, did not play bluegrass, but rather, some peppy marches. The banjo was a black American instrument, based on African stringed things like the kora, and was adopted by white hillbilly musicians. I had no idea that, at some point, it made it's way over to the UK and joined the music-hall scene, being utilized in ways utterly apart from American traditions.  Learn something new every day, eh, what?

(Thanks, outaspaceman!)

GONNA MAKE YOU SWEAT, MAN

Clarinetist/bandleader Wilbur Sweatman helped invent jazz, but before you start falling asleep, let me assure you that this 1918 recording of "Oh! You La! La!" is as nutty as it's title. Many many decades before hardcore punk, thrash metal, etc., this song is played like everyone's on speed, and everyones' speed is on speed. It's so crazed as to verge on incompetent, like it's all gonna fly apart at any second, but it doesn't, retaining a core musicality throughout. What else would you expect from a guy who could play 3 clarinets at the same time? Jazz music certainly used to be a far stranger, more entertaining beast then it is today. I'm including two versions, primitive early recordings being what they are. The second version, tho plenty hissy, is actually a clearer recording.

Wilbur Sweatman: "Oh! You La! La!":

The Earth Not a Globe!

There really are people who think that the Earth is flat, just like it says in the Bible, regardless of what you see in pictures from space. Obviously, those pictures were faked. By who? By...The Conspiracy, of course. I believe that the Flat Earth Society were thus the first to promote that moonlanding-was-faked nonsense.

Which brings us to Lady Blount. Wiki sez: "Lady Elizabeth Blount, wife of the explorer Sir Walter de Sodington Blount, established a Universal Zetetic Society, whose objective was "the propagation of knowledge related to Natural Cosmogony [the creation of the world] in confirmation of the Holy Scriptures, based on practical scientific investigation". The society published a magazine entitled The Earth Not a Globe Review, and remained active well into the early part of the 20th century. A flat Earth journal, Earth: a Monthly Magazine of Sense and Science, was published between 1901–1904, edited by Lady Blount."


The Flat Earth Society message board posted a song written by Lady Blount from her 1898 book Adrian Galilio; a Songwriter's Story, described as "a unique combination of prose, poetry, illustration, drama and sheet music. And now, 112 years after its publication, the Society is very proud to present 'Star-Dream', a song from Adrian Galilio, as performed by The Nordic Countess, Ingeborg and with the help of gotham from our very own TFES forums! As far as we know it has never been recorded before, so this is truly something special."

The song, a pleasant piano/violin instro (durn, no lyrics about the Flat Earth) is now off-line, so I'm a-postin' it here. Couldn't find any info anywhere on the performers Ingeborg and gotham, but there's a slightly lo-fi, somewhat off-kilter feel to this that I like.

Lady Blount "Star-Dream":

"America's Most Unsophisticated Band!"

UPDATE 2/2/12: I removed the "Turkey In The Straw" video and replaced it with "Colonel Corn" because it's not only better, it's really just totally great.*

Freddie Fisher & The Schnickelfritz Band were a fun, nutty novelty band from the 1930s, pre-dating Spike Jone's debut in 1942, and if their music has a familiar sound to readers of this blog, they should - most of the members left band leader Fisher and formed the Korn Kobblers. A nice person has posted an album of Fisher & Co. songs of wildly-varying sound quality, but hey, it's free, so who can complain? Gonna have to find an album by these guys. For further study...

Freddie Fisher & The Schnickelfritz Band


Colonel Corn-Freddie Fisher by redhotjazz

*"really just totally great" - how's that for good writing? Pulitzer Prize, here I come!

RAY BOURBON: KING OF THE QUEENS

Even if only half the things said about Ray Bourbon are true, he was still one of the strangest figures in American entertainment. He:

- ran guns for Pancho Villa in drag
- was working full time as a drag queen performer as far back as 1932
- staged a media hoax claiming to have had a sex-change operation...but may have actually had the operation
- was mixed up in a Soviet gay spy caper
- put on a show featuring dogs with dyed colored fur who could urinate on cue
- was carrying a trailerful of animals when his car caught fire; when he gave his animals to a shelter for safekeeping, the animals were sold for medical experiments; Bourbon then put a hit out on the shelter owner, who was, in fact, killed, and Bourbon was sent to prison!

"Ray Bourbon had a show business career as a comedian and female impersonator that spanned over fifty years, well into an era when Gay liberation would take shape. He was perhaps the most well-known and well-traveled performer in Gay venues during the last century, but he remains largely forgotten today, his comedy both a glimpse into and a relic of another time.... His stage persona was complex and layered in many subtle ways; Ray is at once a gossipy drag queen, a bitchy diva, a butcher of sacred cows, and a keen observer of human nature. Ray would perform and record some of the same routines in the 1930’s, the ‘40’s and later in the ‘60’s; his quick patter and skills at improvisation keep the material fresh and the listener on edge."

Lots of free listening/downloading here:

15 Ray Bourbon albums

I haven't heard all of the albums linked to above, but what I have heard is plenty fun, replete with naughty double-entendre tunes like "My First Piece." Much of it replicates his low-budget nightclub show - campy, funny songs usually minimally backed by piano. These recordings range from scratchy old 78s to mid-60s hi-fi albums, but he/she keeps a pretty consistent style throughout, remaking some songs and routines several times over the years/decades.

Kudos to Randy A. Riddle aka coolcatdaddy for his extensive research and preservation work.